War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (73 page)

The day before, Generalfeldmarschall von Bock accepted, ‘the fighting of the past 14 days has shown that the notion that the enemy in front of the army group has “collapsed” was a fantasy’. His forces were now dangerously over-extended. He complained to Halder, the Chief of the General Staff, that the seriousness of the situation appeared not to have been briefed to Hitler. ‘It was astounding,’ he said to Halder, ‘how little the highest levels of command were informed of my reports.’ The General Staff had retained a mystical faith in the resilience of the
Ostheer,
paralleled by a firm conviction that the Russians must be at their last gasp. Halder confided to his diary later that day:

‘I emphasize that we, too, are concerned about the human sacrifice. But an effort has to be made to bring the enemy to his knees by applying the last ounce of strength. Once it is conclusively shown that this is impossible, we shall make new decisions.’
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On a clear sunny day on 2 December, the men from Kampfgruppe ‘Buck’, occupying positions dug in the Katjuschki village graveyard, received their first hot food from the rear in many days. Previously they had endured snowstorms and the temperature was now −15°C. As they commenced eating, the forward outposts yelled
‘Alarm!’
The German battery outside Putschki immediately opened fire, sending salvoes whooshing over their heads to cascade in a series of crackling detonations on the edge of the wood south of the village. Crouching in their stand-to positions, the German infantry were acutely aware their hot food was going to waste, until Russian counter artillery fire interspersed with Katyusha rocket strikes, burst all over their positions.

Activity was apparent inside the wood. Trees were being snapped off and broken down like matchwood, until, with a series of deep-throated diesel growls, Russian T-34 and BT-7 tanks dashed aside the last trees and swung into an extended line and moved toward the German positions. Russian infantry were labouring through the deep snow behind them. ‘Like a steel Phalanx,’ the Russian armour bore down on the village of Katjuschki. As the Russian artillery switched fire to the rear onto Putschki the rumble of German artillery ceased. Low-flying bombers and thick-bellied ‘Rata’ Soviet fighters swept by and strafed and bombed the German artillery positions. Leutnant Richter had already developed a healthy respect for these attacks which produced a stream of casualties and ‘catastrophic’ damage to vehicles. ‘Enemy pilots,’ he recorded on 2 December, ‘kept our arses warm, as the
Landser
would say, throughout the day.’

The T-34s and BT-7s grew steadily larger within the sight telescopes of the two German 50mm anti-tank guns hidden among headstones in the graveyard on the southern edge of Katjuschki. Having lost artillery support, everything depended upon the detachment commander, Unteroffizier Hentsch, a cold-blooded veteran of many actions, to fight them off. Hentsch, aware of the T-34’s armoured protection, chose to open fire at the last possible moment and use all his stock-piled ammunition at close range. All were versed in the tactics: drive the accompanying infantry to cover and then engage the tanks. Any that broke through the position were to be left to infantry anti-tank teams who would attack them with hand-held explosive devices. The Russian tank commander, intent on his objective, failed to notice he had outstripped his infantry, who were pinned down by German small arms fire. Kicking up great clouds of snow, the tanks drove directly at the German positions.

The lead tank exploded on a mine as it entered the obstacle belt and ploughed to a shuddering halt, the first of several 50mm rounds slamming into its flank. It suddenly burst into a slurry of flame and black oily smoke. Three tanks were disabled, one after the other, by the solitary 50mm anti-tank gun. Thick clouds of dark smoke pouring out of the wrecks soon disorientated the remaining tanks, which abruptly changed course and began to bypass the village, moving in the direction of Putschki. Hentsch immediately began shooting into their rear as they moved off.

Three tanks remained in front of the graveyard, seeking the antitank gun causing so much damage. They machine gunned the positions and grave plots in a reconnaissance by fire. Another BT-7 erupted, metal, boxes and equipment flying off the decks of the tank as the internal pressure of the explosion flung the hatches open. Unteroffizier Braun, observing the action, saw:

‘A dappled-camouflage T-34 with a red flag in the turret [
probably the commander
] now knew exactly where the gun was. Having got through the mine belt he accelerated at full speed toward the anti-tank gun. The huge tank was 60 – 50 – 40 – 30 – 20m away. All the time the anti-tank gun fired back. Ricochets bounced high into the air from the forward sloping armour of the T-34. A few metres from the position the tank swung slightly left and rolled over the infantry and crew positions. The endangered soldiers dived out of the way as quick as a flash.’

Narrowly missing Braun, the tank churned around like an enraged dinosaur, smashing into the corner of a barn, which collapsed upon it. ‘It then disappeared into a cloud of snow,’ he said. The remaining tank meanwhile slowly traversed its gun onto the now clearly identifiable solitary PAK, whose fate appeared sealed. A single 50mm projectile slammed into the side of the T-34 at 823m per second. It did not move as a further four rounds tore into the smouldering carcass until it burst into flames. The twin supporting 50mm gun of the pair manned by Unteroffizier Becker had been moved from the other side of the graveyard as soon as the Russian artillery fire had switched to the rear.

Inside the village the surviving T-34 was playing ‘cat and mouse’ with a 37mm anti-tank gun. The latter was eventually cornered and the crew fled as the tank crushed the gun and bulldozed into a cottage directly behind it, the building collapsing to the ground. Stuck fast in a civilian shelter, its see-sawing motion and bellowing diesel engines indicated it could not get out. An anti-tank mine was flung onto its engine deck and the single crack of its detonation reverberated around the village, signifying the end of the action. Clouds of smoke spilling across the snow to the rear of the village also indicated the demise of the tank attack on Putschki. The solitary tank that had evaded the two anti-tank guns had been despatched by a direct-fire hit from the artillery battery.
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To the north-west the 23rd Infantry Division sought, with steadily declining strength, to continue its advance to the Moscow–Volga canal. They laboured forward in more than knee-deep snow, 35km from Moscow. Feldwebel Gottfried Becker with Infantry Regiment 9 was ordered to extract a beleaguered company that had been ambushed 5km further east, outside the village of Choroschilowo. The mission was only partially successful. The remnants were rescued but the wounded had to be left behind. Becker delivered his report, much troubled by his conscience. It was received without demur by the battalion commander; these things happened. They remained holding their positions at Staroje, enduring the bitter cold in a totally cheerless landscape. Soon they lost all sense of time. Every two hours a reconnaissance patrol was despatched to check the woodland bordering the village. The veterans were uneasy. There was a collective perception that a Russian attack was pending. A patrol returning that night reported ‘something going on, you can hear loud noises’. Snow began to fall heavily, which reduced visibility to 200–300m. Nobody wanted to do more. Becker was exhausted and his men were tired. They would investigate further in the morning.
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Russian probing attacks continued against the 2nd Panzer Division vanguard in the Krassnaya Polyana area. Leutnant Georg Richter gloomily observed that being only 30km from Moscow meant ‘the enemy could move his troops up to the front in trams’. The supporting artillery battery outside Putschki was experiencing problems because ‘its guns could only be traversed with considerable difficulty’. Lothar Fromm, another artillery observer, described the impact of these Arctic conditions:

‘The weapons did not work any more. Let me tell you about the recoil mechanism of the guns. Minus thirty degrees was seen as the lowest temperature at which efficiency could be maintained. They were frozen up. Crews stood there and tried to make them work time, and time again. It didn’t happen. The barrel would not come back and the recoil mechanism was unable to move. That was really depressing.’

By contrast, as Richter complained at Putschki, ‘It was unbelievable what ammunition the enemy had stacked up next to his positions to blast out every calibre’. As a consequence, ‘the factory buildings,’ he wrote, ‘were burning for the umpteenth time.’ Nerves were feeling the strain. ‘The extent of fear and cowardice,’ the dispirited Richter admitted by 3 December, ‘is catastrophic – the cooks won’t come out and cook because they are ducking inside their shelters the whole time.’ Prospects did not appear good. In Richter’s opinion it was ‘senseless’ to try and hold onto the villages of Gorki and Katjuschki.
⁽²⁴⁾

Generalfeldmarschall von Bock was of like opinion. He instinctively felt the army group had approached the end of its strength. Corps commanders were telexed during the night of 2 December ‘that the undoubtedly serious moment of crisis that the Russian defenders are facing must be exploited wherever the opportunity presents itself.’ But he did not believe it, because he confided, ‘I have my doubts whether the exhausted units are still capable of doing so.’ That night von Bock was presented with a document from the city of Smolensk thanking him for liberating it from Bolshevism. Three months before, Army Group Centre had stood at the pinnacle of success. As he considered the document, von Bock probably reflected all this was virtually an age ago.
⁽²⁰⁾

Two days later Leutnant Richter was overseeing a gun-position change at Putschki. They were pulling back. Every single vehicle needed to be tow-started in temperatures of −25°C. Many vehicles, in particular the 6.5-ton ‘Tatra’ heavy lorries, had to be abandoned. Their wheels would not turn and the steering was frozen solid. An NCO shouted a warning:

‘“The Russians are attacking. Don’t you see the white ghosts? We have got to open fire, now, now!” For a while I could not see anything, although a burning haystack lit up the surrounding area to some extent, sufficient to shoot. But then, yes, I could see running spectre-like figures; ghosts, one might say. Our men have not got so many white camouflage smocks – they must be Russians.’

They were indeed. Another soldier, writing home that day, encapsulated what was going on in a simple terse statement:

‘The Russians are fielding everything they’ve got, because around here at Moscow – the devil is loose.’
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The Soviet counter-offensive

Soviet ‘Shock Armies’ were originally conceived as being particularly heavy in armour, motorised vehicles and automatic weapons. First Shock Army to the east of Yakhroma and the others created during the winter of 1941–42 were not so well equipped. When Kuznetsov, the First Shock Army commander, took over on 23 November, he expanded it from a single rifle brigade to one division, nine rifle brigades, ten independent battalions, a regiment of artillery and a contingent of Katyusha rocket launches. About 70% of the soldiers were over 30 years old. Likewise Twentieth Army was brought up to a similar strength. Tenth Army was approximately 100,000-strong, consisting of seven reserve rifle divisions recruited from the Moscow region. It had been on the march by rail and foot from Syzran on the Volga, some 480km away. Four other newly formed reserve armies were brought forward from the line of the River Volga at the end of November. Twenty-fourth, Twenty-sixth and Sixtieth were placed east of Moscow and Sixty-first was newly located behind the right flank of the south-west front.

Stalin passed over control of the newly formed strike element First Shock, Twentieth and Tenth Armies – from STAVKA Supreme Command to Zhukov on 29 November. Even without the addition of the reserve armies, the Soviet forces opposite Army Group Centre on 5 December were greater than when Operation
‘Taifun
’ began, two months before. The German army group had been unable to replace its considerable losses in troops, equipment and especially leaders. Soviet armies in the Moscow sector, by contrast, acquired one third more rifle divisions, five times more cavalry divisions, twice as many artillery regiments and two and a half times as many tank brigades by 5 December than they had on 2 October.
⁽¹⁾

Zhukov’s Chief of Staff, Lt-Gen V. D. Sokolovskiy, calculated the West Front armies numbered over a million men, slightly under the German figure (ie 1,100,000 against 1,708,000), but the latter also included its rear area elements. Massive losses of German ‘teeth arm’ personnel, tanks and weapons had seriously depleted the combat strength of its divisions. Artillery and mortar numbers were similar at 13,500 as also were 1,170 Panzers to tanks, but fewer were running on the German side. The Soviets had an overwhelming preponderance of 1,370 aircraft to about 600 German, with the further advantage of hardened Moscow airfields.
⁽²⁾

The Soviet plan was to attack either side of Moscow and bite off the encircling fingers of the German advances from the north-east and south-east. Having eliminated the threat to the Moscow-Volga canal, First Shock Army was to strike west toward Klin and, in conjunction with the Thirtieth and Twentieth Armies, attack Panzergruppe 3 and the German Ninth Army in the north. Twentieth Army, supporting First Shock and combined with Sixteenth Army, was to assault from Krassnaya Polyana and Bely-Rast towards Solnechnogorsk (see map on page 225), capture it from the south and drive towards Volokolamsk. Guderian’s Second Panzer Army salient would be attacked by Fiftieth Army in combination with the Tenth, which were to drive due west, south of the River Upa. The initial intent was to eliminate the immediate German threat to the Soviet capital: as expressed by Lt-Gen Sokolovskiy, ‘to break up the enemy’s attack conclusively and give him no opportunity to regroup and dig in close to our capital’.
⁽³⁾
Just under half the Soviet tank strength, 290 of 720 tanks, was placed at the main point of effort against Klin, Solnechnogorsk and Istra – the nearest German penetrations to Moscow. The Russians were not totally confident of success; a major Russian counter-offensive had yet to succeed in this war. There was, however, an instinctive appreciation that the enemy was probably sufficiently exhausted to be caught off balance.