War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (22 page)

It was anticipated the division objective could be taken within eight hours. Now it was the third day and there was scant prospect of surrender. Russians occupied the barracks and the so-called ‘Officers’ Mess’ within the citadel, the eastern part of the North Island, part of the wall on the northern bridge (Werk 145) and the
Ostfort.
A decision was taken to reduce the remaining strongpoints with artillery to avoid further German bloodshed. Invasion traffic could still, with detours, be directed onto ‘Rollbahn 1’ moving east.

At 16.00 hours on 24 June, 45th Infantry Division announced: ‘the citadel has been taken’ and ‘isolated infantry was being mopped up’. Optimistically, it was claimed ‘resistance was much reduced’. A triumphant report at 21.40 hours the same evening announced, ‘Citadel at Brest taken!’ It was one of several misleading messages, commonplace in the confusion of war. Gunfire still reverberated around the city. The brief confirmation of ‘false report’ followed. The siege was about to enter its fourth bloody day
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Three German Army Groups – North (Leeb), Centre (Bock) and South (Rundstedt) – attacked into the interior of Russia along historically proven invasion routes, towards Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev. The northern approach had already been traversed by the Teutonic Knights, ironically re-enacting an epic film being shown to Russian cinema audiences at that time. Sergei Eisenstein’s totalitarian cinematic masterpiece about 13th century warrior prince Alexander Nevsky portrayed a united Russian medieval peasantry combining to defend the city of Novgorod against the invading Knights of the German Teutonic Order in 1242. Its poignant depiction of events was not lost on its audience. The wardrobe of the attackers included distinctively shaped German helmets, and the presciently staged atrocities against Russian peasants stirred the same emotions subsequent brutalities would engender. The manner of the German defeat, its Knights swallowed up by the cracking ice of Lake Peipus in the dead of winter, was so prophetic in symbolic terms that the film had to be withdrawn within a year of release. It conflicted with the diplomatic intent of the Non-Aggression Pact signed with Hitler in 1939. The film was soon back on the screens.

Both the northern and central invasion routes had been used in part by Charles XII of Sweden. His army, defeated at Poltava in 1709, was destroyed by the following Russian winter. In 1812, Napoleon’s Grande Armée thrust across Minsk and Smolensk to Moscow: it, too, collapsed in the Russian winter. The third, southern, route was separated from the other two army groups by the Pripet Marshes to the north of its area and the Carpathian mountains in the south. This road was the gateway to the Ukraine, the ‘bread-basket’ of Russia. Beyond lay the great industrial, mining and oil-bearing regions of the Donets, Volga and Caucasus. Few serious natural obstacles barred these approaches apart from some of the great Russian rivers. Even these were no serious impediment to suitably equipped mechanised forces. Blitzkrieg operations in the Low Countries had already demonstrated the ability of modern technology to overcome them. No serious military operations were contemplated within the swampy 65,000sq km expanse of the Pripet Marshes.

The Wehrmacht appeared to have mastered the operational art of war during its successful fast-moving campaigns in Poland, Scandinavia, the Low Countries and France. This previously unseen capability of waging ‘joint’ campaigns combining the synergy of land, air and maritime forces to direct overwhelming combat power in the right place at the right time was unprecedented. The
Schwerpunkt
(focus of effort) had to be properly supported by firepower and logistics. The scale and shape of the huge concentration of forces required to invade the Russian land mass from the west, or combine to oppose such an intent, needed careful and skilful operational planning. The German general staff excelled at the art. Such planning involves risk and some luck, and also a methodical prosecution of the aim within an accepted staff framework. This then confers a scientific ability to outweigh the intangible factors, those elements Clausewitz would describe as the ‘frictions of war’. In directing massive armies there comes that decisive moment when forethought backed by meticulous planning and organisation enables the enemy to be outmanoeuvred operationally. This is achieved when the foe, in spite of realising what is likely to happen, is powerless to react. The aim is to penetrate the opponent’s ‘decision cycle’, so that the time and space to execute operational counter-moves is denied him.

These preconditions had been achieved by German planning on the Soviet frontier by the third week in June 1941. Soviet defences were deployed linearly along its 4,500km front from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea. Fifty-six divisions were deployed to a depth of 50km to the front, with the second echelon and their tanks 50–100km behind. Reserve corps were a further 150–400km from the frontier. It was too late to redeploy to meet German offensive concentrations – reserves were too far back. A ‘checkmate’ configuration had been set up on the frontier.

This was soon acknowledged by the Soviet initial contact reports that began to flood higher headquarters. The Soviet Third Army observed on the second day of the campaign that its right flank was being enveloped by the enemy, stating: ‘We have no reserves at all, and there is nothing with which to plan a strike.’ Extracts from the report reveal why: ‘Our most available force – the 11th Mechanised Corps – suffered great losses in tanks, 40 to 50 in all, on 22–23 June 1941.’

The 56th Rifle Division was reduced to two scattered detachments numbering 700 to 800 men and the 85th Rifle Division ‘suffered considerable losses’. The 27th Rifle Division was reduced by 40%, with units down to a quarter or a half of a combat unit of ammunition. Operational flexibility did not exist. ‘Units that are on peacetime establishment have no transport.’ The commander of the Third Army complained, ‘I have had no front orientation for two days’, and that ‘in view of the fact that a number of walkie-talkies are out of order, I can communicate with you on only one walkie-talkie’.
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Counter-moves were doomed to failure before they could even begin. Soviet mechanised corps in the central area, required to block German advances between 22 and 26 June, faced long marches. These ranged typically from 80–100km for the IIIrd and XIIth Mechanised Corps and up to 200km for the IXth and XIXth Mechanised Corps. The VIIIth Mechanised Corps had to move 500km. The outcome was piecemeal commitments within a few hours of arrival or immediate and costly advances with no preparation. Gains were insignificant.
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Infantry fared even worse. The 212th Rifle Regiment on the right flank of the 49th Division in the Soviet Fourth Army area was facing the German IVth Army Corps. Following an alert at midnight on 22 June the unit slogged 40km through unbearable heat, fighting exhausting skirmishes en route to reach Siemiatycze, its stated objective to the north. Completely fatigued on arrival, they were required to counter-march another 40km after a short rest to Kleszczele, virtually back to their original start point. The soldiers were demoralised. Their situation was hopeless. Progress could be measured by their discarded equipment, notably greatcoats and gas masks, abandoned by roadsides along their route.
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Even with warning, Soviet frontier forces had neither the time nor resources to react. The operational paralysis engendered is a consequence of surprise and had featured in all previous German campaigns. At no point had the Polish or western armies been able to break out of the operational straitjacket to which they had been consigned by German strategy. There were, however, a number of fundamental differences to this new campaign. The Wehrmacht was attacking its most heavily armed and psychologically resilient opponent to date. He had been totally outmanoeuvred on the frontier but time, as with previous offensives in Poland and the West, was short. The German army and economy was geared for only a short war. Space was also different. The Soviet Union was limitless in comparison to the distances traversed during the western Blitzkrieg. A key precondition, neutralising the Red Air Force, had already been achieved. Only time would tell, once the impact of surprise wore off, whether the enemy would remain standing. In the west the French had fought valiantly and with some resilience after Dunkirk, but manoeuvre space had been irretrievably lost. In Russia it could be different.

Army Group North commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm von Leeb was the weakest of the three army groups. The OKH ‘Barbarossa’ order of 31 January 1941 had directed it to destroy enemy forces in the Baltic theatre, and occupy the Baltic ports and Leningrad and Kronstadt, to deny the Russian fleet its bases. Neither of the other two army groups had such vast distances to cover and it had the least armour to execute the thrust. Leeb’s one Panzer group, Panzergruppe 4 under Generaloberst Hoepner, consisted of three Panzer divisions, three motorised infantry and two foot infantry divisions. With two further army corps – XVIth and XVIIIth, consisting of eight and seven infantry divisions respectively – Army Group North was advancing with only 18 divisions, approximately half the size of Army Group Centre and South (including its Romanian divisions). It was directly supported by about 380 aircraft from Luftflotte 1.
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Unlike the Centre and South sectors, Army Group North was faced by a shallow rather than wide line of enemy positions. Russian deployment in the recently occupied Baltic countries was dispersed, and in greater depth. Enemy forces stretched back into the territory of the old Russian Empire with a large reserve of Soviet tanks east of Pskov. An encirclement strategy was not, therefore, feasible. Leeb – unlike the practice in the other army groups – kept his comparatively weaker Panzergruppe, the 4th under Hoepner, directly under command and at the centre of his advance. Surprise was to be achieved by exploiting superior speed and mobility. Each partial engagement aimed not at encirclement but rather a deeper and quicker thrust towards Daugavpils, Pskov and Leningrad, the eventual strategic objective. Panzers formed the apex of thrust lines with infantry following as best they could along the flanks, delivering attacks close to the point of the spear to maintain forward Panzer momentum. Daugavpils, with its two bridges over the wide River Dvina, was the immediate objective. The aim, having punched into the defences, was to push forward and maintain sufficient momentum to keep the enemy off balance.

Stiff frontier resistance was quickly broken so that, by the end of the first day, the 8th Panzer Division was already 80km deep into the hinterland, and succeeded in throwing a bridgehead across the River Dubysa. Confidence and progress was so good that at 19.55 hours on the first day the division reported, ‘troops are advancing rapidly eastwards’. The quality of opposition was such that ‘the Division has the impression that it has yet to come into contact with regular troops’.
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At 04.00 hours the next day, air reconnaissance identified strong Russian motorised columns moving north from an area north-west of Wilno toward an important road junction at Kedaynyay. The force, which included between 200 and 350 Soviet tanks, appeared to be bearing down on the 8th Panzer Division, leading LVIth Panzer Corps. It was the 2nd Soviet Tank Division. They passed through Kedaynyay and missed LVIth Panzer Corps but then struck the 6th Panzer Division of XXXXIst Panzer Corps at Rossieny, 60km away. Hoepner, the commander of Panzergruppe 4, took a calculated risk. Despite the power of the attacking Russian force – 300 tanks and comparable in artillery and infantry strength to the corps it was attacking – XXXXIst Corps was tasked to destroy it without reinforcement. The lead LVIth Corps division, 8th Panzer, was directed onwards to Daugavpils on the River Dvina as planned. Blitzkrieg was becoming reality.

Between June 24 and 26, the Soviet force, which included 29 heavy tanks of an unknown type, were surrounded and liquidated by XXXXIst Panzer Corps’ large complement of Czech-manufactured light Pz Kpfw IIs and modestly gunned medium Pz Kpfw IIIs. German tactical superiority overcame the shock of encountering the new tank types. The decision not to divert the armoured apex from its aim paid off handsomely, for even as the tank battle at Rossieny died down, the forward elements of the 8th Panzer Division had the vital bridges across the River Dvina in sight. They were over 100km ahead of the main Army Group.

Hauptsturmführer Klinter from the 3rd SS Division ‘Toten-kopf’, following up the armoured spearhead with his motorised infantry company, recalled:

‘Heat, filth, and clouds of dust were the characteristic snapshot of those days. We hardly saw any enemy apart from the occasional drive-by of enemy prisoners. But the country had totally altered after we crossed the Reich border. Lithuania gave us a little taste of what we were to find in Russia: unkept sandy roads, intermittent settlements and ugly houses which were more like huts.’

A merciless sun bore down through the swirling dust raised by vehicles. ‘The air,’ Klinter remembers, as they approached Daugavpils, ‘had that putrefying and pervasive burnt smell so reminiscent of the battle zone, and all nerves and senses began to detect the breath of the front’. They became aware of piles of discarded Russian equipment alongside the steep roadside embankments.

‘Suddenly all heads switched to the right. The first dead of the Russian campaign lay before our eyes like a spectre symbolising the destructiveness of war. A Mongolian skull smashed in combat, a torn uniform and bare abdomen slit by shell splinters. The column drew up and then accelerated ahead, the picture fell behind us. I sank back thoughtfully into my seat.’
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Two bridges, road and rail, spanned the River Dvina, approximately 300m wide at this point. The bridges needed to be taken intact to maintain the eastern momentum of Army Group North. Oberstleutnant Crisolli’s Kampfgruppe formed the division vanguard earmarked to attack Daugavpils. It consisted of a Panzer and infantry regiment (10th and 18th respectively), infantry motorcyclists and other motorised elements with artillery and the 8th Company of Lehr Regiment 800 ‘Brandenburg’. The Branden-burger company was ordered to attempt a
coup de main.