War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (78 page)

When the ‘hold’ order was received at battalion level in the Fourth Army sector, it was met with incredulity. Infantry Regiment 9, part of 23rd Infantry Division, heard:

‘The High Command has ordered that the present withdrawal movements around the Lama [
river
] are to be halted, and the division is to concentrate on both sides and now go firm. The Lama position must be defended to the last man!’

Commanders were to be held personally responsible for the order’s execution. Feldwebel Gottfried Becker’s initial reaction when told to dig was, ‘OK, OK we hold the position, but could someone please tell me which one?’ His commander, Leutnant Bremse, pointed to a hole in the ground partially filled with snow. ‘It was not completely prepared,’ he agreed, ‘but they could do it now.’ Each man in Becker’s platoon had the same unsettling thought: ‘He has got to be kidding!’ They had completed a seemingly endless march through snow and ice with no sleep, and fought countless rearguard actions. Now they were instructed to dig a position virtually from new, in rock-hard frozen ground. Mindful of the Soviet approach, they commenced digging. Becker shovelled snow out of the half-constructed trench, complaining that ‘those at the “top” had to be nuts’. Bremse was not sympathetic. ‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘shut your mouths and get on with it – now! Dig!’
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Obergefreiter Huber from the 98th Division reached his objective at 02.00 hours on Christmas Eve.

‘Christmas morning dawned and now we had to occupy the edge of a wood. Thirty hungry spectres groped their way back to the position with shrunken cheeks, wearing summer uniforms with threadbare coats in temperatures of below −30°C. They had torn gloves, boots with holes and many wore laced-up shoes. Balaclava head-overs were soaked in sweat beneath chalk-smeared helmets. Stomachs were empty. They had two machine guns still in working order and some rifles. The route took them across fields, meadows, ditches and holes, into which the unsteady stumbled. Finally they arrived at the “position” at the end of the wood – a pair of holes half full of drifted snow. An icy wind cut through the position, quickly coating helmets and balaclavas from top to bottom with a thin coating of ice.’
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Adolf Hitler had confounded the plans of his military advisors. Viewing an impending collapse of the front with dismay, he resolved to relieve his generals of command initiative. He took pride in his proven ability to master and profit from a crisis. The ailing Generalfeldmarschall von Brauchitsch, the German Army Commander-in-Chief, followed the hapless von Rundstedt from Army Group South into retirement. Von Brauchitsch became the scapegoat both for the failure of‘Barbarossa’ and the present winter crisis. Next came Generalfeldmarschall von Bock, who, in predicting disaster unless his Army Group was allowed to retreat, received a much earned ‘rest’ on 20 December. Generaloberst Guderian, evading orders to ‘stand fast’, was relieved from active duty on 26 December. General Erich Hoepner, the aggressive commander of Panzergruppe 4, enraged Hitler in early January as he retreated westward to avoid encirclement. Stripped of command, rank and privileges, he was forbidden to wear uniform in retirement. Strauss, the commander of Ninth Army, was cashiered one week later, and von Leeb, the Commander of Army Group North, was relieved on 17 January. During the subsequent winter, over 30 generals, corps and division commanders and senior officers were removed from command. They were the leaders that had brought the
Ostheer
with dramatic success to the very gates of Moscow. Now they were gone. Hitler, in removing them, completed the physical and moral transformation the
Ostheer
had been undergoing since June 1941. The last vestiges of Weimar and General Staff influence were gone. The
Ostheer
and Wehrmacht became the military arm of a National Socialist Reich.

Cashiering so many senior commanders in the midst of the winter crisis had an inevitable impact upon the flow of operations. Hitler’s aim was indeed to minimise fluidity. His instinctive reaction, grounded on his veteran World War 1 experience, was that soldiers in a fast-moving crisis or retreat are more easily controlled when instructed to stand fast. An unequivocal ‘stand and fight’ order, whatever the seriousness of the situation, removed immediate uncertainties. Soldiers crave decision and clarity of intent at times of crisis. The German soldier sought clear direction and order.’ Panzer Leutnant F. Wilhelm Christians later explained:

‘Don’t ask me if we complained, or if we had a mind of our own. What remained for us to do? There was no freedom of action, or indeed even the idea of it! Nobody debated whether he would participate! Such issues were never raised. We were given a mission and we took orders seriously.’

This resolve was not simply a mindless adherence to duty. ‘A feeling of comradeship sustained us also,’ said Christians, ‘right up until entry to a Soviet concentration camp.’
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Soldiers did what was required to live.

The next impact of the turmoil created by the extensive command changes was to stultify initiative at the front. The
Ostheer
was asked to perform the unthinkable, and elements would need to be sacrificed to achieve it. Hitler did not want his commanders to think; they were required to obey. As a result, strategic and operational control went to the supreme commander, virtually by default. An important source of advice and professional assessment was silenced in the process. The very command philosophy of the German Army,
Auftragstaktik,
designed to confer maximum initiative in accomplishing assigned tasks, was compromised. In one of those bizarre parodies of warfare, centralisation was imposed on the German military machine at the very time its opponents began to realise the virtues of decentralised control. The Wehrmacht had already demonstrated that the war-winning edge conferred by Blitzkrieg was dependent upon it.

The first phase of the Soviet counter-offensive clearly drove the Germans back from Moscow but did not destroy the bulk of the Panzer forces. Zhukov’s original concept had been to gain space in front of Moscow, but the near-total collapse of the Army Group Centre front exceeded even the most sanguine Soviet expectations. As the three main German infantry armies were locked in combat, the beginnings of a possible double envelopment began to form. This encapsulated the area of Rzhev and Ninth Army in the north and a developing split between Fourth and Second Panzer Army creeping towards Vyazma in the south. Having planned and configured for a shallow set-piece battle, the Russians were unable to sustain wide-ranging penetrations without further supplies, replacements and fresh units. Momentum petered out as the distance between the advancing armies and their supply bases widened. Hitler coincidentally decided at the same moment that Army Group Centre should stand its ground and fight. A crucible of experience resulted from this decision for which a special German Winter Medal entitled
In Osten 1941–42’
was struck. German soldiers, with typical black humour, immediately labelled it The Order of the Frozen Flesh’.

Feldwebel Gottfried Becker, holding on the Lama river line with Infantry Regiment 9, was driven from his bunker by artillery fire on Boxing Day. Shelter was crucial for Becker and his men, but they had no idea of the overall situation as they fell back to a village. There was no way of knowing which houses were enemy held, and which by German troops. It was not until his rifle slipped involuntarily from his grasp that Becker realised, in a moment of heart-stopping panic, that he had left his gloves behind in the bunker. All feeling had gone from his hands and he could not even hold his weapon. Frostbite had already reached the tissue-damaging stage. Becker had no option but to follow scores of walking wounded and struggle back through 20km of deep snow to seek treatment in the rear. He trudged through the snow accompanied by another lightly wounded soldier, towing on a sledge a more serious casualty shot through both knees. The man’s knees had swollen to the size of ‘two children’s heads’ but he displayed ‘immense stoicism’, Becker said. ‘He did not complain once despite being tipped several times into deep snow.’ Morale in the rear was low. There was a reluctance to accept the sledge-borne casualty at the division aid post, but Becker did at least manage to purloin some food and drink. He decided to continue on foot alone to seek treatment for his badly frozen hands.

After walking several kilometres Becker felt the need to urinate. This posed a dilemma because he was physically unable to unbutton his trousers because his hands were thickly bandaged. What could he do? Perform the action in his pants? If he did so, he realised with sinking heart that his trousers would freeze rock hard in the extreme temperatures and cold injuries would result. A vehicle appeared ahead which he urgently flagged to a halt. Inside was a lieutenant at the wheel, who looked at him enquiringly. ‘Could you help me undo my trousers?’ Becker asked, gesticulating with bandaged hands. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked the officer. On realising, he responded‘you poor bugger’ and got out of the vehicle and led Becker to the roadside, where he extracted his penis, enabling him to pass water. The officer acted as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and apologised for not offering a lift; he was required at the front. He wished him well and departed. Becker had been unlucky. One moment’s lack of concentration in the fighting around the bunker had within minutes cost considerable damage. He placed his hands wrapped in socks under his armpits and continued on his way.

The intense cold caught many inexperienced soldiers unprepared. An artillery radio operator from the 400th Artillery battalion, working alongside inadequately clothed soldiers from the ‘Grossdeutschland’ Regiment around Gorodok in temperatures of −40°C, related just how inhibiting the cold could be. He described a Soviet attack:

‘Next to me stood a grenadier. His hands were in his pockets and his rifle was leaned against the fence as he watched the approaching Ivans. I asked him why he didn’t shoot, and all he said was “No, you go ahead!” So I took off my headset, stood up, snatched up the rifle, took off my old mittens – they were little more than tatters anyway- adjusted the sight from 500m to 300m, poked the rifle through the fence and fired three shots. I doubt that I hit anything. Then it was all over for me; I was simply unable to insert another clip of ammunition; my hands were white and stiff. Now I was just as powerless in the face of the attacking Russians as my chum from the infantry. I felt what it was like to be unable to do anything when I knew that I should and must do something.’
⁽⁵⁾

Becker reached a clearing station for the wounded and was placed in a straw-covered railway goods wagon. This took him to Vyazma, a journey lasting two to three days. A remorseless itching had begun to irritate from beneath his bandages after the second day. Somebody helped him to remove his pullover to relieve the itching he felt all over his body. It was infested with lice. With some revulsion he realised what the irritation beneath his bandages portended. They were rationed and looked after at Vyazma, but the dressing was not replaced. A further train journey followed to Smolensk, lasting several more days.

By now, the badly wounded soldiers lying in the straw-covered goods wagons were in a distressed state. Becker had to walk to hospital on arrival at the city, where a doctor examined his hand. The right one had turned almost completely black. ‘We must take it off,’ was the doctor’s diagnosis. Becker declined, pleading, ‘it would heal some time,’ which drew a disinterested, ‘do as you wish’ from the much harassed doctor. Nobody bothered to delouse him and his injured hands were hurriedly rebound. Two days later a hospital train left for the West with Becker on board. It took 10 days to reach Warsaw. The Feldwebel had lost all feeling in his hands. Driven to distraction by the lice he pleaded to his doctor, ‘I can stand it no longer, please, please take away these bloody bandages.’ As the sister cut away the dressings he saw a sight that would remain with him the rest of his life: a triple layer of lice were crawling over ‘the suppurating flesh of his hands’. Becker, in tears, had his hands disinfected and rebound. He was transported back to Germany where he spent four months recovering in a clinic. It took nine weeks before he was able to hold a spoon. Recovery came, but slowly.
⁽⁶⁾

Becker’s comrades with the 23rd Division were ejected from the Lama position and had to retreat 50km to west of Rzhev. Panzer Hauptmann Schroeder with the 7th Panzer Division recalled operating alongside them once again with the whole front slipping’. They were described as ‘decimated but unbroken’. Feeling guilty with the realisation that the Panzers increased his chances of survival well beyond that of the hapless infantry, he said:

‘I tried to support the infantry with my pair of Panzers but there was nothing more I could do. These brave men ran about with threadbare summer coats, no gloves and defective boots. They simply could not hold open ground in these freezing temperatures. Nearly all of them were afflicted by various grades of frostbite.’
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During the latter part of December both sides sought to reinforce their battered forces. Hitler ordered the despatch of 17 fresh divisions to the Eastern Front from other parts of German-occupied Europe.
⁽⁸⁾
They would take considerable time to arrive. Meanwhile Stalin saw the opportunity to apply an even more ambitious counter-stroke, encouraged at the success of the initial phase of the offensive. Phase two opened during the first two weeks of January and included another attempt to raise the siege of Leningrad, combined with an offensive by the south and southwest fronts. Amphibious landings were mounted by the Caucasus Front in the Crimea. In the Central sector the Kalinin, West and Bryansk Fronts attempted a double envelopment from Rzhev in the north and Sukhinichi from the south to close on the main Moscow highway at Vyazma. Hitler was obliged to order a withdrawal to a line approximating to the original
‘Taifun
’ start point the previous October. Many German units were surrounded during the withdrawal, but the move shortened the front, which freed units for counter-attacks able to seal the worst gaps torn in the front line. Another Soviet attack swept in from the north in a wide arc that sought to capture German-held Smolensk. Although the German strongpoint belt was penetrated in several areas, it soon became apparent the Soviet second stage objectives had been over-ambitious. The Russians had insufficient strength and resources to achieve a decisive victory as the drive was dispersed over too many objectives. German armies were not only spared decisive encirclement, they began to isolate over-extended Soviet thrusts which were mopped up later when reinforcements arrived. Second Shock Army under General A. A. Vlasov penetrated the rear of the German Eighteenth Army but became isolated in forest and marsh with its supply lines cut. Eventually its nine divisions and several brigades capitulated in June 1942. The Soviet Thirty-third Army with an integrated mobile cavalry group was cut off near Vyazma, as also the Twenty-ninth Army near Rzhev. This strategic spread of forces, weak in artillery and short of ammunition, enabled the ragged but still lethal forces remaining with Army Group Centre to bite back savagely. By the end of February, Stalin’s great offensive had run its course. German armies, partly reinforced by fresh divisions, re-established a continuous front in the centre. The line, tortuous in shape, reflected the limits of Russian offensive and opposing German defensive endurance.