Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (92 page)

The III and LVII Panzer Corps at the centre of the front were meanwhile driving on through heat and dust, from the Don into the Maykop oilfield region, attempting to overtake the retreating enemy. Colonel Reinhardt stabbed the map at Krasnodar. "That's our objective."

Then he pointed to Maykop. "And that's where Kleist has to get. Then we'll see what we've collected in the pocket formed by our Seventeenth Army and Kleist's First Panzer Army between these two cornerstones."

The adjutant nodded. "It's a good plan, Herr Oberst, but I have a feeling that the Russians are not going to oblige us by waiting for the bag to close."

Reinhardt passed the map back to Boll. "We'll see," he grunted. "Got any water left?"

"Not a drop, Herr Oberst. My tongue's been sticking to the roof of my mouth like a piece of fly-paper for this past

hour."

They climbed back into their car. "Let's go; we've got to drive another six miles to-day."

That was what the advance was like for 421st Infantry Regiment, 125th Infantry Division, and it was much the same for all the infantry, lagers, and mountain units of Ruoff's group in early August 1942. For a while the war on the southern front assumed the character of desert warfare. The pursuit of the Soviets through the Kuban steppe turned into a race from watering-point to watering-point. There were few stops for food. Admittedly, emergency supplies of drinking-water were carried for the troops in large water-cisterns, but these could not, of course, carry enough for the horses as well. As a result, new watering-places had to be captured every day.

On the right wing of Army Group A the Russians withdrew elastically in the face of pressure by the German Seventeenth Army, in the same way as they had done successfully on the middle Don. The Soviets would systematically hold on with strong rearguards to the few villages and numerous river-beds: at first they would defend them stubbornly, and presently they would abandon them so quickly that they lost scarcely any prisoners. In this way they implemented Marshal Timoshenko's new instruction: the enemy's advance was to be delayed, but at the decisive moment the units were to be withdrawn to avoid encirclement at all costs. That was the new elastic strategy of the Russians. The Soviet General Staff had dropped Stalin's old method of contesting every inch of ground, a method which had time and again led to encirclement and gigantic losses.

The lower Soviet commands very soon learned these tactics of delaying actions and elastic resistance, a technique which had been struck from the German training manuals since 1936. By making skilful use of the numerous river- courses running across the line of the German attack, the Russians time and again delayed the German advance and pulled back their own infantry.

In these circumstances the German divisions of the Army-sized Combat Group Ruoff and of First Panzer Army did not succeed in implementing the key task of Directive No. 45: "The enemy forces escaping over the Don are to be encircled and annihilated in the area south and south-east of Rostov." Once again Hitler's plan had misfired.

They moved on interminably—pursuing, marching, and driving. The advance continued, farther and farther. The troops moved from river to river: the Kagalnik was overcome, the Yeya was crossed. There were eight more rivers to cross before the Württemberg V Corps reached the Kuban. This Corps was employed against Novorossiysk between the Rumanian Third Army on its right and the LVII Panzer Corps and, behind it, the XLIX Mountain Corps on its left.

The XLIV Jäger Corps followed behind General Kirchner's fast divisions.

At Tikhoretsk the oil pipeline from Baku to Rostov crossed the railway and road. The Russians were stubbornly defending this key point with strong artillery, anti-tank guns, and three armoured trains.

The 8-8 flak combat parties, put under 125th Infantry Division, had a difficult task. But at last the advanced units of 125th and 198th Infantry Divisions linked up. Tikhoretsk fell. The Russians gave way. But they did not flee in panic.

Striking suddenly from vast fields of man-high sunflowers, the Russians frequently caught the German troops in their fire. But as soon as the Germans tried to come to grips with them they were gone. At night individual vehicles were ambushed. It was no longer possible to send out motor-cycle dispatch-riders.

In this manner V Corps with 125th, 198th, 73rd, and 9th Infantry Divisions reached the Krasnodar area by 10th August 1942. In a mere sixteen days the infantry-men had covered the roughly 200 miles from Rostov to the capital of the Kuban Cossacks, fighting and marching through the scorched earth of the sun-seared Kuban steppe, but also through magnificently fertile river-valleys.

Around them stretched unending fields of sunflowers, huge areas of wheat, millet, hemp, and tobacco. Enormous herds of cattle moved across the limitless steppe. The gardens of the Cossack villages were veritable oases. Apricots, mirabels, apples, pears, melons, grapes,'and tomatoes grew in luxuriant profusion. Eggs were as plentiful as sand on the seashore, and there were gigantic herds of pigs. It was a splendid time for the cooks and paymasters.

Krasnodar, the centre of the Kuban district, on the northern bank of the Kuban river, then had about 200,000 inhabitants. It was a town of large oil refineries.

General Wetzel employed his V Corps for a concentric attack on the town—the 73rd Infantry Division from Fran- coma from the north-west, the Hessian Regiments of the 9th from the north, and the men from Württemberg of the 125th and 198th Infantry Divisions from the north-east and east. The Russians offered stubborn and furious resistance in the orchards and the suburbs. They wanted to hold open the town centre, with its bridge over the Kuban, in order to take across as many human beings as possible and, even more important, whatever material they could move.

Anything that could not be taken across to the southern bank was set on fire, including the vast oil-storage tanks.

By noon on llth August Major Ortlieb with the 1st Battalion, 421st Infantry Regiment, had worked his way forward to within charging distance of the bridge—a mere 50 yards. Packed closely together, Russian columns were moving over the bridge.

The 2nd Company was given the order to attack. Captain Sätzler sprang to his feet, his pistol in his raised hand. He took only three steps before he collapsed, shot through the head.

The company charged on. Its forward sections were within 20 yards of the ramp. At that moment the watchful Soviet bridge officer detonated the charges.

At half a dozen separate points the bridge went up with a roar like thunder, complete with the Russian columns on it. Among the smoke and dust, men and horses, wheels and weapons, could be seen sailing through the air. Horse-drawn vehicles, the horses bolting, raced over the collapsing balustrades, hurtling into the river and disappearing under the water.

This action proved that the Russians had learnt a lot in recent months. The demolition of the bridge cost the Germans two days. Not until the night of 13th/14th August did the 125th Infantry Division succeed in crossing the river by assault boats and rafts.

During the preceding day Major Ortlieb had reconnoitred the crossing-point right under the watchful eyes of the Soviets entrenched on the far side. Disguised as a peasant woman, a hoe over his shoulder and a basket over his arm, he had calmly walked along the river.

Under the concentrated fire of German artillery and the 3-7-cm. flak battery the troops accomplished the crossing of the Kuban and succeeded in building a pontoon bridge. The V Corps was marching into the land of the Circassians. The Muslim population had hoisted the crescent, the flag of Islam, over their houses and was welcoming the Germans as their liberators from the atheist Communist yoke.

"The sea, the sea!"—The mountain passes of the Caucasus-Fighting for the old Military Highways—Expedition to the summit of Mount Elbrus—Only 20 miles to the Black Sea coast —For the lack of the last battalion.

WITH the crossing of the Kuban the last great river obstacle across the path of Ruoff's Armeegruppe—the new-style Army- sized combat group—had been overcome. The divisions were now able to attack their real strategic objective— the ports of Novorossiysk, Tuapse, Sochi, Sukhumi, and Batumi. These were objectives of exceptional importance. Not only would the Soviet Black Sea fleet be denied its last bases, and thus the conditions created for the German Caucasus front to be supplied by the sea-route, but an even greater prize might be won. Once the last Soviet coastal strip on the Black Sea was occupied by German troops, Turkey would very likely change over into the German camp. This might have far-reaching consequences upon the Allied conduct of the war. The British-Soviet positions in Northern Persia would collapse, and the southern supply route for American military aid to Stalin—by way of the Persian Gulf, the Caspian, and up the Volga—would be severed.

Even the bold plan of directing Rommel's Africa Corps via Egypt into Mesopotamia would enter the realm of the possible. At that time the men of the German-Italian Panzer Army in Africa were standing at El Alamein, at the gates

of Cairo, after their brilliantly fought pursuit during the late summer of 1942. The sappers were already calculating the number of bridging columns they would need for crossing the Nile, and whenever a trooper was asked, "Where's our next stop?" he would frivolously reply, "Ibn Saud's palace."

These fantastic long-range objectives were exceedingly popular among the men of Ruoff's combat group. As soon as the formations of XLIX Mountain Corps heard that they were moving into the Caucasus they too coined their slogans. In his book
Mountain Jägers on All Fronts
Alex Buchner reports the answer of a Jäger to the question about the purpose and objective of the long trek through the steppe: "Down the Caucasus, round the corner, slice the British through the rear, and say to Rommel, 'Hello, General, here we are!' "

Towards the end of August 1942 the divisions of V Corps began their attack against Novorossiysk, the first major naval fortress on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Novorossiysk, which had 95,000 inhabitants at that time, was an important harbour and industrial town with extensive cold-storage plants and shipbuilding yards, with a large fish- processing industry and cement-mills.

The 125th and 73rd Infantry Divisions fought their way forward through the foothills of the Caucasus to the approaches of the town. Quite suddenly before them they saw the sea. Colonel Friebe, commanding 419th Infantry Regiment, on catching sight of the sea-coast from some high ground, ordered the old Greek tag to be radioed to his neighbour, Colonel Reinhardt of 421st Infantry Regiment: "Thalassa, thalassa—the sea, the sea!" With these words, according to the ancient Greek historian Xenophon, the Greek vanguards, 2400 years before, had hailed the sea when they first caught sight of it after their arduous retreat through the waterless deserts and mountains of Asia Minor, when they reached the coast near Trebizond, exactly opposite Novoros-siysk.

But a great deal of hard and costly fighting was needed before the regiments of 125th and 73rd Infantry Divisions gained control of Novorossiysk, which was being stubbornly defended by units of the Soviet Forty-seventh Army.

On 6th September 1942 the 1st Battalion, 186 Infantry Regiment, under Lieutenant Ziegler launched its assault against the port and harbour at the head of 73rd Infantry Division.

By 1 Oth September the town and its surroundings were firmly in German hands. The first objective of Ruoff's Army- sized combat group had been reached. The next objective was Tuapse—a keypoint in the narrow coastal plain. Tuapse became a turning-point in the destinies of List's Army Group.

In addition to V Infantry Corps, XLIV Jäger Corps, and LVII Panzer Corps, Seventeenth Army also included XLIX Mountain Corps, with its 1st and 4th Mountain Divisions, as well as the Rumanian 2nd Mountain Division. There was a special purpose behind this combination of infantry, Jägers, and mountain troops. While General Wetzel's infantry divisions were taking Novorossiysk by frontal attack across the wooded foothills of the north-western Caucasus, the 97th and 101st Jäger Divisions, advancing behind LVII Panzer Corps via Maykop, were already fighting their way across the "Wooded Caucasus" towards the port of Tuapse. These Jäger divisions were experts in operating in hilly country. General Konrad's mountain Jägers, on the other hand, were to drive across the 10,000 to 14,000 feet high passes of the Central Caucasus towards the Black Sea coast, bursting in, as it were, through the back door. Their objective was Sukhumi, the palm-lined town on the sub-tropical coast and capital of the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. From there it was about 100 miles to the Turkish frontier at Batumi.

Behind advanced motorized combat groups of the SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Viking" and the Slovak Fast Division, General Konrad's mountain Jägers on 13th August mounted their attack from the steppe against the high passes of the Caucasus—the 4th Mountain Division on the right, to gain the passes in the headwaters region of the Laba river, the 1st Mountain Division on the left, to charge over the mountain passes along the glaciers of Mount Elbrus, where the Kuban river has its source. The most important crossing was the Klukhor Pass, 9230 feet high, the starting-point of the old Sukhumi Military Highway.

In the sector of 1st Mountain Division Major von Hirschfeld made a rapid dash with the 2nd Battalion, 98th Mountain Jäger Regiment, as far as the entrance to the pass, which was barricaded and defended by strong Russian forces. The position could not be taken by frontal assault. But von Hirschfeld gave the Russians a demonstration of German mountain warfare. While cleverly deceiving the enemy by engaging him frontally, he outflanked the pass by

negotiating the sheer sides of the mountains, and presently rolled up the Soviet positions from the rear. The highest point of the Sukhumi Military Highway was in German hands by the evening of 17th August.

Quick as lightning Major von Hirschfeld continued his dash into the Klydzh Valley, took the village of Klydzh at the foot of the mountains, and thus found himself in the middle of the luxuriant forests of the Black Sea coast. One last leap, and the coastal plain would be gained.

But a surprise advance into the plain was not to be accomplished with the weakened forces. The Russians were furiously and stubbornly defending the exit from the mountains. Sukhumi, the great objective, was a mere 25 miles away. But Major von Hirschfeld, far ahead of the bulk of his forces, with a mere handful of men entirely self- dependent, was in a dangerous position. On his left flank was a big void; Kleist's Panzer Army was still in the steppe, north of Mount Elbrus.

Faced with this situation, General Konrad decided upon a bold operation in order to cover the Corps' left flank. Captain Groth, with a high alpine company composed of mountain guides and climbers, was given the task of getting into the Mount Elbrus passes, which were over 13,000 feet high, and of cutting off the Baksan Valley from where the Russians were threatening the German flank.

This was probably the most spectacular battlefield of the war. Deeply creviced, the sheer faces of rust-red porphyry dropped precipitously over several thousand feet from the rocky mass of Mount Elbrus. The distant ice-fields of the great Asau Glacier glistened in the sun—ice-falls, cleft rocks, and vast expanses of scree.

Over the savage mountain fighting for the former Tsarist hunting-lodge of Krugozor, situated at an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet over the deep cleft of the Baksan Valley, towered Mount Ushba, 15,411 feet high, and one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. It was topped only by Mount Kazbek, farther east on the Georgian Military Highway, and by the twin peaks of Mount Elbrus.

Naturally enough, the men of 1st Mountain Division, in whose line of advance Mount Elbrus was situated, wanted to conquer the giant mountain. Such an operation, of course, was of no military value, but the world might prick up its ears if German troops planted the swastika on the highest mountain in the Caucasus.

General Konrad therefore authorized the proposed climb. He made it a condition, however, that the ascent should be made jointly by men of 1st and 4th Divisions. It was a wise decision: it avoided wounding the mountaineering pride of 4th Division.

The expedition was led by Captain Groth. The participants from 4th Mountain Division were under the command of Captain Gammerler. The climbers had a curious surprise very early in the proceedings. First Lieutenant Schneider had set out from the base camp with his signals party ahead of the bulk of the climbers, because the heavy signals equipment they were carrying would later be bound to slow them down. A long way ahead, on the far side of the huge glacier, the men saw the fantastic Intourist House which the Soviets had erected at an altitude of 13,800 feet—a massive oval shape of concrete, without any kind of ledge or projection, entirely clad with aluminum sheeting. It looked like a gigantic airship gondola. There were forty rooms with sleeping accommodation for a hundred people in that amazing glacier hotel. Above it was a meteorological station, and below the main structure was the kitchen building.

Schneider and his party made fast progress over the snow of the glacier, which had not yet been softened by the day's sunshine. Suddenly, through his binoculars, he spotted a Soviet soldier in front of the house. "Careful," Schneider called out to his men. He made them turn off the direct route and bypass the hotel. Among the rocks above the building they took up battle positions.

Just then Captain Groth came trudging along, all alone. Before it was possible to warn him the Russians had him covered. The Soviet garrison consisted of only three officers and eight men. They had come up only that morning.

Groth instantly grasped the situation and kept his head. One of the Russian officers spoke German: to him Groth explained the hopelessness of their situation. He pointed to the German rope parties approaching in the distance and to

the signals platoon which had taken up positions among the rocks. In this way he eventually persuaded the Soviets to withdraw voluntarily. Four of the Red Army men, however, preferred to stay with Groth and await the arrival of the bulk of the German climbing party in order to offer their services as porters.

The following day, 18th August, was declared a day of rest. The mountain Jägers were to get acclimatized to the altitude. On 19th August the assault on the summit was to start. But the plan was foiled by a sudden blizzard. On 20th August heavy thunderstorms with gusts of hail kept the men again at the Mount Elbrus house.

On 21st August at last a brilliantly sunny morning promised a fine day. They had set out at 0300 hours—Captain Groth with sixteen men and Captain Gammerler with five.

By 0600 hours the fine weather was at an end. A Föhn came up from the Black Sea. Fog, and later a snowstorm, defended the peak of the giant mountain. In a small refuge Groth and Gammerler stopped with their men for a break. Should they return again? No—the mountain Jägers wanted to go on.

On they went. The climb in the rarefied air and the biting cold became an eerie race. The men's eyes were caked with snow. A gale was howling over the icy flank of the ridge. Visibility was barely 10 yards.

By 1100 they had conquered the ice-slope. Captain Gammerler stood at the highest point of the ridge. In front of him the ridge began to drop again. Clearly he was on the summit.

Sergeant Kümmerle of the 1st Mountain Division rammed the shaft of the Reich War Flag deep into the soft snow. Then the standards of 1st and 4th Mountain Divisions with the edelweiss and the gentian were thrust into the ground. A brief handshake and the party quickly climbed into the eastern face where the force of the westerly gale was somewhat diminished. Presently an amazed world was told that the swastika was flying from the highest peak in the Caucasus.

The conquest of Mount Elbrus by German mountain Jägers, a successful climb of a mountain entirely unknown to them, and in appalling weather, was an outstanding mountaineering feat. It is not made any less remarkable by the fact that a few days later, when the weather had cleared, Dr Riimmler, a special correspondent with the Corps, discovered that the flags had been planted not at the trigonometric point of the highest peak, but on an eminence of the summit ridge about 130 feet below the main summit. In the fog and icy blizzard of 21st August the mountain Jägers had mistaken that point for the actual summit.

To return to the fighting in the mountain passes. While the battalions of 1st Mountain Division were forcing their way through the Klukhor Pass and along the old and dilapidated Sukhumi Military Highway, always within sight of the 18,480-foot peak of Mount Elbrus, Major-General Eglseer took his 4th Mountain Division from Austria and Bavaria through the high-level passes of the main range. Colonel von Stettner with the 1st and 3rd Battalions, 91st Mountain Jäger Regiment, gained the Sancharo and Alustrakhu Passes at altitudes between 8500 and 10,000 feet. The main range of the mountains had thus been crossed, and the further advance now was downhill towards the passes of the foothills and into the sub-tropical forests of the Sukhumi area.