Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (2 page)

Halder drives to Hitler's Headquarters
—
Anxieties of the Chief of the General Staff
—
The Izyum bend
—
Balakleya and Slav-yansk
—
Fuehrer Directive No. 41
—
"Case Blue"
—
Curtain up over the Crimea
—
Failure of a Russian Dunkirk
—
Mid-May south of Kharkov
—
"Fridericus" will not take place
—
Kleist's one-pronged armoured

pincers
—
The road to death
—
239,000 prisoners

1. Sevastopol
   

   A grave in the cemetery of Yalta
   —
   Between Belbek Valley and Rose Hill
   —
   324 shells per second
   —
   "Karl" and "Dora," the giant mortars
   —
   A fire-belching fortress
   —
   The "Maxim Gorky" battery is blown up
   —
   "There are twenty-two of us left. . . . Farewell"
   —
   Fighting for Rose Hill
   —
   Komsomols and commissars
   

2. A Plan Betrayed to the Enemy
   

Venison and Crimean champagne
—
An interrupted feast
—
Major Reichel has disappeared
—
A disastrous flight
—
Two mysterious graves
—
The Russians know the plan for the offensive
—
The attack is mounted nevertheless
—
Birth of a tragedy

4. New Soviet Tactics

Fatal mistake at Voronezh
—
Timoshenko refuses battle
—
Hitler again changes his plan
—
Council of War at the Kremlin
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The battle moves to the southern Don
—
Fighting for Rostov
—
Street fighting against NKVD units
—
The bridge of Bataysk

5.
Action among the High Mountains

A blockhouse near Vinnitsa
—
Fuehrer Directive No. 45
—
By assault boat to Asia
—
Manychstroy and Martinovka
—
The approaches to the Caucasus
—
Chase through the Kuban
—
Mackensen takes Maykop
—
In the land of the Circassians

1. Between Novorossiysk and the Klukhor Pass
   

   "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
   

2. Long-range Reconnaissance to Astrakhan
   

   By armoured scout-car through 80 miles of enemy country
   —
   The unknown oil railway
   —
   Second Lieutenant Schliep telephones the station-master of Astrakhan
   —
   Captain Zagorodnyy's Cossacks
   

3. The Terek Marks the Limit of the German Advance
   

Hitler's clash with Jodl
—
The Chief of the General Staff and Field-Marshal List are dismissed
—
An obsession with oil
—
Panzer Grenadiers on the Ossetian Military Highway
—
The Caucasus front freezes

Part Seven: Stalingrad

1. Between Don and Volga

Kalach, the bridge of destiny over the Don
—
Tank battle in the sands of the steppe
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General Hübe's armoured thrust to the Volga
—
"On the right the towers of Stalingrad"-
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Heavy anti-aircraft guns manned by women
—
The first engagement outside Stalin's city

2.
Battle in the Approaches

The Tartar Ditch
—
T-34s straight off the assembly line
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Counter-attack by the Soviet 35th Division
—
Seydlitz's Corps moves up
—
Insuperable Beketovka
—
Bold manœuvre by Hoth
—
Stalingrad's defences are torn open

1. The Drive into the City
   

   General Lopatin wants to abandon Stalingrad
   —
   General Chuy-kov is sworn in by Khrushchev
   —
   The regiments of 71st
   

   Infantry Division storm Stalingrad Centre
   —
   Grenadiers of the 24th Panzer Division at the main railway station
   —
   Chuykov's last brigade
   —
   Ten crucial hours
   —
   Rodimtsev's Guards
   

2. Last Front Line along the Cliff
   

Chuykov's escape from the underground passage near the Tsaritsa
—
The southern city in German hands
—
The secret of Stalingrad: the steep river-bank
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The grain elevator
—
The bread factory
—
The "tennis racket"
—
Nine-tenths of the city in German hands

5.
Disaster on the Don

Danger signals along the flank of Sixth Army
—
Tanks knocked out by mice
—
November, a month of disaster
—
Renewed assault on the Volga bank
—
The Rumanian-held front collapses
—
Battle in the rear of Sixth Army
—
Break-through also south of Stalingrad
—
The 29th Motorized Infantry Division strikes
—
The Russians at Kalach
—
Paulus flies into the pocket

6. Sixth Army in the Pocket

Get the hell out of here
—
"My Fuehrer, I request freedom of action"
—
Goering and supplies by air
—
The Army High Command sends a representative into the pocket
—
General von Seydlitz calls for disobedience
—
Manstein takes over
—
Wenck saves the situation on the Chir

7.
Hoth Launches a Relief Attack

"Winter Storm" and "Thunder-clap"
—
The 19th December
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Another 30 miles
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Argument about "Thunder- clap"
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Rokos-sovskiy offers honourable capitulation

8. The End

The Soviets' final attack
—
The road to Pitomnik
—
The end in the Southern pocket
—
Paulus goes into captivity
—
Strecker continues to fight
—
Last flight over the city
—
The last bread for Stalingrad

Appendix Acknowledgment Bibliography

PART ONE:
Moscow

1. Taken by Surprise
   

   The forest of Pratulin-The white 'G'—0315 hours-Across the Bug, the San, and the Memel—Raseiniai and Liepaja— Surprise attack against Daugavpils-Manstein is made to halt—Rundstedt encounters difficulties-The citadel of Brest.
   

   FOR two days they had been lying in the dark pinewoods with their tanks and vehicles. They had arrived, driving with masked headlights, during the night of 19th/20th June. During the day they lay silent. They must not make a sound. At the mere rattle of a hatch-cover the troop commanders would have fits. Only when dusk fell were they allowed to go to the stream in the clearing to wash themselves, a troop at at time.
   

   Second Lieutenant Weidner, the troop commander, was standing outside the company tent when Sergeant Sarge trotted past with his men of No. 2 Troop. "Nice spot for a holiday, Oberfeldwebel," he said with a chuckle. Sergeant Sarge stopped and grimaced. "I don't believe in holidays, Herr Leutnant." And more softly he added: "What's it all about, Herr Leutnant? Are we having a go at Ivan? Or is it true that we are only waiting for Stalin's leave to drive through Russia in order to get at the Tommies through their Persian back door and let the air out of their beautiful Empire?"
   

   The question did not surprise Weidner. He knew as well as Sarge the many rumours and stories which had been going the rounds ever since their tank training battalion had been reorganized as the 3rd Battalion, 39th Panzer Regiment, which formed part of 17th Panzer Division, and had been moved first to Central Poland and then brought here into the woods of Pratulin. Here they were, less than three miles from the river Bug, which formed the frontier, almost exactly opposite the huge old fortress of Brest-Litovsk, occupied by the Russians since the partition of Poland in the autumn of 1939.
   

   The regiment was bivouacking in the forest in full battle order. Each tank, moreover, carried ten jerricans of petrol strapped to its turret and had a trailer in tow with a further three drums. These were the preparations for a long journey, not for swift battle. "You don't go into battle with jerricans on your tank," the experienced tankmen were saying.
   

   This was an argument against the stubborn ones who kept talking about imminent war with Russia. "Russia? Nonsense! We've got quite enough on our hands already. Why start another war? Ivan isn't doing us any harm, he's our ally, he's sending us grain, and he's against the British." That was what most of them were saying. It therefore followed that if they were not going into battle and not driving into Persia either, then the whole thing must be one huge diversionary manœuvre.
   

   A diversionary manœuvre—but against whom? Surely, to bluff the British. All this build-up in the East might well be a blind for the invasion of Britain on the other side of Europe. This was an argument that was passed on in a whisper and with a knowing wink nearly everywhere. Those who spread it, and who believed in it, could not know of an entry in the diary of the Naval High Command, dated 18th February: "The build-up against Russia is to be presented as the greatest camouflage operation in military history, allegedly designed to divert attention from final preparations for the invasion of Britain."
   

   Yet another story, breathtaking in its beauty and simplicity, was confidently bandied about by the old corporals, those old soldiers who, as is only too well known, can hear the grass growing, know all the secrets of the company office, and represent not only the soul but also the eyes and ears of each unit: Stalin, they patiently explained while washing up their mess-tins, playing "Skat," or polishing their boots, Stalin had leased the Ukraine to Hitler, and they were moving in merely as an army of occupation. In a war people will believe anything. And Sergeant Sarge was only too glad to believe in peace. He believed in the pact which Hitler had concluded with Stalin in August 1939. He believed in it, together with the rest of the German people, who regarded this pact as Hitler's greatest diplomatic achievement.
   

   Second Lieutenant Weidner stepped up close to Sarge. "Do you believe in fairy-tales, Oberfeldwebel?" he asked. Sarge looked puzzled. The lieutenant glanced at his watch. "Be patient for another hour," he said significantly, and walked back to his tent.
   

   While Sergeant Sarge and his second lieutenant had this conversation in the forest of Pratulin, a different conversation was taking place in the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin, in the former residence of the Reich President. But here there was less mystery. Ribbentrop revealed the great secret. He informed his closest collaborators: Early tomorrow the Wehrmacht moves against Russia.
   

   So that was it, after all. They had been suspecting it; now they knew. They had hoped it would remain merely a plan on paper; but now the die was cast. The time for politics and diplomacy, which were their concern, was over; now the weapons would speak. At that moment the ambassadors, the envoys, and the ministerial officials all asked themselves the same question: In view of this development, would Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop stay in office? Could he stay in office? Did not the rules demand his resignation?
   

   Twenty-one months previously he had returned from Moscow with the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and explained to them: "Our treaty with Stalin keeps our rear covered and insures us against a war on two fronts such as brought disaster to Germany once before. I regard this alliance as the crowning achievement of my foreign policy."
   

   And now it was to be war. The crowning achievement lay in the dust.
   

   Ribbentrop sensed the wall of silence around him. He walked to the window overlooking the park where an earlier
   

   Chancellor, Prince Bismarck, used to take his constitutional —another man who had regarded the German-Russian alliance as the crowning achievement of his foreign policy. Was Ribbentrop reminded of his predecessor? He turned on his heel and said loudly and with emphasis, "The Fuehrer has information that Stalin has built up his forces against us in order to strike at us at a favourable moment. And the Fuehrer has always been right so far. He has assured me that the Wehrmacht will defeat the Soviet Union within eight weeks. Our rear will then be safe without having to depend solely on Stalin's goodwill."
   

   Eight weeks. And supposing it took longer? It could not take longer. The Fuehrer had always been right before. For eight weeks one could, if necessary, fight on two fronts.
   

   That was the position. And presently the troops would be told. In the dense pinewoods of Pratulin the hot day was drawing to its end. The pleasant smell of resin and the stench of petrol hung in the air. At 2110 hours an order was shouted softly from the company headquarters tent to tank No. 924: "Companies will fall in at 2200 hours. 4th Company, Panzer Lehr Regiment, in the large clearing." Wireless Operator Westphal called the order across to No. 925, and from there it was passed on from tank to tank.
   

   Dusk had fallen by the time the company was lined up. First Lieutenant von Abendroth reported to the captain. The captain's eyes swept along the ranks of his men. Their faces beneath their field caps were unrecognizable in the twilight. The men were a grey-black wall, a tank company—without faces.
   

   "4th Company!" Captain Streit shouted. "I shall read to you an order of the Fuehrer." There was dead silence in the forest near Brest-Litovsk. The captain switched on the flashlight he had hanging from the second button of his tunic. The sheet of paper in his hand shone white. With his voice slightly hoarse with excitement he began to read: "Soldiers of the Eastern Front!"
   

   Eastern Front? Did he say Eastern Front? This was the first time the term had been used. So this was it, after all.
   

   The captain read on. "Weighed down for many months by grave anxieties, compelled to keep silent, I can at last speak openly to you, my soldiers. . . ." Eagerly the men listened to what had been worrying the Fuehrer for many months: "About 160 Russian divisions are lined up along our frontier. For weeks this frontier has been violated continually— not only the frontier of Germany but also that in the far north and in Rumania."
   

   The men hear of Russian patrols penetrating into Reich territory and being driven back only after prolonged exchanges of fire. And they hear the conclusion: "At this moment, soldiers of the Eastern Front, a build-up is in progress which has no equal in world history, either in extent or in number. Allied with Finnish divisions, our comrades are standing side by side with the victor of Narvik on the Arctic Sea in the North. . . .
   

   "You are standing on the Eastern Front. In Rumania, on the banks of the Prut, on the Danube, down to the shores of the Black Sea, German and Rumanian troops are standing side by side, united under Head of State Antonescu. If this greatest front in world history is now going into action, then it does so not only in order to create the necessary conditions for the final conclusion of this great war, or to protect the countries threatened at this moment, but in order to save the whole of European civilization and culture.
   

   "German soldiers! You are about to join battle, a hard and crucial battle. The destiny of Europe, the future of the Glerman Reich, the existence of our nation, now lie in your hands alone."
   

   For a moment the captain stood silent. The beam of his flashlight flickered over the paper in his hand. Then he added softly, almost as if these were his own words and not the conclusion of the Order of the Day: "May the Almighty help us all in this struggle."
   

   After the men were dismissed there was a buzzing as of a swarm of bees. So they were going to fight Russia after all. First thing tomorrow morning. It was quite a thought. The men ran back to their tanks on the double.
   

   Sergeant Fritz Ebert passed Sarge. "Extra comforts to be issued at once for each vehicle," he announced. He let down the tailboard of his lorry and opened a large crate: spirits, cigarettes, and chocolate. Thirty cigarettes per head. One
   

   bottle of brandy gratis for every four men. Drink and tobacco were the troops' traditional requirements.
   

   There was feverish activity everywhere: tents were being taken down, tanks were being made ready. After that the men waited. They smoked. Very few touched the brandy. The spectre of a stomach wound still terrified them—in spite of sulfonamide. Only the very toughest slept that night.
   

   It was a night of clock-watching. Slowly the hours ticked away, like eternity. It was the same all along the long frontier between Germany and the Soviet Union. Everywhere, strung out across an entire continent, the troops lay awake, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, a distance of 930 miles. And along these 930 miles three million troops were waiting.
   

   Hidden in forests, pastures, and cornfields. Shrouded by the night, waiting.
   

   The German offensive front was divided into three sectors— North, Centre, South.
   

   Army Group North, under Field-Marshal Ritter von Leeb, was to advance with two Armies and one Panzer Group from East Prussia across the Memel. Its object was the annihilation of the Soviet forces in the Baltic and the capture of Leningrad. The armoured spearhead of von Leeb's forces was Fourth Panzer Group, under Colonel-General Hoepner. Its two mobile corps were commanded by Generals von Manstein and Reinhardt. First Air Fleet, attached to this Army Group, was under Colonel-General Keller.
   

   Army Group Centre was commanded by Field-Marshal von Bock. Its area of operations extended from Rornintener Heide to south of Brest-Litovsk—a line of 250 miles. This was the strongest of the three Army Groups, and comprised two Armies as well as Second Panzer Group, under Colonel-General Guderian, and Third Panzer Group, under Colonel-General Hoth. Field-Marshal Kesselring's Second Air Fleet, with numerous Stuka wings, lent additional striking power to this tremendous armoured force. The object of Army Group Centre was the annihilation of the strong Soviet forces, with their many armoured and motorized units, in the triangle Brest-Vilna (Vilnius)-Smolensk. Once Smolensk had been taken by the mobile forces in a bold armoured thrust the decision would be made whether to wheel to the north or drive on towards Moscow.
   

   In the southern sector, between the Pripet Marshes and the Carpathians, Army Group South, under Field-Marshal von Rundstedt, with its three Armies and one Panzer Group, was to engage and destroy Colonel-General Kirponos's Russian forces in Galicia and the Western Ukraine on the near side of the Dnieper, secure the Dnieper crossing, and finally take Kiev. Complete air cover was to be provided by Fourth Air Fleet under Colonel-General Löhr. The Rumanians and the German Eleventh Army, who came under Rundstedt's sphere of command, were to stand by as reinforcements. In the north Germany's other ally, Finland, was to stand by, ready for attack, until 11th July, the date for the German thrust against Leningrad.
   

   This grouping of the German offensive line-up clearly shows its concentration of strength at Army Group Centre. In spite of unfavourable terrain, with river-courses and swamps, this sector was equipped with two Panzer Groups in order to bring about a rapid decision to the campaign.
   

   Soviet intelligence evidently failed to spot this disposition, for the focus of the Soviet defensive system was in the south, opposite Rundstedt's Army Group. There Stalin had concentrated 64 divisions and 14 armoured brigades, while on the Central Front he had only 45 divisions and 15 armoured brigades, and on the northern front 30 divisions and 8 armoured brigades.
   

   The Soviet High Command clearly expected the main German attack in the south, against Russia's principal agricultural and industrial areas. That was why it had concentrated the bulk of its armoured units on this sector for an elastic defence. But since the tank is primarily an offensive weapon, this concentration of powerful armoured forces on the southern forces on the southern wing simultaneously allowed for a Soviet offensive against Rumania, Germany's vital source of oil.