Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (60 page)

It was a bad journey. First they moved over the ice of the Lovat to the north, as far as the lighthouse, then in a north- westerly direction on to the ice of the lake, and finally south-west towards the shore. The temperature was 40 degrees below, and on the lake as low as 50 degrees. The men were like moving icicles. The horses were reeling. Some of them collapsed. A quick
coup de grâce,
and the men moved on again.

Map 18.
The Soviet offensive between Lakes Ihnen and Seliger in January 1942 and the operations area of 290th Infantry Division and 18th Motorized Infantry Division.

Their compass needles froze up. They had been on the move for six hours. First Lieutenant Mundt stopped and let his group march past him. "Everything all right?" he asked Second Lieutenant Voss as his platoon moved past. "Everything in order."

But when No. 2 Platoon came past, First Lieutenant Beising-hof was not at its head. It was being led by Sergeant Matzen, Beisinghof and Dr Wiebel, the M.O., were with a man who refused to go on. He had sat down in the snow and wanted a rest. "Only half an hour—until the next group comes," he begged. But it would have been certain death. They pulled him to his feet; they argued with him; they ordered him. The lieutenant and the medical officer supported him one on each side. A hundred yards behind their platoon they slowly made their uncertain way forward.

Beisinghof once more moved to the head of his column. That was what they all did—Captain Pröhl, Second

Lieutenant Matthis, Second Lieutenant Giile, and Dr Günther, the M.O., with the main body of the force, and Sergeant Feuer with the vanguard and Second Lieutenant Richter with the rearguard. Like sheep-dogs they moved forward and backward along their columns, seeing to it that no man was left behind or had thrown himself despairingly into the snow. Dog-tired themselves, they covered the distance twice and three times over.

After fourteen hours' march they made it. At 0800 hours Sergeant Feuer caught sight of men with German steel helmets, wrapped up to the tips of their noses. He called out to them, stumbled over to them, and caught hold of the nearest one: "Kamerad, Kamerad!"

They embraced. But what on earth was the man saying? Feuer understood only the words "Santa Maria" and "Cama- rada." But he guessed that "Bienvenido" meant "Welcome." The German combat group had encountered a Spanish unit. Spaniards, volunteers of 269th Infantry Regiment of the Blue Division, employed on the Eastern Front, north of Lake Ilmen, as the 250th Infantry Division.

On 10th January the Spanish ski company under Captain Ordâs had left the northern shore of Lake Ilmen with 205 men in order to reinforce their German comrades in Vzvad. But the ice barriers on the lake had made the 20 miles as the crow flies into 40 miles as the men had to march. The Spaniards' radio equipment broke down and their compasses froze up.

When Captain Ordâs reached the southern shore of Lake Ilmen a long way west of Vzvad half his men were suffering from severe frostbite. On their further move they were attacked by Siberian assault detachments. The Spaniards fought excellently and even took some prisoners. They recaptured Cher-nets and, together with a platoon from a police company, repulsed furious Soviet counter-attacks.

On 21st January only thirty-four men were still alive of the 205 men of the Spanish ski company. Hence the demonstrative way in which they welcomed the German garrison of Vzvad, four miles east of Ushin. Two days later they mounted a counter-attack against the lost strongpoints of Malyy Ushin and Bolshoy Ushin side by side with German infantrymen, in the sector of 81st Infantry Division, which had only just arrived from France. Twelve Spanish soldiers survived— twelve out of 205.

The combat group from Vzvad had lost five men on its journey over the lake. They had fallen victim to the cold. Exhausted and lethargic, they had dropped into the snow, unnoticed, and had gone to sleep for good in the boundless waste.

As the survivors staggered into their cold quarters in Ushin they could hear the distant rumble of the front and see the fires of Staraya Russa. That magnificent ancient town, the old trading centre on Lake Ilmen, was once more in flames. Many a battle had been fought for its possession throughout the centuries. It had been captured, and it had been destroyed. In this winter of 1941/42 Staraya Russa had become a traffic junction, a supply base, and the heart of the supply services for the German front between Lake Ilmen and Lake Seliger. If it fell the whole front would fall.

It was Major-General Herrlein's 18th Motorized Infantry Division from Liegnitz which experienced at Staraya Russa a kind of 'super-Vzvad' by desperately defending the town from all directions against the divisions of the Soviet Eleventh Army. The 18th was under the command of Colonel Werner von Erdmannsdorff, deputizing for his severely ill

general. By its resistance in Staraya Russa the division was to foil the grand plan of operations of General Morozov's Eleventh Army.

What was that plan? Morozov intended to move around Lake Ilmen, and then, in co-operation with a strong Army Group operating north of the lake against the Volkhov, to strike at Colonel-General von Kiichler's Eighteenth Army east of Leningrad, and thus to start the liberation of that city. It was a good plan. The units employed for this operation against Staraya Russa on the western wing of the Soviet Eleventh Striking Army were excellent crack formations—- the I and II Guards Corps. This showed the importance attached by the Soviet High Command to the task. After all, the successful conclusion of the operation would mean two significant successes—the gaining of the elbow-room necessary for further operations, now barred by Staraya Russa, and the seizure of the German Sixteenth Army's huge supply depots and stores of war material. These would be a valuable prize for the poorly supplied Soviet Corps, a prize of particular value since these Corps would presently be operating behind the German lines.

During the first week Morozov's Guards penetrated five times into the town centre—in fact, right into the Army's supply depot. But each time they were driven back again with heavy casualties. The ammunition dumps blew up. Whatever ancient and historical buildings of Staraya Russa had survived the battles of the summer were now reduced to rubble by shells and fire. But the human wall around Staraya Russa held. Staraya Russa was the rock in the crashing breakers of the battle, the point of crystallization at which Corps time and again re-established the shattered flank of Sixteenth Army. The credit for this must go not only to the men but also to the staff of 18th Motorized Infantry Division. This division's defensive success was a good example of skilful leadership and experience of Russian conditions applied at divisional level. The background is worth mentioning briefly.

The 18th Motorized Infantry Division, badly mauled in the fighting at Tikhvin, had been dispatched by Colonel- General Busch to the Staraya Russa area, as an "Army reserve, and spread out over the villages. Reconnaissance, experience of Soviet tactics, and a well-developed 'nose' for the situation led the divisional staff to conclude that the Russians would cross the frozen Lake Ilmen to strike at Staraya Russa. For that reason the division's acting commander, Colonel von Erdmannsdorff, and his chief of operations kept urging Corps, and eventually even Army, to concentrate the division—with all its units, including the baggage train—and to deploy it in an already reconnoitred position along the lake.

Corps would not hear of such precautionary measures, and regarded any anxiety about a Soviet attack across the ice of Lake Ilmen as "unrealistic." Colonel-General Busch, however, thought there might be something in Erdmannsdorff's hunch and let him have his way. On 4th January Army therefore issued appropriate orders. But not until 4th January. During the night of 7th/8th January—seventy-two hours later—the Russians came across the ice.

After the very first report from the fighting area Corps and Army immediately realized that the Soviet attack on the northern wing of the line between the two lakes was no local operation. That much was clear from the signals from forward strongpoints and patrols. The offensive, for once, had not started with the customary and traditional artillery bombardment. It had started in complete silence in order to deceive the Germans about the extent of the operation.

By the time the Soviet artillery opened up to support the frontal attack against 290th Infantry Division, aimed principally at Tulitovo and Pustynka, strong Russian forces had already driven through the wide gap in the front, reaching the Lovat estuary across the frozen ponds and marshes and, even more serious, getting into the rear of 290th Infantry Division across the ice of Lake Ilmen.

Freight-carrying gliders and transport aircraft fitted with skids had landed on the frozen lake and unloaded ski battalions and rifle brigades. Soviet armoured brigades were crossing the lake with heavy tanks, making for the penetration points. Like nightmarish monsters 52-ton KVs came crawling over the ice. Noisy snow-ploughs were moving ahead of Soviet infantry and tank battalions, clearing the way for them. Motor-sledges packed with infantry roared through the landscape, throwing up huge sprays of snow.

No German eye had ever seen anything like it. No German staff officer had ever witnessed this sort of thing at manœuvres.

Consequently the first reports produced a good deal of surprise and incredulous shaking of heads at Corps and Army headquarters. But very soon there was no doubt that a large-scale Soviet offensive had been launched across the lake, and that its first objective was Staraya Russa, the transport junction of the German front on Lake Ilmen.

Colonel von Erdmannsdorff had arrived from the Shimsk area during the night at the head of his 18th Motorized Infantry Division. General Hansen put him in command of the garrison units in the town, the baggage trains, the rearward services, and the construction battalions. With these units Erdmannsdorff succeeded in establishing a defensive front outside the town and in stabilizing the situation.

Against this unshakable bulwark of Silesian infantry regiments and the units subordinated to them the first part of the Soviet plan came to naught. The Soviet Eleventh Army had to bypass Staraya Russa. It had to turn to its second task— to strike south along the Lovat river in order to get behind the divisions of the German X Corps. In this attempt General Morozov came up against the North German regiments of 290th Infantry Division under Lieutenant-General

von Wrede.

As the defenders of Vzvad had done, so the companies of 290th Infantry Division held on with their inadequate numbers, even though their positions had been bypassed on both sides, and in this way formed breakwaters against Soviet attacks.

At Tulitovo the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, held out for nearly five weeks. After that it was over-run. At Pustynka Second Lieutenant Becker with his 1st Company 503rd Infantry Regiment resisted for exactly tweny-six days, tying down strong enemy forces. The strongpoints named "Devil's Island," "Icicle," and "Robinson Crusoe Island" were defended by companies of 503rd Infantry Regiment under Eckhardt and Wetthauer, although the men had had no rations for several days.

The situation is illustrated by an exchange of signals between 290th Infantry Division and X Army Corps. The division radioed : "Most urgently request ammunition."

Corps replied: "According to our calculations too much ammunition used." 290th Infantry Division rejoined: "Your calculations of no consequence."

In this way weakened regiments mounting about 130 small-arms to the mile were holding entire divisions of the Soviet Eleventh Army. The Russians were prevented from making a decisive frontal breakthrough. But it was impossible to prevent outflanking attacks by two Soviet crack units. The II Guards Corps captured Parfino, a railway station on the important Leningrad-Staraya Russa-Moscow line, and the I Guards Corps with an even wider sweep struck at the rear of 290th Infantry Division and finally succeeded in infiltrating.

At that crucial moment the Soviet Thirty-fourth Army made a penetration to the right of 290th Infantry Division, in the sector of the 30th Infantry Division from Schleswig-Holstein, severed the link between the two divisions, likewise turned against the rear of 290th Infantry Division, and at Pola, along the river of the same name, joined up with II Guards Corps forming the other jaw of the pincers.

The trap was closed round 290th Infantry Division. The left wing of the German front on Lake Ilmen was outmanoeuvred. The Soviets had cut X Corps in two and faced it with an exceedingly dangerous situation.