Warszawa II (13 page)

Assault-guns of model Stug 40 Sd Kfz 142/1 Ausf. G from an undetermined unit on the eastern front, summer of 1944. (CAW)

Precisely determining Soviet tank losses, however, is difficult. In the Wehrmacht's official report of August 6, it states that during the battle for Radzymin and Wöłomin 192 enemy tanks and 45 guns were destroyed. In another report from the 4th Panzer-Division dealing with the fighting that took place between August 2 and August 9, there appear – under the heading “divisional successes” – notations listing enemy losses mounting to 108 tanks, 2 tracked gun vehicles, 65 artillery and anti-aircraft guns, and a great deal of other war material, as having been destroyed. The information contained in General Radzjijevskij's report of August 28 reports only 116 tanks as having been irreparably destroyed during the first week in August. It primarily concerned tanks from the 50th and 51st Tank Brigades which had been abandoned in German controlled terrain. Both brigades, in fact, were split up and their wounded commanders (Major Fundovnoj and Colonel Mirvoda, respectively) were captured.

One of the PzKpfw V Sd Kfz 171 “Panther” tanks Ausf. G from the I Panzer-Regiment 35, during fighting in August 1944. (MWP)

Soviet soldiers test-drive a captured NSU HK 101 “Kettenkrad”, a tracked motorcycle. The photo was taken in August in the woods outside Warsaw. (Leandoer & Ekholm Archive)

A VW Kfz 82 “Kübelwagen” with “new” owners. The picture was taken in Lublin, July 1944. Leandoer & Ekholm Archive).

An Opel Bliz 3.6-36s under new ownership, July, 1944, Eastern Poland. (Leandoer & Ekholm Archive)

The majority of the 8th Tank Guards Corps' “destroyed” tanks, on the other hand, were rather quickly repaired and, after the assignment of new crews, sent back into action. Human loss of life (only tank personnel?) in the 2nd Tank Army mounted to 409 men, killed by either guns or fire, 127 wounded and 589 “missing without a trace.” Some of the wounded Soviet soldiers, thanks to help furnished by the local population, were able to make their way back to their units. To what extent the commander of the 2nd Tank Army's report is reliable remains an open question.

The Germans also suffered significant losses. On August 6, within the 19th Panzer-Division there remained only 28 battle-worthy tanks, while the 4th Panzer-Division had only 40. The Waffen-SS divisions, which had fought at the front for almost a month, had at their disposal 56 tanks within the 3rd SS-Panzer-Division “Totenkopf” and 45 tanks in the 5th SS-Panzer-Division “Wiking”. The elite division “Hermann Göring” which had been sent into battle a week earlier, reported only 51 combat-ready tanks (although these statistics are based on the original German reports, they do not include tracked gun vehicles; nor is it known if the 19th Panzer-Division's complement refers to the whole division or only to the II Panzer-Regiment 27). Given this, it's possible to calculate that Gruppe “von Sauckens “ divisions could have lost as many as 100 to 150 of their own tanks during the course of battle, but this is only a hypothetical number. It is simply not possible to confirm how many vehicles fell victim to the 2nd Tank Army and how many were disabled due to motor failure. The 4th Panzer-Division's complement, for example, is a case in point. At the start of August, the divison had 45 PzKpfw IV tanks, 40 PzKpfw V “Panther” tanks, 12 Jagdpanzer IVs, 10 Marder IIIs, as well as 237 other transport and armoured vehicles. In addition to these combat-ready vehicles, 38 PzKpfw IV tanks, 18 Panthers, and 74 transport vehicles were undergoing repairs. On August 6, only 20 Pzkpfw IVs, 20 “Panthers,” 10 Panzerjäger IVs and 6 “Marders” were reported as operational. This indicates that over the course of six days of fighting and marches, Panzer-Regiment 35, consisting of two tank battalions, lost at least 45 vehicles – which is to say, over 50% of their entire complement. Undoubtedly, the regiment's combat strength increased when the damaged military equipment had been repaired. According to General Radzjijevskij the Germans should have lost 273 tanks, 100 armoured transport vehicles and 8,000 troops killed in action. These figures are widely over-exaggerated, especially when compared with the number of German POW's taken – only 138, in total!.

Model PzKpfw IV tanks and vehicles from Panzer-Regiment 27, 19th Panzer-Division, Eastern Front, August 1944. (CAW)

After the departure of the two divisions towards Magnuszew, the German 9th Army, together with the 2nd Army, succeeded for a period of time in holding the entire Warsaw isthmus with a mobile combat force numbering approximately 200 armoured vehicles (the 3rd SS-Panzer-division “Totenkopf”, the 5th SS-Panzer-Division “Wiking”, and the 4th Panzer-Division). Even though the repair and recovery crews towed away the disabled tanks from Radzymin and Wołomin and were subsequently able to return a portion of them back into battle, the total number of German armoured vehicles in Praga's suburbs was very low at the beginning of the second week in August. After the withdrawal of the 4th Panzer-Division on August 8-10 to the vicinity of Modlin and Nasielko, opposition to General Popov's 150 tanks along the Okuniew-Stanisławów line consisted of only a very few score tanks belonging to the enemy's 5th SS-Panzer-Division “Wiking” (the 4th Panzer Division had been despatched to Kurland).

A PzKpfw V “Panther” tank camouflaged with bushes from the I Panzer-Regiment 35, at a “jump off” point prior to an assault, August 1944. (MWP)