War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (65 page)

There were too many conflicting pressures to overcome. Plans were deteriorating to the status of a gamble. Von Bock was only too aware of the situation:

‘Conditions have thus forced the Army Group to work with very short-range objectives. I cannot suggest waiting longer than is necessary to attack… because I fear that the weather conditions will then thwart our plans … if we get deep snow, all movement is finished.’

Hitler and Halder had achieved their intention, the acceptance of a last gamble: a
Flucht nach Vorn
(headlong dash) against Moscow in the hope it might succumb. Halder privately admitted, ‘the time for spectacular operational feats is past … the only course lies in purposeful exploitation of tactical opportunities’. Generalmajor von Greiffenburg returned from Orscha and reported to von Bock, ‘all that remains of the recently propagated distant objectives opposed by the army group is that the army groups are to do what they can.’
⁽¹⁴⁾

Fundamental shortcomings that had applied at the end of September prior to Operation
‘Taifun’
were even more apparent. The
Ostheer
had attacked, despite serious logistic sustainability shortfalls, to annihilate what it perceived to be the last Soviet field armies before Moscow. These logistic and manpower shortages reduced the latest attempt to rush Moscow to the status of combined raiding forays. Mortally wounded, the
Ostheer
was at the end of its strength. Second Panzer Army reported on 17 November:

‘The army has favourable attack conditions for the moment from the situation perspective, the strength of the enemy and ‘going’ over terrain and roads. It cannot, however, exploit this advantageous situation because of constant train and supply delivery problems. Responsible army staffs are unable to replenish divisions with fuel. The fuel situation today is such that the attacking Panzer divisions have about 60–90km worth of fuel… Likewise the motorised [infantry] divisions have not received their allocation and as a result have been static within their locations for several days.’
⁽¹⁵⁾

This was a snapshot of the extent to which the previous 500km ‘trip-wire’ hurdle had worsened at the 1,000km point. It was now a positive barrier. The 1,000km distance to the Reich frontier was served by only two main rail links (Warsaw–Minsk–Smolensk and from Brest through Gomel and Bryansk). Both were frequently cut and harassed by partisan groups. Distribution from railheads was through the available
Grosstransportraum
of lorried transport. Many of these had been stuck fast for three weeks with mud up to their axles. When the mud froze they were hauled out but hundreds were severely damaged in the process. By the middle of November, 50% of the Army Group Centre lorry fleet was out of action. Fourth Army had been reduced to one eighth of its original complement of trucks. Panzergruppe 4, which had relocated from the Leningrad front to the centre, had only half its motorised transport running, even before Operation
‘Taifun
’ at the beginning of October. Many vehicles failed to receive timely deliveries of anti-freeze and broke down. Meanwhile the Minsk–Moscow ‘Autobahn’ had its concrete covering stripped away between Smolensk and Vyazma during the difficult weather. A whole infantry division was required to expedite sufficient repairs to get traffic moving again.
⁽¹⁶⁾
Artillery soldier Franz Frisch with Panzergruppe 4 summed up the problems:

‘We started the offensive on Moscow with dilapidated equipment, and we lost a lot of it. 30% of the leaf [
suspension
] springs in our trucks broke later in the cold, robbing them of braking power. There was such confusion that even officers started to question the logic of pushing ahead despite transportation problems. “What stupidity is this – starting an attack with units whose trucks will not move, and ammunition trucks with cold brakes and no springs?”’

Nobody questioned Hitler’s determination. As Frisch explained, ‘he was absolutely crazy, but everybody was saying “Heil Hitler”.’
⁽¹⁷⁾

Resupply by rail, vital to sustain any operational advance of consequence, began to disintegrate in freezing conditions. Ninth Army received only four fuel trains between 23 October and 13 November, while Second Army gained only one of three required from late October. As temperatures plummeted to minus double figures, 70% to 80% of German steam locomotives, whose water pipes – unlike Russian types – were outside their boilers, froze and burst. This provided the prelude to a transport crisis that dwarfed all those that had preceded it. Virtually no trains reached Second Army between 12 November and 2 December and only one fuel train reached Ninth Army between 9 and 23 November. When the latter arrived, its contents could not be distributed because waiting lorries were also out of petrol. Despite awesome difficulties, it was these lorry columns that kept units intermittently resupplied. Von Bock complained as early as 11 November that the number of trains reaching his army group was down to 23 per day. If the 30 originally promised could not be maintained, he assessed that stockpiling ‘even for an attack with limited objectives, cannot be contemplated before 11 December; that means in my opinion the attack will not take place!’ At the end of November only an average of 16 trains per day were reaching the army group.

During the Orscha conference, Major Otto Eckstein, the staff officer responsible for the organisation of Army Group Centre’s logistic resupply, briefed a totally pessimistic logistic picture, along with the senior army group quartermaster arguing against the resumption of the proposed offensive. Von Bock chose not to support him. The prospect of going forward with even an outside chance of seizing Moscow was preferable to a freezing halt just before it. The supreme irony was von Bock’s protest at this particularly difficult moment over several logistic trains which had been held to the rear of the army group to give priority to an equal number transporting Jews from Germany to the same area.
Vernichtungskrieg knew
no conventional bounds.
⁽¹⁸⁾

The final phase of Operation
‘Taifun
’ was launched on 16 November with both wings of the army group making surprisingly good progress. Panzergruppen 3 and 4 moved on Klin to the north of Moscow and Second Panzer Army to the south bypassed Tula, where it had been blocked for weeks, and moved north-eastward. Even as Guderian’s much reduced force of 150 Panzers moved off (it had numbered 400 at the end of September),
⁽¹⁾
a Soviet attack crashed into Fourth Army immediately to its left, cutting contact and exposing his flank. A double envelopment of the Moscow defences was soon under way. Zhukov’s last line of defence, the Mozhaisk position, barred the way, stretching between the ‘Sea of Moscow’ reservoir in the north to the River Oka in the south. At first the Russians were unable to stop the German thrust on any broad front. Nevertheless, the pressure of Soviet attacks on the German Fourth Army forced elements of it to come to a standstill and go over to the defensive, forming a ‘sack’ in between the two enveloping Panzer prongs. Pressure on their flanks correspondingly increased as these advanced.

General Halder remarked on 19 November that ‘this has been a good day again’, and ‘heartening progress’ was being made the following day. Reports about the poor condition of the German troops were not taken too seriously. Optimism clouded objective reasoning once again. ‘Guderian had someone call up in the afternoon to report that his troops are on their last legs,’ Halder recorded on 21 November, but with the strategic objective in sight the Chief of Staff did not take the concern seriously. He reasoned:

‘It is true, they did have to fight hard and a very long way; and still they have come through victoriously and pushed back the enemy everywhere. So we may hope that they will be able to fight on, even against the repeatedly reinforced enemy [
new Siberian divisions
] until a favourable closing line is reached.’
⁽²⁾

On the northern flank of the advance, the Russians struggled to consolidate a defensive line along the Volga canal and the Sea of Moscow. Klin fell to Panzergruppe 3 on 23 November as Panzer-gruppe 4 entered Solnechnogorsk. The former now began to pick up a Blitzkrieg momentum as Russian forces steadily retreated before its advance. Ninth Army in support penetrated as far as the canal line and Panzergruppe 3 reached it just south of Dimitrov.

The reality of the advance did not, however, correspond to the symbols that General Halder’s staff moved on maps. One of the regimental commanders with the 98th Infantry Division supporting Hoepner’s Panzergruppe 4 submitted a confidential personal report to Generalmajor Schrodeck, his division commander, outlining his concerns. ‘Without a meaningful replacement of fallen officers, NCOs and weapon specialists,’ it read, ‘and a reorganisation and issue of clothing, equipment, weapons, vehicles and horses, and unless urgent measures are taken to restore the fighting power of his troops, his command would have no combat value.’ A battalion commander in the same division questioned whether all the other units were ‘as pathetically battered as ours? And still we are optimistic!’ Company Feldwebel Schiff, in one of the infantry regiments, gave his pessimistic overview on 2 November from the soldier’s perspective.

‘The beards on our faces make us all look like U-Boat crews and our hands are encrusted with filth. When was the last time we washed our clothes or had a bath? It seems to have been months. Joints are commonly stiff from lying in holes all day long. One can hardly feel one’s feet because of the cold! But you can feel the tormenting lice. And where are our dear friends, all those that had marched and fought with us?’

Where indeed? The regiment had lost 50 officers and 1,673 NCOs and men – two-thirds of its officers and over half its men – since the beginning of the campaign. Overall, 98th Infantry Division had lost 5,881 men, one-third of its total strength but more than half of its actual fighting men.
⁽³⁾

The consequence of massively costly victories was all-apparent at front level. Operation
‘Taifun’
alone had cost the army groups 114,865 casualties. This represented a further 6.8 division equivalents completely removed from the order of battle. The significance can be measured against the fact there was only one division left available for the Army Group Centre reserve. Officer casualties in October were 3,606, enough to man seven division equivalents; the 22,973 NCOs who perished or were wounded amounted to the same comparable ratio.
⁽⁴⁾

The physical impact of these losses seriously eroded fighting power at the front. An assessment of a typical German infantry division structure
⁽⁵⁾
reveals that from an average strength of 16,860 men about 64% – some 10,840 – could be classified as ‘fighters’. The remaining 36% was the logistic support ‘tail’ that sustained the ‘teeth’ or combat elements forward. This provides the explanation for the small numbers of soldiers infantry companies were actually committing to battle. Morale and instinctive self-preservation continued, remarkably, to hold these much reduced bands of men together. An Oberfeldwebel in a 260th Division infantry regiment remarked, ‘we have 49 dead and 91 wounded in the company’ which would have had a theoretical combat strength of 176 men. Only 36 men who had started the campaign would still be serving in its ranks. Despite this he claimed ‘our heads are always held high, even when the going is rough’. They had penetrated to within 80km south of Moscow and still believed ‘eventually we will definitely destroy the Russians’.
⁽⁶⁾

Panzer regiments were even worse off. Prior to the second phase of
‘Taifun’
they had been assessed as being at 35% of their normal strength. This meant an overall average of 50–70 Panzers per division, normally 180–200 strong (with about 350 armoured vehicles altogether).
⁽⁷⁾
Helmut von Harnack, serving with a Panzer regiment, wrote at the end of October:

‘The last few months have not passed without leaving their mark on the old veteran crews, many of whom have already been knocked out once within their Panzers.’

He was an officer and amazed at the ‘zest for life’ displayed by his 19-year-old crews, commenting on ‘the flush of victory in their eyes’.
⁽⁸⁾
But it was a truism that the highest losses were among units who had fought the most successful actions, and they were losing their best men. Second Panzer Army had been reduced from 248 tanks on 16 October to 38 by 23 November. Panzergruppe 3 likewise dropped from 259 to 77 over the same period.
⁽⁹⁾
These losses at the ‘teeth’ end of Panzer divisions were more significant than the infantry because just under half of the 13,000–14,000 armoured troops deployed were actually ‘fighters’. Most casualties would be forward, far exceeding losses among considerable specialist and logistic units forming the ‘tail’ to the rear.