WWII History 2014 Blitzkrieg on the Russian Front

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on the BLITZKRIEG

Russian Front

OPERATION BARBAROSSA:

Hitler’s Invasion of Russia

Panzers at the Gates of

Moscow Assault on Leningrad EINSATZGRUPPEN:

Nazi Death Squads STALINGRAD:

Red Army Resurgent

Easter Front n

Book One

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CONTENTS

118 0 4 | EDITORIAL

6 0 | STURGEON CATCH 1942

BY MIKE HASKEW

BY LUDWIG HEINRICH DYCK

The Great Patriotic War cost the Soviet Union 20 million lives in the fight against the Nazis.

The German assault on Sevastopol proved to be a costly operation, and the Crimean port emerged from the war a symbol of Soviet resistance.

06 | RUSSIAN ORDNANCE: T-34 BY BLAINE TAYLOR

The Red Army’s battle tank helped upset Hitler’s designs for conquest on the Eastern Front.

10 | GERMAN ORDNANCE: PORSCHE’S ELEFANT BY JONATHAN F. KEILER

Porsche’s Ferdinand tank destroyer appeared on the battlefield in the spring of 1943.

1 4 | ARMORED STRIKE NORTH BY PAT M C TAGGART

Panzer Group 4 of German Army Group North dashed for Leningrad during the opening weeks of Operation Barbarossa.

28 | HOLDING THE LINE AT SMOLENSK BY VICTOR KAMENIR

In the summer of 1941, the Soviet Red Army attempted to slow the juggernaut of Nazi Operation Barbarossa.

4 0 | ROTTWEILERS OF THE THIRD REICH BY ROY MORRIS JR.

The Einsatzgruppen, or task forces, carried out a bloodcurdling policy of systematic murder in the rear of German-occupied Eastern Europe.

72 | THE SOVIET DUNKIRK VICTOR J. KAMENIR

Stalin’s Baltic Fleet attempted to escape from Tallinn during the bleak days of summer 1941.

82 | PANZERS AT THE GATES OF MOSCOW BY JONATHAN JORDAN

Red Army forces mounted a gallant stand against the Germans during Operation Typhoon.

92 | DISASTER AT DEMYANSK BY HENRIK LUNDE

Scandinavian volunteers took part in Germany’s 1942 summer offensive against the Soviets—and paid a heavy price at the Demyansk Pocket.

108 | DEBACLE AT LUBAN BY EDWARD PARAUBEK

A Red Army offensive to raise the siege of Leningrad resulted in disastrous defeat and staggering losses.

118 | SOVIET CIRCLE OF IRON BY PAT M C TAGGART

The execution of Marshal Georgi Zhukov’s master plan for Operation Uranus trapped the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad.

50 | DISASTROUS ALLIANCE BY TOM W. MURREY, JR.

German and Romanian forces at Stalingrad failed to stem the tide of the resurgent Soviet Red Army.

Cover: A German soldier carries mines to the front lines, somewhere in Russia. The photo originally appeared in Signal magazine.

Blitzkrieg on the Russian Front © 2014 by Sovereign Media Company, Inc., all rights reserved. Copyrights to stories and illustrations are the property of their creators. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner. Published by Sovereign Media, 6731 Whittier Ave, Suite A-100, McLean, VA 22101.

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E D I TO R I A L

The Great Patriotic War cost the Soviet Union 20 million lives in the fight against the Nazis. “CITIZENS OF THE SOVIET UNION,” blared the voice of Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to a stunned nation on June 22, 1941, “the Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have authorized me to make the following statement: “Today at 4 o’clock AM, without any claims having been presented to the Soviet Union, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders at many points and bombed from their airplanes our cities; Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunus and some others, killing and wounding over 200 persons. “There were also enemy air raids and artillery shelling from Rumanian and Finnish territory. This unheard of attack on our country is perfidy unparalleled in the history of civilized nations. The attack upon our country was perpetrated despite the fact that a treaty of non-aggression had been signed between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and that the Soviet government most faithfully abided by all provisions of this treaty…. “The government calls upon you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally still more closely around our glorious Bolshevist party, around our Soviet Government, around our great leader and comrade, Stalin. Ours is a righteous cause. The enemy shall be defeated. Victory will be ours.” It came to be known as the Great Patriotic War, and the mass graves of civilians and Red Army soldiers killed during the fouryear conflagration remain places of pilgrimage and reverence across Russia today. The great statue of Mother Russia crowns Mamayev Kurgan on the Stalingrad battlefield and defines for the world the extent of the horror and sacrifice of an embattled people. Soviet citizens did indeed rally behind their armed forces and their leaders in repulsing the Nazis, but could many of the 20 million lives lost been spared had Josef Stalin been a different kind of leader? By the time the German juggernaut rolled across the Russian frontier on June 22, 1941, Stalin had already weakened the command structure of the Red Army. His acute paranoia had cost many of the high-ranking officers in the Soviet armed forces their

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lives during his purges of the 1930s. Political opponents, real or imagined, were condemned and executed. In August 1939, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop flew to Moscow and signed an infamous nonaggression pact with the Soviets that supposedly guaranteed peace between the countries and partitioned Poland. The result was borrowed time for the Nazis and a false sense of security for the Russians. Stalin supplied Germany with materials vital to a growing war machine and allowed the Germans to train on Soviet soil. All this occurred nearly two decades after Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf, in which he outlined his plan for conquest in the East in the name of lebensraum, or living space, for the German people. Stalin discounted these ominous signs, but as Nazi forces were marshaled for the start of Operation Barbarossa, he chose to ignore a series of even more frightening events that could have warned of impending disaster. On June 18, a message was received in the Kremlin providing great detail about an upcoming Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The report, forwarded from Switzerland by Soviet agent Alexander Foote, even supplied the date and approximate time of the invasion. That same day, a defecting German soldier begged for his life after striking a superior officer. He reportedly begged for leniency because Germany and the USSR would soon be at war. In March 1941, the Americans supplied the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., with details of Operation Barbarossa. A month later, the British government provided similar information. Perhaps the most convincing message to be ignored came from Soviet spy Richard Sorge, who had been operating in Tokyo for some time. He reported in May that the Germans would strike with 150 divisions on June 20. Shortly afterward, Sorge followed up with a revised date for Operation Barbarossa: June 22. The reasons for Stalin’s failure to act on these warnings remain a subject of debate to this day. One inescapable conclusion, however, can be drawn. The initial result was catastrophic for the Soviet Union, and hundreds of thousands died—perhaps needlessly. • Michael E. Haskew

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RUSSIAN

O R D N A N C E B L A I N E TAY L O R

The Red Army’s T-34 battle tank helped upset Hitler’s designs for conquest on the Eastern Front.

tories to the battlefields of Eastern Europe. In addition, the Germans had an obsession with more and more unique models, while the Soviets relied mainly on the T34. Thus, if one of their mobile units broke down, the Nazis might have difficulty in finding spare parts, while the IN 1942, CAREWORN NAZI FÜHRER ADOLF HITLER LAMENTED TO tankers of the Red Army could literally his military intimates at his Wolf’s Lair headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prus- scour any battlefield and find parts for sia, “If I had known that there were so many of them, I would have had second their damaged T-34s. In the end, this was thoughts about invading!” a clear advantage over their “more mechThe “them” he was referring to were the famed Soviet Red Army T-34 battle tanks anized” foes. that had come as such a nasty surprise to the Nazis in the summer of 1941 and then In Speer’s 1970 memoirs, Inside the went on to become a major reason for the panzers being halted at the gates of Third Reich, there appears this interestMoscow. ing passage: “Very often, directly after Drs. Matthew Hughes and Chris Mann in their 2002 work The T-34 Russian one of these conferences, Hitler would Battle Tank note, “The presence of the T-34/76 in 1941 proved to be a rude shock lecture his military advisers on the techfor the Germans. Compared to other Soviet tanks, the T-34 was able nical knowledge he had just Red Army solto take on and destroy the best of the German panzers. In various modacquired. He loved to present diers ride into ifications, and despite some setbacks, the T-34 held its own until the such pieces of information battle atop the war’s end in the ruins of Berlin in 1945.” with a casual air, as if the sturdy T-34 There were also the shocking production numbers to consider. Hitler knowledge were his own. tanks that turned the tide lamented his decision to invade the vast Soviet Union, but it was too “When the Russian T-34 of battle late to reverse his course. During 1939-1945, the Third Reich had proappeared, Hitler was triagainst the duced 19,938 tanks. Even with the best of Minister of Armaments and umphant, for he could then Nazis on the Eastern Front. War Production Albert Speer’s most streamlined methods, the Soviets point out that he had earlier More than still outnumbered them, with 53,552 T-34 tanks alone sent from facdemanded the kind of long-

Russian War Museum, Moscow

50,000 T-34s rolled off Soviet assembly lines during World War II.

6

RUSSIAN FRONT

barreled gun it had. Even before my appointment as Minister of Armaments, I had heard Hitler in the Chancellery garden, after a demonstration of the Panzer IV, inveighing against the obstinacy of the Army Ordnance Office which had turned down his idea for increasing the velocity of the missile by lengthening the barrel. “The Ordnance Office at the time presented counterarguments: The long barrel would overload the tank in front, since it was not built with such a gun in view. If so major a change were introduced, the whole design would be thrown out of balance. “Hitler would always bring up this incident whenever his ideas encountered opposition. ‘I was right at the time, and no one wanted to believe me. Now I am right again!’ When the Army felt the need for a tank which could outmaneuver the comparatively fast T-34 by greater speed, Hitler insisted that more would be gained by increasing the range of the guns and the weight of the armor. In this field, too, he had mastered the necessary figures by heart.” In July 1941, the Germans first encountered the T-34 and discovered to their horror that its gun could knock out their own armored fighting vehicles at TOP: Workers make final adjustments to the turret and chassis of a longer ranges than their own guns could new T-34 medium tank. Many of these stalwart fighting vehicles effectively reply. The T-34 combined were driven straight from the factory into combat. ABOVE: A punch with mobility in a single superb detachment of Red Army Guards snaps to attention as a group of vispackage. Note Hughes and Mann, “The iting Americans passes. A T-34 tank squats with the Soviets on a parade ground after the end of hostilities. T-34 had firepower, armor protection and mobility far superior to other tanks then in service. In particular, its broad tracks and low ground- by the armament standards of the day, and its radical new slopbearing pressure meant it could keep going on soft ground ing armor gave it unusual protection. Its superior diesel engine where German tanks often became bogged down—crucial for and Christie suspension system provided superb cross-counwarfare on the Eastern Front…. try performance as well. Later, an 85mm gun and even heav“The T-34 was something special. Widely regarded as the most ier armor were added to the same basic chassis, which was in influential tank design of World War II, it was probably the best itself a remarkable engineering feat. also.… Tank design has always been a complex compromise “Indeed, the T-34/85 makes the strongest claim of any of between firepower, protection and mobility. Most tanks have the T-34 family for the title of best all-around tank of any had to sacrifice one or more of these factors in favor of the other, stage of the war,” wrote Hughes and Mann. “The design yet in the T-34 the Soviet designers achieved a perfect balance— has also proved to be remarkably durable. It remained the no compromises had been made.” Soviet main battle tank until the mid-1950s, and the BosnThe 76.2mm gun on the T-34 had a real hitting power to it ian Serbs were still using T-34/85s during the fighting in the RUSSIAN FRONT

Both: National Archives

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National Archives

former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Such longevity in a modern major weapon is unprecedented.” The T-34 was, quite literally, the main weapon of war that blunted the formerly invincible Nazi war strategy. Professor John Erickson, author of The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin, stated, “For the Russians, the T-34 was certainly a war-winning weapon. It was superb on the battlefield … but it represents so much more. It represents the fact they won a stupendous victory over fascism. “The fact that it was there in so many thousands and thousands … is a tribute to the diligence, to the devotion, to the patriotism, to the self-sacrifice not only of the soldiers, but of the population as a whole. It represents … a triumph in enormous adversity, the kind of adversity that we have never even imagined.” Designed and prototyped during 1939-1940 as Nazi Germany’s panzers were overrunning the plains of Poland and then northwestern Europe, about 1,200 T-34s were ready for use on June 22, 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The majority of these early T-34s were manufactured at “Tankograd,” the popular name for Chelyabinsk, east of the Ural Mountains in Soviet Asia, where two factories from Leningrad and Kharkov had been evacuated to begin work anew. Production of the T-34 continued after World War II. The construction of the tank was a relatively simple process, and it had proven itself during wartime to be an effective combination of numerous design features. The SU-85 and SU-100

8

assault guns were later variants of the original T-34 design. The tank had a V-2-34 V-12 cylinder, liquid-cooled diesel engine at the rear of the vehicle with a capacity of 38,880 cubic centimeters. Its maximum output was 500 hp at 1,800 rpm. It had a dry multiplate clutch and 5F1R gearbox with front-sprocket drive and clutch-and-brake steering. The tank had mechanical brakes and a track width of 500mm, a wheel size of 825mm, 12/24 volt/electrics, plus a 450- (later 650-) liter fuel capacity. Its armor was 65 to 100mm thick, and it sat a crew of four. The initial design had the 76.2mm main gun, and from late 1943 (following the Battle of Kursk that the Red Army won over the Germans in the greatest tank encounter to date) the T-34/85 packed the heavier 85mm gun in the main turret. The overall length of the T-34 was 5,920mm excluding the gun barrel. The width was 2,950mm, the height was 2,600mm, and the weight was 26,500 kilograms. As noted by Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel’s deputy in the German Armed Forces High Command structure, Hitler was quick to respond to the challenge that the T-34 presented to the Reich’s outdated panzer arm. “He created the Ministry for Weapons and Munitions under [Fritz] Todt [later Speer], leaving only the building of airplanes and ships with the Air Force and the Navy. “From then on Hitler determined the monthly quota as well as the direction and scope of all production down to the last detail. … Hitler’s astounding technical and tactical vision led him also to become the creator of modern weaponry for the Army. It was due to BELOW: Arguably the finest all-around battle tank of World War II, the him personally that the 75mm anti-tank Soviet T-34 mounted a 76.2mm main gun and reached the Eastern gun replaced the 37mm and 50mm guns Front in large numbers. OPPOSITE: An advancing T-34 tank stirs up a cloud of summertime dust as Red Army soldiers crouch behind it. The in time, and that the short guns mounted Soviet armed forces mounted a devastating offensive in 1944, which on the tanks were replaced with the long carried them to the gates of Berlin. 75mm and 88mm guns. The Panther, the Tiger and the King Tiger (Tiger II) were developed as modern tanks at Hitler’s own initiative.” Thus, the Red Army’s overwhelming success with the T-34 dramatically influenced the armored design of its major opponents on the battlefield for the rest of the war. This development, moreover, was also felt by the Western Allies in northwestern Europe during 19441945, when the new German panzers fought there. Initially, the Soviet Union had been behind both the West and the Reich in the development of armor, but this changed as Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and his Red Army High Command

RUSSIAN FRONT

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(later Stavka) evaluated the lessons learned from fighting the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 and the Finns in the disastrous Russo-Finnish War of 1939-1940. By 1941, they had caught and surpassed both the Germans and their future Allies with the magnificent T-34. Hitler’s improvements preceded the Battle of Kursk, which the Nazis were determined to win, especially after their catastrophic loss at Stalingrad earlier in 1943. In his 1970 memoir, Khrushchev Remembers, former Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev wrote of Kursk, “The enemy, too, was confident of victory. Later I saw an order we captured from a demolished German armored unit. It contained a message addressed to the German troops which went something like this: ‘You are now waging an offensive with tanks far superior to the Russian T-34s. Until now the T-34 has been the best tank in the world, better even than our own, but now you have our new Tiger tanks. There is no equal to them. With such a weapon you warriors of the German Army cannot fail to crush the enemy.’ Their new tanks were very menacing indeed, but our troops learned quickly how to deal with them. At Kursk, we won a battle which tipped the balance of the war in our favor.… It was decisive in determining the defeat of Hitlerite Germany.…” The T-34 had played the major role once again. Early T-34s enjoyed a high level of craftsmanship in their manufacture. The T-34’s design bureau head was Mikhail Koshkin, and his deputy was Alexsandr Morozov, who was in charge of building the power train. The suspension team was led by Nikolai Kucherenko and P. Vashiev, while the armor layout of the new tank was the responsibility of M. Tarshinov. The first wooden model of the prototype, designated the A-20, was presented to the Defense Council of the Soviet of People’s Commissars in Moscow in May 1938. The initial A-20 design led to its successor, the A-32, which was an up-armored version, which led in turn to the T-34. The final tank’s secondary armament was a 7.62mm co-axial Degtaryev DT machine gun in the hull, fired by a gunner who sat next to the driver.

Like the American Sherman tank, the T-34’s engine was mounted in the rear of the vehicle, and was flanked by cooling radiators on each side. The T-34’s road speed was an impressive 34 mph, and its cross-country speed was between 10-15.62 mph depending on the grade and roughness of the ground being covered. The tank’s operational range was 290 miles, and the use of diesel fuel reduced the risk of fire. With its transmission located in the tank’s rear, the crew compartment was more spacious, since the drive train did not pass through it. The primary gun’s 76.2mm ammunition was stored on the walls of the T-34, while more rounds were also found in bins sunk into the hull flooring, as well as in ammo racks on the sides of the turret. The rear of the turret also contained the drums for the vehicle’s secondary armament of the vehicle, the DT 7.62mm machine gun. The vast numbers of T-34s produced went to the front with the crews that would use them via the network of railroad lines that also helped Mother Russia win the war. Thus, the Red Army was able to concentrate huge numbers of tanks at battles like Stalingrad to turn the tide in their favor. In combat, in addition to fighting Nazi armor one-on-one, the T-34s also served as infantry armored personnel carriers, since the Red Army had no real APCs as such on the front lines. The tanks left the factory with a dark green-painted finish and were later camouflaged, in some cases with a smattering of white paint. Communist Party political officers (the commissars that Hitler had ordered shot on sight when captured) encouraged their men to paint patriotic slogans on the sides of the T-34s. The T-34 was also shipped by rail across the Soviet Union via the Trans-Siberian Railway to smash the Japanese Kwantung Army in Mongolia in the late summer of 1945. Afterward, the tanks would fight the Americans in Korea during 1950-1953. They were also used by the Arab nations against the Israeli Defense Forces during the Six-Day War in June 1967 and again in the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

•

RUSSIAN FRONT

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GERMAN

O R D N A N C E J O N A T H A N F. K E I L E R

National Archives

Porsche’s Ferdinand tank destroyer appeared on the battlefield in the spring of 1943.

panzer units confronted superior Soviet T-34 medium tanks and KV-1 heavy tanks. By April 1942, both the Henschel and Porsche heavy tank prototypes were ready for trials, with initial production planned for July. Evidently the Henschel design proved superior to Porsche’s and WORLD WAR II TANKS USUALLY HAD AGGRESSIVE- OR FEROCIOUS- was selected for production. This tank sounding names, such as Hellcat, Panther, or Tiger. Yet the tendency was not uni- became the excellent Tiger I, 1,354 of versal, as with British Cruisers or the American M-3 Honey. But perhaps there was which were built by the end of the war. never a more unfortunately named beast than the German assault gun Sd Kfz 184, But Dr. Porsche did not wait for the comfirst known as the Ferdinand and later modified, as if it was an improvement, to pletion of the trials before beginning prothe Elefant. duction of his own heavy tank, with the The weird and less than martial names assigned this 68-ton fighting vehicle were result that 91 Porsche hulls had been oddly fitting. Technically a member of the formidable Tiger family, the Ferdinand’s completed by the time Henschel was history is rather strange. To know the Ferdinand, one has to begin with the his- awarded the contract. tory of its better-known cousin, the Tiger, Germany’s first successful World War In Nazi Germany, private defense conII heavy tank. tractors flourished, provided they proGermany entered World War II without a true heavy tank, relying on a mixture of duced a decent product and had the right light and medium vehicles and the superb and revolutionary military doctrine of the political connections. This was true in blitzkrieg. Nonetheless, German interest in a heavy “breakthrough tank” predated the democracies as well, but under the the invasion of Poland, and as early as 1937 the Reich authorized the Henschel Com- Nazis a convoluted web of ideological pany to begin work on a prototype. This project does not seem to have intrigue and corruption furGerman panzbeen a high priority; the success of the panzer divisions obviated the need ther muddled the process. ergrenadiers to do more than buy additional Mark III and Mark IV medium tanks. Ultimately, gaining favor move past an By May 1941, however, a design order had been issued to Henschel for with the top contracting offiidled Ferdinand the heavy tank designated VK4501 (H) and another to Porsche, VK4501 cial, Hitler, trumped all else. self-propelled assault gun on (P). Any German complacency was banished dramatically when, during Hitler took a personal intera roadside near Operation Barbarrosa, the invasion of Russia in June 1941, Hitler’s elite est in the development and the Italian town trials of the Tiger, as well as of Nettuno in March 1944. many other weapons. Did Dr. Porsche think the heavy tank contract was his, based on his favored relationship with Hitler? Or was Porsche instructed to start production of the Tiger as a hedge against an unsuccessful debut by the Henschel model? Some sources presume the latter, despite the wasteful logic of producing a castoff design, both from the manufacturer’s and the regime’s standpoint. Porsche’s turning out Tiger hulls well after Henschel won the contract and had entered full production seems unlikely. Rather, Porsche plausibly gambled that his complex but innovative design, coupled with good connections, would secure the contract. When the gamble failed, Porsche and the Reich were left

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with 91 heavy-tank hulls and no contract to fill. Hitler decided to make use of the rejected tank hulls by converting them into assault guns. But this was not the simple solution it appeared to be. Nazi assault guns had their own peculiar politics. Germany pioneered the assault gun as a weapon type and was its chief exponent during the war. Originally assault guns, such as the ubiquitous Stug III, were intended to support the infantry detachments of panzer divisions. The Stug was a Mark III tank with its turret removed, enabling it to accept a larger 75mm gun, more powerful than the The hulking profile of the Ferdinand, nicknamed the Elefant by Ger37mm or 50mm guns in the turreted man troops, reveals a massive 68-ton gun platform, heavier than tank. This insight, that a turretless vehithe Tiger tank. cle could carry a much larger gun, allowed the Germans to keep otherwise obsolescent designs, such as panzer Marks I through IV, in armor, the Ferdinand topped the scales at a massive 68 tons, action throughout the war. which was 11 tons heavier than the Tiger I. Moving the All manner of armaments and designs were utilized to build machine required mounting a pair of Maybach HL 120 engines the vehicles, including captured weaponry such as the Russian in the central hull. These replaced original Porsche air-cooled 76.2mm guns used on the successful Marder assault vehicles. engines that, while innovative, proved unreliable in the Tiger As the war progressed, the role of the assault gun changed from trials. infantry support to mobile tank destroyer. Throughout the war Despite the tandem engines, the Ferdinand was still ponderthe terms were used interchangeably, which is not to say that ous and had an inferior power-to-weight ratio than either the every assault gun was an effective tank destroyer, or vice versa. Tiger I or the later and heavier Tiger II. The Ferdinand required The Henschel Tiger (Tiger I) entered service in the autumn a crew of six, one more than usual in a German tank, and the of 1942, armed with the powerful 88mm L/56 gun, and even- vehicle lacked any mounted secondary armament, such as a tually earned a formidable reputation as one of the war’s great bow machine gun. tanks. But Hitler still sought a vehicle that could carry the The Ferdinand’s designers, with Hitler’s apparent blessing, longer and more powerful 88mm L/71. The bigger gun did not intended the assault gun to serve as a heavy-tank destroyer fit into the Tiger I’s turret. A solution availed itself in the capable of using its gun to hit Soviet tanks at safe ranges, and Porsche hulls, which could be converted to build a turretless well-armored enough to absorb the heaviest counterfire. Its tank destroyer to accommodate the bigger gun. The result was great weight limited its mobility and thus restricted its effective the Ferdinand, named in honor of Dr. Ferdinand Porsche. use to tactical defense, but the operational and political Orders were placed in September 1942, and 90 Ferdinands demands of the German 1943 summer offensive, Citadel, were completed by May 1943, in time for the German summer would demand an additional role. offensive in the East. Operation Citadel, on the Eastern Front, was conceived amid The Ferdinand was a powerful and technically impressive ambivalence and controversy within the German High Comweapon. Atop the rear half of its hull sat a high, fully enclosed mand. Hitler, for once, was unenthusiastic, reeling under the armored superstructure containing the big 88mm gun. Like all triple blows of Stalingrad, defeat in North Africa, and the German assault guns, the forward-facing weapon had only a increasingly deadly Allied bomber offensive. Citadel was not limited traverse. to be a grand strategic throw of the dice, but rather an operaOverall, the Ferdinand looked like a modern self-propelled tion in which the Germans planned to “pinch off” a huge Russgun, but was more heavily armored. Designers bolted an addi- ian salient centered on the city of Kursk. Some German comtional 100mm of armor to the hull, giving the Ferdinand twice manders wanted to launch the attack in May, but the army the frontal armor of the Tiger I. With the larger gun and extra was exhausted, and Hitler and elements within the High ComRUSSIAN FRONT

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mand favored an offensive only after units could be increased in strength and reinforced with new weapons, among them the Ferdinand. Marshaling and organizing the German tank arm was the responsibility of General Heinz Guderian, in many ways the father of the panzer forces. Guderian had fallen from Hitler’s grace in 1941, but by 1943 the Führer needed Guderian and reinstated the strong-willed general. Guderian faced the difficult task of gathering sufficient German armor to launch a successful summer offensive. He wanted authority over both tanks and assault guns, the latter now making up about a third of German tank production. But assault guns were technically the province of the artillery, and the artillerists were loath to surrender authority over these prized weapons, the only means, they claimed, by which an artillery officer might win the Knight’s Cross. The parties struck a compromise, placing only the heavy assault guns under Guderian. This meant that the Ferdinand, the heaviest assault gun, was a “tank” again. While the Germans assembled their armies, the Soviets developed their defenses around Kursk in depth. Multiple defensive lines featured thick belts of trenches, minefields, and antitank gun batteries, plus local, operational, and strategic armored reserves. A great mass of mortars and heavy artillery supported the defenses at every level. The Soviet positions were designed to defeat the classic German blitzkrieg by first savaging the German “breakthrough” infantry divisions then wearing down the follow-on panzer divisions. Ultimately, mobile reserves would exploit the depleted German attackers. The southern arm of the German pincer, Fourth Panzer Army and Detachment Kempf, contained the cream of the German Army. Both forces fell under the command of Army Group South, led by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein. Fourth Panzer Army was particularly strong. Its strike force included units of the SS Panzer Corps, consisting of three SS panzer divisions, and the Army’s elite Grossdeutschland panzer division. These troops were equipped with most of Germany’s operational Tiger Is (about 120 vehicles) and all of the new but unproven Panther tanks (about 300). In addition to these, the Fourth Army panzer units had large numbers of older but upgraded Mark IV tanks. Manstein planned to take advantage of his troops and equipment by throwing the panzer divisions directly at the tough Russian lines, counting on their mobility, determination, and firepower to force a breakthrough—using his infantry to “mop up” rather than lead the attack. The northern pincer fell under the command of Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, Manstein’s rival. Kluge’s strike force, Ninth Army, commanded by General Walther Model, consisted of ordinary divisions and contained more infantry and less armor than Fourth Panzer Army and Detachment Kempf. Unlike the SS divisions and Grossdeutschland, Model’s panzer units were almost uniformly understrength. They lacked modern equipment and first-rate troops. Most panzer regiments 12

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contained a mix of Mark IV tanks and obsolete Mark III tanks. The divisions lacked half-tracked personnel carriers and mobile artillery. To make up for this shortfall, about 30 Tigers and all available Ferdinands were assigned to Ninth Army. The infantry-heavy Ninth Army, unlike Fourth Panzer, would attack in classic blitzkrieg fashion, sending its infantry straight into the maw of the Soviet defenses. Model planned to use the Ferdinands and his few Tigers as assault guns, advancing with the infantry divisions into the Soviet defensive belts to pry them open for the panzer divisions in reserve. The offensive began on July 5, 1943, with heavy artillery bombardments by both sides. The Ferdinands, organized as Tank Destroyer Regiment 656, led the German attack on the northern front, advancing with engineers and infantry into the Soviet mine belts. These cheap but effective weapons destroyed many of the big assault guns. For the infantry, the conditions were similar to the Western Front during World War I, as dugin machine guns and artillery ripped into the gray-clad ranks. Without personnel carriers, the infantry fell behind the slow but heavily armored Ferdinands. Yet, as the Ferdinands and their crews advanced their difficulties increased. Some machines broke down crossing the scarred and rugged terrain; others, separated from the German infantry and without secondary weapons, became easy prey for Soviet infantry. Many were destroyed by placed magnetic shaped charges on their rear or sides. Without machine guns, the Ferdinands could hardly defend themselves or each other against the infantrymen. Guderian later remarked that the Ferdinands had gone “quail shooting with cannons.” And the guns, which had to carry the larger L/71 shell, quickly ran low on ammunition. The Ferdinands, however, were successful in places. Ferdinands of the 653rd Battalion, supporting the 292nd Infantry Division, quickly pushed several miles into the Soviet line, reaching their initial designated objective. The second Ferdinand battalion, the 654th, effectively supported the 78th Infantry Division in its attack, though this attack stalled inside the Soviet defensive system. Where Ferdinands encountered Soviet tanks, they destroyed them with aplomb. Their big guns were able to shred the lighter Soviet T-34 at long ranges, with slight fear of riposte. Some accounts credit the Ferdinands with the destruction of over 800 Soviet vehicles. Such claims are surely exaggerations, but both the Tigers Is and Ferdinands dominated Soviet tanks at all but the shortest ranges. When Hitler finally called off Operation Citadel on July 12, Model’s Ninth Army had advanced a mere 12 miles at its deepest penetration, barely a third of the way toward its objective at Kursk. In the south, Fourth Panzer Army’s tank-heavy assault had more success, but not enough to justify further bloodletting in the offensive. About half the Ferdinands were lost in the battle and during the subsequent retreat. The surviving Ferdinands were ordered back to Germany in the fall of 1943 for modifications and redeployment. The modifications involved adding

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a bow machine gun, a new commander’s cupola, regime itself, were direct causes of this aimless poling 88mm cannon of the and applying Zimmermit antimine paste on the icy. There was no reason but politics for Porsche to Ferdinand front and sides of the vehicles. produce 90 expensive tank hulls for a machine juts forward The giant Ferdinands had long been called Eledoomed to fail in trials. But then again, the essence from the turret of a vehifants by their crews and were now formally of the Nazi regime was its fickle and irrational cle painted in renamed after the pachyderm. In February 1944, favoritism and prejudices, which extended into all standard the refurbished and redesignated tank destroyer areas of endeavor. camouflage pattern. went to Italy and joined German forces attempting The effectiveness of the Ferdinand depended upon to repel the Allied attack at Anzio. its optimum deployment, and politics intruded to Although better armed and protected, the Elefants appear to ensure its ultimate failure in combat. The Ferdinand probably have had little success in the muddy and mountainous condi- would have had a successful and relatively long-lived career tions of Italy. They fought at Anzio and Nettuno without on the Eastern Front if it had simply been deployed as a longnotable success. Challenging terrain, mechanical difficulties, range tank destroyer. Instead, because Nazi politics dictated and mobility problems seem to have doomed most of the Ele- that SS troops would receive virtually all new German tank fants, much the way Hannibal’s elephants finally floundered production in 1943, and the artillery branch wanted its share after successfully crossing the Alps. Most Elefants were lost in of glory, the Ferdinand was foolishly deployed in the first rank combat or abandoned by their crews during the German of the assault on the Kursk salient. retreat. Little is reported about the fate of the surviving EleThe big machines alone could not reverse the calamity that fants. Tank Destroyer Regiment 656 itself was broken up and befell Model’s Ninth Army in the north. The transfer of the surits crews reassigned to other units. A few Ferdinands appar- viving Elefants to Italy again placed them in an inappropriate ently survived and were grouped in a single company that tactical setting, requiring the large, awkward vehicles to trareturned to the Eastern Front, where they fought in dwindling verse difficult roads and terrain in hopes of acquiring a dominumbers to the end of the war. nating position from which to finally shoot. It is reasonable to assume that if Nazi Germany had posYet, for one year the Ferdinand was the most powerful sessed a rational arms procurement policy, the Ferdinand mobile land weapon ever fielded. Armed with the world’s best would not have been built. Germany’s tank designs displayed tank gun and protected by the thickest armor, it held this disboth creativity and effectiveness, and no other major combat- tinction until the arrival of the Tiger II and related tank destroyant produced such a wide variety of vehicles. While the United ers in mid-1944. Despite its flaws, the Ferdinand was an States and the Soviet Union settled early on basic, proven, impressive weapon in a world where the immobile stalemated armored fighting vehicles (the Sherman and the T-34 respec- trenches were less than 20 years in the past. This was no mean tively, along with families of supporting tank destroyers), Nazi accomplishment and has ensured the Ferdinand its place in Germany produced an ultimately bewildering and industrially military history. wasteful variety of machines. The German leadership’s fascination with weapons and close Author Jonathan F. Keiler left his law practice some years ago involvement in procurement matters better left to experts, to teach high school in Bowie, Md. He is a veteran of the U.S. along with the Byzantine internal politics of the murderous Army and a first-time contributor to WWII History.

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ARMORED

STRIKE

In this stylized painting by a German war artist, panzergrenadiers ride atop a tank while others advance alongside the armored vehicle and aircraft roar overhead during the opening hours of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

NORTH Panzer Group 4 of German Army Group North dashed for Leningrad during the opening weeks of Operation Barbarossa. BY PAT MC TAGGART

ADOLF HITLER WAS OBSESSED WITH LENINGRAD. When planning his invasion of the Soviet Union, the Führer demanded that the capture of the city, which he regarded as the cradle of Bolshevism, be one of the top priorities of the campaign, giving it precedence over the capture of Moscow. Therefore, when the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht—the German Armed Forces High Command) issued Directive No. 21, also known as Operation Barbarossa, it included instructions for Army Group North to attack out of East Prussia, destroy Soviet forces in the Baltic area, and then drive forward to capture Leningrad. To accomplish that mission, Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, the army group commander, had two infantry armies, the 16th and 18th, and Panzer Group 4, which would be his mailed fist. The approximately 700 kilometer thrust to the city would take von Leeb’s army group through country that was dotted with marshes and forests and was crisscrossed with streams and rivers. One of the first objectives for von Leeb was the Daugava 14

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River (also known as the Dvina), which rises in the Valdai Hills in Belarus and flows 1,020 kilometers to the Gulf of Riga. Securing crossings on the river was vital for von Leeb, especially because they also sat on some of the few good roads in the area. General Erich Hoepner’s Panzer Group 4 was given the task

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of taking the bridges spanning the river intact. This would involve a mad dash across Lithuania to the Latvian cities of Daugavpils (Dvinsk to the Russians and Dünaburg to the Germans) and Jekabpils. The Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia had been “liberated” and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940.

Hoepner’s forces consisted of two motorized corps—the XLI, commanded by General George-Hans Reinhardt, and the LVI, under General Erich von Manstein. Reinhardt was to take the Jekabpils crossing, while von Manstein was to take the Daugavpils bridges. On Panzer Group 4’s right flank, General Ernst Busch’s 16th Army would move on Kaunus. General Georg RUSSIAN FRONT

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von Küchler’s 18th Army, positioned on the left flank, would push toward Riga. Facing von Leeb were the forces of Lt. Gen. Fedor Isadorovich Kuznetsov’s Baltic Special Military District, which would become the Northwest Front the day the war started. Maj. Gen. Petr Petrovich Sobennikov’s 8th Army, five infantry, two tank and one mechanized division plus two frontier regiments, was anchored on the Baltic coastline. On his left was Lt. Gen. Vasili Ivanovich Morozov’s 11th Army, eight rifle, two tank, and one mechanized division plus three frontier regiments. They were backed up by Maj. Gen. Nikolai Erastovich Berzanin’s 27th Army of six rifle divisions. The Soviet High Command (Stavka) knew that a German attack was imminent from German defectors crossing the line. Stalin, however, remained unconvinced, but he did allow his front line commanders to be issued a warning of a possible surprise attack. The warning was worded in a way that caused most commanders more consternation rather than giving them direction. For example, “The assignment of our forces—not to give way to provocations of any kind which might lead to major complications.” They were also told them to man forward positions but “no other measures are to be taken without special authorization.” Upon receiving the rather innocuous warning early on June 22, 1941, Kuznetsov ordered his men to “secretly man the defenses of the basic zones.” In the forward areas, sentries were moved to guard pillboxes, but units assigned to occupy the forward zones were to be held back. He added, “In the case of provocative action by the Germans, fire is not to be opened. In the event of flights by German aircraft over our territory, make no demonstration, and until such time as enemy aircraft undertake military operations, no fire is to be opened on them.” The order, no doubt, must have caused many commanders to wonder what the difference was between provocation and military operations. At any rate, only a few of the frontline commanders had received the order by 0300 hours, and by that time it was too late. Across the border, the western sky suddenly lit up. The brilliant flashes were swiftly followed by the howl of shells overhead. Seconds later, massive explosions rocked pretargeted positions along the Russian lines. Operation Barbarossa and the race to Leningrad had begun. Both von Manstein and Reinhardt knew speed was essential in reaching the Daugava. Because of the poor road system, both generals would have to rely on armored spearheads smashing through the Soviet line while disregarding their flanks, but before the mechanized units could move the infantry would have to take the forward enemy positions along the Neman River, which ran along the border between East Prussia and Lithuania. 16

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There was little resistance as assault troops rolled over the surprised Soviets. Crossings on the Neman were secured, giving von Manstein and Reinhardt the openings they needed to begin their dash to the Daugava. By 6 AM, von Manstein reported that Brig. Gen. Erich Brandenberger’s 8th Panzer Division had taken Jurbarkas and Maj. Gen. Theodore Freiherr von Wrede’s 290th Infantry Division was advancing through the village of Mitua, 12 kilometers northwest of Brandenberger’s unit. In Reinhardt’s sector, the 6th Panzer Division, commanded by Brig. Gen. Franz Landgraf, was already four kilometers south of Taurage, and Maj. Gen. Friedrich Kirchner’s 1st Panzer Division was directly west of the city. The initial German bombardment and aerial attacks had made a shambles of the Soviet communications network. Morozov’s 11th Army had received no orders at all as Hoepner’s panzers continued to push deeper into Russian territory. Colonel Fedor Petrovich Ozerov, commanding the 5th Rifle Division in Maj. Gen. Mikhail Mikhailovich Ivanov’s 16th Rifle Corps, watched as German forces overran his forward positions. Radioing corps headquarters, he was told, “We advise you not to engage in combat operations. Otherwise you will answer for the consequences.” By midafternoon, Brandenberger’s 8th Motorcycle Battalion, under Lt. Col. Rudolf Kütt, had created a bridgehead across the Dubysa River at Seredžius, and by early evening a combat group under Lt. Col. Wilhelm Crisolli had secured vital crossings at Ariogala. Without those crossings, the advance to Daugavpils could not have continued. Elements of the 8th Panzer were thus able to continue their advance reinforced by units of the 290th, which was, in von Manstein’s words, “marching at record speed.” Ozerov managed to pull back most of his division behind the Dubysa and had taken up positions near Zasinai, about two kilometers northeast of Arigola. Advance elements of the 8th Panzer moved into the area and were met with antitank fire and harassing attacks from light Soviet tanks. The first day’s action ended for the 8th Panzer at 11 PM when the Germans pulled out of range. Meanwhile, the 290th kept filtering units across the Dubysa, and Maj. Gen. Kurt Jahn’s 3rd Motorized Division was coming up fast. To the southeast, Brig. Gen. Theodor Eicke’s 3rd SS Totenkopf (Death’s Head) Division was also coming up to join the fight. In Reinhardt’s sector the going was slower. Launching his attack from the Tilsit area in East Prussia, his four divisions hit a single Russian division, which fought a desperate delaying action at the frontier. The Russians eventually crumbled, opening the way to Taurage. Local counterattacks, however, made the initial advance of the Germans difficult. On the Soviet side, Kuznetsov was frantically trying to

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German PzKpfw. IV and PzKpfw. II tanks pause momentarily during their rapid advance into the Soviet Union during the opening days of Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. German pincers encircled hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops, and the initial successes were greater than even the most optimistic war planners had believed possible.

marshal his forces for a counterattack. During the evening of the 22nd, Stavka issued orders for both the 8th and 11th Armies to stop the German advance. As Reinhardt moved toward Raseiniai, about 55 kilometers northeast of Taurage, Sobennikov’s 12th Mechanized Corps (23rd and 28th Tank Divisions and 202nd Mechanized Division), commanded by Maj. Gen. Nikolai Mikhailovich Shestpalov, and Morozov’s 3rd Mechanized Corps (2nd and 5th Tank Divisions and 84th Mechanized Division), under Maj. Gen. Aleksei Vasilevich Kurkin, moved into the area to intercept and destroy the Germans. The Soviet forces seemed to be cursed from the start. To avoid Luftwaffe detection, Kuznetsov ordered the armored units to advance toward Raseiniai in small detachments. That did not stop the fighters and bombers of General Alfred Keller’s 1st Air Fleet from savaging the Russian units. Heavy air attacks hit the 12th Mechanized Corps southwest of Siauliai, about 100 kilometers northeast of Taurage. Colonel T.S. Orlenko, commander of the 23rd Tank Division, watched in horror as 40 of his vehicles were blown apart by low-flying bombers. Soviet fighters were nowhere to be seen. Other units suffered a similar fate, but the survivors kept moving on. As both German and Russian forces moved toward Raseiniai, the opening shots of a four-day battle rang out. The Germans were about to get the first of many nasty surprises of

the war in the east as they ran headlong into the surviving elements of the Soviet mechanized corps. Although the main tanks of the Soviet Army at the time were the T-26 and T-28, the Russians were also producing the heavier T-34s and the KV I and KV II. On June 23, Maj. Gen. Egor Nikolaevich Soliankin’s 2nd Tank Division, which had some KVs in its inventory, overran elements of the 6th Panzer Division near Skaudvile, about 20 kilometers west of Raseiniai. The Germans’ Czech-made Panzer 35s, equipped with 37mm guns, proved ineffective against the 45-ton monsters, as did German antitank guns. Soviet tanks roamed the battlefield at will, often crushing antitank guns under their treads when they ran out of ammunition. The Soviet behemoths were finally destroyed by first immobilizing them with concentrated fire at their treads. Once that occurred, teams of tank-killers moved in, blowing them up with explosive charges. Soliankin lost much of his armor and was killed in action on June 26. However, those tanks that remained continued to be a thorn in the 6th Panzer’s side. A single KV I cut the 6th Panzer’s supply route to its bridgeheads on the Dubysa. It held out against everything the Germans could throw at it for a day. Finally, an 88mm gun was moved into position while the KV was distracted by a panzer platoon. The 88 was able to destroy the Russian, opening the supply route and allowing other elements of the 6th to advance. RUSSIAN FRONT

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Major General Kirchner’s 1st Panzer was similarly surprised. “The KV I and KV II which we first met here were really something,” wrote a member of the division. “Our companies opened fire at about 800 yards, but it remained ineffective.…Very soon we were facing each other at about 50 to 100 meters.... The Russian tanks continued to advance, and all armorpiercing shells simply bounced off them.” Eventually, the Russians were stopped with special purpose shells fired from 30 to 60 meters. A counterattack forced the Soviets back, leading to further advances by the division. By June 26 Kirchner’s division had linked up with Brig. Gen. Otto Ottenbacher’s 36th Motorized Division, encircling the main body of the 3rd Mechanized Corps. Many of the Russian tanks were out of fuel, making them easy targets for the Germans. The 2nd Tank Division was decimated. Only one tank and 400 men made it back to the Russian lines. Colonel F.F. Fedorov’s 5th Tank Division and Maj. Gen. Petr Ivanovich Formenko’s 84th Mechanized Division were greatly understrength, and the 12th Mechanized Corps, which had escaped the trap, was in similar straits. Soviet tank losses were estimated to be in the hundreds. While Reinhardt was slugging it out with the Soviet armor, von Manstein kept moving forward. His corps had hit a relatively weak part of the Russian line, and after the first lively encounter with Red Army frontier forces his armored units were able to break uncoordinated enemy counterattacks and continue their advance. By June 24 the LVI Motorized Corps had reached the Daugavpils highway near Ukmerge, about

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170 kilometers inside Lithuania. Von Manstein was now within striking distance of the bridges over the Daugava, about 130 kilometers away. Disregarding the fact that he had outpaced his neighbors, he kept his units moving, ignoring flank protection. Short, sharp engagements were fought against reserve Soviet tank units sent to intercept him, but his orders were simple—“Keep going at all costs.” With the spearhead of the 8th Panzer Division was a special unit commanded by 1st Lt. Hans-Wolfram Knaak. In the early hours of June 26, the 26-year-old Knaak detached his men from the spearhead and sped toward Daugavpils in two captured Soviet trucks. Knaak and his troops were members of the Lehr (Training) Regiment “Brandenburg”—commandos trained in sabotage and subterfuge that were part of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris’s Abwehr (Intelligence Service). Many of Knaak’s men were fluent in Russian, and the two trucks were able to make it through the Soviet defenses unmolested. The drivers, in Red Army uniforms, joked with sentries and disseminated false information concerning the German positions. Driving into Daugavpils, the trucks headed for the precious bridges. The first truck almost made it to the eastern side before sentries fired on it. Driving down an embankment, the men in the rear of the truck jumped out with weapons firing. The second truck, caught in the middle of the bridge, came under heavy fire that resulted in several casualties. The survivors pushed forward to link up with their comrades on the other side, and their combined fire forced the Soviets back before engineers could Russian partisans gather to listen to an address delivered by a political commisarrive to blow the bridge. Some of them sar near the town of Pskov prior to embarking on an operation against the invading Germans. were then able to make it to the nearby railroad bridge and succeeded in cutting the detonation wires on that structure. Holding off attempts to recapture the eastern side of the bridge, the Brandenburgers were soon reinforced by the 8th Panzer spearhead, which had sliced through the Russian lines. Following units took control of the city, and armor was soon massing to meet the main body of Maj. Gen. Dmitri Danilovich Leliushenko’s 21st Mechanized Corps, which was on its way to help the Russian defenses. Knaak’s unit had won the day, but Knaak himself did not live to see it. He had been killed during the fight for the crossing. For his actions that day, he was posthumously awarded the coveted Knight’s Cross on November 3, 1942.

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As the German armor crossed at Daugavpils, the foot units of von Wrede’s division followed in its wake. Although the 290th could not possibly hope to keep up with the panzers, its advance served to widen the hole punched through the Russian lines and guaranteed relative safety for von Manstein’s supply lines. Hearing of von Manstein’s success, Hitler began meddling in the affairs of Army Group North. In his war diary, General Franz Halder, the chief of the General Staff of the Army, wrote, “Führer wants to throw the whole weight of Armored Group Hoepner on Dvinsk. Possibilities of a crossing at Jakobstadt (Jekabpils) problematic.” Von Leeb would have none of it. Reinhardt had defeated the bulk of After the retreating Soviets have destroyed a bridge across a stream near the Kuznetsov’s armored forces, leaving the coast of the Baltic Sea, this German tank of the 8th Panzer Division fords the way open to the bridge at Jekabpils. The waterway in July 1941. movement to von Manstein’s sector would entail traveling through wooded areas where few roads to cross and establish a bridgehead. By midnight, the south existed and would take days to accomplish. He simply ignored bank of the Daugava at Jekabpils was firmly in German any suggestions to change the original plan, giving Reinhardt hands, and engineers were building a bridge to funnel reinfree rein to continue. forcements to von Kittel. On June 27 the XLI Corps moved forward again. With a Both Reinhardt and von Manstein were now coming under battle group under the command of Brig. Gen. Walter Krüger, attack by the 27th Army. The 21st Mechanized had also the 1st Panzer smashed the remnants of the 12th Mechanized arrived, and Russian units managed to occupy the northern Corps, which were desperately trying to form a line on the suburbs of Daugavpils, setting off a round of savage house-toMusa River. At the same time, Stavka Chairman Marshal house fighting. The Germans also received reinforcements as Semen Konstantinovich Timoshenko ordered Kuznetsov to the first elements of the Totenkopf entered the city. pull his remaining forces back to join up with Berazin’s 27th Leliushenko’s units were driven back with heavy losses, but Army, which was occupying positions along the Daugava. Soviet bombers were able to make it through German air Battle Group Krüger moved on, spearheaded by the I/113th defenses to hammer German positions. Arriving Totenkopf solRifle Regiment under the command of Major Josef-Franz diers noted, “The greater part of the city has been totally Eckinger. By 2300, the battalion was 10 kilometers south- destroyed.” west of Jekabpils. At 0415 on the 28th, the fight for the crossReinhardt had also been able to hold his bridgehead as more ing began. German forces arrived at Jekabpils. The first great objective on As at Daugavpils, a unit of Brandenburgers tried to take the the road to Leningrad had been achieved. Most of the Soviet bridge by deception. This time the plan did not work, and the forces in Lithuania had been destroyed, and the Germans had commandos found themselves involved in heavy fighting. their crossings in Latvia. With his mechanized forces chompSoon the main elements of Colonel Hans-Christoph von Hey- ing at the bit, von Leeb was ready for the next stage, but once debrand und der Lasa’s 113th Rifle Regiment joined the fray. again, Hitler intervened. This time the order could not be The Soviets were slowly pushed back, but Red Army engi- ignored or conveniently “lost.” neers stood at the ready. As the Germans advanced toward the Hitler had suddenly become nervous about his army’s sucDaugava, a series of explosions shook the area. The bridges cess in the north. The enemy was in disarray and the lightning had been destroyed. advances in Poland and France had proven the panzers’ abilAssault boats were brought forward and, as German ity to strike deep into the enemy’s rear, but he became jittery artillery from Artillery Regiment 73 hammered Soviet posi- when looking at the long narrow arrows on the map showing tions on the north shore, Major von Kittel’s II/113 was able Reinhardt and von Manstein far to the north of the slowly RUSSIAN FRONT

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advancing infantry armies on their flanks. After his success at Daugavpils and the smashing of Leliushenko’s mechanized corps, von Manstein was ready to continue north to prevent the Soviets from regrouping. Instead, he was told to wait until the bulk of Reinhardt’s corps could be brought up to Jekabpils. The wait lasted until July 2, precious days that Kuznetsov used to scrape together the remnants of his command to make another stand. A trickle of reinforcements also made it forward, braving Luftwaffe attacks and bolstering Kuznetsov’s forces. When Reinhardt and von Manstein were finally given orders to resume their attack, they moved on Pskov, about 275 kilometers northeast of Daugavpils and 240 kilometers northeast of Jekabpils. The initial advance of both German corps was marked by sharp clashes with the mechanized forces that had survived the initial June onslaught. Under heavy pressure, the 12th Mechanized Corps and its 35 remaining tanks were forced back by the 1st and 6th Panzer Divisions while the 21st Mechanized Corps fought hard to stall the advance of von Manstein’s corps. While the mechanized forces grudgingly retreated, reserve divisions were being moved to Pskov to man the so-called “Stalin Line.” Maj. Gen. Mikhail Lvovich Cherniavskii’s 1st Mechanized Corps was on its way from Leningrad and his 3rd Tank Division, commanded by Colonel K. Yu. Andreev, had already occupied woods about 16 kilometers northeast of the city. The 27th Army’s 22nd Rifle Corps (180th and 182nd Rifle Divisions), under Maj. Gen. Mikhail Pavlovich Dukhanov, was moving into Porkhov some 75 kilometers to the east, and Maj. Gen. Kuzma Maksimovich Kachalov’s 24th Rifle Corps (181st and 183rd Rifle Divisions) was in the vicinity of Ostrov, about 55 kilometers south of Pskov. Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Ivan Stepanovich Kosobutskii’s 41st Rifle Corps (111th, 118th, and 235th Rifle Divisions) was taken from the strategic reserve and sent to Pskov itself. The command structure of the Northwest Front was reshuffled. Kuznetsov was relieved of command for his failures during the first week of the war. Sobennikov took over command of the Front, while Lt. Gen. Fedor Sergeevich Ivanov, the former Deputy Commander of the Southwest Front, took the reins of the 8th Army. German forces were hampered more by the terrain than they were by the Red Army as they moved off. Instead of advancing solely along the few roads and railways in the area, the panzer and motorized divisions advanced on a broad front through heavily wooded and marshy areas. Despite those difficulties, the Germans were able to keep pushing the 8th, 27th, and 11th Armies back. Reinhardt’s corps sector contained the main road to Ostrov, which did allow armored spearheads to advance at a greater pace. Von Manstein was to cover Reinhardt’s right flank and advance toward Sebezh and Opochka in an attempt to out20

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flank the Stalin Line. The going was so bad that Maj. Gen. Kurt Jahn’s 3rd Motorized Division had to halt, change direction, and fall in behind Reinhardt in order to move forward. Eicke’s Totenkopf Division made better progress, but it was slowed by a fortified line in front of Sebezh. On July 4 Reinhardt’s units were fighting for Ostrov. At 1300, elements of the 1st Panzer Division crossed the old Latvia-Soviet border, and by 1700 the 1st Panzer Regiment was fighting in the streets of the city. The rest of the division was stretched along a wide front, and Soviet columns south of Ostrov were caught unaware as more of the 1st moved forward. Southeast of the city, units of the division reached the Velikaya River and were faced with the bunkers and antitank ditches of the Stalin Line. While the fight for Ostrov and the Stalin Line was under way, the Soviets were building yet another defensive line along the Luga River. Stavka ordered that the line consist of antitank ditches, strongpoints, and minefields and have a depth of 5-6 kilometers. Lt. Gen. Markian Mikhailovich Popov was assigned to command the overall defenses, and his deputy Lt. Gen. Konstantin Pavlovich Piadyshev was given command of the “Luga Operational Group,” which was centered on the city of Luga, some 95 kilometers south of Leningrad. At Ostrov, the 1st Panzer Division fended off attacks from Colonel I.M. Ivanov’s 111th Rifle Division and what was left of Andreev’s 3rd Tank Division, and it also came under air attack from Soviet bombers. The divisional history reports that KV I and KV II heavy tanks caused severe damage to the 1st Company of the 37th Anti-tank Unit, whose 37mm shells bounced off the giants as they rolled forward. The situation was saved by the timely arrival of Major Wilhelm Söth, the commander of the III/Artillery Regiment 73, who ordered the field guns of his 9th Company to fire at the Soviet tanks at point-blank range. Söth’s guns destroyed 12 tanks, forcing the others to retreat. In von Manstein’s sector, the panzers continued to slog forward. The 8th Panzer Division finally reached the Velikaya early on July 8, hoping to take several key bridges by storm. As the Germans approached, sappers of the 1st Mechanized Corps’ 50th Motorized Engineer regiment blew them up one by one. The final bridge was destroyed along with several panzers that were attempting to cross it. The day before, Reinhardt, having overcome the defenses of the 24th Rifle Corps at Ostrov and having the advantage of a somewhat decent road, was ready to hit Pskov. The 36th Motorized Division advanced on the corps’ left flank, with the 1st Panzer going up the middle and the 6th Panzer on the right flank. Facing them in front of the city was what was left of the 41st Rifle Corps supported by remnants of the 1st Mechanized Corps. While the panzers of the 1st and 6th fended off attacks from

Soviet mechanized units, Ottenbacher led his 36th into Pskov and became involved in heavy house-to-house fighting. The Soviets were tenacious in their defense, and artillery had to be used along with Luftwaffe bombers to break their positions. After taking severe losses, the remaining Russians abandoned the burning city on July 9. Another step toward Leningrad had been taken. The OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres—German Army High Command) finally realized the futility of trying to flank the Russians from the east, so von Manstein was ordered to disengage and head to Ostrov. With von Manstein on the way and Reinhardt consolidating his positions along the Velikaya, Hoepner received a new directive. Panzer Group 4 was to launch a two-pronged attack, with Reinhardt driving to Luga and von Manstein heading toward Lake Ilmen in a flanking movement. The odds for success looked good. The Northwest Front, which had started the war with 23 divisions, had lost about Pausing for a moment during offensive operations on the Eastern Front, battle74,000 men killed or missing with hardened panzergrenadiers of the Waffen SS take a moment to rest in July 1941. another 130,000 wounded. Of the orig- These troops, belonging to the 3rd SS Panzergrenadier Division Totenkopf, or inal divisions, only seven were near full Death’s Head, joined the advance on Linengrad in late June. strength, while 11 had only 2,000 to 3,000 men fit for combat. Some of the 14 new divisions that a running battle ensued, ending with the 90th finally giving had been released to the Front also suffered heavily. way. By evening, the 1st Panzer was 30 kilometers southwest Material losses had been horrendous. More than 2,500 of Luga but was stalled by a strong defensive line guarding its tanks, 3,500 artillery pieces, and 900 aircraft had been lost. approaches. Reinhardt jumped off on July 10 supported by General WilTo Reinhardt’s right, von Manstein moved toward Lake helm von Chappius’s XXXVII Army Corps, which had moved Ilmen. The 3rd Motorized Division took Porkhov after a parfrom the 18th Army to Panzer Group 4. The 118th Rifle Divi- ticularly fierce battle and then turned north, while the 8th sion, which had come from the Moscow Military District, was Panzer headed toward Soltsy, a town about 50 kilometers hard hit. It retreated toward Gdov, a town on the shore of Lake southwest of Novgorod. Fighting both Russians and bad terPeipus. This retreat opened a gap in the Soviet line, leaving the rain, Brandenburg’s panzers and armored infantry finally caproad to Luga open. tured Solsty on July 14. To stop the Germans from exploiting the breach, Colonel In the Luga sector, Reinhardt had hit a stone wall. Repeated I.M. Golubev’s 90th Rifle Division was ordered to plug the attacks failed to pierce Luga’s forward defenses, and the Luga hole. Stationed around Strugi-Krasnoye, about 65 kilometers Operational Group had received reinforcements in the form northwest of Pskov, Golubev’s division was caught on the of Maj. Gen. Ivan Gavrilovich Lazarev’s 10th Mechanized march by the Luftwaffe, totally disrupting the movement. Corps (21st and 24th Tank Divisions and 131st Mechanized The 1st and 6th Panzer Divisions fought their way through Division) and the remnants of the tenacious 41st Rifle Corps. scattered Soviet units and headed toward Luga. To their right, Frustrated, Reinhardt turned his forces toward Sabsk and the 58th Infantry 36th Motorized Division moved on Gdov. Kingisepp. Northeast of Luga, the 1st Panzer Division’s Battle On July 12 the 1st Panzer ran into the 90th Rifle Division and Group Krüger with a battle group of the 6th Panzer under RUSSIAN FRONT

bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Wiegand-117-01, Photo: Wiegand

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akg-images National Archives

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Red Army artillerymen lie in wait for the advancing Germans during the summer of 1941. At times, antitank units and artillery were effective in slowing the German juggernaut that advanced into Russia.

Colonel Erhard Raus, moved around the swampy land southeast of Lake Samro and fought off Russian attacks along the highway leading to Sabsk. Defensive positions were established by the Germans around key villages such as Lyady and Alexino, which the Soviets strove to recapture. The 36th Motorized Division followed in the wake of the battle groups. By July 15, Major Eckinger’s I/Rifle Regiment 113, the spearhead of Battle Group Krüger, was fighting its way through the village of Osmino. Reinforced by following elements that threw up a defensive perimeter around the village, Eckinger headed north once again with the II/Rifle Regiment 113 close on his heels. In the early evening, the spearhead entered Sabsk and established a small bridgehead on the opposite bank of the Luga. As with most panzer generals, Maj. Gen. Kirchner liked to be at the forefront of the battle. On his way to Sabsk, Kirchner was wounded by a shell splinter. He relinquished command of the 1st Panzer to Krüger, who oversaw the defense of the bridgehead and the protection of his flanks. With more units arriving, Reinhardt ordered the 36th Motorized Division to expand the defensive flank to the west of Lake Samra. The division’s 118th Motorized Infantry Regiment, under Colonel Carl Caspar, took up positions in the villages of 22

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Borki and Zaruch’e on the western side of the lake to await the inevitable Soviet counterattack. Moscow realized that the weakened and raw divisions along the Luga could not do anything but buy time. Therefore, formation of a new line of defenses was begun. Worker battalions from Leningrad joined children and the elderly to build a new line between the mouth of the Luga and Chudov, located about 125 kilometers southeast of Leningrad on the MoscowLeningrad Highway. Thousands toiled to construct miles of trenches, pillboxes, minefields, and antitank positions, but the question remained whether a strong line could be built in time. While Reinhardt worked on consolidating his bridgeheads across the Luga, von Manstein was slugging his way toward Novgorod. With the 8th Panzer in the lead, the LVI Corps fought off attacks from Morazov’s 11th Army around Soltsy and, even worse, the corps was in danger of becoming isolated. Russian forces took advantage of the long, mostly undefended flanks of the corps. At 0300 on the 15th, von Manstein received the following message at his headquarters west of Soltsy: “Rear areas of the 8th Panzer Division, three kilometers east of Borovichi, are defending against an enemy attack with machine guns and mortars.”

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That attack and others along the 8th Panzer’s supply lines effectively isolated the bulk of the division’s combat forces. Meanwhile, Soltsy was being attacked from the north, while other Russian forces crossed the Shelon River and attacked the town from the south. Von Manstein decided that Soltsy was to be abandoned, with German troops establishing defensive positions south of the town. Janh’s 3rd Motorized Division was also facing heavy enemy attacks as it attempted to move north. In effect, the Soviets were striving to isolate and destroy the entire corps. To alleviate the situation, elements of the Totenkopf were sent north. Within hours lead elements of the division were on the move. Eicke had been wounded when his command car hit a mine on July 6. His replacement, Brig. Gen. Georg Keppler, wasted little time in getting the rest of his division going. Moving up the Dno-Soltsy road, the division slammed into Russian infantry, pushing them back toward the southeast. It also sent a reinforced battalion to help Jahn, who was fighting off repeated Soviet attacks. Von Manstein’s corps was fending off attacks from several Soviet rifle divisions as well as Maj. Gen. Nikifor Gordeevich Khorudzenko’s 220th Motorized Division, Andreev’s 3rd Tank Division, and Colonel L.V. Bunin’s 21st Tank Division. Once the Totenkopf had cleared the supply route, the situation was much better with ammunition, fuel, and food making their way northward once again. With the news that General Hans Kuno von Both’s I Army Corps (11th and 21st Infantry Divisions), which had recently been subordinated to Panzer Group 4, had cleared Soviet units from Dno and was advancing on Soltsy, it seem as if the advance on Leningrad could continue. The Russians had other plans. Maj. Gen. Herbert von Böckmann’s 11th Infantry Division retook Soltsy on the 21st, but was immediately counterattacked by the Russians while the 11th Army, which had been reinforced with two rifle divisions, hit other parts of von Manstein’s line. On July 23, the Russians on the Luga received a new commander. For his previous week’s failure, Piadyshev was relieved and later executed. His former commander, Lt. Gen. Popov, assumed the position of commander of the Luga Operational Group while still holding his overall command of the Northern Front. While the new fighting had stalled the Germans for the moment, the toll of Russian dead and wounded grew. Sensing a chance for a breakthrough, both von Manstein and Reinhardt proposed that their corps be united for a concentrated action. Von Manstein wanted to move his corps to Reinhardt’s sector, where the better road network would allow both corps to advance side by side instead of having his corps move through the swampy wooded area surrounding Lake Ilmen. Reinhardt concurred, but Berlin did not. Hitler worried about his precious panzer divisions’ supply

lines, which had shown themselves to be open to attacks and raids by Soviet units. He therefore ordered the halt of offensive operations in von Manstein’s sector until the infantry of the 16th Army could be brought up to secure his right flank. Von Leeb was tempted to order Reinhatdt’s corps to resume the attack on his own, but instead he told Hoepner to use the corps to finish clearing the south bank of the Luga. After a bitter struggle, Reinhardt succeeded in clearing the Soviet bridgehead at Kingisepp, although the town, located on the opposite bank of the river, was still in the hands of the Red Army. During the next few days, the 16th Army arrived, taking up positions along the Shelon. To the east, the 18th Army was clearing out the rest of Estonia and was advancing toward Narva, securing Reinhardt’s left flank. In the interim, Hitler decided that the terrain around Lake Ilmen was indeed not suitable for armored operations. On July 30, Halder noted in his diary: “It is becoming evident that OKH is revising its erstwhile notions and no longer insists on the impossible demand for Army Group North to cut off the eastward retreat route (Manstein’s mission) of the enemy around Leningrad.” Consequently, it was decided that von Manstein should join forces with Reinhardt for a renewed thrust to Leningrad. While pleased, von Manstein ran up against a new set of orders that reshuffled his corps. The Totenkopf would be attached to the 18th Army, while the 8th Panzer would go into the Panzer Group Reserve. In their place von Manstein received Brig. Gen. Ernst von Leyser’s 269th Infantry Division and Maj. Gen. Arthur Mülverstedt’s 4th SS “Polizei” Infantry Division. That left von Manstein with only one motorized unit—Jahn’s 3rd. The Soviets still held onto the town of Luga. While Reinhardt was clearing out Kingisepp, which would hold out for a while longer, and established a bridgehead on the northern bank of the river near the city, part of his corps rushed toward Narva to secure a connection with the 18th Army. At the Luga bridgehead itself, the Russians had rushed two divisions to the area by rail along with some brand new KV I and II tanks, fresh from the factories of Leningrad. Reinhardt was still furious that the opportunity for a joint attack with von Manstein had been frustrated by Berlin for so many days. In his diary he noted: “Time and again our corps urged a speedy resumption of the attack and asked that some units, at least of von Manstein’s corps, should be switched over to us, especially as they were bogged down where they stood. But it was all in vain.... More delays. It’s terrible. The chance that we opened up has been missed for good, and things are getting more difficult all the time.” With Reinhardt occupied in the east, it was up to von Manstein to take Luga. The continuous march and countermarch of his corps took up precious time, leaving the Luga front virtually stagnant for several days. That time was used RUSSIAN FRONT

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German infantrymen pick their way through a heavily wooded area north of the town of Luga as they advance toward the city of Leningrad in September 1941. Although initial progress was promising, the Red Army and Russian civilians prepared defenses that eventually ground the German effort to capture the great city to a halt.

by the Soviets to funnel more reinforcements to the Northwest Front in the form of nine rifle and two cavalry divisions. I.I. Pronin’s 34th Army (five rifle and two cavalry divisions) was detached from the Reserve Front, and Lt. Gen. Stephan Dmitrievich Akimov’s 48th Army (one militia, one tank, and three rifle divisions plus a mountain brigade) would also soon be sent to bolster the line. While von Manstein marshaled his units for the assault on Luga, things were going fairly well in other sectors of the northern front. Elements of the I Army Corps reached Schimsk on July 30, and around Lake Ilmen the X Army Corps was moving toward Staraya Russa while encountering heavy resistance from the 11th Army. By August 6, both Staraya Russa and the city of Kholm were in German hands, strengthening a German line along the Lovat River. The sky had opened up early on August 8, bringing a heavy downpour, when Reinhardt and von Manstein were finally set to renew their drive toward Leningrad. The assault was to be three-pronged with a southern group composed of von Both’s 24

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I Army Corps and General Mauritz von Wiktorin’s XXVIII Army Corps, both from the 16th Army, attacking Akimov’s 48th Army along a line running from Schimsk-Novgorod-Chudovo, rolling up Leningrad’s southeast flank. Von Manstein was to attack directly up the Luga Road while Reinhardt, supported by Von Chappius’s XXXVIII Army Corps, would attack toward Leningrad from his bridgehead near Kingisepp, while the battle for the city still went on. In pouring rain, which prevented any Luftwaffe support, Reinhardt moved out with the 36th Motorized Division in the lead. Instead of the relatively weak Soviet forces that had faced them a week ago, the Germans found a line of newly constructed field positions manned by Maj. Gen. Pavel Patrovich Bogaichuk’s 125th Rifle Division and Colonel Sergii Vasilevich Roginskii’s 11th Rifle Division. What was supposed to be a swift German advance soon turned into a brawl as Reinhardt pushed forward while the Soviets fought for every meter of ground. Reinhardt was still struggling to break out from his bridgeheads the following day.

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By the 9th the I and XXVIII Army Corps were in a bitter fight with the 48th Army around Novgorod. Meanwhile, von Manstein, plagued with parrying Soviet spoiling attacks, finally moved on Luga on August 10 when his 3rd Motorized Division launched a frontal assault on the town. The Soviets put up a spirited resistance, and the 4th SS and 269th were called in to support the motorized units. The wooded area around the town provided excellent cover for the Russians. The 4th SS ran into a line of bunkers west of Luga, and in the bitter fighting that ensued Maj. Gen. von Mülverstedt was struck by a shell fragment and killed. Around the city itself, the fighting continued unabated. On August 11, Reinhardt pierced the Luga River defenses and established new bridgeheads southeast of Kingisepp at Bolshoi Sabsk and Ivanovskoye. For the next couple of days, the bridgeheads were reinforced as the forces inside them fought off several Soviet attacks. The road to Leningrad seemed to be opening up again, but before Reinhardt could continue he had to secure his left flank, which was threatened by Soviet units retreating toward Leningrad from Estonia. Hoepner pleaded with von Leeb to release one or two divisions to protect Reinhardt. After a heated discussion, von Leeb finally agreed to pull the 3rd Motorized Division out of the Luga battle and send it to Reinhardt. On August 15 the 3rd, along with von Manstein’s corps headquarters, was ordered to join Reinhardt. Responsibility for taking Luga now fell to General Georg Lindemann’s L Army Corps. With the LVI Corps Headquarters in the lead, von Manstein moved out with the 3rd Motorized Division trailing. Von Manstein had hardly reached his new headquarters position when he received orders for the 3rd to turn around and head toward Staraya Russa, where the X Army Corps had been encircled by the 34th Army. He reached Dno on the 16th and received word that the Totenkopf Division would again be placed under his command for a relief attack. Meanwhile, Reinhardt had finally taken the city of Kingisepp while von Both and von Wiktorin’s corps entered Novgorod amid heavy fighting. While von Manstein waited for the 3rd Motorized and the Totenkopf to arrive at their jump-off positions, Reinhardt continued to press the Soviets. With the Luga Line crumbling, he ordered elements of his corps to push forward to Narva, flank protection or not. That city fell on August 17, cutting off stragglers from the 8th Army who were trying to flee to Leningrad. On August 19, von Manstein struck the 34th Army, coordinating his attack with the encircled forces that hit the Russians from within the pocket. The Soviets were taken completely by surprise. In three days of fighting, von Manstein stated that 12,000 prisoners were taken and 1,412 tanks and 246 guns were either captured or destroyed. Hoepner’s armor was now scattered across the front, with

Reinhardt pushing toward Krasnogvardievsk from his positions east of Narva, the 8th Panzer still near Luga, and von Manstein, with the 3rd Motorized, helping the infantry push the Russians back to the Pola River toward Demyansk. There was, however, some good news for Hoepner when he heard that General Rudolf Schmidt’s XXXIX Motorized Corps was being transferred from Army Group Center to Army Group North. The corps, consisting of the 12th Panzer and 18th and 20th Motorized Divisions, would be attached to the 16th Army, but it would give Army Group North an added armored punch for the drive on Leningrad. Even though Panzer Group 4 could not concentrate its armor in one place, the individual units kept up pressure on the enemy, but they did run into some roadblocks. In the Krasnogvardievsk area, Reinhardt ran into a strong set of defenses. Backed up by antitank positions, the Soviet infantry kept the Germans at bay for several days. At Luga, the Polizei Division mounted a frontal attack on August 24. The fighting was extremely savage, with both sides taking horrendous casualties. Colonel Hans-Christian Schulze, leading elements of his Police Rifle Regiment 2, pressed into the town from the east after finding a bridge that had not been destroyed by the Russians. By 1700 he reported the town had been captured. As the Soviets were pushed back, the 8th Panzer, down to a third of its original strength, reached Siversky on the LugaKrasnogvardievsk rail line. It then turned south to meet the retreating Russians coming out of Luga. In heavy rain, the division’s rifle regiments set up a line in the forest to intercept and destroy the Russians, often engaging groups of 500 to 1,000 as they tried to escape. By now, with his corps basically chopped apart, von Manstein was out of the Leningrad operation. Instead, his corps headquarters and the units still with him were heading toward Demyansk, some 285 kilometers southeast of his original objective. Bogged down by torrential rains, the corps eventually lost the 3rd Motorized Division to the 9th Army. Von Manstein stayed in command of the corps until September 12, when he was given command of the 11th Army, which was fighting near the Crimean Peninsula far to the south. Hoepner’s Panzer Group 4 was now reduced to the 1st and 6th Panzer and the 36th Motorized Divisions of Reinhardt’s corps and the 269th and Polizei Infantry Divisions of Lindemann’s corps, with the battered 8th Panzer once again in reserve. While Lindemann’s divisions were fighting their way toward Krasnogvardievsk, Reinhardt was looking for a way to outflank that position. The stubborn Russian defense of Luga and the line at Krasnogvardiesk had cost the Red Army thousands of casualties, but each day they held bought Stalin precious time to strengthen the defenses outside Leningrad. Tens of thousands RUSSIAN FRONT

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of civilians labored day and night, building antitank ditches, artillery and machine-gun positions, and trenches and strongpoints for the infantry that was now pouring into the city. The race to the Daugava, breaching the Stalin Line, and the advance to the Luga had seemed too good to be true for the Germans. Now, the chances of taking Leningrad with another lightning attack seemed nothing more than a dream —a dream that had been shattered with Russian blood. Reinhardt was finally on the move again during the last days of August. With the 36th Motorized again in the lead, his corps took Izhora, about 18 kilometers south of Leningrad, on the 28th while German infantry strove to break the defenses at Krasnogvardiesk. The panzers were literally on Leningrad’s doorstep. To the east, Schmidt’s corps took Mga on the 30th but was forced back by a fierce counterattack from the 48th Army. It was recaptured by the 20th Motorized Division on September 1. With the fall of the city, the last rail link between Leningrad and the rest of the Soviet Union was severed. Rain began to fall again during the first days of September, hindering the movement of the German mechanized units. While waiting for the roads to dry, von Leeb made his final plans for the assault on the great “White City” on the Neva. By now, however, Hitler had another change of heart. Instead of conquering Leningrad outright, he ordered that the city be encircled and besieged. Von Leeb was furious and he would resign a few months later, partly due to that decision. Nevertheless, he went forward with plans that would now give his forces the most favorable positions to bombard the city and starve it into submission. His first aim was to capture crossings on the Neva with a two-pronged thrust. The first group consisted of von Chappius’s XXXVIII Army Corps (1st, 58th, 254th, and 291st Infantry Divisions), Reinhardt’s corps (1st and 6th Panzer and 36th Motorized Divisions) and Lindemann’s L Army Corps (269th and SS Polizei Infantry Divisions). Its job was to take Krasnogvardievsk and cut off Soviet forces west of Leningrad. The 8th Panzer was held in reserve behind Reinhardt. A second group was made up of von Wiktorin’s XXVIII Army Corps (96th, 121st, and 122nd Infantry Divisions) and elements of the 12th Panzer. Its objectives were the cities of Slutsk and Kolpino. Farther to the east, Schmidt’s corps (20th Motorized and the rest of the 12th Panzer) was tasked with widening the Lake Ladoga corridor and then fanning out to protect its eastern flank. While the Germans were deploying, the Soviet command structure underwent another change as the Northwest Front was disbanded, its forces being absorbed by the Leningrad Front. Marshal Klement Efremovich Voroshilov, who had overseen the catastrophic attack on Finland in the 1939-1940 Russo-Finnish War, was placed in command of the combined forces on September 5, a day after the German assault began. 26

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In Leningrad itself, divisions of Red Militia were formed from the city’s industrial workers to augment the Red Army troops manning the defenses. There was an outer defensive line running from Petrodvortsovyy, about 19 kilometers west of Leningrad, through Krasnogvardievsk and then to the Neva River at a point about 20 kilometers east of Leningrad. The inner line ran from just west of Leningrad and then east with the town of Mozhayskiy and its surrounding hills and Kolpino as its strongpoints. According to the German plans, Reinhardt’s corps would head toward Mozhayskiy, while Lindemann’s corps would crack the Krasnogvardievsk defenses. The area in front of Reinhardt contained hundreds of field fortifications connected by an elaborate network of trenches. Strong gun emplacements and wide antitank ditches also peppered the area, so it would be up to Ottenbacher’s 36th Motorized Division to make the first assault. Once the infantry had breached the forward enemy defenses, the 1st Panzer would follow with the 6th Panzer standing ready to advance and widen the breach. On September 4, German 240mm guns placed north of Tosno opened fire on Leningrad. To the east, Schmidt and von Wiktorin began an assault aimed at Shisselburg, a city on the mouth of the Neva about 30 kilometers from Leningrad’s suburbs. A weakened 48th Army held positions in front of the town, and its line crumbled under attacks from the 12th Panzer and 20th Motorized Divisions. Shisselburg was captured on September 8, closing the last land route out of Leningrad. Hoepner began his assault on September 9. Reinhardt, supported by von Chappius’s infantry, cut through the Soviet lines and advanced almost 10 kilometers with the 1st Panzer and the 36th Motorized in the lead. Recovering from the initial shock, the newly formed 42nd Army put up a stout resistance. The Soviet divisional commanders were ordered to fight for every meter of land, and their men did so magnificently. Landgraf’s 6th Panzer became bogged down in heavy fighting in front of Krasnoe Selo, while the 1st Panzer and 36th Motorized sat astride the Krasnogvardiesk-Krasnoe Selo road, fending off Russian attacks. Von Chappius’s infantry was also halted by the Soviet defense, which was helped by fire from the Baltic Fleet anchored around Kronstadt Island. Later in the day, Colonel Carl Casper took his 118th Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 36th Motorized Division and, backed by divisional engineers and elements of the 1st Panzer, breached the enemy line. He then headed toward the Mozhayskiy Hills. The Soviet defenses there were manned by fanatical units of Young Communists, battalions of Leningrad Workers Militia, and units of the 55th Army that had so far been held in reserve. They were backed up by Red Army artillery, which had pretargeted every meter of ground so that artillery observers could call in a strike within seconds of seeing the enemy.

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Casper’s men moved forward under a rolling barrage from guns of Artillery Regiment 73 and XLI Corps artillery, while the 1st Panzer units engaged pillboxes at point-blank range. The Soviet bunkers were solidly built, and a call was sent for Luftwaffe support. In about half an hour, Stukas from General Wolfram Freiherr von Richtofen’s (a cousin of the famous Red Baron) VIII Air Corps arrived on the scene. Diving almost vertically, the dive bombers hit the Soviet positions with devastating effect. Before the smoke cleared, German assault groups leaped forward. Using flamethrowers, grenades, and machine guns, Casper’s men took one enemy position after another. The fighting finally ended when it was too dark to see. On the morning of the 10th, Casper ordered the assault to continue. Once again, progress was somewhat slow for the men of the 118th. To their right, Landgraf’s 6th Panzer was hit by a Russian counterattack that caused many casualties and momentarily stopped the division in its tracks. When Landgraf got moving again, Reinhardt, seeing an opportunity, ordered him to attack the Soviet flank farther to the east. He then moved most of the 1st Panzer into the gap left by Landgraf, bringing more pressure on the Russian defenses. Late in the evening, the Germans had reached a trench line on the northern ridge of the hills. With the 1st Panzer in the line, the attack moved forward again on the 11th. Eckinger’s I/113th Rifle Regiment, reinforced by a company of the 1st Panzer Regiment and a platoon of engineers, was in the lead. Von Richtofen’s Stukas arrived right on time and blasted a path through the Soviet positions. With Colonel Westhoven’s 1st Rifle Regiment providing flank support, Eckinger headed for Hill 167, known as “Bald Hill.” The 6th Panzer Company, commanded by 1st Lt. Wolfgang Darius, and the leading company of Eckinger’s battalion hit a naval artillery battery and succeeded in destroying the guns before the surprised Russians could fire a shot at them. At 1230 Darius sent the following message to his battalion headquarters: “I can see St. Petersburg (Leningrad) and the sea.” Hill 167 had finally fallen. While the Germans consolidated their positions in the Mozhayskiy Hills, the main elements of the 36th Motorized, backed up by units of the 1st Panzer, attacked Krasnoe Sela, which fell on September 12. Leningrad’s defenses were nearly broken now that the 1st Panzer and 36th Motorized had outflanked Krasnogvardiesk, putting the rear areas of the Soviet units defending Slutsk and Kolpino in peril. On September 13, Stalin ordered General Georgii Konstantinovich Zhukov to fly to Leningrad. With him were Lt. Gens. Ivan Ivanovich Fedyuniskii and Mikhail Semenovich Khozin. When his aircraft landed, Zhukov went straight to Voroshilov. He handed him a note from Stalin appointing Zhukov commander in chief of the Front. It was brief. “Hand over the Front

to him and come back by the same plane,” it said. The note was simply signed “Stalin.” The same day, Reinhardt and von Chappius breached the lines of the 42nd Army north of Krasnoe Sela and advanced toward Uritsk. Krasnogvardiesk was also taken by the L Army Corps which was supported by elements of Reinhardt’s corps. Zhukov sent Fedyuinskii to the 42nd Army Headquarters where he found Ivanov, its commander, “sitting with his head in his hands, unable even to point out the location of his troops.” Reporting the situation to Zhukov, Fedyuinskii received a simple order: “Take over the 42nd Army—and quick.” While Panzer Group 4 continued to press Leningrad’s defenses, Zhukov worked tirelessly to stop the entire German advance. On the 14th he reached into his reserves and sent a rifle division to Fedyuinskii to help defend Uritsk. He planned to use the 42nd Army as a defensive bulwark while forces behind it dug into new positions. He also ordered the recently formed 55th Army under Maj. Gen. Ivan Gavrilovich Lazarev to defend the Kolpino and Pushkinskiy sectors at all costs and for Marshal Grigorii Ivanovich Kulik’s 54th Army to recapture Mga and Shisselburg. September 15 saw heavy fighting at Uritsk, while Kulik struggled to take his objectives. In the end, Kulik would fail and he was demoted to major general. Hoepner lost another armored unit that day when the 6th Panzer was pulled out of the line in preparation for the move to Army Group Center, which was preparing the assault on Moscow. Units of the 1st Panzer, Polizei, and 269th Infantry Divisions entered Pushkinskiy on September 16, with the Soviets fighting for every block of the town. New battalions rushed to help defend the area, but the Germans continued to push forward, finally capturing the town two days later. The 1st Panzer then turned toward Leningrad again but was halted by units of the 42nd Army in front of the city. The following day, Zhukov basically stabilized the front at Uritsk, although fighting in the city’s suburbs was still raging. German forces still had a ring around the land approaches to Leningrad, but the city’s defenses had held. Reinhardt began pulling the 1st Panzer and 36th Motorized out of the line that day. Along with his corps headquarters, the units would soon follow the 6th Panzer to deploy for the Moscow offensive. Panzer Group 4 Headquarters also prepared to move southeast for the offensive. Schmidt’s XXXIX Corps with its armored and mechanized divisions would remain with Army Group North for a few more months, but it would now be up to the infantry and Luftwaffe to force Leningrad’s surrender. They would not succeed. For Panzer Group 4, which had started the war with great victories and high hopes, there would be no triumphal panzer parade through the streets of the “White City” on the Neva.

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HOLDING THE LINE

AT SMOLENSK In the summer of 1941, the Soviet Red Army attempted to slow the juggernaut of Nazi Operation Barbarossa.

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BY VICTOR KAMENIR

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BELOW: German soldiers advance across the Russian steppes with the cover of a Panzer II tank in September, 1941. RIGHT: General Heinz Guderian (left) and an unidentified German officer observe troop movements near a crucial bridge during the rapid Wehrmacht advance into Russia.

National Archives

AFTER CRUSHING the first-line Soviet armies in brutal three-week cauldron battles at the border, the steamroller of German Army Group Center continued deeper into Soviet territory during the opening days of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941. The twin armored spearheads of Army Group Center were Panzer Group 2 under the command of General Heinz Guderian and Panzer Group 3 under extremely capable tank general Hermann Hoth. Their coordinated offensive on July 10, 1941, unleashed the Battle of Smolensk, a bloody struggle around the ancient Russian city that was to last two long months. The city of Smolensk, long famous for its multitude of churches, occupied a strategically valuable “land bridge” on the way to Moscow. Known as the “Smolensk Gates” in Russia, the 45-mile wide neck of land between the headwaters of the Dvina and Dniepr Rivers was the traditional invasion route from central Europe into the heart of Russia. This road had been taken in the

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17th century by the Polish Army, resulting in the capture of Soviet command was rushing forward newly created units as Moscow. In 1812, Napoleon fought a battle at Smolensk, burn- soon as they were mobilized, very often practically untrained ing the city to the ground. and poorly armed and equipped. Lacking reserves and having Now, this region of fertile agricultural land was once again an extensive front to cover, the Soviet armies were deployed in the stage for a titanic struggle. Still reeling from its earlier one echelon, without any significant defenses in depth. Most unexpected defeats, the Soviet high command hurriedly Soviet rifle divisions held front lines of up to 15 miles, more deployed a string of armies to protect this vital sector of the than double what was called for in prewar planning. front. It was imperative to hold Smolensk at all costs, buying The majority of Timoshenko’s forward rifle divisions were the Soviet leadership time to mobilize and deploy new armies desperately short of specialized equipment such as radio and for the defense of Moscow. telephone sets, antitank artillery, transportation, and rear supTo stem the tide of disasters, Soviet Premier Josef Stalin insti- port services units. The drubbing that the Red Air Force tuted draconian measures. On June 30, General Dmitriy M. received in the opening stages of the campaign and the Pavlov, whose Western Army Front was crushed by Field Mar- lack of sufficient air defense artillery allowed the Luftwaffe shal Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center, was recalled to to operate above the battlefield with virtual impunity. Most of Moscow. Served up by Stalin as a convenient senior scapegoat the Red Army’s mechanized assets were destroyed in earlier for the series of disastrous defeats, Pavlov was relieved of com- fighting, and tanks were in short supply to contain breakmand, court-martialed along with several of his throughs or to follow up counterattacks. senior deputies, and executed, according to varAt the same time, a struggle over the characTOP: General Hermann ious sources, sometime between July and Sep- Hoth commanded Panzer ter of ongoing operations was taking place tember 1941. within the German high command. Nazi dictaGroup 3 of German Army In his stead, on July 2, Stalin dispatched the Group Center during the tor Adolf Hitler was preoccupied with the idea top Red Army commander, Marshal Semyon K. drive against Smolensk in of not allowing the surrounded Red Army the summer of 1941. Timoshenko, to take charge of the Western BOTTOM: Lieutenant forces close to the border in the Byelostok and Front. Timoshenko’s reconstituted Western General Ivan Konev comMinsk pockets to escape. He was demanding Front was created from second-echelon armies manded the Soviet 19th that the hard-charging panzer generals like GudArmy during the desperbelonging to reserves of the high command. ate fighting around erian and Hoth slow down, allowing infantry Spread out along almost 400 miles of front, Smolensk. units to catch up and form a tight double ring from Idritsa in the north to Rechitsa in the around the surrounded Soviet troops. Further, south, were the Twenty-Second, Twentieth, during the first week of July Hitler began talkThirteenth, and Twenty-First Armies. Survivors ing about halting the eastward advance once the of the Fourth Army, which had conducted a vicinity of Smolensk had been reached and turnfighting retreat from the border, were being raling the panzers of Army Group Center north lied and reorganized behind the Thirteenth toward Leningrad and south into the Ukraine. Army in the area of Krichev. Another faction was strongly advocating conAnother two armies allocated to Timotinuing the rapid push to Moscow. Colonel shenko’s command, the Sixteenth and NineGeneral Franz Halder, chief of the German Genteenth, were moving up from the Ukraine by eral Staff, while overtly paying lip service to train and were disembarking at various railroad Hitler’s plans, tacitly encouraged carrying on stations around Smolensk just as the Germans the offensive. In his war diary, Halder wrote on launched their offensive. However, the move June 29: “Let us hope that commanding generfrom the Ukraine was a difficult one, conducted als of corps and armies will do the right thing in a chaotic atmosphere of poor coordination, even without express order, which we are not gigantic traffic snarls at railroad stations, and allowed to issue because of the Führer’s instrucpunishing German air attacks. As a result, many tions to Army High Command.” trainloads of troops and equipment arrived in Guderian, in his turn, clearly saw that speed was the wrong locations, some rerouted far to the of the essence: “It would be some 14 days before east owing to damaged railroad tracks. Some our infantry could arrive on the scene. By that units disembarked without their leadership and time the Russian defenses would be considerequipment, and some headquarters arrived ably stronger. Whether the infantry would then without troops to command. be able to smash a well-organized river defenBoth sides were racing against the clock. The Both: National Archives sive line so that mobile warfare might once 30

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again be possible seemed doubtful.… I was so convinced of the vital importance and of the feasibility of the task assigned me, and at the same time so sure of the proved ability and attacking strength of my panzer corps, that I ordered an immediate attack across the Dniepr and a continuation of the advance toward Smolensk.” General Hoth was also in support of continuing the drive on Smolensk. Planning his attack against Smolensk, Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, in overall command of both panzer groups, intended to fracture the Soviet Western Front and annihilate the bulk of its forces in familiar cauldron battles. The north- In July 1941, German tanks assemble for the crossing of the Dniepr River. The ern sector of von Kluge’s area of oper- summer rains have begun to turn dirt roads into muddy quagmires. As the fighting wore on, the terrain began to slow the German advance. ations was characterized by extensive marshlands, small rivers, and wooded terrain not favorable for panzer operations; therefore, the empha- attacks and the direct fire of antitank artillery. Counterattacksis would be toward the south, where more open terrain was ing the reeling Soviet formations on July 9, Hoth’s 7th and well suited for far-ranging panzer maneuvers. The epicenter of 18th Panzer Divisions punched a hole between the Soviet the German attack was concentrated against the area of the Twentieth and Twenty-Second Armies and captured Vitbesk. Vitebsk–Orsha–Mogilev line. Timoshenko, lacking ready reserves to plug the gap between The capture of Smolensk called for a typical pincer move- the two armies, was forced to commit the closest units of the ment, skirting the city from north and south and linking up east 19th Army, without their having a chance to reorganize after of it, in the Yartsevo–Yelnya area. The XXXIX Motorized a difficult move from the Ukraine. On July 10, Lt. Gen. Ivan Corps, belonging to Hoth’s Panzer Group 3, was to strike from Konev, commander of the Nineteenth Army, counterattacked Vitebsk to Demidov and, from there to Yartsevo. The XLVII with two available divisions, the 220th Motorized Rifle and Motorized Corps from Guderian’s Panzer Group 2 was to 162nd Rifle. The 220th, despite being composed largely of attack from Tolochin, where Napoleon had his headquarters barely trained recruits, conducted itself well and even fought in 1812, to Orsha and then to Yelnya. Advancing on the right to the east side of Vitebsk. However, it sustained prohibitive flank of Guderian’s group, his XLVI and XXIV Motorized losses on its first day of combat, with one of its regimental Corps were to form a smaller pocket around Mogilev and then commanders killed. push southeast to Roslaval. The 162nd Rifle Division fared much worse, initially makThe weakness of the German plans lay in the fact that sup- ing some progress, but falling back very soon. Maj. Gen. Alekply lines were getting seriously overstretched and the support- sandr V. Gorbatov, deputy commander of the XXV Rifle ing infantry armies marching on foot, the Ninth Field Army for Corps, approached Vitebsk and encountered groups of Red Hoth and Second Field Army for Guderian, were over 60 miles Army soldiers streaming eastward in disorder. Gorbatov and behind their fast-moving mechanized brethren. This would his staff officers were able to halt groups of retreating men and soon play a significant role, allowing many of the Soviet units begin digging astride the Vitebsk–Smolensk road. Leaving bypassed by German motorized corps to slip away to the east. behind several of his officers to continue rounding up and reorGerman plans were slightly delayed when on July 6 Timo- ganizing stragglers, General Gorbatov rushed to the original shenko launched a determined attack against Panzer Group 3 positions of the retreating 501st Rifle Regiment, less than two from the Vitebsk area toward Lepel, utilizing the V and VII miles to the west. To his horror, Gorbatov found the positions Mechanized Corps. However, the poorly coordinated Soviet completely abandoned, save for three men. One of them was attack went in with virtually no reconnaissance and ran into the regimental commander, a Colonel Kostevich, accompanied prepared German antitank positions. During the grinding by his chief of staff and a corporal serving as a radio operator. three-day battle, the two Red Army mechanized corps were Gorbatov later wrote, “When I asked the regimental comsavaged in large part by a combination of vicious Luftwaffe air mander: ‘How did you manage to get to this situation?’—he, RUSSIAN FRONT

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Map © 2014 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

helplessly motioning with his arms, replied: ‘I understand the gravity of what happened, but could not do anything; therefore, we decided to die here, but not to retreat without orders.’ There were two Orders of the Red Banner on his chest. But, recently called up from reserve, he spent many years out of the army and, apparently, completely lost leadership skills. True, he was quite capable of dying without abandoning his post. But who would benefit from that? It was embarrassing to look at his pathetic appearance. While realizing that returning the regiment to its previous positions was out of the question, I invited the officers to come with me, loaded them up in [my] car and took [them] to the regiment. I pointed out to Kostevich a position for his observation post, advised him how to best deploy his battalions and fire support assets … In the woods, to the right of the highway, I found the corps’ artillery regiment and discovered that its guns did not have prepared firing positions and commanders of the regiment and [its battalions] did not have observation posts.” Unfortunately, the panic was beginning to spread through many units of the Twentieth and Twenty-Second Armies. Lt. Gen. Konev discovered complete chaos near Rudnya, a small town between Vitebsk and Smolensk: “A disorganized stream was moving toward us—vehicles, wagons, horses, columns of refugees with many soldiers among them. Everyone was in a hurry toward Smolensk. It was absolutely impossible for us to drive to Vitebsk. The road was completely choked. I decided

to [use my] staff officers to put the things on the road in order, gave instructions to stop all military personnel, form up infantry units, separate artillerymen, tankers and send everybody back to Vitebsk. To my surprise, even tanks were moving from Vitebsk to Rudnya—several heavy KVs and several T-26s. Especially strange was to see the retreating new tanks. Three KV tanks were moving to Rudnya, allegedly for repairs. Literally threatening them with guns, sticking revolvers into drivers’ hatches, we stopped these tanks, which, by the way, turned out to be operational; we took them under control. In this manner we managed to collect by evening almost a battalion of infantry, a battery of 85mm air defense guns, and a battery of 122mm guns.” Despite the best efforts of senior Soviet officers, during the next several days, Hoth’s divisions steadily pushed the Nineteenth Army east and encircled the right flank of the Sixteenth and Twentieth Armies north and west of Smolensk. On the same day, Guderian’s XLVII Motorized Corps, skirting the city to the south, came close to linking up with the northern pincer and completely surrounding the two Soviet armies. The beleaguered Nineteenth Army and survivors of V and VII Mechanized Corps barely managed to hang on to one Dniepr River crossing near Solovyevo village, approximately 10 miles south of Yartsevo, holding open a lifeline to their comrades at Smolensk. Launching his attack across the Dniepr River on July 10, General Guderian established several vital bridgeheads on the east bank, strikGerman armored thrusts advanced to quickly surround Russian units, executing ing at the junction of the Soviet Twentigiant pincer movements and trapping thousands of Red Army soldiers. eth and Thirteenth Armies south of Orsha and prying apart the flanks of both armies. A bitter fight flared up for Orsha, defended by units from the Soviet Twentieth Army. Especially distinguishing themselves were the 73rd Rifle Division under Colonel A.I. Akimov and 1st Proletarian Motorized Rifle Division under Colonel Yakov G. Kreitzer. This latter division initially belonged to the VII Mechanized Corps but was diverted south prior to VII Corps’ ill-fated attack and was spared destruction along with its parent unit. The 1st Proletarian Division, stationed in one of Moscow’s suburbs, was the Red Army’s showpiece and experimental unit. It was constantly kept at near full strength and was usually given new equipment and tactics to test. Colonel Kreitzer served almost his entire career in this unit, progressing from platoon leader

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The soggy ground was an equal opportunity impediment. A group of Russian tanks lies mired in the mud of the Russian steppes at Tolotschin. Unable to maneuver, the armor of both sides was sometimes rendered impotent.

to division commander and, unlike many of his fellow officers, enjoying the complete trust and confidence of his men. As a curious side note, many well-known Moscow athletes were sent to this division upon mobilization. In addition, Lieutenant Rueben Ibarruri, son of exiled Spanish Communist leader Dolores Ibarruri, served in this unit until being wounded in subsequent fighting. On July 11, as Colonel Kreitzer was preparing his division for a counterattack the next day, he was seriously wounded in his right arm during an air attack and taken to the rear. The next day, before Kreitzer’s division had a chance to attack, its neighboring LXIX Rifle Corps was hit hard by combined German air and panzer attacks and withdrew, jeopardizing the flank of the Moscow division. Despite the best efforts of its defenders, Orsha was completely surrounded on July 14. After holding the defenses of Orsha for several days, the units trapped within the small pocket, spearheaded by the 1st Proletarian Motorized Division, fought their way clear before the German ring had a chance to solidify. Unable to retreat east, survivors of the division, now numbering only 1,500 men plus some from the LXIX Rifle Corps, turned south and joined the defenders of Mogilev, also surrounded. Mogilev, encircled since July 12, was held by parts of the

Soviet Thirteenth Army, in particular the LXI Rifle Corps under Maj. Gen. F.A. Bakunin. Attempting to relieve pressure on Mogilev, the Twenty-First Army launched an attack on July 13 led by its LXIII Rifle Corps under Lt. Gen. Leonid G. Petrovskiy. In a spirited advance, Petrovskiy’s men crossed to the west side of the Dniepr River, recaptured Rogachev and Zhlobin, which had been lost on July 9, and continued moving to Bobruisk. The German command had to shift valuable reserves to slow the Soviet offensive. Even though much pressure was taken off Mogilev’s defenders, the LXI and LXIII Corps could not link up and Bakunin’s command remained trapped inside Mogilev. On July 27, survivors of the LXI Rifle Corps and the 1st Proletarian Division fought their way out of the encirclement and linked up with the main Soviet forces. Not all the Red Army men were able to make it out of Mogilev. Some stragglers became stranded in the city when the last bridge was destroyed by their retreating comrades. Surrounded Soviet soldiers fought for another day before being hunted down among the ruins, killed or taken prisoner. Colonel Yakov Kreitzer soon rejoined his men, and the 1st Proletarian Division was rebuilt with new soldiers and proud traditions. Colonel Kreitzer himself survived the war and rose to high rank in the Red Army. RUSSIAN FRONT

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When Guderian struck at the junction of the Soviet Twentieth and Thirteenth Armies on July 10, his attack was so determined that it pushed the bulk of Lt. Gen. P.A. Kurochkin’s Twentieth Army to the northeast of Orsha and to the north side of the Dniepr River. While the panzers bypassed Smolensk on the way to Yartsevo, elements of the 29th Motorized Division broke into Smolensk from the south and began digging out the stubborn defenders block by block. The German attack was executed with such speed that Soviet commanders did not have a chance to organize proper defenses of the city. The city of Smolensk is divided roughly in half by the Dniepr River, which flows east to west in this area. By nightfall on July 15, the Germans were in possession of the southern part of the city. As the bulk of the city’s defenders, mainly from the Sixteenth Army, retreated to the north side of the river, the commander of Smolensk garrison, Colonel P.F. Malyshev, ordered the inter-city bridges blown up. The commander of the Sixteenth Army, Lt. Gen. Mikhail F. Lukin, began frantically organizing defenses on the north side of the river. With the war less than four weeks old, Lukin had already distinguished himself as a skilled commander. When the war started, Lukin’s army was in the process of being transferred by train to the Ukraine from a Siberian military district. As his first trainloads began unloading at Shepetovka, Lukin,

like Konev, received orders to divert his army north into Belarus, where the Soviet forces of the Western Front were being crushed. However, an unexpected breakthrough by German Army Group South at Ostrog threatened Shepetovka, a vital railroad center and site of a major Red Army supply and ammunition depot. As the senior commander on the scene, Lukin hurriedly put together a scratch force consisting of parts of two of his divisions and whatever other units he could find. He held the line for several desperately needed days until a rifle corps relieved him. Now, as Smolensk burned around him, Lukin ordered his men to occupy positions at the water’s edge to discourage German attempts to cross the river during the night and establish beachheads. Lukin’s attempts to shift his troops from the northern edge of the city to the river were hampered by having to navigate the city streets amid burning buildings and German shelling. It was too late. On the morning of July 16, the Germans renewed the attack, and even though Lukin’s men fought tenaciously the German 29th Motorized Division was in complete possession of Smolensk by that evening. Also on this day, Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, commander of an artillery battery in the VII Mechanized Corps, was captured east of Vitebsk. Yakov was Stalin’s son by his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, who died in 1907 from tuberculosis. Yakov and Stalin Artillery belonging to German Army Group Center fires toward the distant enemy did not get along well, with Yakov often at Smolensk on July 13, 1941. One Wehrmacht soldier mans a machine gun in support of the artillerymen. bearing the brunt of Stalin’s insults and angry tirades. Later in the war the Germans proposed to exchange Yakov for Field Marshal Freidrich Paulus, captured at Stalingrad in 1943. Stalin turned down the offer, allegedly stating: “I do not trade lieutenants for field marshals.” Shortly thereafter, Yakov committed suicide in a POW camp by charging the wire. He was shot dead by a German guard. Hearing of the loss of Smolensk, Stalin flew into a rage, accusing Marshal Timoshenko and his staff of cowardice and defeatist spirit. The specter of the fate of Col. Gen. Pavlov was fresh in Timoshenko’s mind. Without giving them pause, on July 17 the Soviet Marshal ordered Lt. Gen. Konev and his Nineteenth Army to retake Smolensk. At the same time, orders were transmitted to the two armies in the Smolensk pocket to continue their attacks. While the Twentieth Army fought northwest of the city,

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Lukin’s Sixteenth Army attacked east toward the Nineteenth Army. As the fighting raged across Smolensk, the majority of the ancient city was turned to ruins. On July 19, Lukin’s men managed to capture a toehold in the northwest part of the city. In bitter house-to-house fighting amid the rubble of destroyed buildings, a precursor of things to come at Stalingrad, the Germans were completely pushed out of the northern part of Smolensk by the end of July 25. In addition to Konev’s army, Timoshenko and the Soviet high command organized five task forces to take control of units that retreated to the line of the Dniepr and Vop Rivers, as well as some reserve units arriving at the front. After a short preparation, four of these combat groups, each numbering several infantry and tank divisions, were committed to Two Red Army soldiers lie dead, one still holding his Mosin-Nagant rifle. Soviet the fight directly east of Smolensk, while frontier guards frequently fought delaying actions with heroic bravery, but almost all were killed by German bombers. another one, under the command of Lt. Gen. V.Y. Kachalov, formed around his Twenty-Eighth Army and operated farther south, west of its roughly 170 tanks during the four days of fighting on July Roslavl. A separate task force of three cavalry divisions was 18-21. Gorodovikov’s cavalry fought its way to the area of formed under Lt. Gen. Oka I. Ogorodnikov, a hero of the Russ- Bobruisk by July 24 at tremendous cost. ian Civil War, in order to conduct a deep raid into German Characteristically, the Germans counterattacked. On July 29, rear areas. the German panzers from two groups linked up at the The experiences of Maj. Gen. Konstantin K. Rokossovsky Solovyevo crossing. They destroyed the pontoon bridge and characterized the desperation with which the Soviets attempted captured the west side of the river. The Soviets doggedly fought to restore the situation at Smolensk. Arriving in Moscow on on, however, and retained control of the eastern end of the July 17 fresh from fighting in the Ukraine, Rokossovsky was river crossing, preventing the Germans from gaining a foothold placed in charge of one of the task forces, a group of two or on the east bank. three tank divisions and one rifle division. He was to proceed Farther to the south, Kachalov’s task force, built around the with all haste to take charge of the allocated formations in bulk of his Twenty-Eighth Army, was almost completely suraddition to being given permission to round up and take con- rounded on July 26 by several German formations, including trol of all units he encountered on the road from Moscow to the 2nd SS Division Das Reich and the Infantry Regiment Yartsevo. Grossdeutschland. In a desperate attempt to fight clear of the However, he left the capital with only a handful of people: encirclement, Lt. Gen. Kachalov was killed. Following on the “The General Staff gave me two trucks mounting quad air heels of the retreating Russians, the Germans captured Roslavl defense machine guns with crews, a radio truck and a small on August 3. group of officers,” he remembered. Several days later, his comThe fight in the small area between Smolensk and Yartsevo bat group absorbed the survivors of the VII Mechanized Corps, turned into a slugfest, with both sides suffering horrendous with the command element of the destroyed corps becoming casualties in the process. On July 30, after paying a high toll Rokossovsky’s headquarters staff. in men and equipment, Rokossovsky’s task force broke The newly created combat groups jumped off on July 23, through to the two beleaguered armies at Smolensk. By this and they immediately ran into determined German opposition time, divisions of Sixteenth and Twentieth Armies were down with the furthest progress being roughly 12 miles. The inten- to less than 2,000 men each. In addition to the Solovyevo crosssity of the fighting is illustrated by the experience of the 101st ing, Rokossovsky’s troops established another crossing farther Tank Division in Task Force Rokossovsky, which lost 140 of north, near Golovino village, and the units from the 16th and RUSSIAN FRONT

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20th Armies began pouring through. Instead of an organized Soviet withdrawal, the scene turned into a chaotic rout, with people desperate to escape literally storming the bridges. The first to escape were the rear support units, often abandoning valuable equipment and vehicles. Over the next several days, however, relative order was restored and the bulk of the survivors from the Sixteenth and Twentieth Armies crossed to the east bank of the Dniepr, abandoning the smoking ruins of Smolensk. The retreat was accomplished under continuous German shelling and bombing. When the pontoon bridge at Golovino was destroyed, heavy equipment was routed to the Solovyevo crossing, while infantry and some horse-drawn artillery continued fording the Dniepr River, which was fortunately only two to three feet deep in this area. Despite the majority of their men fighting bravely, the Soviet commanders had to constantly contend with breaks in morale. Rokossovsky later wrote, “To my great sorrow, about some things I do not have the right to remain silent; there were many instances of cowardice by the soldiers, panicking, desertion and self-mutilation to avoid having to fight. At first, the so-called ‘left-handers’ appeared, those who would shoot through the palm of their left hand or shoot off the thumb, or several fingers. When this came to light, the ‘right-handers’ appeared, doing similar things, but on the right hand. Sometimes mutilation was mutual: two men would shoot each other’s hands. A law was soon passed, allowing the use of the highest measure

of punishment (the firing squad) for desertion, avoidance of battle, self-mutilation and insubordination in combat situations.” As the fighting at Smolensk raged, the Soviets were making the best use of the time bought at such a high price. Two more defensive lines were established east of Smolensk on the road to Moscow, manned by four newly created armies, the TwentyFourth, Twenty-Ninth, Thirtieth, and Thirty-First, plus the Twenty-Eighth and Thirty-Second Armies united into the Reserve Front under General Georgy Zhukov. More than 300,000 civilians were put to work digging extensive earthworks, which consisted of tank traps, trenches, ditches, and other obstacles. Among those sent to work on fortifications was 18-year-old Moscow student Yevgeniy Bessonov. He recalled hard work under difficult conditions, often being strafed and bombed by German aircraft: “We worked 12 hours a day and, unaccustomed to physical labor, would become very exhausted. We would fall asleep as soon as we touched our ‘bed’ made from hay or straw, prepared mainly in barns. We dug antitank ditches, trenches along river banks, foxholes, and set up wire obstacles. In some instances we would repair railroad tracks after bombing and clear them of destroyed boxcars. But our main occupation was digging antitank ditches.” Despite the Soviet propaganda claims about the widespread and enthusiastic support of the civilian population toward the war effort, Bessonov and his friends often experienced a luke-

Signal Magazine

Tanks of Panzergruppe Kleist travel beside a dusty track that would turn into a quagmire by the fall. The nonexistent roads took a severe toll on men and machines.

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warm response from the locals. He remembered, “Food was poor and insufficient, and the village population was not distinguished by kindness. Our foreman, who arrived with us from Moscow, had to conduct talks with residents … about helping us at least with potatoes. Sometimes it helped.” One woman told Bessonov, justifying her refusal, “What am I going to feed the Germans when they get here soon?” As more units arrived at the front, Zhukov began committing reserve armies into the fight east of Smolensk. Heavy fighting flared up at Yelnya, which was captured by the Germans on July 19. A salient penetrating eastward into the Soviet lines presented a convenient jump-off position for further German offensive efforts to the north, northeast, or southeast. The Soviet Twenty-Fourth Army contained the salient and with constant attacks did not allow it to expand, although the German position could not be eliminated by the Twenty-Fourth Army alone. By this time, German infantry formations were beginning to catch up to their mechanized units, taking over the duties of containing Soviet counterattacks and reducing the Smolensk pocket. This freed panzer and motorized divisions to conduct more effective maneuvers. As a result, the 7th Panzer Division captured Yartsevo on July 22. On August 29, following up on the successes of the TwentyFourth Army, Timoshenko ordered the newly arrived cavalry group of Colonel Lev M. Dovator into the gap. This two-division task force was to conduct a raid into the rear areas of German forces around Yartsevo. Leaving behind all of his artillery and support elements, Dovator launched his raid with the two cavalry divisions numbering 3,000 riders and 24 machine guns. After raising hell behind German lines for 10 days and covering almost 200 miles in extremely difficult roadless terrain, Dovator’s group fought its way clear and rejoined the main body of the Western Front. Commander of the Twenty-Fourth Army, Maj. Gen. K.I. Rakutin, was allowed to call off his attack at the end of the third week of August and was given reinforcements to prepare for a more substantial attack. Rakutin’s plan called for a twopincer offensive to link up west of Yelnya. Even though he gathered 60,000 men in seven divisions for the offensive, Rakutin’s force included only 35 tanks. Having less than a week to prepare and lacking sufficient armor, General Rakutin was short of the means to rapidly exploit any breakthroughs. In addition, the Twenty-Fourth Army lacked communications assets, air support was minimal, and many replacement soldiers had not finished even basic training. Only the artillery was plentiful and well supplied. Rakutin’s attack began at 7 AM on August 30, preceded by a massive artillery barrage. The central sector had only a supporting role, while the north and south wings executed the main offensive. Despite massive artillery fire and the heroic

Moscow citizens cheerfully dig antitank ditches.

efforts of the infantry, the Soviet forces initially did not make any headway north of Yelnya and achieved only some local successes on the southern face of the salient. Rakutin relentlessly drove his men forward, however, and on September 5 the Twenty-Fourth Army fought its way into Yelnya. During two days of street fighting, the town was cleared. The entire Yelnya salient was cleared of Germans by September 9. The fighting around Yelnya marked an important date in the history of the Red Army. Since the beginning of the war, Stalin had wisely chosen to portray the fight against Hitler not as a struggle of two political systems, but as a battle for the survival of the Russian people. He revived the images of famous Russian commanders from centuries past, such as Suvorov, Kutuzov, Nakhimov, and others. Yelnya saw the rebirth of Russian Guard formations, elite units disbanded after the communist takeover in 1917. Two divisions of the Twenty-Fourth Army were the first to be renumbered into Guards divisions, the 100th and 127th into, respectively, the 1st and 2nd. By the end of September, two more divisions of the Twenty-Fourth Army were retitled into Guards. The Soviet forces received help from an unexpected quarter when Hitler became concerned with the overall progress of the campaign. The success of Army Group Center was not RUSSIAN FRONT

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The German Army lost momentum at Smolensk, but the Soviets paid a high price in slowing the enemy. More than 600,000 Red Army soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured. In this painting titled After the Battle of Smolensk, artist Roman Feldmeyer shows Russian prisoners streaming toward captivity.

matched by Army Groups North and South, which were beginning to fall behind schedule in the face of determined Soviet resistance. Especially bothersome for the Germans was the Soviet Fifth Army under Maj. Gen. Mikhail I. Potapov of the Southwestern Front. This army established itself at the easternmost edges of the extensive wooded and swampy area known as the Pripyat Marshes. Its location and active operations threatened both the right flank of Army Group Center and the left flank of Army Group South. To stabilize the situation on the far-flung wings of the invasion, Hitler effectively ordered Army Group Center to go on the defensive on July 31, while turning Hoth’s panzer group north and Guderian’s south. But first the German high command called for a two-week halt in order to refit and reinforce its frontline formations, particularly panzer and motorized divisions. Without their panzer support, the infantry of Army Group Center conducted mainly local operations of tactical scope. Still, with very minor panzer participation, the German Ninth Field Army successfully trapped and largely destroyed the Soviet Twenty-First Army in the area of Gomel and the Twenty-Eighth Army in the area of Roslavl in early August. This diversion of German resources was instrumental in allowing Zhukov and Rokossovsky to liquidate the Yelnya salient and bought the Soviets time to stage resources and pre38

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pare defenses for the struggle for Moscow. However, the significance of the Battle of Smolensk lies in the fact that it forced the Germans to modify Operation Barbarossa, signaling the end of the rapid German advance. The price the Soviet people paid for this respite was prohibitively high. While German losses were approximately 80,000 men, the Red Army suffered over 600,000 casualties, including almost 400,000 men taken prisoner. The fighting strength of five Soviet armies was destroyed, and they had to be reformed practically from scratch. A month after the Battle of Smolensk, seriously wounded Maj. Gen. Mikhail Lukin was taken prisoner during the disastrous campaign at Vyazma. With his right arm partially paralyzed and his right leg amputated at the knee, the tenacious general survived the war in Nazi captivity. He returned to the Soviet Union after the war and was briefly reinstated in the army before medically retiring in 1947. Three bloody years later, Zhukov, Konev, and Rokossovsky came through this area again, this time pushing the German Army westward. In a reversal of fortune, they were instrumental in the destruction of their old nemesis, German Army Group Center.

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Victor Kamenir, a former U.S. Army sergeant, was born in Ukraine. He is now a police officer in Hillsboro, Oregon.

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THE FIGHTING AT ORSHA SAW THE first battlefield use of the Red Army’s experimental battery of BM-13 multiplelaunch rocket systems. Later in the war, these fearsome weapons were lovingly nicknamed Katyusha (Little Kate) after a popular wartime song. The development of these weapons began well before the war, in 1938, with a small trial run of 40 systems built by the time of the German invasion. The prototypes of BM vehicles had mounted launchers at right angles to their long axes; however, this proved very unstable and the launch rails were remounted lengthwise. The command staff of the first field battery, headed by Captain Ivan A. Flerov, included two civilian advisers to train the crews, A.I. Popov, one of the creators of the launch platform BM-13, and D.A. Shytov, one of the developers of the M-13 round. The first battery consisted of nine launch systems in three firing platoons, a fire direction platoon with one 122mm howitzer for fire correction, an ammunition platoon, a transportation platoon, a POL (petroleum, oil, and lubricants) platoon, and a medical detachment. One volley of this battery delivered 112 132mm M-13 rockets with high explosive or fragmentation rounds. The highly mobile battery numbered 44 trucks, allowing the transport of 600 rounds of ammunition and enough fuel, POL, and food for at least three days of operations. The first application of the Katyusha’s firepower was directed at Orsha’s railroad station. While not intended for pinpoint accuracy, the new weapon system delivered a devastating amount of fire over a wide-area target, destroying several trains and causing significant German casualties. The success of its first combat deployment kicked the production of BM-13 systems into high gear, and

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The Katyusha multiple-launch rocket system became famous in combat on the Eastern Front.

West of Moscow, a salvo of Soviet Katyusha rockets explodes in a wall of flame and smoke. Fired by launchers mounted on trucks, they were highly mobile. close to 10,000 systems of all types were produced by the end of the war. In addition to the original BM-13 models, there were multiple variations of 81mm BM-8 systems, some of them mounted on jeeps, and heavy BM-31 launchers for 310mm rockets. The special place of the Katyushas in the Soviet arsenal earned them the official title of Guards Mortars. The Germans called them Stalinorgel, meaning Stalin’s Organ. In the early stages of the war, the Soviets took great pains to safeguard these weapons, with the immediate security of Katyusha batteries provided by detachments of NKVD (secret police) troops. In cases when a launch vehicle became disabled and retrieval was impossible, it was blown up in place to deny the Germans an intelligence coup. Battery commanders were responsible with their lives for the destruction of disabled launch vehicles. Just such a fate befell Captain Ivan Flerov’s battery. Caught in a cauldron at Vyazma in October 1941, with his vehicles immobilized by marshy terrain and out of ammunition, Flerov ordered them blown

up. When fewer than a third of the battery’s soldiers made it out of the encirclement alive, Captain Flerov was not one of them. Katyushas were inexpensive and uncomplicated to produce and easily mounted on many platforms, initially including only trucks but quickly progressing to tanks, tractors, armored trains, and even small naval vessels. Later in the war, many Lend-Lease tanks, which the Soviet specialists did not consider to be up to the task of armored warfare on the Eastern Front, were used as mounting platforms. However, American Studebaker two-and-one-half- ton trucks were highly regarded for their offroad performance, and thousands of them were used as mounting platforms for Katyushas. The end of World War II did not end the Katyushas’ service. Thousand of them were exported to Soviet client states during the Cold War and were built in several countries under license. American forces faced them during the Korean War and decades later in Iraq.

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ROTTWEILERS OF THE THIRD REICH Belying their deliberately bland-sounding name, the Einsatzgruppen, or task forces, carried out a bloodcurdling policy of systematic murder in the rear of German-occupied territory in Eastern Europe. BY ROY MORRIS JR.

One week before Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, his ill-fated invasion of Russia, in June 1941, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler hosted a gathering of elite Nazi leaders at Wewelsburg, a refurbished 17th-century castle on the Alme River near the village of Paderborn. The threeday meeting, attended by top SS and police officials whom Himmler had chosen to take control of the conquered Soviet territories after the victorious Wehrmacht moved steadily eastward, included Himmler’s feared second-in-command, Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, and Kurt Daluege, chief of the Order Police. Amid the gothic splendor of the hilltop castle, supposedly located near the site of the great Teutonic victory over the Roman legions at Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, Himmler harangued the gathering with the Führer’s concept of Lebensraum—living space—and what the conquest of Russia would mean for the people living there. “It is a question of existence,” Himmler said, “thus it will be a racial struggle of pitiless severity, in the course of which 20 to 30 million Slavs and Jews will perish through military actions and crises of food supply.”

As Himmler envisioned it, Lebensraum would mean a clean sweep of Russia’s indigenous population from eastern Poland to the Ural Mountains. The German Army would spearhead the invasion, but the actual task of ethnic cleansing would be left to the special new force then assembled for inspection on the marching field below the castle, the Einsatzgruppen. After a hurried inspection by Heydrich (a thunderstorm was looming and he needed to get back to Berlin to help direct Operation Barbarossa), the Einsatzgruppen rolled eastward to take their place in the Nazi phalanx and the blood-soaked annals of human infamy. The Einsatzgruppen, or task forces, previously had seen ser-

RIGHT: Kneeling before a mass grave, a Polish Jew is executed with a bullet to the back of the head by a member of an SS death squad. Other German soldiers, possibly gathered by the photographer, witness the execution. 40

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vice during the Nazi invasion of Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1939. There they had helped the Wehrmacht impose order by rounding up and executing suspected Communists and a wide range of political, religious, and intellectual leaders. An estimated 16,376 people were gunned down by the Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppen in the prostrate countries, including, inexplicably, a Boy Scout troop in the Polish town of Bydgoszcz. The army soon washed its hands of such blatantly murderous acts, and Eastern Territories commander Johannes Blaskowitz complained to Himmler that the slaughter of innocent civilians would lead to “tremendous brutalization and moral depravity” among the men in the ranks. “It is wholly misguided to slaughter a few thousand Jews and Poles,” said Blaskowitz. “The way in which the slaughter is being carried out is extremely damaging.” Himmler backed off for a time, excusing the murders as the work of a few drunken looters and airily declaring, “We do not need to get excited about it.” To avoid future run-ins with the Wehrmacht, however, Himmler determined to expand the Einsatzgruppen until it was large enough to handle by itself all the “special tasks” and “executive measures”—euphemisms for rank, cold-blooded murder—that lay ahead during the Russian campaign. In the spring of 1941, he opened a training camp at Pretztch, 50 miles southwest of Berlin, for new Einsatzgruppen officers. The handpicked trainees were drawn from the ranks of the Gestapo, the SS, the criminal police, and the Reich Security Main Office, a top-secret investigative unit within the SS. Many of the men were members of the educated German middle class—the same class they would be tasked with eradicating in other countries. Among them were architects, economists, physicians, pastors, detectives—even a professional opera singer. Of the initial 17 commanders of the Einsatzgruppen and its subcommando units, seven held university doctorates. At another time, they might have been considered the best and the brightest. Now they were merely the brightest. The three-week-long course at Pretzsch involved little military or physical training. Mostly, the men sat through lectures stressing the concepts of honor and duty to the fatherland and the subhuman nature of the people they would be dealing with in Eastern Europe. Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker, tabbed to command Einsatzgruppe A, the northernmost wing of the advance guard, told his charges that they “would be putting down resistance behind the troop lines, protecting and pacifying the rear army area and keeping the area behind the front clear.” The word pacify was used frequently in the classes, and no one had any question about what it signified, particularly after they received weapons training with their Luger, Mauser, and Walther pistols, Mauser rifles, and Bergmann machine pistols. Such weapons were too lightweight for actual assault tactics, but they were perfect for more close-in duties.

Each Einsatzkommando unit was also issued 40 shovels. As contemporary historian French MacLean noted, there was no need for larger arms. “The mission of the Einsatzkommando,” he wrote, “was execution, not combat.” There were no written orders to that effect, at least not specifically. But Hitler himself dictated a paragraph in the formal instructions issued by Field Marshal Wilhem Keitel, chief of the Armed Forces High Command, prior to Barbarossa, designed to clarify the groups’ duties vis-à-vis the army. “With the field operations of the army,” Hitler instructed, “in order to prepare the political and administrative organization, the Reichsführer-SS assumes on behalf of the Führer special tasks which arise from the necessity finally to settle conflict between two opposing political systems. Within the framework of these duties the Reichsführer-SS acts independently and on his own responsibility.” Heydrich further specified to his officers that they were “authorized within the frame of their assignment to carry out on their own responsibility executive measures concerning the civilian population.” As one officer remembered, they were also told that “we would have to conquer our weaker selves and that what was needed were tough men who understood how to carry out orders.” No one dissented from his assignment. At dawn on June 22, 1941, the German invasion of Russia began. More than three million troops attacked along a 2,000mile front from the northern coast of Finland to the Black Sea. Tactical surprise was complete, and Nazi forces swept quickly eastward. Before them, panic-stricken inhabitants of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and westernmost Russia reeled backward down highways, across fields, and through forests, desperate to escape the advancing invaders. The main highway to Minsk was jammed with broken-down trucks, abandoned cannon, and discarded machine guns. Low-flying German planes swooped down to fire indiscriminately into the ranks of old men, women, and children seeking to escape. Advance squads of SS and police began rounding up people on lists provided by the Gestapo in Berlin. The four Einsatzgruppen—designated A, B, C, and D—followed swiftly at their heels. They were commanded, respectively, by Brigadeführers Franz Walter Stahlecker, Arthur Nebe, Otto Rasch, and Standartenführer Otto Ohlendorf. Each group contained between 500 and 1,000 men, further subdivided into 16 Sonderkommandos and Einsatzkommandos, which were functionally independent in the field. Initial orders did not specifically target the Jewish population of the occupied territories. Instead, on July 2, Heydrich sent a written order to group leaders, instructing merely that “All the following are to be executed: officials of the Comintern, together with professional Communist politicians in general, top- and medium-level officials and radical lower-level officials RUSSIAN FRONT

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of the Party, Central Committee and district and subdistrict committees.” Additionally, Einsatzagruppen leaders were told to encourage “any purges that may be initiated by anti-Communist or anti-Jewish elements in the newly occupied territories.” The first such purge occurred in Kaunas, Lithuania, a few days after the beginning of Barbarossa, when Lithuanian nationalists, augmented by violent career criminals helpfully released from jail by the SS, fell upon the 35,000 Jews who had lived among them peacefully for generations. A Wehrmacht colonel attached to Army Group North happened unwittingly upon the scene at a gas station in the town. Observing a crowd of laughing, cheering residents, some of them lifting their children over their heads for a better view, the colonel pushed to the front, where he beheld “probably the most frightening event that I had seen during the course of two world wars.” A grinning young man of about 25, armed with a five-foot-long crowbar, was casually beating to death, one by one, Jewish men who were forced to kneel down before him. In less than an hour, the self-described “Death-dealer of Kovno [Kaunas]” murdered between 45 and 50 people, then grabbed an accordion, stepped onto the pile of bodies, and began play-

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Members of an SS Einsatzgruppe search Jews they have rounded up in Warsaw during the early days of World War II.

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ing the Lithuanian national anthem. However diverting such a spectacle was for the crowd, it represented a challenge for Einsatzgruppe A commander Stahlecker, who complained, “It was not easy at first to set any large-scale anti-Jewish pogrom in motion” in Kaunas. Neverthless, Stahlecker soon organized a 600-man force of Lithuanian irregulars who began systematically burning down Jewish homes and synagogues and rounding up their former neighbors for execution, justifying their actions with the ridiculous accusation that Jewish snipers had been seen firing at German troops from their windows. In this way, thousands of Kaunas Jews were killed by their fellow townspeople in the first days after the invasion. Keeping in mind Heydrich’s earlier instructions, Stahlecker reported: “It was thought a good idea for the security police not to be seen to be involved, at least not immediately, in these unusually tough measures, which were also bound to attract attention in German circles. The impression had to be created that the local population itself had taken the first steps of its own accord as a natural reaction to decades of oppression by the Jews and the more recent terror exerted by the Communists.” As the army continued advancing deeper into Russia, the Einsatzgruppen came under pressure from Himmler and Heydrich to increase the pace of the killings. Following the advance at a leisurely pace in an armored train car christened Heinrich, the two SS leaders arrived in the eastern Polish city of Bialystok on July 8. Three days later, Himmler issued an order specifying that “all male Jews between 17-45 years of age convicted of looting are to be executed immediately.” Despite the fact that it was the Jewish homes and stores that were being looted by Einsatzkommandos and SS police, and that the task forces conducted neither investigations nor trials of any Jews who fell into their hands, Himmler’s order had the bare appearance of legality—which was all he was after at the time. German troops were still surprisingly reluctant to openly slaughter Jews, and Himmler took care to order that any executions “are to take place away from the cities, villages and traffic routes. The graves are to be leveled to prevent them from becoming places of pilgrimage. I forbid photography and the admittance of spectators. Executions and places of burial are not to be made public.” To offset any uncomfortable after-effects among the men, Himmler recommended holding “evening gatherings with comrades” to forget the cares of the day. As a responsible leader, Sonderkommando 7a Colonel Walter Blume went a step farther, thoughtfully giving his men a breather between each set of 10 Jews they were ordered to execute at a killing pit outside the village of Vitebsk. “During these pauses,” he reported, “I let my men sit down and rest and joined them. I said exactly the same words to them at that time: ‘As such it is no job for German men and soldiers to shoot

defenseless people, but the Führer has ordered these shootings because he is convinced that these men otherwise would shoot at us as patinas or would shoot at our comrades and our women and children.’ Furthermore, I tried by talking about neutral subjects to make the difficult spiritual situation easier and to overcome it.” When the shootings were over, Blume went back to his office and vomited. His fellow officer Obersturmführer Karl Kretschmer of Sonderkommando 4a agreed with the sentiment, if not the action. In a letter to his wife, he admitted that “the sight of the dead (including women and children) is not very cheering. We have to eat and drink well because of the nature of our work. Otherwise we would crack up.” Kretschmer excused himself by noting that “we have got to be tough here or else we will lose the war. There is no room for pity of any kind. There are no Jews here anymore.” And, he maintained, “It is a German soldiers stand aside as a pipe-wielding Lithuanian man mercilessly beats weakness not to be able to stand the to death numerous Jews who had been forced to kneel before him. Described as sight of dead people; the best way of the “Death Dealer of Kovno,” the man may have killed as many as 50 people in overcoming it is do it more often. Then less than an hour. it becomes a habit.” Throughout the hot, dry summer of 1941, the killing did meant, Prutzmann responded honestly, “Not what you think; indeed become a habit for the men of the four Einsatzgrup- they’re supposed to be dispatched into the next world.” pen. Moving across western Russia and into the Ukraine, the The western Ukrainian town of Schepetovka soon felt the units became more ruthless and efficient with each passing day. brunt of Himmler’s vague vocabulary. During the last week of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin inadvertently played into Hitler’s July 1941, Reserve Police Battalion 45 and local auxiliary hands in early July when he issued an order for partisan units forces began murdering Jews at an alarming rate. Under the to begin operating behind German lines. steely leadership of SS Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, Hitler was quick to recognize the opening, telling his subor- the occupiers killed more than 44,000 men, women, and childinate commanders, “It enables us to eradicate everyone who dren in one month—the largest total of any of Himmler’s opposes us. The vast area must be pacified as quickly as pos- legions. Jecklyn contributed a new innovation to the time-consible; the way to do that is to shoot dead anyone who even suming practice of cold-blooded murder. He called it Sardilooks at us sideways.” To facilitate matters, he gave Himmler nenpackung—sardine packing—and it involved forcing vicsweeping new authority over all police matters in the con- tims to lie down together on top of previous victims while their quered territories. Himmler, in turn, expanded his forces in the executioners dispatched them with Genickschussen, or pointUkraine, adding regiments of Waffen-SS infantry, cavalry, and blank shots to the back of the neck. It enabled the Nazis to fill mechanized units and recruiting auxiliary police units from their execution pits more efficiently. In effect, their victims did “reliable, non-Communist elements” in the Ukraine, Estonia, it for them. Latvia, Lithuania, and Byelorussia. Another innovation was the use of city buses, which Latvian Inspecting one such auxiliary unit in Latvia, Himmler auxiliary units commandeered to make their deadly rounds declared that “criminal elements”—meaning Jews—needed to into the countryside outside of Riga. Led by blond-haired, be “resettled.” When one of Gruppenführer Hans-Adolf Prutz- blue-eyed lawyer Viktors Arajs, the Latvian commandos killed mann’s subordinates asked him what the Reichsführer had 5,000 Jews and Communists in regularly scheduled, twiceRUSSIAN FRONT

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weekly excursions to the killing pits in the Bikernieki Forest, four miles from the center of the city. Arajs and his killers found that the blue, Swedish-made city buses could comfortably transport 40 men, their rifles, and post-execution refreshments such as schnapps, vodka, sausages, and cigarettes. Latvian auxiliaries helped members of Einsatzkommando 3 kill more than 9,000 Jews in the city of Daugavpils that August. Daugavpils police assisted in the killings, and a precinct chief reported proudly that “the old policemen in particular fulfilled their assignments cleanly. During the liquidation of the Jews there was no lack of volunteers in the precinct to carry out this unpleasant task. It was carried out without hatred and shame, the men understanding that it would help all Christian civilization.” Among the victims of these Christian volunteers were 400 Jewish orphans, who were trucked to the killing fields under the guise of a summer outing. Arajs later explained that on such occasions it was necessary to throw the children into the air to shoot them, since bullets passing through the children’s small bodies sometimes caused dangerous ricochets. SS-Standartenführer Karl Jager, who directed the Daugavpils

executions, expanded his work to include neighboring Lithuania. Basing his operations in the already ravaged town of Kaunas, Jager’s Einsatzkommando 3 and their willing Lithuanian auxiliaries murdered nearly 25,000 people, mostly Jews, in one month’s time. Jager, whose name means “hunter” in German, kept a fanatically detailed log of his hellish work. By the time he had completed his efforts that December, the 53-year-old former secret police commander would record an incomprehensible total of 137,346 deaths in his ledger. In a particularly cruel twist, Jager tricked members of the Jewish council in Kaunas into recruiting 534 of the town’s leading Jewish professionals—doctors, lawyers, engineers, and college graduates— to reorganize official records at city hall, which he said the retreating Russians had left in complete disarray. Jager promised that the work would be indoors and that three square meals would be provided for the starving workers. When they arrived, the men were immediately trucked to a fort outside town and executed. Jager justified his work as “mopping up a ghetto of surplus Jews.” In his tally sheet, he listed his victims as “Jews,” “Jewesses,” “Jewish children,” “Partisans,” and “Communists.” By the end, even Jager grew tired of making distinctions. Later German officers point pistols at the backs of the heads of two victims. Executions entries recorded merely “some 4,500” were carried out by officers and soldiers who were often willing to obey criminal or “some 15,000.” orders after undergoing strict indoctrination. Occasionally, very occasionally, some Germans were given pause by their actions. At the tiny village of Belaja Cerkov, 50 miles south of Kiev, Obersturmführer August Hafner and his Sonderkommando 4a were busily murdering several hundred Jews a day in killing pits behind a local genetics institute. To spare his men the unpleasant duty of shooting children, Hafner had the noworphaned children, some still wearing diapers and none older than the age of seven, locked in a house on the edge of town. Soldiers of the 295th Infantry Division, quartered in a house next door, complained to their Catholic and Protestant chaplains that they could hear the children crying uninterruptedly all day and night. The chaplains visited the house and were shocked by what they found: infants lying insensible on the floor, covered with waste and flies, while older children were eating mortar they had scratched out of the walls with their fingernails. The stench was terrible and “there was not a single drop of drinking

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water” in the house. The chaplains took their findings to their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Groscurth, who conducted his own tour of the house and then telephoned Sixth Army headquarters demanding an explanation. He was given the usual bureaucratic runaround, but while waiting for a definitive answer, Groscurth put a temporary moratorium on further executions. Groscurth was immediately confronted by a furious Hafner, who demanded to know why his killings had been stopped. Hafner fetched his superior, Paul Blobel, who had recently returned from a month’s stay in what Hafner termed “a loony bin” for treatment of his nervous exhaustion. Blobel, holder of an Iron Cross for his service in World War I, Following Hitler’s edict that “whatever we find in the shape of an upper class in angrily dismissed Groscurth’s complaints Poland will be liquidated,” an SS firing squad continues a round of mass killings in the town of Bydgoszcz. and accused him and the chaplains of stirring up trouble. “He was at pains to point out that as a result of the division’s actions the elimination of 8 and Police Battalion 9 went to work organizing the event. the children had been delayed unnecessarily by twenty-four Two long pits were dug in a forest clearing a few miles north hours,” Groscurth recalled later, “and said that it would be best of the city. Between 120 and 190 prisoners, including two if those troops who were nosing around carried out the execu- women, were trucked to the clearing in individual groups to tions themselves.” face a 12-man firing squad. Most of the victims were young The Wehrmacht colonel refused to have anything to do with Jewish men, including one blond-haired, blue-eyed youth. the killings and wrote an angry report condemning the killings Himmler walked over to him and asked if he was a Jew. “Yes,” of women and children, “which in no way differ from atroci- the man replied. “Are both your parents Jews?” “Yes.” “Do ties carried out by the enemy.” That was all he could do. In the you have ancestors who were not Jews?” “No.” “Then even I meantime, a vindicated Hafner had his Ukrainian militia exe- can’t help you,” Himmler shrugged, walking away. cute the children, reporting that “the children were taken down While the executions were taking place, Himmler paced back from the tractor. They were lined up along the top of the grave and forth nervously. “He couldn’t stand still,” Bach-Zelewski and shot so that they fell into it. The Ukrainians did not aim recalled. “His face was white as cheese, his eyes went wild, and at any particular part of the body. They fell into the grave. The with each burst of gunfire he always looked at the ground.” wailing was indescribable. I shall never forget the scene When the two women were brought up, the killers apparthroughout my life. I find it very hard to bear. I particularly ently flinched, making a mess of things. The women, badly remember a small fair-haired girl who took me by the hand. wounded, fell to the ground thrashing. Himmler couldn’t take She too was shot later.” it any more. “Don’t torture these women!” he shouted at the Not even the Reichsführer himself was immune from certain squad commander. “Fire! Hurry up and kill them!” Bachfeelings of squeamishness, if not conscience, over the continu- Zelewsi, who later would break down himself from the strain, ing bloodbath on the Eastern Front. On a whim, Himmler pointed out that only 100 prisoners had been killed. asked Einsatzgruppe B commander Arthur Nebe to arrange a “Look at the men, how shaken they are,” he told Himmler. mass execution for his private viewing at Minsk in August “Such men are finished for the rest of their lives. What kind 1941. In the words of Police Leader Eric von dem Bach- of followers are we creating? Either neurotics or brutes.” SeekZelewski, who was traveling with Himmler at the time, “He ing to put the best face on his own shaky behavior, Himmler wanted to observe such a liquidation in order to get an idea of called the troops together and gave a little speech, noting that what it was like.” “they surely had noticed that even he was revolted by this In the event, Himmler, who had never personally seen any- bloody activity and had been aroused to the depth of his soul.” one killed, got more than he bargained for. Einsatzkommando But, being Himmler, he pointed out that they were all folRUSSIAN FRONT

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lowing orders that were justified in “defending ourselves chambers at the concentration camps. against vermin.” Despite Himmler’s purely practical concern for his men’s psyThere was one major consequence of Himmler’s private chological well-being, some Einsatz commandos did break viewing. It convinced him that shooting was not the most effi- down from the mental and physical strain of murdering countcient method of execution, either for the victims or their less innocent civilians. At least two group leaders, Blobel and killers, and he ordered Nebe to come up with a better way of Nebe, as well as police leader Bach-Zelewski, had nervous dispatching innocent human beings to breakdowns, and a number of lesstheir doom. exalted officers and enlisted men spent Nebe’s selection for the role was well time at mental hospitals and rest areas thought out. A former vice squad detec“where SS men were cared for who have tive turned Gestapo leader, he had broken down while executing women already come to Himmler’s attention in and children.” 1939, when he supplied the drugs used Symptoms exhibited by the executionto kill thousands of handicapped Gerers included sleeplessness, depression, man children in 23 hospitals as part of a impotence, nightmares, crying jags, state-sponsored euthanasia program. uncontrollable trembling, flashbacks, Now he experimented with various ways and, on some occasions, wild shooting of killing large groups of prisoners more at their own comrades—all well-docuswiftly and efficiently without involving mented manifestations of post-traumatic Einsatzgruppen soldiers directly. First he stress. A staff officer with Einsatzgruppe tried dynamite, getting his men to rig a A in Latvia observed that “after the first special machine gun pillbox with the wave of shootings, it emerged that the explosive and lock in a number of Russ- Heinrich Himmler, leader of the fanatimen, particularly the officers, could not ian mental patients. The pillbox cal SS, encouraged SS soldiers to act cope with the demands made on them. and without pity against those exploded as planned, but the force was brutally Many abandoned themselves to alcohol, the Nazis deemed inferior. so great that it blasted body parts into many suffered nervous breakdowns and the air in every direction, forcing the psychological illnesses.” Some, including testers to climb up into surrounding trees to retrieve dangling Nebe’s personal chauffeur, committed suicide rather than face arms and legs. one more massacre. Extra rations of alcohol and cigarettes Nebe next tried killing his victims with carbon monoxide gas were routinely issued to the men before the killings, and speproduced by running a hose from an automobile into a cial treats of strawberries and cream were sometimes provided bricked-in hospital room at an insane asylum in Mogilev. He afterward. A slogan spread through the ranks: “In the mornand his assistants waited for several minutes while the selected ing we shoot; in the evening we feast.” victims sat, apparently unharmed by the fumes. Deciding that Inevitably, there were men who reveled in their deeds, no the automobile was not powerful enough to produce enough matter how despicable and depraved. One such individual was gas, Nebe had a second vehicle brought in and hooked up to an SS staff sergeant named Ribe, nicknamed “the devil with the the room. Finally the patients succumbed, and Nebe reported white eyes,” who patrolled the Jewish ghetto at Minsk. Ghetto his findings to Himmler. survivor Hersh Smolar remembered, decades later, that Ribe At the same time, a department head in Heydrich’s Reich “never let any Jew he encountered go unscathed, regardless of Security Main Office, Walter Rauf, had his staff explore the age or sex. He would look at his victim with his big bulging possibilities of remodeling transportation trucks into portable eyes, his lips would form a smile, he would carefully aim his gas chambers. They came up with a vehicle that resembled an pistol—and never miss.” unholy cross between an ambulance and a refrigerator truck. On one occasion Ribe organized a ghoulish “beauty conVictims were placed in a hermetically sealed rear cabin and test” in the ghetto, selecting 12 pretty young Jewish women carbon monoxide was introduced through a pipe. The gassing and making them parade through the streets to the Jewish process took between 15 and 30 minutes; meanwhile, the ever- cemetery, where he forced them to undress and then shot them, efficient Germans could drive the van between the loading site one by one. He grabbed the brassiere from the last victim and and already-dug graves. About 30 such vans eventually were told her with a grin, “This will be my souvenir of the pretty produced by the private automobile firm of Gabschat Jewess.” Farengewerke and sent to Einsatzgruppen units in the field. Another jolly executioner was SS-Untersturmführer Max From there, it was a short step to devising the notorious gas Taubner. Although assigned to an equipment repair platoon 46

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Herded into a ravine near the Soviet town of Zdolbunov in October 1942, Jewish men, women and children await execution at the hands of German Einsatzgruppen.

rather than a regular Einsatzgruppe, Taubner took it upon himself to organize ad hoc massacres of Ukrainian civilians as part of his grandiose promise to himself to personally kill 20,000 Jews. At Novograd Volynsky, in September 1941, Taubner assured the anti-Semitic mayor of the town that he would handle the 300 Jews who were locked up in a nearby prison. While Ukrainian militiamen dug a killing pit outside of town, Taubner organized his fellow repairmen into a killing detail. One man, Ernst Schumann, balked at the duty. “I was deeply astonished,” he said, “that our men, as members of a workshop unit, were concerned with killing Jews.” Schumann refused to have anything to do with the murders, telling Taubner: “I had not come to Russia to kill women and children. I myself had a wife and children at home.” Taubner shrugged, called him a coward, and went back to work shooting defenseless prisoners. Another member of the unit, named Abraham, personally dispatched five children between the ages of two and six, grabbing them by the hair, lifting them up and shooting them casually in the back of the head. That fall, Taubner and his henchmen killed 319 Jews at Novograd Volynsky, another 191 at Sholokhovo, and 15 more—all he could find—at Aleksandriya. At the latter, he had

the prisoners, men and women, locked in an unlit basement without food, water, or toilet facilities. Then he invited the mayor of the town to take part in a “viewing party” at which Taubner and the others beat the victims with wooden clubs and sexually molested an elderly woman. A member of the unit, SS-Mann Heinrich Hesse, was so disgusted by the assault that he personally escorted a beautiful young woman out of the cellar and shot her from behind as she walked outside. “I did not want the Jewess to suffer fear of death,” Hesse maintained. “I was glad to be able to shoot her, but please don’t take that to mean that I enjoyed it.” Eventually, Taubner became so unhinged, slashing victims across the face with a whip and playing his accordion wildly between executions, that the SS took the unusual step of putting him on trial for “conduct unworthy of a German man and an SS officer … allow[ing] his men to act with such vicious brutality that they conducted themselves under his command like a savage horde.” Taubner was expelled from the SS and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but Himmler later pardoned him and sent him back to the front. The nadir of the Einsatzgruppen’s so-called Judenaktions took place in a ravine outside Kiev in September 1941. Angered RUSSIAN FRONT

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by Communist saboteurs who blew up the commanding general of artillery and his staff, along with dozens of other buildings housing German troops, Einsatzgruppe C commander Paul Blobel personally took charge of the now-customary massive retaliation. Conveniently blaming the city’s Jews for the sabotage, Blobel ordered all those “living in the city of Kiev and its vicinity” to assemble near the city’s rail yards at 8 AM on September 29. They were told to bring their identity papers, valuables, and warm clothing. Expecting to be deported eastward, many of the unsuspecting victims baked bread for the journey, packed suitcases and boxes, and slung strings of onions around their necks to eat along the way. Some were singing as they arrived at the assembly point two miles northwest of town, near the Jewish cemetery outside the mile-long Babi Yar ravine. A small, clear stream ran through the bottom of the ravine. In charge of the German troops that morning was Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, who recently had recorded

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the Einsatzgruppen’s first five-figure massacre by overseeing the slaughter of 23,600 Jews at the Ukrainian village of Kamenets-Podolsky. The tally would have been even higher had not the Hungarian minister of the interior, hearing of the massacre, recalled seven more trainloads of Jewish refugees on their way to the east. At Babi Yar, Jeckeln would far surpass that hideous tally. For two solid days, Kiev’s Jews, 30 or 40 at a time, were forced to walk a gauntlet of truncheon-swinging soldiers and police dogs, disrobe, and climb down to the bottom of the ravine, where designated “packers” threw them onto rows of already murdered victims. Squads of marksmen armed with submachine guns then strolled past, shooting each victim in turn in the neck. From start to finish, the entire process took less than five minutes, although it must have seemed much longer to the doomed men, women, and children of Babi Yar. By the end of the second day, 33,771 Jews had been killed by the men of Sonderkommando 4a, Police Regiment South, and the west Ukrainian militia The bodies of Jews murdered at the ravine of Babi Yar lie in seemingly endless (Kiev’s own Ukrainians were spared the rows. More than 30,000 people were summarily executed during the orgy of death. infamy of assisting in their neighbors’ deaths). The walls of the ravine were dynamited, and the commandos spent the next several days counting the millions of dollars’ worth of banknotes confiscated from the victims and loading their discarded clothing onto trucks to be donated to selected Nazi charities. After Babi Yar, the Einsatzgruppen continued cutting a swath of death through Eastern Europe and the Ukraine. Their duties took on new urgency following the massive Russian counterattack south of Moscow in early December 1941 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. With Germany now facing an all-out world war, Hitler stepped up his plans to exterminate the entire Jewish race. One day after declaring war on the United States, Hitler told his closest advisers that he was “determined to clear the table…those responsible for this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their lives.” The notorious Wannsee Conference in January 1942 formalized the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” earmarking some 11 million Jews for death in Eastern and Western Europe. 48

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This haunting image shows a young mother clutching her small child, as other victims turn away from a German soldier who prepares to fire at close range on a bleak Russian steppe. The rifles of other soldiers are just visible at the far left.

New concentration camps were constructed in eastern Poland, joining the prototype at Auschwitz. Jews from Western Europe, including Germany, began to be shipped eastward into the waiting hands of their executioners. To make room for the new arrivals, 600,000 Russian prisoners of war were shot down by their captors and by assisting Einsatzkommandos. Throughout the autumn and winter of 1941, Jewish ghettos at Minsk, Riga, Liepaja, and Vinnitsa were emptied of their residents by pitiless invaders who forced the helpless men, women, and children into the streets and herded them off to the killing fields. At Minsk, the victims were forced to take part in a ghoulish parade ostensibly celebrating the 24th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The Jews were told to “smile and look happy, to put their children on their shoulders and start marching.” Film crews recorded the staged event. In each ghetto the Nazis left behind mute testimony to their heartlessness. “Although the bodies were picked up quickly, the ghetto remained in a shambles,” recalled one historian. “Broken suitcases, furniture, toys, and baby carriages were all over the streets and yards. The houses were desolate, blood was splashed on the walls and in the stairwells. Days after the Aktion, frozen rivulets of blood were on the sidewalks and gutters. Even two months later, arriving German Jews found corpses in cellars and attics.” At least the victims in the ghettos left behind some trace, however fleeting, of their existence. On numberless fields from

the Baltic Sea to the Crimean peninsula, anonymous victims fell before the rifles of Einsatzkommandos, without leaving behind anything—even a memory, since those who could remember were killed at their sides. By the time it was over, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered an unfathomable two million human beings. One image, above all others, speaks for the unimaginable carnage that befell the innocent residents of Eastern Europe in the weeks and months following the German invasion of Russia. It is a photograph discovered by Polish postal workers in a German soldier’s letter home to his family. On the back is the inscription: “Ukraine 1942. Jewish action, Ivangorod.” On the front is the image, still heartbreaking after six more decades of genocidal violence from China to Rwanda, from the Balkans to the Middle East. It is of a pretty young mother clutching her toddler to her breast on a barren, horizonless field in the Russian steppes. She is looking down, perhaps to whisper a last word of comfort to her dangling child. And right behind her, three feet away, a jackbooted German soldier is carefully aiming his rifle at her head.

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Chattanooga, Tenn., native Roy Morris Jr. is editor of Civil War Quarterly and the author of four well-received books on American history and literature. For those interested in the Einsatzgruppen, he recommends Richard Rhodes’ definitive 2002 account, Masters of Death. RUSSIAN FRONT

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Signal Magazine

During the siege of Sevastopol in June 1942, Romanian soldiers maintain a vigil against a heavily defended Soviet perimeter. Although its performance during the war has been criticized, the Romanian Army was underequipped and poorly led from the outset.

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DISASTROUS ALLIANCE German and Romanian forces at Stalingrad failed to stem the tide of the resurgent Soviet Red Army. BY TOM W. MURREY, JR. WORLD WAR II INVOLVED SOME OF THE MOST COMPLEX ALLIANCE SYSTEMS IN THE history of warfare. During the course of the conflict, former antagonists became allies and former allies became foes. Of all the alliances struck during the war, the German-Romanian alliance is the one least studied despite the enormous significance of the relationship. Romania was Nazi Germany’s largest ally on the Eastern occupied Bohemia and Moravia in early 1939, Romania Front, providing over 300,000 troops in the conflict against received an Anglo-French security guarantee. the Soviet Union. Despite the Romanian contribution, the GerBy the summer of 1940, Romania found itself surrounded by man military took its ally for granted. hostile neighbors with territorial ambiConsequently, the German Army made Romanian Marshal Ion Antonescu tions. Its neighbor to the north, Hungary, serious mistakes and miscalculations wears the German Knights Cross at his laid claim to the northern half of the that led to the catastrophe at Stalingrad, throat while greeting troops. Romanian province of Transylvania. To a debacle from which Nazi Germany the east, the Soviet Union coveted Romanever recovered. nia’s eastern provinces of Bessarabia and Prior to its entry as a belligerent into Bucovina. To make matters worse for World War II, Romania suffered an Romania, in May and June 1940 Gerextremely complex and unenviable many inflicted a crushing defeat on geopolitical situation. Romania fought Britain and France. Situated between the on the side of the Allies in World War I military powers of Nazi Germany and and after the war received territorial conthe Soviet Union and with its closest cessions from the newly formed Soviet friends defeated, Romania lay ripe for Union and Hungary. During the interwar ravaging. years, Romania continued a close relaThe Soviet Union moved first. On June tionship with its former allies, Great 26, 1940, the Soviets issued an ultimaBritain and France. When Germany tum to Romania, demanding that the

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Romanians hand over the entire province of Bessarabia and the northern portion of Bucovina. To make matters more difficult, they gave the Romanian government only four days to evacuate the two territories. On June 28, Romania responded that it would acquiesce to the Soviet demands but that it would need more time to vacate Bessarabia and Bucovina. The Soviets reacted by immediately invading the two provinces, and the Romanians avoided a military conflict by quickly withdrawing from the two regions. The Hungarians victimized Romania next. Since the end of World War I, Hungary had sought the northern region of Romania known as Transylvania. On July 15, 1940, the German and Italian governments ordered Romania and Hungary to negotiate a settlement. The conference took place in Vienna, but negotiations and military threats failed to pry the region from Romanian control. On August 30, 1940, the Germans and Italians unilaterally awarded northern Transylvania to Hungary. The Romanians were given two weeks to evacuate. Known as the Dictate of Vienna, this land grab further increased the bitter enmity between Romania and Hungary. The final territorial indignity came at the hands of Romania’s neighbor to the south, Bulgaria. Once again, the Germans forced Romania to cede territory, giving the Bulgarians southern Dobruja on September 7, 1940. In a period of less than

three months, Romania lost over 100,000 square kilometers of territory, home to 6.7 million Romanian citizens. The immediate result was the collapse of the Romanian government led by King Carol II, who had proclaimed himself dictator in January 1938. In one of his last acts as regent, Carol appointed Marshal Ion Antonescu of the Romanian Army as prime minister. Antonescu immediately forced Carol to abdicate and then assumed the king’s authoritarian powers. Although Antonescu had leaned toward the British and French, in September 1940 France was a conquered nation and Britain could not offer aid to Romania. In an act based more on pragmatism than political belief, Antonescu requested that Germany send a military mission, and on October 12, 1940, the first German troops began arriving in Romania. As Germany prepared to invade Russia in 1941, Romania faced a momentous decision. Antonescu traveled to Munich where on June 11 Hitler informed him of his plans to invade the Soviet Union. Antonescu pledged Romania’s support in liberating Bessarabia and Bucovina but made no promises as to further operations. At this point, the liberation of Romanian territory was the first and only war aim of the Romanians. As the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies stood ready on the Prut River, now the new boundary between Romania and the Soviet Union, Marshal Antonescu issued a proclamation to his men: “I am Following Operation Citadel, the unsuccessful offensive to reduce the Kursk salient, Romanian soldiers stand at attention beneath the flags of their own coun- ordering you: Cross the River Prut. Crush try and Nazi Germany. Many of these troops were awarded the German Iron Cross the enemy in the east and north. Release for valor. your brothers overrun and enslaved by the red yoke of Bolshevism. Restore to Romania’s body the traditional land of the Bassarab dynasty and the forests in Bucovina, your own grain fields and pastures. Soldiers, today you are taking the road of Stephen the Great’s victory in order to conquer by your sacrifices what your ancestors possessed by their struggle. Forward! Be proud that centuries have left us here as guards to justice and as a wall of defense of Christendom.” With these words the Romanians joined the German Eleventh Army in the invasion of Bessarabia and Bucovina. Despite the presence of over 400,000 Soviet troops, 700 tanks, and some difficult fighting, the two regions were liberated within a month. By midAugust, the Romanian troops arrived on the western bank of the Dnestr River, the former border between Romania and the Soviet Union.

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In September 1941, a Romanian cavalry unit crosses the Pruth River.

The arrival at the former border forced another decision upon Marshal Antonescu. His choices were to advance into Russia alongside the German Army or declare Romania’s war goals complete with the liberation of Bessarabia and northern Bucovina and advance no further. Hitler sent Antonescu a formal request asking the Romanians to continue their advance alongside the German Army. Hitler enticed Antonescu with an offer of the Russian region of Transnistria, which Antonescu refused. Ultimately, however, Antonescu decided to send his forces across the Dnestr River and into the Soviet Union. He reasoned that if the Germans failed to destroy the Soviet Army, the Soviets would return and reoccupy Romanian territory. Further, Antonescu feared that if Romania did not continue as Hitler’s ally it would be unable to argue for a reversal of the Dictate of Vienna or, worse, that Hitler would award the Hungarians the remainder of Transylvania as punishment. Since the Hungarian Second Army was marching farther into Russia alongside the Germans, Antonescu’s concerns over Transylvania were well founded. Believing he had little choice, Antonescu ordered his armies to cross the Dnestr. The Romanians spent the remainder of 1941 campaigning in southern Russia and conducting siege operations at Odessa.

In the spring and summer of 1942, the Romanian armies engaged in heavy fighting in the Crimea while to the north the German Army attempted to capture Stalingrad. As Hitler funneled more and more German units into Stalingrad, a need arose to protect the German flanks. The task fell to the German allies, the Romanians, Italians, and Hungarians. By October 1942, the Romanian Third Army moved from the Crimea to the north of Stalingrad to protect the German left flank while the Romanian Fourth Army held the southern flank. The Italian Eighth Army held the line to the north of the Romanian Third Army. On the Italian left the Hungarian Army was dug in. Because of the long-standing antagonism over Transylvania, the Germans used the Italians as a buffer between the Hungarians and the Romanians to keep them from fighting each other. The Romanian Third Army consisted of 10 divisions totaling 171,256 men. It held a line anchored on the southern bank of the Don River with the exception of bridgeheads the Soviets had established at Kletskaya and Serafimovich. Each division was assigned to defend a line approximately 20 kilometers long, about twice the recommended distance. The Third Army contained the only Romanian divisions trained by the RUSSIAN FRONT

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ullstein bild/The Granger Collection, New York

Germans and consequently was a significantly better fighting force than the Fourth Army, which defended the open steppes south of Stalingrad. By mid-November 1942, the Fourth Army could boast only 75,380 troops assigned to hold a line over 200 kilometers long. Poorly trained and even more poorly equipped, the men of the Fourth Army lived in holes in the ground covered by canvas as the temperatures dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius. These

living conditions combined with inadequate clothing and supplies of ammunition led to very low morale. Reserves for both the Third and Fourth Armies were limited. In October and November 1942, Soviet General Georgi Zhukov began assembling more than a million troops for the Soviet counteroffensive code-named Operation Uranus. Zhukov’s plan called for an attack on the German flanks held by the Romanians. The offensive was to slice through the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies and break through to the rear and encircle Entering the Soviet town of Kishinev, Romanian tanks are accompanied by Gerthe German Sixth Army inside Stalinman infantrymen. The advance was rapid and the victories numerous when this photo was taken during the summer of 1941. grad. The pincer movement was to meet at the strategic bridge at Kalach, thereby cutting off the Axis line of retreat. On November 19, the Soviet offensive began with attacks all across the Third Army’s front. After initially tough resistance from the Romanians, the Soviet armor broke through and began the trek to Kalach. On the next day, the Soviets attacked the Romanian Fourth Army, quickly sweeping it aside. On November 23, the Soviet forces met at Kalach, sealing the fate of a quarter million Axis troops. While the Germans blamed the Romanians for this disaster, the real blame belonged to the Germans. The Germans had taken their ally for granted, ignoring Romanian goals and limitations as well as Romanian warnings and pleas for help. The first and most glaring strategic mistake the Germans made was their failure to recognize the limited war aims of the Romanians. Romania was not a natural ally of Germany and had in fact fought the Germans in World War I. During the 1920s and 1930s, Romania maintained a close relationship with France and Great Britain. The relationship went beyond just military and political influence. In 1938, foreign investment accounted for roughly 25 to 30 percent of the Romanian economy, and British and French investment accounted for about 70 percent of that total. British and French interests also controlled five of Romania’s major banks. The defeat of Great Britain and France combined with territorial seizures by the Soviet Union forced the reluctant Romanians

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into the Nazi fold. But the Romanians at a conquering war.” did not share Nazi Germany’s dreams of With the defeat of Britain and France conquest. in 1940, Romanian leaders realized that Antonescu’s decision to cross the they had to modernize their air force and Dnestr River and continue the war into armored units. However, time and the Soviet Union was not popular with Romania’s lack of financial and industhe Romanian people. The president of trial resources limited the extent of modthe Romanian National Agrarian Party, ernization. Iliu Maniu, expressed this sentiment The Romanian military had other limwhen he said, “We do not have one itations as well. The German soldier of Romanian soldier to sacrifice for foreign World War II was on average, well edupurposes. We have to spare our army for cated, highly trained, well equipped, and our Romanian goals.” well led. The Romanian soldier by comMost Romanians thought that their parison was poorly educated, poorly army should follow the example of Finequipped, and sometimes poorly led. land and fight only to recover territory Part of the problem was that approxiseized earlier by the Soviets. One cap- Outfitted with winter camouflage, solmately half of the educable Romanian tured Romanian officer told his Soviet diers of a Red Army Guards unit population was illiterate. Romania was advance across a snow-covered landinterrogators that his troops despised scape near Stalingrad. an agrarian nation, and approximately Antonescu for “having sold their moth75 percent of Romanian conscripts were erland to Germany.” Between a political peasants. As a result, many Romanian rock and a military hard place and with little support on the soldiers suffered from extreme fear of armored attacks as they home front, Antonescu reluctantly continued the war alongside had spent little time around mechanized vehicles. his German allies and pushed farther into Russia. Leadership was also a liability in the Romanian Army. Unlike Instead of being sensitive to Marshal Antonescu’s precarious the Wehrmacht, the Romanians did not have a strong nonposition, the Nazis engaged in intrigue. Antonescu was con- commissioned officer corps. While members of the German sidered one of the most loyal of the minor Axis leaders, but this officer corps generally had a close relationship with their men, meant little to the Nazis. Heinreich Himmler’s SS openly sup- the opposite was true with the Romanians. German officers ported Romania’s indigenous fascist movement, the Iron often noted that their Romanian counterparts seemed to care Guard. The SS even supplied the Iron Guard with submachine little about the well-being of their troops, but instead treated guns and in January 1941 tacitly supported the Iron Guard’s them like vassals. One German soldier noted that the Romancoup against Antonescu. ian field kitchens prepared three different meals: one for the After Antonescu suppressed the coup, the Germans allowed officers, one for the NCOs, and one for the enlisted. the Iron Guard’s leader, Horia Sima, and 300 followers to take The German Army trained a few of the Romanian divisions, refuge in Germany. Himmler kept Sima and this core of the and these units usually performed at a much higher level than Iron Guard in Germany as an implied threat to Antonescu’s the Romanian divisions that were not German trained. The power for the remainder of the war. Romanian soldier was not without admirable qualities. PerThe Germans made another strategic mistake when they haps because of his peasant background, the Romanian soldier failed to properly assess the capabilities of the Romanian mil- was an excellent marcher, often covering distances that seemed itary and the individual Romanian soldier. Because of its geopo- remarkable to his German counterpart. But because of his cullitical situation and the influence of the French, Romania devel- tural and educational background, the Romanian soldier had oped a defensive philosophy for its military. The Romanian limited capabilities. military was not designed for sustained offensive operations Perhaps the greatest limitation of the Romanian Army was along the German model. a lack of modern equipment, a limitation of which the GerThroughout the 1930s, the leadership of the Romanian mil- mans were acutely aware. During the fighting around Stalinitary designed its forces and theories around a national defense grad, German Maj. Gen. F.W. von Mellenthin inspected some strategy. This strategy led to the general staff creating a circu- Romanian Third Army units that had been placed under his lar defensive line intended to defend against Romania’s pri- command. He observed: “The Romanian artillery had no modmary enemies, Hungary and the Soviet Union. Prior to the war, ern gun to compare with the German and, unfortunately, the one of Romania’s leading military theoreticians, General Alexa Russian artillery. Their signals equipment was insufficient to Anastasiu, wrote that the “policy of our country is not aimed achieve the rapid and flexible fire concentrations indispensable RUSSIAN FRONT

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in defensive warfare. Their antitank equipment was deplorably inadequate, and their tanks were obsolete models bought from France. Again my thoughts turned back to North Africa and our Italian formations there. Poorly trained troops of that kind, with old-fashioned weapons, are bound to fail in a crisis.” In his memoirs, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein made similar comments about the Romanians, “… the Romanians, who were still the best of our allies, fought exactly as our experiences in the Crimea implied they would.” Although the Romanians fought bravely against the Russians, bravery alone was no match for Soviet T-34 medium and KV-1 heavy tanks. The Romanians had begun a rearmament program in 1935 in an attempt to upgrade their World War I-era equipment. The biggest challenge facing the Romanians in this effort was the absence of a Romanian armaments industry. This situation forced Romania to acquire most of its weaponry abroad, which led to standardization issues. Despite the rearmament efforts, when Operation Uranus fell upon the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies some Romanian soldiers were fighting with the same weapons their fathers had used in World War I. In virtually every aspect, the Romanian Army lacked the proper preparedness for modern warfare on the Eastern Front. The Romanian soldier did not want to fight deep inside Russia. Lacking proper training, leadership, organization, but most of all modern equipment, the Romanian Army had little chance to survive. The most serious operational problem for the Axis at Stalingrad was an untenable command-and-control situation.

Army Group B was the main Axis force fighting in and around Stalingrad. It consisted of eight separate armies, specifically the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies, the Italian Eighth Army, the Hungarian Second Army, and the German Second, Sixth, Fourth Panzer, and Sixteenth Motorized Armies. Manstein addressed this problem in his memoirs. “No army group headquarters can cope with more than five armies at the outside,” he said, “and when most of these are allied ones, the task invariably becomes too much for it.” The Germans recognized the problem in the autumn of 1942 and proposed to remedy the situation by creating a new army group by dividing Army Group B. The new army was to be called Army Group Don and placed under the command of Romania’s Marshal Antonescu. However, Hitler insisted on the capture of Stalingrad before creating the new army. Thus, when the Soviet avalanche fell on the Romanians on November 19-20, Army Group B had the difficult task of controlling eight armies that spoke four different languages. To make matters worse, in October 1942 Hitler issued a bizarre order that armies were not to liaison with their neighbors in the line. An inadequate supply system was another huge problem for Army Group B. The supply line to Stalingrad relied on a single railroad crossing over the Dneiper River. This single line supplied Army Group A fighting in the Caucasus and most of Army Group B. Only six pairs of trains per day could traverse this rail system. The supply of the Romanian armies was a low priority, as most material carried over this rail line went to the Germans fighting inside Stalingrad. The Germans also failed to deliver food, fuel, ammunition, and supplies to build defensive positions in the Stuck in the mud of the Russian steppes, a wagon is manhandled by German quantities promised, placing the Romasoldiers. nians in an untenable position. The Germans also failed to ensure that an adequate reserve force backed up the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies. The Third Army was supported by the XLVIII Panzer Corps. This reserve force consisted of the German 22nd Armored Division and the Romanian 1st Armored Division. When the Soviet offensive fell on the Romanian Third Army, the 22nd Panzer Division had 104 tanks. As the division moved toward the front to halt the Soviet advance, tanks began to catch fire and stop running. The Germans quickly found the problem. In an attempt to keep their tanks warm, the Germans had placed straw in and around them. Russian field mice, also trying to stay warm, invaded the tanks and chewed on the electrical wiring. The Russian mice

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reduced the 22nd Panzer Division to 42 operable tanks and antitank guns. The Romanian 1st Armored Division consisted mainly of 84 Czech-built R-2 tanks and 19 German Panzerkampfwagen IIIs and IVs. The R-2s were completely obsolete by November 1942. In October of that year, the Romanian 1st Armored Division conducted an exercise in which R-2s test-fired their 37.2mm guns into captured Russian T-34 tanks with no effect. The guns were totally incapable of penetrating the armor of the T-34s. When the massive Soviet attack came, the reserve XLVIII Panzer Corps had little chance of reversing the tide. Prior German knowledge of the superiority of the Soviet T-34 makes the German inaction even more difficult to understand. In 1941, on the second day of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans began running into the Soviet T-34 in combat. The T-34’s thick armor and sloped design made it impervious to the German 37mm antitank guns. The Soviet KV-1 heavy tank carried even thicker armor than the T-34 and was Inadequate numbers of Romanian troops were charged with securing a lengthy front during the decisive fight for Stalingrad. The Red Army took advantage of even more difficult to destroy. thinly spread Romanians when its major offensive against Axis forces was By November 1942, the Germans had the launched. 17 months of experience fighting T-34s and KV-1s. The Germans were well aware of their capabilities and which antitank weapons could These bridgeheads, approximately 100 miles from Stalinand could not destroy these Soviet tanks. The Germans did grad, created a dangerous situation for the Romanians. Because take some small steps to rectify the Romanian antitank prob- the Romanians lacked sufficient antitank weapons and had no lem. Realizing that the Romanian guns could not stop the T- armor in the front lines, the Don River served as a tank obsta34 or KV-1, the Germans gave the Romanians some heavier cle in case of a Soviet armored attack. In October 1942, the 75mm antitank weapons. But the number of 75mm guns pro- commander of the Romanian Third Army pleaded with Army vided by the Germans amounted to only six weapons per Group B for help in reducing the two bridgeheads. The RomanRomanian division. Since each division of the Third Army had ian commander argued that his troops could maintain their to cover a 20-kilometer front, this equated to one 75mm anti- positions only if they held the entire southern bank of the Don tank gun for every three kilometers of defensive line. River. While his German allies expressed sympathy to his posiTwo of the Germans’ greatest errors were made when they tion, they responded that nothing could be done until Stalinignored the warnings and requests of their Romanian allies. grad fell, an event they believed was imminent. The Romanian Third Army sat dug-in on the south bank of the In what amounts to one of history’s biggest intelligence failDon River, with the exception of Soviet bridgeheads at Serafi- ures, the German intelligence service on the Eastern Front, movich and Kletskaya. At Serafimovich, the bridgehead was six Fremde Heere Ost, ignored overwhelming evidence of an miles deep, which allowed the Soviets to bring in reinforce- impending attack. Some of the evidence came in the form of ments outside of artillery range. The Soviets had launched an information from Russian deserters who told their interrogaoffensive across the Don in August 1942, and although the tors of the buildup of Soviet divisions both north and south of offensive had been halted by the Axis, the bridgehead was not Stalingrad. German intelligence officers forwarded reports with completely reduced. this information as well as reports of visual sightings and radio RUSSIAN FRONT

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intercepts. Luftwaffe Col. Gen. Freiherr von Richthofen repeatedly warned his superiors of aerial reconnaissance sightings of the Soviet buildup opposite the Romanian Third Army, but to no avail. Richthofen even noted in his diary on November 12, one week before the attack: “The Russians are resolutely carrying on with their preparations for an offensive against the Romanians.… Their reserves have now been concentrated. When, I wonder, will the attack come?... Guns are beginning to make their appearance in artillery emplacements. I can only hope that the Russians won’t tear too many big holes in the line!” Throughout October 1942, the Russians made repeated probing attacks out of their Don River bridgeheads. These attacks were obvious attempts to test the Romanian defenses and expand the bridgeheads. On November 2, German aerial reconnaissance photographed several new bridges over the Don River into the Serafimovich bridgehead. The Germans even identified a division of the Soviet Fifth Tank Army, previously thought to be farther north in the Orel sector, in positions opposite the Romanian Third Army. To the south of Stalingrad, the Romanians were also reporting a buildup of Soviet forces in a bridgehead over the Volga River known as the Beketovka Bell. Despite this information, German intelligence was convinced that any Soviet attack would fall on Army Group Center to the north. On November 12, one week before the start of the Soviet offensive, Fremde Heere Ost surmised that if the Soviets tried

anything of an offensive nature it would be a limited operation against the Romanian Third Army. Two days earlier, the Romanians estimated that their Third Army was facing four armored divisions, two or three motorized divisions, seven to eight infantry divisions, and 40 artillery battalions. The Romanians correctly assessed their troubling predicament and warned their German allies, but with their focus completely on the capture of Stalingrad, the Germans ignored the warnings. The last and most ominous warnings came on the evening of November 18 when the Romanians reported hearing hundreds of Soviet tanks starting their engines. Visual sightings of Soviet troops in the Serafimovich and Kletskaya bridgeheads drawn up in formation behind armor and thousands of artillery pieces on the move were also reported, but by this point it was too late for the doomed Romanians. After November 19, remnants of the Third Army, known as the Lascar Group because they were led by the Sixth Division commander, Mihai Lascar, formed a defensive hedgehog and repelled repeated Soviet attacks. The Romanians requested permission to break out of the encirclement while they still had the strength to do so. Hitler continuously rejected these requests until several days later, when he relented. At this point, however, a full-scale breakout was no longer possible. Only a handful of the men of the Lascar Group eventually made it back to Axis lines. Afterward, the Romanians did not hesitate to express their displeasure to their German allies. On November 25 at a German-Romanian meeting in Rostov, the After Romania officially became a Red Army ally on September 12, 1944, a Soviet Romanian Army chief of staff, General Ilie Steflea, expressed his anger to the tank rumbles through the streets of Bucharest, the Romanian capital. Germans, stating, “All the warnings, which for weeks I have been giving to the German military authorities—to Supreme Command, to General v. Weichs and General Hoth and the head of the German Military Mission—have passed unheeded. My warnings that the Romanian forces had been allotted too broad a front have all been in vain, and in fact, the enemy has succeeded in breaching the line only at those points where battalions have been called upon to hold a five- or six-kilometer front … I repeated my warnings to Fourth Panzer Army … I warned General Hoth on all these points in good time when he visited the Romanian forces.… German Army headquarters failed to meet Romanian requirements, and that is why two Romanian armies have been destroyed.”

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In short, the Germans failed to listen to the urgent warnings of the Romanians, and as a result both the Germans and Romanians paid a terrible price. Manstein’s “best of allies” were now angry and bitter about the catastrophic losses they had suffered. In dealing with their Romanian allies, the Germans made numerous unnecessary mistakes. To protect their vital flanks outside Stalingrad, the Germans positioned the Romanians even though they were incapable of withstanding a Soviet armored offensive. The Romanian Third and Fourth Armies were assigned defensive positions that they did not have the manpower or armament to defend. They were put in these positions after continuous campaigning in the Crimea, which left some units at less than 50 percent strength. The Romanian request to reduce the In August 1944, Red Army troops march through Romania. As the Soviets Soviet bridgeheads over the Don and the advanced, Marshal Ion Antonescu was overthrown and Romania changed sides, declaring war on Germany. Volga were denied. Despite signs that an attack on their flanks was imminent, the Germans ignored the repeated warnings of the Romanians begged Hitler to allow the German and Romanian armies to and their own troops. Even without the warnings, a study of abandon their positions in Bessarabia and pull back to a more the map would have revealed that the Romanian armies were defensible line incorporating the Danube River and the in danger. A Sixth Army operations officer, Captain Winrich Carpathian Mountains, but Hitler refused. Behr, received a prediction from the officer he replaced in When the Soviets launched an offensive in August 1944, the October 1942. Behr was shown a situation map, and the offi- Romanian and German armies were quickly driven back. The cer traced the expected lines of a Soviet attack, then pointed reaction in Romania was swift. Two days into the Soviet offento Kalach and said, “They will meet around here.” If a com- sive, Romanian government and military officials deposed pany-grade operations officer could read a map and foresee Antonescu, seized control of the government, sued for peace the coming catastrophe, certainly generals and field marshals with the Soviet Union, and then declared war on Germany. could do the same. The battle for Romania cost the Germans 250,000 men. After the war, Manstein was interviewed by his Allied cap- With the Romanians now fighting at their side, the Soviets tors and questioned about the German victory over France in advanced quickly across Romania and into Yugoslavia and 1940. Manstein responded, as if surprised at the inquiry, “We Hungary, sealing the defeat of Germany in the Balkans. just did the obvious thing, we attacked the enemy’s weakest Although the Romanians did not switch sides until 1944, the point. The hopeless French reconnaissance won us the Battle seeds of the defection were sown in 1942 with the mishanof France.” In one of the great ironies of military history, the dling of the German-Romanian alliance on the banks of the Soviets followed this simple strategy and did to the Germans Don River. what the Germans had done to the French two years earlier. Why the Germans did not recognize their predicament and Tom W. Murrey, Jr. is an attorney in Memphis, Tennessee. He also is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. As take appropriate action is inexplicable. The destruction of two Romanian armies at Stalingrad a Reserve officer, he teaches at Air University at Maxwell Air increased the unpopularity of the war in Romania and exac- Force Base, Alabama. While on active duty and stationed at erbated the already strained relations between the Romanian HQ European Command, Murrey traveled to Romania five and German militaries. By August 1944, the Soviet Army had times to negotiate an international agreement with the Romanadvanced to the eastern borders of Romania. Antonescu ian military.

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The German assault on Sevastopol proved to be a costly operation, and the Crimean port emerged from the war a symbol of Soviet resistance. BY LATE OCTOBER 1941, the armies of the Third Reich had swept deep into western Soviet Russia. Leningrad lay under siege and panzer spearheads reached to within 40 miles of Moscow. The German Sixth Army, part of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt’s Army Group South, occupied Kharkov with the First Panzer Army striking for Rostov.

STURGEON CATCH 1942

On Rundstet’s southern flank, General of Infantry Erich von Manstein’s Eleventh Army punched through the tough Soviet defenses of the Perekop isthmus. The 10-day, hotly contested battle for the Isthmus netted 100,000 Soviet prisoners and opened the door to BY LUDWIG HEINRICH DYCK the Crimea. Through the centuries, a myriad of peoples had fought for and settled in the Crimea. Ancient Greeks, Scythians, Goths, and Tartars came and went. Now the invaders were la and south toward Sevastopol. There was no way of stopthe Germans of the Third Reich, whose Führer planned to ping the Germans on the open steppes. By November 16, all turn the Crimea into a pure German colony. With the main of the Crimea except Sevastopol was in their hands. There, base of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol and within air the Soviet Military Council opted to make its last stand. range of the Caucasus and Rumanian oilfields, the Crimea In the Crimean War of 1854-1855, Sevastopol defied the held strategic importance to both the Nazis and the Soviets. British, French, Turks, and Sardinians for an incredible 345 The Axis troops fanned out east toward the Kerch Peninsu- days before surrendering. The Soviets were determined to do 60

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Bloodied but unbowed, a group of wounded Red Army soldiers awaits evacuation after a grueling battle against strong German forces around the Crimean port city of Sevastopol.

one better. Master of the blitzkrieg, mobility, and the open battlefield, Manstein was to be tested in one of the most brutal sieges in the history of warfare. Black Sea Navy guns and crack Marines stiffened Soviet resistance. The defenders counterattacked and flung back General Eric Hansen’s 54th Corps’ probing attacks. One incident saw a politruk (political instructor) and five Black Sea

sailors hurl themselves and their last grenades on German tanks to stop a breakthrough to the city. The heroism of the “five sailors of Sevastopol” was remembered in many a song and poem. It was clear that nothing less than an all-out assault by the Eleventh Army could hope to take the city. Its natural defenses alone ensured that the fight for the city would be a hard RUSSIAN FRONT

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A German soldier exposes himself to Soviet gunfire as he attempts to push forward. His comrades continue to lie low behind the limited cover of a small embankment.

one. The city stood on the northern side of a triangular peninsula that jutted westward into the Black Sea. Immediately to the north of Sevastopol lay Severnaya Bay, while rugged wooded hills and ravines guarded the city and the entire peninsula’s landward side from the east and south.

H

EAVY RAINS and rough terrain delayed full deployment of troops for a month, so the attack did not get under way until December 17. At first the Soviet defense seemed to crumble, but then it became rock hard. New divisions entered the fray, and officers, commissars, and the NKVD, the Soviet state police, “boosted” morale. Torrential downpours and stormy weather further wore down the German soldiers, many of whom had only summer uniforms. Fighting around Sevastopol continued into the New Year with the Eleventh Army reaching within five miles of the northern outskirts of the city. At this crucial point, Manstein was forced to divert his attention to the northeast. An unexpected amphibious Soviet counterattack drove the Germans out of the Kerch Peninsula and threatened the rear of his army. In Sevastopol there was a feeling of euphoria; surely the whole of the Crimea would soon be liberated! Despite the

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occasional air raid and shelling, people emerged from shelters and caves to repair the damaged city. Their hopes were dashed when the Soviet offensive bogged down into a lengthy stalemate that lasted through the Russian winter. In mid-May 1942, Manstein, promoted to colonel general, reconquered the Kerch Peninsula, destroying two Soviet armies at the cost of a mere 7,500 German casualties. The people of Sevastopol again disappeared into their underground shelters. They worked double shifts in the armaments works and began to evacuate their children and the elderly. The Soviets’ last attempt to forestall a decisive German drive on Sevastopol had failed. With the advent of spring, the time for Hitler’s colossal 1942 summer offensive, codenamed Operation Blue, drew near. Hitler planned for a two-pronged attack that would seize Stalingrad on the Volga and drive deep into the oil-rich Caucasus. Preliminary to Blue, it was imperative to finally capture Sevastopol, a thorn in the German Army’s southern flank. Failure to do so meant that substantial German forces would remain locked up to invest the city. Supreme Command decided to recommit Manstein’s Eleventh Army for a second assault on what was possibly the

world’s strongest fortress. In the words of an American intelligence officer it was a “tough nut to crack.” Virtually the entire 180,000 strong civilian population toiled tirelessly to ensure that the defenses were even more daunting than in the previous November. They blasted bunker, gun, and mortar positions right into the rock, strung barbed wire, dug antitank ditches, and laid a sea of mines, not just in front of the fortified zones but also right inside them. The city’s three defensive lines were 10 miles deep with 220 miles of trenches. Underground, the civilians worked in appalling conditions to do everything they could to help the defenders above. Sewing brigades fixed damaged military clothing. Pravda correspondent Boris Voyetekhov described the scene of an old woman working side by side with a beautiful young woman. The old German infantry shell buildings during Operation Störfang. Intense shelling by woman worked a stamping machine both sides left the city and countryside scarred by months of brutal combat. with her remaining hand, having lost her other to a bomb blast. The young woman nursed a baby main weakness was the lack of support from the Soviet Air while working a boring machine at the same time. Others cast Force, which fielded a pathetic 60 old planes in the Crimea. shells and repaired countless guns, and in November and Women played a major role in the Soviet armed forces, not December alone manufactured some 20,000 hand grenades only as medical staff and radio operators, but also as antiairand 32,000 antipersonnel mines. craft gunners, tank crews, and snipers. Sevastopol was no Numerous camouflaged strongpoints commanded the east- exception and featured the famous machine-gunner Nina ern hills while the immense naval guns of a fortress called Onilova, the scout Maria Baida, and the sniper Liudmila Maxim Gorky II at Cape Feolent dominated the peninsula’s Pavlichenko. A veteran of Odessa, Pavlichenko fought in Sevsouthern coastline. The weakest natural obstacles were to the astopol until she was wounded and evacuated. She would finnorth of Severnaya Bay, but here arose gigantic forts. The ish the war as the top-scoring female sniper of all time with 309 Germans named them Volga, Siberian, Lenin, Stalin, Molo- kills, including 78 enemy snipers. tov, and Maxim Gorky. The proper Soviet designations were Manstein’s Eleventh Army consisted of some 203,000 Gernumerical, Battery No. 30 for Maxim Gorky, for example. man and Romanian troops. However, after the Kerch battle, To man Sevastopol’s defenses, General Ivan Y. Petrov’s Army Group South (now under Field Marshal Fedor von Independent Maritime Army fielded seven rifle divisions, one Bock) commandeered his sole panzer division, the 22nd, dismounted cavalry division, two rifle and three naval while his mostly Romanian 42nd Corps was used to safebrigades, two Marine regiments, two tank battalions, and guard the Kerch Peninsula to prevent a repeat of the earlier various smaller formations. A further 10 artillery regiments, Soviet attack there. That left Manstein with seven German two mortar battalions, and an antitank regiment gave Petrov divisions, each 20 percent larger than a Soviet division, and 106,000 frontline troops, 600 guns, and 2,000 mortars. They initially two Rumanian divisions, the 18th Infantry Division were supplied and reinforced by Vice Admiral Filip S. (ID) and the 1st Mountain Division (MD) of the Rumanian Oktyabrskii’s Black Sea Fleet, including tens of thousands of Mountain Corps. In addition, the 4th Rumanian MD arrived naval personnel to man forts and guns, and a multitude of from Kerch to reinforce the 54th Corps on June 13. Komsomols, the teenage boys and girls of the Communist Since the previous December’s failure, Manstein concluded Union of Youth. that he required more and heavier artillery, so he gathered 121 Oktyabrskii was in overall charge of the defense of Sev- batteries of 1,300 guns and 720 mortars, the greatest concenastopol, with Petrov being the ground force commander. Their tration of artillery pieces ever used by the Germans in the war. RUSSIAN FRONT

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They included 190mm cannon; 305mm and 350mm mortars; enemy defenses, and a number of Sturmgeschütz assault gun and 150mm, 210mm, 280mm and even 320mm Nebelwerfer battalions. and Wurfrahmen-type rocket launchers, nicknamed “Lowing Basically, a tank with a fixed gun instead of a rotating turCow” by the Russians, the Reich’s answer to the Katyusha ret, the Sturmgeschütz, or Stug, figured prominently at Sevrockets that had been nicknamed “Stalin’s Organ.” astopol. Stugs were typically brought into position by night Nothing, however, compared to the German super heavy- and camouflaged for maximum surprise. Used in concentraweights, the mortars Gamma, Odin or tions, they advanced together with or Karl, and Thor, and the heaviest gun of TOP: A weary German soldier poses for directly behind screening infantry, their World War II, Dora. Gamma fired the camera during a break in the close-range fire knocking out enemy 427mm, one-ton projectiles for a dis- action. Bottom: Although Sevastopol support weapons. The first versions carwas encircled by a formidable ring of tance of nearly nine miles. It took 235 ried 75mm short-barreled guns capable defenses, German efforts to cut off men to service Gamma. Thor and Odin supply lines ensured that the Russians of dealing with soft targets, but in early were even larger, their devastating 2.5- were slowly starved of supplies needed 1942, Stugs with long barreled 75mm ton, 615mm bombs struck like the ham- to wage war. L/43 antitank guns appeared. mer of the namesake Norse thunder god The weight of the German attack, with to crack even the thickest concrete Hansen’s 54th Corps, would be in the defenses. north. Notwithstanding extremely heavy Yet Gamma, Odin, and Thor were Soviet defenses, the terrain was the most whelps compared to the titanic Dora, favorable for ground assaults and for also known as the Heavy Gustav. Origiartillery and air support. A secondary nally designed to destroy the fabled Magattack would come through the hilly inot Line, it took 60 railway cars to southeastern sector by 30th Corps under transport her components to the Crimea. Lt. Gen. Maxim Fretter-Pico. No major Once assembled, Dora was 141 feet attack was planned from the east due to long, 23 feet wide, and 38 feet high with the extremely rugged and wooded tera weight of 1,329 tons! Protected by two rain. Here the Romanian Mountain flak battalions, Dora sat 19 miles northCorps was to pin down the enemy and east of Sevastopol on double railway later aid the German flanks. tracks. Her operation required 1,500 On June 2, the roar of the German men, one colonel, and one major generartillery heralded the beginning of al. Dora’s 107-foot, 800mm barrel fired Operation Störfang (Sturgeon Catch), five-ton high-explosive or seven-ton the final assault on Fortress Sevastopol. armor-piercing shells for 29 or 24 miles, For five days and nights, German guns respectively. During the siege, she fired and bombers relentlessly hammered the 40 to 50 shells at Sevastopol, one of Soviet positions as a prelude to the which passed through water and 100 feet ground offensive. Eighth Air Corps of rock to pulverize a Soviet ammunition quickly established air supremacy and dump beneath Severnaya Bay. in defiance of heavy flak flew over Luftwaffe Colonel General Baron 3,000 bombing missions between June Wolfram von Richthofen, the nephew 2 and 6. A deafening orchestra of morof the legendary Red Baron, gave additar bombs, screaming Stukas, the metaltional firepower with Fliegerkorps VIII’s lic rings of the 88mm flak, and the 600 aircraft, including seven bomber earthshaking projectiles of the gargangroups. To deal with the Soviet fleet, tuan Gamma, Thor, and Dora burst there was also Oberst Wolfgang von blood vessels, spread terror, and shatWild’s small Fliegerführer Süd (Air tered concrete. Command South) and a German and The day after the guns opened fire, Italian naval flotilla. Manstein’s Manstein left the 30th Corps’ command armored strength included remote-conpost, a small Moorish-style palace trolled Goliath miniature tanks, which perched on a cliff above the Black Sea were designed to carry explosives into coast, and boarded an Italian torpedo 64

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boat. He personally wished to inspect how much of the coastal road, the main supply line for the 30th Corps, was visible from the sea and threatened by the Black Sea Fleet’s guns. Near Yalta, the idyllic backdrop of white country houses amid green gardens and blue sky was suddenly interrupted when “without warning a hail of machine gun bullets and cannon shells began pumping into us from the sky,” recalled Manstein. Two Soviet fighters swept out of the sun and raked the deck, leaving seven people dead or wounded and the boat in flames. The heroic young Italian captain dived into the sea, swam to shore, and returned to the rescue with a Croatian motor boat. Manstein escaped the calamity unscathed and soon was back at Eleventh Army’s command post in the Tartar village of Yukhary Karales. He spent end- A large German siege gun is trained on a target deep inside Sevastopol city limits. less hours at observation on the cliffs The Germans used several mammoth guns in an attempt to soften the Russian above, in the same mountains where his defenses. Germanic Goth ancestors once built their strongholds. The location, roughly between the 54th Corps to proved correct. Safe from within positions of solid rock, the the north and the Romanian Mountain Corps to the south, Soviets unleashed their own artillery. “The Russian artillery offered a panoramic view of the entire battlefield. Alongside and armored fortifications spring to life everywhere, the whole Manstein was his chief of operations, Colonel Busse, and horizon is a tremendous gun-flash,” noted a disgusted orderly officer Pepo Specht. Dazzled by the bombardment, Richthofen, who surveyed the battlefield from his Storch obserSpecht remarked, “Fantastic fireworks!” Busse nodded, but vation plane. The German infantry attacked with its usual bravado, but added, “I’m not sure we’ll punch sufficiently large holes into the Soviets made them fight for every yard. After an optithose fortifications.” mistic start, the advance slowed to a snail’s pace. S DAWN PAINTED THE SKY RED on June 7, the An eyewitness recalled: “In a raging tempo the attack races German artillery fire built up to a raging tempest. down the slope, through the valley, and on to the other side, Southward from the cover of the Belbek Valley, rough- past minefields, through trip-wires and wire entanglements ly from Kamyshly to the Black Sea, the 54th Corps attacked that were already cut by the engineers. Companies, platoons, with the 24th, 50th, 22nd and 132nd Infantry Divisions. The and groups one after the other moved forward in the blueinfantry charged through clouds of dust and smoke against the gray powder smoke and thick dust. The going is slow through Soviet positions. Assault parties and sappers led the way, using thick bushes. The Bolsheviks hide in their numberless holes, shellholes as cover. Wire cutters and bangalore torpedoes let us pass and then fall on us from the rear. Several times cleared a path through the barbed wire. Facing them was Gen- small and large infantry units are completely cut off. But the eral Laskin’s 172nd ID. connection is always re-established, and then it isn’t so good “Shells whined overhead and exploded on all sides,” Laskin for the sealed off Soviets.” wrote. “A whirlwind of fire was raging at all our positions. On the 8th, a weak Soviet counterattack by Colonel Enormous clods of earth and uprooted trees flew into the air. Potapov’s 79th Brigade was brushed aside, but no quick An enormous dark gray cloud of smoke and dust rose higher headway could be made into the Soviet positions. When the and higher and finally eclipsed the sun. In my sector, the Ger- going got tough, the German infantry called on the Luftwaffe, mans outnumbered us one to nine in manpower and one to but Richthofen was already pushing his men to their limits. ten in artillery, not to speak of tanks, because we had none.” Eighth Air Corps topped 1,000 carpet bombing sorties a day In spite of the furious German attack, Busse’s pessimism until shortages of fuel and bombs forced Richthofen to con-

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centrate on column bombing high-priority targets. “The screaming descent of the Stukas and the whistling of falling bombs seemed to make even nature hold her breath. The storming troops, exposed to the pitiless heat of the burning sun, paused for a few seconds, which must have seemed an eternity to the defenders. Yet our work at Sevastopol made the highest demands on men and material. Twelve, fourteen and even up to eighteen sorties were made daily by individual crews,” wrote Luftwaffe General Werner Baumbach. German hand grenades and smoke canisters doggedly drove the Soviets from camouflaged firing pits. The feared German 88mm flak proved invaluable in cracking open pillboxes at point-blank range. Nevertheless, by June 12, the 22nd ID had just reached the spot where the previous winter offensive had ground to a halt. German casualties amounted to 10,300 in the first five days alone. If things did not pick up, Hitler threatened to turn the operation into a regular siege. To the dismay of the Soviets, German fortunes rapidly improved on June 13. Not only were there limited gains all along the north, but the super heavy siege guns blasted apart a turret on Fort Stalin. The German guns created craters 15 feet deep.

The 16th Infantry Regiment of the 22nd ID stormed the fort. Twice before–the previous December and four days earlier–Fort Stalin’s defenses had defied them. In one section an antitank gun scored a direct hit into a pillbox porthole and killed 30. The 10 remaining Communist party members used their comrades’ dead bodies as sandbags and fought on. Flamethrowers spewed fire accompanied by blasts of potato masher grenades, but the remaining Soviets held on until their political officer shot himself. When the last four Soviets crept out of the rubble, a severely wounded German soldier remarked, “It is not so bad, we have the Stalin fort.” During the battle, the 16th Infantry Regiment’s two attacking battalions lost all of their officers. Through sweltering heat and a nightmarish scene, the Germans steadily pushed on. Black clouds of flies, smoke, and ash drifted over swaths of reeking, putrid corpses. At times the smoke and stench became so unbearable that both sides wore gas masks. Ahead, the mighty 12-inch armored batteries of the modern Maxim Gorky, built in 1934, controlled the entire northern line. The 50-ton barrels fired over a range of 28 miles. On the 17th, a Stuka scored a direct hit and blew up the eastern tur-

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In a rare photo of Russian soldiers in combat, these infantrymen take up firing positions on the outskirts of Sevastopol.

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ret. Salvos from 350mm German mortars took care of another gun. The 12-foot Röchlings shells they fired burrowed into concrete or rock before exploding. Gorky was wounded but not dead. The last of its four huge naval guns continued to belch destructive fire into the assaulting German infantry. The battle for the fortress would eclipse the contest for Fort Stalin. It was the task of the 213th Infantry Regiment of the 73rd ID (part of Corps reserve) to deliver the deathblow to Gorky. The regimental commander, who had already distinguished himself at Kerch, led the charge at the head of his men. The right flank of the German regiment was stopped by a desperate Soviet counterattack, but the center and left flanks made ground. For three quarters of an hour, Stukas plastered the fortress with their bombs, followed by tremen- Toiling away in an underground shelter lit by bare lightbulbs, citizens of Sevastopol work overtime to aid in the defense effort. dous artillery shelling and a smoke screen. A gigantic cloud formed over the fortress upon which virtually all life was extinguished. Ger- ing at our armored doors and calling on us to surrender. We man engineers gained the final 300 feet with little opposition have opened up the inspection hatch to fire twice on them. and blew apart the last gun. “There are twenty-six of us left. We’re getting ready to blow Gorky guns were silenced, but the fight for the fort was far ourselves up. Farewell. ” from over. The 300-yard-long and 40-yard-wide concrete Of 1,000 defenders, only 50 were taken prisoner. The numstructure was three stories deep. The roof was three to four bers of German killed and wounded were equally high. yards thick, and the walls two to three yards. The fort had its HE FALL OF MAXIM GORKY was indicative of own underground water and power supplies, a field hospital, German gains all along the northern line. To the east, canteen, engineering shops, and various arsenals and battle the Saxons of the 31st Regiment, 24th ID, captured stations. It took two blasting operations to fracture the thick con- three forts, while the 22nd ID pushed southward from Fort crete. The Soviets answered demands for surrender by spit- Stalin. With the help of an assault-gun battalion, its 65th ting forth fire from all slits and openings. Groups of Soviets Infantry Regiment overcame Fort Siberia, while the 16th Infantry Regiment seized Forts Volga and Ural. Two days even made sorties from ventilation shafts and secret exits. Inside, the fight went from one hallway and room to the later, the 22nd Division was the first to reach Severnaya Bay. To the south, the 30th Corps joined the attack on June 11. next. Steel doors were burst open and hand grenades hurled inside as sappers flattened themselves against the walls. The Ahead, on mountaintops and within ravines, the Soviets held dissipating smoke revealed piles of Soviet dead. Ever so often, a chain of concealed and fortified strongpoints. Behind these the pattern was interrupted by machine-gun fire. The Germans and halfway to the city loomed the even more formidable pressed closer and closer to the command center. According to Sapun Heights. The 72nd ID initiated the attack here. After heavy fighting Soviet sources, the Germans even resorted to drilling a hole the Germans took North Nose, Chapel Mountain, and Ruin into a steel door and pumping poison gas inside. A battery commander led a group of men in a desperate Hill. A gap was opened for General Constatine Vasiliuescape attempt out of a sewer hole. Most of his men were Racanu’s 1st Romanian MD, which in turn captured the killed and the rest marched into captivity. The remaining Sugar Loaf position. The 170th Division, at first kept in Soviet defenders were ordered to fight to the last man. Their reserve, took Kamary, and on the 18th its 72nd Reconnaissance Detachment won the Eagle Perch in front of the Sapun last two messages sent to Sevastopol headquarters related: “There are forty-six of us left. The Germans are hammer- line. From there, it swung north to gain the Fedyukiny

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German engineers. A German assault gun firing at point-blank range blew up other casemates. Crowds of exhausted soldiers and civilians emerged after their commissars committed suicide. Meanwhile, the 50th ID advanced to the eastern end of Severnaya Bay, taking the heights of Gaytany. Its defenses ripped open by German assault guns, the Soviet 25th ID retreated toward the Inkerman station. To the left of the 50th ID, General Gheorghe Manoliu’s 4th Romanian MD and Radu Baldescu’s 18th Romanian ID fought through the wooded hills southeast of Gaytany. By the evening of the 27th, the Soviet 8th Marine Brigade was pushed from the Sakharnaya Golovka Hill. Across the Severnaya Bay, the city and harbor endured relentless attacks by the Eighth Air Corps, whose high explosive and incendiary bombs hit buildings and batteries. Smoke clouds from the flaming city reached 5,000 feet into the air and stretched nearly a hundred miles. On June 24, Stukas pounced on a Soviet Aviation delegation gathered at Kruglyi Bay, killing 48 people, among them Soviet Major Generals F.G. Korobkov and N.A. Ostriakov. The lifeblood of the hard-pressed Soviets was their naval supply line. In June, the Black Sea Fleet brought over 24,000 reinforcements and 15,000 tons of freight and evacuated 25,000 wounded. In an aerial shot of the city, plumes of smoke and clouds of rock rise above SevTo provide such aid, the Soviet ships astopol during the German bombardment. braved a harrowing Axis gauntlet. The wrath of the Luftwaffe precluded dayHeights. The 28th Light Division (LD) made slow progress light landings, but at night, when in turn there was less danger over the rugged hills east of Balaclava, which had been in from Soviet aircraft and warships, there was the peril of GerGerman possession since the previous autumn. The division’s man and Italian motor torpedo boats (MTBs), armed motor soldiers faced tenacious opposition at Tadpole Hill, Cinnabar, boats, and Italian midget submarines. Air Command South Rose Hill, and the vineyards. greatly aided the Axis flotilla with reconnaissance, dropping Back at the northern front, the entire fury of the German flares, and strafing Soviet warships. artillery and the Luftwaffe backed the 24th ID’s assaults on Oktyabrskii responded by ordering the aerial bombardthe peninsula forts at the entrance of Severnaya Bay, domi- ment of the Axis naval base at Yalta. He also sent light warnated by the old but still strong North Fort. To its left, the ships to attack the port. On June 19, the worst of the Soviet 22nd ID took hold of the cliffs above Severnaya Bay. Here the attacks sank two midget submarines and severely damaged an Soviets held out within deep supply galleries driven into the MTB. But overall Axis naval losses were superficial and did rock. At the first of them a Soviet commissar inside blew up little if anything to loosen the tightening Axis noose around the casemate, burying the occupants and killing a squad of the Soviet supply line. 68

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The Abkhazia, a Russian luxury liner converted to a transport, went down in the harbor after her 16th sailing to Sevastopol. Dive- bombers sank the liner Georgia in view of the harbor. Her soldiers and sailors managed to swim ashore, but 500 tons of shells followed her to the bottom of the sea. On June 18, the Belostok was the last transport to arrive at Sevastopol. The next day she succumbed to German torpedo boats. Soviet submarines, warships, and aircraft continued the hazardous missions of carrying men and supplies and paid the same price as the transport ships. The SCH-214 submarine was sunk on June 20. The destroyers Bezuprechny and Tashkent set off from Novorossiisk on June 26. The Bezuprechny fell victim to dive-bombers, but the Tashkent repelled air attacks and evaded torpedo boats to reach Sevastopol. Surviving more than 40 supply runs and 96 air attacks, she was the last warship to reach Sevastopol harbor. The Tashkent took in over 2,000 wounded and refugees before braving her last voyage back to Novorossiisk on the night of June 27. For four hours she fought off German dive-bombers, shooting down two enemy planes. Her hull severely damaged, the destroyer was escorted to the safety of the harbor by rescue ships. Sadly, four days later the gallant Tashkent was sunk in the harbor by a Stuka raid. The attrition of Soviet supplies caused a rapid depletion of ammunition stockpiles. The local armaments industry could not meet the demands of the troops. Unable to sustain fire, Soviet soldiers fought the attacking Germans with bayonet charges. In a desperate attempt to rectify the situation, Soviet divers braved a rain of German bombardment to recover 39 tons of ammunition from the Georgia. By June 26, the Eleventh Army had overrun virtually the entire outer ring of Sevastopol’s defenses. The 54th Corps faced the Bay of Severnaya and the honeycombed cliffs that rose from its southern shore. Running south from the inland end of the bay were the Inkerman Heights, site of another old but sturdy fort, and the 30th Corps’ main obstacle, the Sapun Heights. Manstein came up with a brazen plan to have the 54th Corps attack straight across Severnaya Bay. His subordinate commanders shook their heads in disbelief: How could assault boats get across the bay in face of enemy fire with the soldiers fighting their way up ravines that were the only exits from the shore? Manstein conceded that ideally the weight of the offensive would be switched to the 30th Corps in the south. This would take days for the troops and weeks for the heavy artillery. Manstein, who spent nearly all his days visiting officers from corps to battalion level as well as observation posts, was well aware that his worn-out soldiers would welcome any such respite. Many regiments were down to a few hundred men

each. He recalled one company pulled out of line with but one officer and eight men remaining. However, any cessation in the attack would give the enemy time to recoup. Furthermore, with Operation Blue imminently on the way, the Supreme Command planned for the withdrawal of the Eighth Air Corps from the Crimea. The latter had already undergone a change of command. A reluctant Richthofen was ordered to leave for Kursk to prepare future headquarters for the Eighth Air Corps; his place at Sevastopol taken by a colonel. There was thus no time to waste. The Eleventh Army would press on without hesitation. On June 28, the 54th Corps resumed the offensive with the 50th ID storming the Inkerman position. The cliffs above the old fort held vast caverns with ammunition dumps and thousands of refugees and wounded soldiers. Suddenly, the ground shook as from an earthquake. To prevent the ammo from falling into Germans hands, fanatical commissars had blown up the caverns and condemned themselves and everyone inside to death. During the night of the 28th, tension gripped the assault crews who prepared for their crossing of Severnaya Bay. To divert Soviet forces away from the bay, Italian MTBs and Army assault boats carried out a feigned landing near Cape Feolent that completely fooled the Soviets. The Eighth Air Corps pounded the city relentlessly to dampen any noise on the northern shore. The German artillery stood ready to unleash its fire onto the southern shore the moment the Russians perceived that they were under attack.

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T ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, under cover of darkness and a thick smoke screen, the first wave grenadiers of the 22nd and 24th IDs pushed their boats into the water and raced across the 1,000 yards of Severnaya Bay. Not a shot was fired until the Germans reached the enemy shore, jumped out of their boats, and greeted the surprised Soviets of the 79th Infantry Brigade with their MP40 submachine guns. Flashes of retaliatory Soviet guns lit up the whole of the southern cliffs. The German artillery retorted from the northern shore, minimizing the losses sustained by subsequent assault waves. As dawn rose above the horizon, the 30th Corps’ artillery fire and the long-range battery from the 54th Corps peppered the enemy defenses on the Sapun Heights. The bombardment gave the impression of an imminent attack along the entire front. Instead, the 170th ID struck into a limited area from the Fedjukiny Heights. The division penetrated the enemy defenses supported by the 300th Panzer Battalion’s Goliath tanks, direct fire from a flak regiment, and Stugs. In the wake of the 170th ID, the 28th Light Division and 72nd ID were funneled into the ruptured enemy line. “After the successful crossing of the bay, the fall of the Heights of RUSSIAN FRONT

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Inkerman and the 30th Corps breakthrough of the Sapun positions, the fate of Sevastopol was sealed,” Manstein noted of German progress by the 29th. Having gained a foothold on the cliffs above the bay on the previous day, the 54th Corps secured Fort Malakhov from the remnants of the Soviet 79th Brigade and pierced the city’s last ring of defenses. Around the same time, the 72nd ID drove the Soviets from the Sapun positions. Although Petrov threw in what remained of the Soviet 25th ID, the 9th Marine and the 142nd Infantry Brigades to aid the defending 386th ID, they were unable to halt the German advance. In an adjacent sector, the 8th Brigade was virtually annihilated. The 28th LD fought for the Soviet battery at the English Cemetery. Here a morbid battle raged amid the ruined marble monuments of the Crimean War. New cadavers joined the dead of the older war, whose graves were torn open by shelling. The 72nd ID meanwhile thrust along the south coast, taking Windmill Hill and the main road into the city. The 4th Romanian MD followed up the success by seizing the positions of Balaclava from the rear and bagging 10,000 prisoners. All of the Soviet defensive rings were shattered and the ruined city remained in the hands of broken units. Since the battle began, the Luftwaffe had dumped several million propaganda leaflets on the defenders asking them to surrender. But the ill-supplied and starving Soviet soldiers refused to give up. Indeed, with nowhere to retreat and the bleak prospect of German imprisonment, they had little other choice. Manstein knew they would make the Germans pay in blood for every block and for every house. To avoid adding to the already high German casualties, he planned to smother the city with massive artillery and air barrages until the Soviets were simply incapable of resistance. On June 30, flak guns, artillery, bombers, and fighters pounded the city mercilessly. The fatigued Luftwaffe ground and aircrews managed another 1,218 sorties, dropping 1,192 tons of bombs. Crowds of citizens fled to the west through rubble, flames, and clouds of black smoke to huddle in caves and await transport and possible salvation from the doomed Crimea. Stavka had decided to evacuate Sevastopol. The same night, Oktyabrskii, Petrov, and other senior officials fled the city by submarine. Petrov went reluctantly and had to be talked out of a suicide attempt. Major General Vasily Novikov was left to attempt some sort of rear-guard action. He gathered what infantry units he could. The city was lost and tens of thousands of civilians and wounded soldiers streamed to the beaches of the Khersones Peninsula, where a Soviet battery remained. Novikov tried to establish a defensive line across the peninsula. He did his best, but the end was only a matter of time. The German artillery and Luftwaffe raged over the whole area, pounding the Sovi70

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et positions on the Khersones. It was too much. It had gone on too long. Many of the defenders finally cracked. “They ran with maddened eyes, with tunics torn and flopping; panic-stricken, bewildered, miserable, frightened people. They seized feverishly any kind of craft they could—rafts, rubber floats, automobile tires—and flung themselves into the sea,” wrote one observer. There was no attempt by the Black Sea Fleet to rescue the hapless civilians and troops trapped on Cape Khersones. The fleet was simply too devastated from the losses incurred in recent weeks to risk attacks by the Axis flotilla, Luftwaffe, or by the German heavy guns that now swept the area with impunity. On July 2, German bombers even raided the fleet’s Caucasian bases, badly damaging many large vessels. The only succor to the stranded on the cape were the heroic efforts of fishing boats and other small vessels who rescued a small number of people at night. The inactivity of the Black Sea Fleet remained a point of contention for Petrov. In no kind words, he let Oktyabrskii know that many defenders were abandoned due to the Black Sea Fleet’s poor organization. As a result, Petrov’s name was left out of Oktyabrskii’s speeches and writings about the heroic defense of Sevastopol. Likewise, there was little mention of those forsaken to the Germans.

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N JULY 1, AFTER 249 DAYS OF SIEGE, the Germans finally took what remained of Sevastopol. Elsewhere, the fighting continued. The 72nd ID captured Maxim Gorki II at Cape Feolent on the southern coast. The rest of the German divisions pushed on to Cape Khersones where Novikov held out for several more days until he ran out of rations and ammo. Desperate mobs of Soviets tried to break out. Arms linked, the women and girls of the Communist Youth leading them on, they marched into the deadly hail of awaiting MG-42 machine guns. Those that fought on made their last stand in the caverns on the cape’s shore. Victor Gurin, sergeant 2nd class, lived to tell about it: “There were thousands of corpses lying on the shore and in the water. German snipers sneaked to a position of advantage near our burnt lorries and were killing off our officers by accurate shots. During July 2 we were still clinging to the narrow strip of the shore and fighting on. We beat off ten attacks that day.” Thirty thousand Soviets surrendered on July 4, for a total of 90,000 prisoners, 467 guns, 758 mortars, and 155 antitank guns captured. Two more Soviet armies were smashed and an estimated 50,000 of the enemy killed on the battlefield. Including civilians, Soviet casualties were about 250,000 for the entire siege. Of the pitiful 30,000 civilians left at the end of the siege, two-thirds faced deportation or execution. Resis-

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The Germans took control of Sevastopol on July 1, 1942 after heavy bombardments reduced the city to little more than a pile of rubble.

tance did not fully peter out in the Khersones until July 9. Scattered groups of soldiers escaped to the mountains from whence they continued guerrilla operations against the invaders. It was over. Not long afterward, a radio message arrived from a delighted Hitler, congratulating Manstein on his victory and promoting him to field marshal. His soldiers’ valor was honored with a special Crimean shield, worn on the upper left arm of the Crimean veterans’ uniforms. Despite Manstein’s efforts to spare his infantry and crush the defenders with overwhelming bombardment, official Eleventh Army losses numbered 4,337 dead, 1,591 missing, and 18,183 wounded. Actual casualties were probably much higher, up to 75,000. In addition, they had used up 46,700 tons of munitions and 20,000 tons of bombs. In one month the Eighth Air Corps dropped more bombs on Sevastopol than the Luftwaffe dropped on Britain during entire air war of 1941. The Soviets were finally driven from the Crimea. The battered Black Sea Fleet was no longer a threat to Axis operations in the area and was forced to operate from lesser bases along the Caucasus coast. Nullified as well was the danger of Soviet air attacks on Romanian oilfields from the Crimea. As a political repercussion, Axis control of the Black Sea compelled Turkey to think twice before joining the Allies. The Eleventh Army was now in a perfect position to join the offensive against the Caucasus by crossing the straits of

Kerch to the Kuban. From there it could intercept enemy forces retreating toward the Caucasus from the lower Don Basin before the advance of German Army Group A or, at the very least, serve as a reserve force. It was not to be. To Manstein’s vexation, the Eleventh Army was ordered northward to a threatened sector around Leningrad. Who knows how the Battle of Stalingrad might have ended if Manstein and his veteran army had stayed in the southern theater of operations? If the Germans rightly considered the taking of Sevastopol a heroic feat of their infantry, so too the Soviets justifiably glorified their defense. Fifty thousand medals were awarded to the men and women of the Soviet Army and Navy, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the citizens who defended the city. Russian propaganda turned the loss of Sevastopol into a great moral victory and claimed 300,000 Germans killed. Sevastopol became one of the four hero cities of the Soviet Union, alongside Odessa, Leningrad, and Stalingrad. The city remained under German occupation until liberated by the Soviets on May 9, 1944, with twice the number of artillery pieces used by the Germans in 1942.

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Author Ludwig Dyck resides in Richmond, British Columbia. He has conducted extensive research on the Eastern Front of World War II and written several articles on the subject. RUSSIAN FRONT

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Stalin’s Baltic Fleet attempted to escape from Tallinn during the bleak days of summer 1941.

THE SOVIET

DUNKIRK BY VICTOR J. KAMENIR

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German war artist Bruno Muller-Linow painted this image of an Allied coastal convoy under fire from German forces somewhere in the European Theater. The Soviet ships evacuating Tallinn were ravaged by German aircraft, heavy guns, and mines.

In this aerial view of the harbor of Tallinn, Soviet ships are under fire from German field artillery and dive-bombers.

EARLY IN WORLD WAR II, A BITTER JOKE circulated within the Soviet military. It ran, “What is the first thing Russia does when war is declared? It scuttles the fleet!” The joke referred to sad events in Russian naval history. In 1855, after the Crimean War, Russia lost the right to maintain a fleet in the Black Sea, and in 19041905 during the disastrous Russo-Japanese War, Russia lost two out of its three fleets. In 1941, the Soviet Union, born out of old Imperial Russia’s ashes, almost lost its Baltic Fleet. In 1940, without firing a shot, the Soviet Union absorbed the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. Along with territorial acquisition, this move was a major coup in projecting Soviet naval presence westward. Besides taking in the tiny navies and merchant marine fleets of the three states, the Soviet Red Banner Baltic Fleet acquired a number of important naval bases on the Baltic Sea. Chief among them was Tallinn, capital of Estonia and a major port city. A chain of several other bases, including a large one at Riga, the Latvian capital, extended farther west along the coast. On June 22, 1941, mutual expansionist policies inevitably U.S. Army Art Collection

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brought Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union into armed conDriving toward Leningrad, German Army Group North flict. Lacking capital ships in the Gulf of Finland, which rated brushed aside the Soviet Eighth Army, the closest Soviet fora low priority, the German Marinekommando Nord fleet con- mation to Tallinn. No plans to defend the city from a landsisted mainly of torpedo boats, minesweepers, and submarine based attack were prepared before the war, and it was too late flotillas, augmented by the small but skilled Finnish Navy. In now. On July 22, the Germans struck at the juncture of the X contrast, its opponent, the vastly superior Soviet Baltic Fleet, and XI Rifle Corps of the Eighth Army. As a result of this was composed of two battleships, four cruisers, and 15 action, the X Rifle Corps was cut off from the rest of the army destroyers plus numerous smaller craft and submarines. and fell back to the vicinity of Tallinn. On August 5, the GerThe rapid pace of the German invasion of the Soviet Union mans cut the Tallinn-Leningrad railroad and reached the coast took the Soviet High Command by surof the Gulf of Finland. Tallinn now lay prise. As German troops briskly pressed 200 miles behind the German lines. eastward through the Baltic States, the Responsibility for defending the city Soviet naval bases began falling like and the naval base fell to the commander dominoes. The escaping Soviet naval vesof the Baltic Sea Fleet, Admiral Vladimir sels were being pushed farther east into F. Tributs. The Red Army forces availthe Gulf of Finland. By mid-August able for defense were woefully insuffi1941, Tallinn had become the westerncient, consisting mainly of the depleted most Soviet naval base on the Baltic Sea. X Rifle Corps and the 22nd NKVD Just days before hostilities began, the (Secret Police) Division, which had perGerman Kriegsmarine and its Finnish formed guard and escort duties in the allies had begun laying extensive mineBaltic states before the war, shuttling fields in strategic locations in the Baltic prisoners to the horrific gulags. Sea and the Gulf of Finland. OutnumTo supplement the Army troops, any bered and outgunned, the Germans and sailors who could be spared from the Finns relied heavily on mines to negate ships were formed into naval infantry the Soviet advantage and to protect their detachments to fight on land. In addiown shipping lanes. East of Tallinn, in tion, all naval shore facilities were swept the immediate vicinity of Cape Juminda, of nonessential personnel, and they were was a heavily mined area of the Gulf of placed in naval infantry detachments as Finland. This major minefield was well. These measures produced more designed to interdict Soviet operations than 10,000 sailors to bolster the city’s between their Kronstadt base on Kotlin defenses. Additionally, several militia Island near Leningrad and the rest of the regiments totaling close to 4,000 Latvian Baltic Sea. Overall, more than 2,000 and Estonian communists and volunteers mines were in place in Juminda waters. joined the defenders. There was no time From the opening of hostilities, the to train the sailors and militia units in Soviet Navy lost the initiative despite its infantry skills, and they suffered numerical and qualitative superiority. Its appalling casualties in the subsequent TOP: Sailors of the Soviet Black Sea losses began to mount steadily, mainly Fleet participate in morning exercises fighting. Initially, there were not enough falling prey to mines. Hardly a day went aboard ship. ABOVE: Marshal Klementi rifles to arm them, and the weapons had by without a ship sunk, often with all Voroshilov led the Red Army defensive to be flown in from Kronstadt. hands. Aggressively led German and effort on land near the Estonian capital Because of the weakness of the ground of Tallinn. Finnish light forces effectively cowed the forces, artillery became the backbone of Soviet naval presence in the Baltic. Tallinn’s defenses. Ships anchored in On the landward side, Red Army forces were led by Marshal Tallinn’s harbor provided fire support for ground units. Kliment Voroshilov, who possessed the highest Soviet military Numerous naval spotter teams were placed with the ground rank but was not a capable military tactician. His paramount units to facilitate fire control, but frequent communication difattribute was complete political reliability and unquestioning ficulties made the massive naval gunfire often ineffective. Still, obedience to the instructions of Premier Josef Stalin. Despite on many occasions, all that prevented German breakthroughs his best efforts, Voroshilov was completely unable to shore up was the tremendous volume of fire provided by the cruiser his crumbling front. Kirov and her destroyer escorts. Additional fire support came 74

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from large-caliber shore batteries, some mounting 305mm guns. As the Germans came closer and closer, the Red Air Force lost its airfields as well, with most of the surviving aircraft flying east where they joined in the defense of Leningrad. A small number of older Ilyushin I-16 fighters belonging to the Soviet Navy continued operating for a time from a tiny landing strip jammed between a fishing village and the water’s edge. Eventually, they followed their Air Force counterparts eastward, and Tallinn was left without air support. On August 21, the Germans breached the defenses of the city itself. Despite valiant efforts, the dwindling Soviet forces could not hold them back. Tallinn’s harbor was now within range of German field artillery, and Soviet ships began taking hits. This caused the ships to frequently change positions, reducing the effectiveness of their fire and further weakening the land defenses. Despite the gravity of their situation, nobody at the headquarters of the Baltic Sea Fleet, including Admiral Tributs, dared to ask Voroshilov for permission to evacuate the city. Punishment for being labeled a “panic-monger” was very real, often carrying the death penalty. Finally, on August 25, Tributs went over Voroshilov’s head and submitted a carefully phrased request for instructions to Chief of the Navy Admiral Nikolai G. Kuznetsov. The last portion of the report stated, “The harbors and piers are under photo snapped by one of the attacking dive-bombers shows a pair of near enemy fire. The Military Council … is A misses against Soviet ships docked in the harbor of Tallinn. requesting your instructions and decisions concerning the ships, units of the 10th Corps and fleet shore defenses in case of enemy break- harbor were a hodgepodge of both warships and support vesthrough into town itself and the pullback of our forces to the sels ranging in size from massive civilian passenger liners consea. Embarkation on transports in this eventuality would be verted into transports to the heavy cruiser Kirov, destroyers, impossible.” Tributs’s concern mirrored Admiral Kuznetsov’s submarines, and tugboats. own misgivings, and he took this matter directly to the high Fortunately, while waiting for final orders, senior Soviet comcommand. After much deliberation, permission to evacuate manders had already put together contingency plans for evacTallinn and break through to Kronstadt was finally granted uation. Now these plans had to be finalized and last-minute late on the evening of August 26. corrections made. At the same time, special teams began With permission granted, the Soviets began frantic planning destroying military equipment that could not be evacuated. for the evacuation of over 200 ships and close to 40,000 mil- The city’s utilities and other infrastructure were also rendered itary personnel and civilians. The ships gathered in Tallinn’s inoperable to deny their use to the enemy. RUSSIAN FRONT

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There were three routes of retreat to Kronstadt through the Gulf of Finland, which is only 20 nautical miles wide in some places. The northern route, close to the Finnish shore and under the enemy air support umbrella, was immediately ruled unacceptable even though it was almost completely free of mines. According to intelligence reports that the British government passed on to its Soviet allies, there were no German capital ships in the Baltic Sea or the Gulf of Finland. Lacking their own intelligence sources, the Soviet commanders still classified the British reports as unconfirmed and unreliable. Without any concrete data about the German surface fleet, Soviet admirals allowed for the possibility of German warships attempting to interfere with the run to Kronstadt. THE SOUTHERN ROUTE WOULD HAVE TAKEN THE fleet along almost 200 miles of coastline occupied by German forces. Orders arrived from Voroshilov’s headquarters expressly forbidding Tributs to evacuate his fleet along this route. Ostensibly, these categorical instructions stemmed from the fact that this route would expose the fleet to treacherous and shallow waters and fire from German shore batteries. Several senior officers headed by Rear Admiral Yuriy F. Rall argued that this channel already had been successfully navigated by more than 200 ships. German artillery fire that could be brought to bear on the fleet would be conducted mainly by field artillery, easily countered by the heavier and more numerous guns of the Soviet naval vessels. Even a shore battery mounting 150mm guns captured by Germans at Cape Juminda was no threat to the Soviet ships. The real reason for denying the southern route was Soviet mistrust of the Latvian and Estonian crews of numerous transports carrying evacuees and equipment. This paranoia was fed for two reasons. There was an incident in which a converted transport captained and crewed largely by Estonian civilian sailors had been intentionally run aground on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland so that the crew could defect to the Germans. It was also feared that the crews of Soviet naval vessels, given an opportunity, might defect to the Germans. Therefore, the Soviet high command ordered the evacuation from Tallinn to proceed along the middle route, even though it was thickly sown with German and Finnish mines. The Germans and Finns had been mining the waters of the middle route even before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and the Axis sailors had been amazed at the apparent Soviet passivity. The mission was made further hazardous by the dearth of minesweeping vessels. Obsessed with powerful warships, the Soviet shipbuilding industry had severely neglected the production of support vessels, and the Soviet Navy entered the war with a pronounced shortage of minesweeping capability. To further aggravate the problem, those minesweepers that were available were often used in capacities for which they were not 76

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designed, especially as transport ships. Admiral Rall and his staff estimated that almost 100 minesweepers would be necessary to adequately lead the Baltic Fleet during the breakout from Tallinn. Instead, only 10 modern minesweepers were available. They were supplemented by 17 older and slower converted trawlers and a dozen converted Navy cutters. This small number of minesweepers was tasked with the gargantuan responsibility of shepherding more than 200 vessels to safety. The civilian transports, including 22 large ones, were divided into four convoys, each closely guarded by a few small naval vessels and led by older trawler minesweepers. The naval force was split into three elements: the main force, the covering force, and the rear guard. Ten modern minesweepers were allocated five each to lead the first two combat elements, particularly safeguarding the Kirov. According to plan, the civilian and military convoys were to leave Tallinn on a staggered schedule. The Soviets were well aware of the danger posed to the convoys by mines off Cape Juminda, and they developed a schedule to allow the ships to traverse the minefields during daylight hours. The evacuation route was divided into two portions, from Tallinn to Gogland Island, roughly in the middle of Gulf of Finland, and from Gogland to Kronstadt. The first section presented the most danger because of the minefields off Cape Juminda and the lack of air cover. Reaching Gogland Island by nightfall, the fleet would be within range of air cover based at Leningrad and Kronstadt. In addition, a task force of ships from Kronstadt was organized and stationed at Gogland to assist in any rescue and recovery efforts. The whole operation would require very careful timing. Under relentless German pressure, Soviet ground units were barely holding the line on the outskirts of Tallinn. Admiral Tributs and his staff realized that some of these troops would have to be sacrificed and abandoned to fight hopeless rearguard actions, allowing the majority of forces to embark aboard ships. To avoid a panicked retreat to the harbor, the forward units were not informed about the pullback until the afternoon of August 27. Barricades were erected in the streets for the last-ditch defense. But as they observed NKVD troops manning barricades, many people came to realize that the barricades went up not to halt the Germans but to prevent a panicked rush to the harbor. By 8 PM, the withdrawal began in earnest under a protective barrage of naval gunfire. Instead of an orderly retreat, the embarkation immediately deteriorated into complete chaos. The Soviet defenders could no longer hold back the Germans, who continually shelled the harbor. Several transport ships, with shells falling around them, were forced to leave their embarkation stations without picking up their designated units and evacuees. Crowds of soldiers, sailors, and civilians were surging back

The Granger Collection, New York

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In an attempt to prevent the Soviet Navy from reaching the Baltic Sea, German sailors push floating mines from the stern of their ship into the Gulf of Finland. Mines took a fearful toll of soviet lives during the evacuation of Tallinn.

and forth along the piers, storming the gangways of waiting transports. People were trampled underfoot in the maddened rush to the ships. The scene was punctuated by exploding German artillery shells and backlit by the burning city. “The whole town appeared to be engulfed in flames; burning and exploding,” recalled Admiral Tributs in his memoirs. WHILE SEVERAL TRANSPORTS CAST OFF LARGELY empty, the majority of vessels were overcrowded. Writer Nikolai G. Mikhailovskiy, attached to the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet, recalled, “The staterooms are filled to overflowing. People are standing, sitting and lying down in the narrow corridors and on decks. Many, coming off line after sleepless nights, settled on deck. One had to step over them in order to get from one point to another … The whole shore is aflame. It is strange that during a bright sunny day the harbors are darkened by smoke. Signals relayed by flags are impossible to see. The searchlights shine brightly. Only they can penetrate this incredible darkness.” As the transports filled up, they cast off and slowly moved to their staging areas off Naissar and Aegna Islands across the bay from Tallinn. In many cases, people desperate to get aboard continued clinging to the gangways, often forcing the crews to

cut the gangways in order to get clear of the pier. Over 23,000 troops, including more than 4,000 wounded and several thousand civilian evacuees, were taken aboard. Despite Vice Admiral Yuriy A. Panteleyev’s claim in his memoirs that not a single platoon was abandoned to the enemy, almost 10,000 more men were left behind on Tallinn’s piers. The wind continued picking up throughout August 27, creating choppy seas and further exacerbating the chaotic embarkation. Because of these delays, the first convoy did not sail until noon on August 28, a full 12 hours behind schedule. The naval and civilian convoys stretched in a line more than 15 miles long. Owing to deployed minesweeps, which required slow speeds to be effective, the convoys crept along at under 10 knots. Things quickly began to go wrong. Less than one hour into the voyage and several miles east of Aegna Island, one of the minesweeping trawlers leading the first convoy hit a mine and disappeared under the waves within seconds. The appearance of a mine in waters considered to be safe shocked everyone. The most likely explanation for this tragedy was that the heavy winds and waves generated by the previous night’s storm tore loose the moorings of a mine and the gulf’s current carried it into the midst of the Soviet ships. This loss was the forewarnRUSSIAN FRONT

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F I N L A N D

Björneborg

Lake Ladoga Viborg

BOTHNIA Nystad Åbo

Is.

Kronstadt

Leningrad

ESTONIA

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Lake Peipus

Dorpat Pskov

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Gulf of Riga

L A T V I A Riga

Liepaja (Libau) Memel

UNION

Dagö

SO

L

A

Gogla nd

LAND Hango F FIN O LF GU Tallinn Cape Juminda

T

Gotland

Helsinki

I C

S E A

Stockholm

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Map © 2014 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

Åland

Volkhov

GULF OF

LITHUANIA

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150Dvina miles

N The evacuees from Tallinn were by no means safe once they boarded ships in the harbor. The terrible journey from Tallinn was the end of a bitter defeat in the summer of 1941.

ing of swarms of loose mines that were to plague the Soviet convoys for the next two days. Undeterred, the convoy sailed on. German bombers appeared overhead and cautiously attacked the strung-out convoys. The Soviet Navy ships, spaced along the line of civilian transports, put up a spirited antiaircraft barrage and managed to keep the German planes at bay for a time. Around 6 PM, the first civilian convoy arrived off Cape Juminda and its minefields. The nightmare began. At 6:05, a large explosion went up at the head of the convoy. The transport Ella, a passenger ship converted into a military transport, hit a mine and began to sink. The tugboat S-101, following in her wake and herself overloaded with evacuees, moved in to assist and hit a mine as well, virtually disintegrating. Of more than 1,000 passengers and crew aboard Ella, most of them wounded, fewer than 100 people were subsequently rescued. No one was saved from S-101. GERMAN AIRCRAFT NOW RENEWED THEIR ATTACKS. Shortly after Ella went down, the icebreaker Voldemars was hit by a bomb and sunk with significant loss of life. The large transport Vironia, a converted liner, was damaged by two near misses. Its upper decks, thickly packed with evacuees, were swept by steel fragments, tossing people aside in disfigured heaps and throwing overboard many passengers, both alive and dead. The rescue vessel Saturn moved in and took the damaged transport in tow. Several minesweepers, desperately 78

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attempting to keep the 200-meter channel clear, hit mines themselves and went down in quick succession. Under relentless air attacks, Soviet ships were forced to maneuver to avoid the bombs. This compelled them to leave the narrow channel cleared by the minesweepers. Several naval vessels went down as if chasing each other to the bottom of the gulf. One of them was Saturn, leaving the practically immobile Vironia bobbing in the water. Around 6:30, with the Soviet convoys floundering in the minefields in full view of Cape Juminda, a German battery, well-camouflaged in the wooded terrain, opened fire on the Soviet ships. However, its 150mm guns were no match for the ships’ heavier armament. One of the destroyers closed in and laid down a thick smoke screen, while Kirov replied with several volleys of its nine 180mm main guns. It was unknown whether the German battery was destroyed, but it fell silent. There was no safety anywhere. Just before 10 PM, the submarine S-5, closely following Kirov on the surface, hit a mine and disappeared under the waves. Shortly thereafter, Kirov caught a mine in the right paravane, forcing the cruiser to stop. While a welder was lowered almost to the water’s surface to cut loose the metal pole with a torch, another mine became entangled in the left paravane. Valuable time was lost cutting loose and replacing both paravanes. While this was going on, the destroyer Gordiy, escorting the cruiser, hit a mine and lost mobility. It was eventually able to get moving again and limped to Kronstadt on its own. Shortly after Gordiy was damaged, the venerable Yakov Sverdlov, originally commissioned in 1913 as Novik and lending its name to a class of destroyers, went down. Enjoying a distinguished combat record in World War I, this ship held a special place in Tributs’s heart as the only vessel the admiral had ever commanded. He witnessed the Sverdlov’s demise from Kirov’s bridge: “At 20:47 hours, suddenly a column of fire and smoke 200-250 meters high burst out from under Yakov Sverdlov’s body and settled down hissing, burying the surviving crew members … only several dozens of men were saved.” As more and more ships sank or became disabled, the convoys lost cohesion and became intermingled. Naval detachments, moving on a nearly parallel course to the civilian convoys, often passed by the vulnerable and defenseless transports without providing fire support for them. In the gathering darkness, lookouts were posted on the ships’ bows to spot mines. At about 10 PM, a mine exploded near the destroyer Minsk, the flagship of Rear Admiral Pantelyev. The explosion reverberated through the destroyer, bursting seams in multiple compartments and leaving the vessel inoperable. Pantelyev ordered another destroyer, the Skoriy, to render assistance. The majority of Pantelyev’s staff officers transferred to the other destroyer. Skoriy hardly had time to cast off and attempt to take Minsk in tow before also striking a mine,

Authorʼs Collection

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A photographer aboard a German bomber snapped this photograph while flying low over vessels of the Soviet Navy and civilian transport craft that have been caught in the open in the Gulf of Finland.

breaking in two, and sinking in front of stunned onlookers. The slaughter continued. The frigate Tsiklon went down, falling prey to a mine. Only 15 minutes after Skoriy was lost, another destroyer, Slavniy, was soon damaged but remained afloat and continued moving under its own power. Shortly thereafter, the destroyer Kalinin, with Rear Admiral Rall aboard, hit a mine and began slowly sinking. As the destroyer Volodarskiy was transferring wounded crewmen from the Kalinin, it hit a mine as well and went under. Admiral Rall, suffering from a concussion, was taken aboard a cutter. The destroyer Artyom also went down. The toll of noncombatant vessels was also high. The damaged transport Vironia hit a mine and sank. Even a near miss from an exploding bomb would create havoc on ships overflowing with evacuees. The fate of immobilized wounded men, swathed in bandages and plaster and often trapped below decks in compartments blazing with fire or filling with icy water, was particularly terrifying. The ships of the first civilian convoy experienced particularly heavy casualties. As the convoys doggedly continued eastward, many of them had to navigate through floating debris fields and spreading oil slicks of destroyed and damaged vessels. In many instances,

unable to stop, they mowed under the survivors bobbing in the water among dead bodies. Whenever possible, though, every effort was extended to rescue the survivors. Still, hundreds perished, succumbing to wounds and exposure. Hundreds more were plucked from sure death in cold water, desperately clinging to whatever pieces of debris that would float. In one truly miraculous instance, a sailor was rescued after clinging to a floating mine for hours. Throughout the day there were multiple false sightings of German submarines. Every time a phantom periscope was spotted on the surface, one or two destroyers or sub chasers would dart out and drop depth charges. Despite multiple claims by Soviet eyewitnesses, no German submarine operated in the area at the time. Worried about attacks by German and Finnish torpedo boats as well, the Soviet ships twice opened fire on a group of unidentified small vessels racing toward the fleet. Because of the lack of coordination and communication, the torpedo boats thought to be enemy vessels turned out to be a Soviet detachment returning from screening and scouting north of the main channel. The friendly fire incident resulted in one Soviet torpedo boat taking a direct hit and disintegrating. RUSSIAN FRONT

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With darkness falling, it became impossible to navigate the mine-studded waters, and Admiral Tributs ordered all ships to halt where they were. Even though this went against accepted naval doctrine, the halt at least eliminated the possibility of ships running into stationary mines. German aircraft disappeared with nightfall as well, and now the only danger lay with floating mines cast adrift in the waves. On most ships men lined up along the sides, armed with poles for pushing away the mines. In many cases volunteers took turns jumping into the water to guide the mines away from the ships with their bare hands. DURING THE HALT, ALMOST NO CREWMEN WERE able to rest. Those not directly standing watch or dealing with floating mines were frantically conducting whatever repairs they could. Small cutters darted from ship to ship assessing damage. The scope of the disaster began to take shape. The destroyer force, representing the bulk of Tributs’s naval contingent, was cut in half. Admiral Rall’s rearguard force ceased to exist, and he was injured. Of the main force, only one destroyer and one frigate still accompanied the Kirov. Even worse, a significant number of the priceless minesweepers had been lost.

At dawn on August 29, good weather meant the return of marauding German bombers. Having moved clear of the minefields, the naval vessels, now unencumbered by mine sweeps and paravanes, raced ahead at more than 20 knots. Around 5 PM, Kirov’s group arrived at Kronstadt. Its hasty departure left the virtually defenseless transports at the mercy of German aircraft, which appeared around 7 AM. While significant numbers of German planes pursued the departing warships, especially concentrating on Kirov’s group, the majority of Luftwaffe aircraft fell upon the defenseless civilian transports. Beset by German dive-bombers, most transport captains gave up any hope of reaching Kronstadt. At most, they hoped to reach Gogland Island and disgorge their human cargo before German bombs could send them to the bottom of the gulf. Shortly before 8 AM, the large transport Kazakhstan, loaded with almost 5,000 soldiers and civilian evacuees, was damaged by bombs. Its captain, N. Kalitaev, was tossed overboard by the shockwave. Severe panic ensued aboard, with people jumping into the water. After heroic efforts, however, the crew of the transport managed to make minimal repairs and keep the ship afloat. After being thrown overboard and suffering a concussion, Kalitaev was rescued by a submarine and delivered to

Mine warfare has proved to be a cost-efficient equalizer. DURING WORLD WAR II, NAVAL MINES were used extensively in the Baltic Sea. Their low cost provided weaker German and Finnish fleets with an effective force multiplier in negating Soviet numerical and qualitative advantages. The Soviet Navy also deployed a large number of floating mines, and by the end of the war all three navies had sown over 80,000 mines in the waters of the Baltic, especially in the Gulf of Finland. Once in the water, the mines were tethered at the end of a cable below the surface. The upper half of a buoyant mine was studded with hollow metal tubes, or horns, which, coming into contact with a ship’s hull, would initiate a chemical or an electric reaction, detonating the explosive charge in the mine. The depth below the surface at which the mine floated could be adjusted so that vessels with various drafts would trigger them. This often allowed the smaller vessels like the Soviet cutters to 80

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virtually “dance” across a minefield unharmed. However, in the Juminda minefields, the depth was set very shallow, resulting in the loss of many smaller Soviet vessels. Extensive measures and techniques were developed to counteract the mine threat. The minesweeping vessels normally towed two cables behind them, one to each side. Attached to the cables were paravanes, torpedo-shaped floats, keeping the actual sweeps under water. Along the length of the sweeping cable, a series of cutting blades was attached. When a sweep snagged the mooring cable of a mine, it was pulled along the sweep until one of the cutting blades would sever it, making the mine float up to the surface. At this point, the mine would be exploded by fire from cannon and machine guns. On larger combatant ships, paravanes, rigid metal poles mounting the sweeps, were attached to the bow of the ship, severely limiting the

ability to maneuver. As a countermeasure, a number of German mine mooring cables had a length of chain woven into them, preventing the cutting blades on the Soviet sweeps from shearing the mines loose. The mine would then become caught in the sweeping cable and drawn to the vessels instead of being cut away from it. The relatively inexpensive and easily deployed minefields off Cape Juminda, called the Juminda Barrage, were largely responsible for ravaging the Soviet Baltic fleet during the breakout. On August 28, when the German aircraft could not operate effectively on account of bad weather, German mines played an invaluable role in slowing down the civilian convoys and stripping them of their destroyer escorts. On August 29, the damaged and unprotected civilian ships became easy pickings for German air power.

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By 1944, the fortunes of war on the Eastern Front had clearly changed and the Soviet juggernaut was advancing toward Berlin. The rejuvenated Red Banner Fleet was also more active in the Baltic Sea. Here, Soviet sailors man an antiaircraft gun aboard their ship.

Kronstadt on the evening of August 29, a full day before Kazakhstan limped in. Arrested by the NKVD and accused of cowardice and abandoning his post, Kalitaev was promptly shot despite multiple testimonies of his innocence. Under a rain of German bombs, the transports continued their race to Gogland. On many ships the soldiers desperately attempted to keep German aircraft at bay with rifle and pistol fire. As the hours ticked by, transport losses mounted to include Naissaar, Ergonautis, Balkhash, Tobol, Ausma, Kalpaks, Evald, Atis Kronvaldis, Skrunda, and Alev. SEVERAL DAMAGED TRANSPORTS MANAGED TO LIMP to Gogland and run themselves aground, disembarking their passengers. German aircraft easily found the immobile transports and finished them off. By the end of the day the burnedout hulks of transports Vtoraya Pyatiletka, Ivan Papanin, Lake Lucerne, and floating workshop Serp-i-Molot smoked on Gogland’s beaches. Still, despite tragic losses, more than 12,000 people were offloaded on Gogland Island and eventually shuttled to Kronstadt and Leningrad. But before they were taken off the island, German aircraft made several low-level passes, strafing the survivors with machine guns and dropping bombs. Scores of people who thought themselves safe died on this tiny speck of land.

As the transports were being pounded into oblivion by German aircraft, scores of smaller vessels slipped by Gogland Island and headed to Kronstadt. They continued the struggle until the afternoon of August 30. The Tallinn breakout was over. Events at Tallinn were comparable to the Allied evacuation of Dunkirk over a year earlier. At Dunkirk, 338,000 Allied soldiers escaped the Germans. This was accomplished under British air cover and over a much shorter distance, 20 miles compared with 200 at Tallinn. The results of the Tallinn breakout are disputed as simultaneously a success and a disaster. Despite the loss of more than 11,000 evacuees, including roughly 3,000 civilians, almost 17,000 people, mostly evacuated ground troops, reached Leningrad and joined in the defense of the city. The Kirov was saved, along with the destroyers Minsk and Leningrad. Of the original 10 destroyers, five were lost, mostly of the old Novik class. The guns mounted on Kirov and the destroyers assisted in the defense of Leningrad, and the majority of the smaller naval vessels made it back as well. The real losses were among the civilian vessels, with more than 40 of them, including 19 large transports, sunk. The Soviet government offered little official comment about the events. To this day, virtually no declassified information exists on the evacuation of Tallinn.

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PANZERS AT THE GATES OF

MOSCOW During the advance to the gates of Moscow, a German tank fires on a farmhouse near the outskirts of the Soviet capital. The Wehrmacht reached within a reported 12 miles of the city before stiff Soviet resistance halted its progress.

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Red Army forces mounted a gallant stand against the Germans during Operation Typhoon. BY JONATHAN JORDAN

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THE WAR MAP GAVE ADOLF HITLER EVERY REASON to be confident. Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union begun on June 22, 1941, had succeeded spectacularly on nearly every front. One Soviet army after another had been smashed as Germany’s Ostheer, its army in the East, plunged deep into the industrial heart of Josef Stalin’s vast Eurasian state. By September, Hitler’s legions were within sight of Leningrad, while to the south German and Romanian divisions had swept across the north shores of the Black Sea, threatening vital petrochemical and agricultural production within the vulnerable Ukraine and Crimean regions. Between the two sectors, Army Group Center, under Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, had taken 610,000 prisoners and destroyed 5,700 enemy tanks. Bock’s soldiers had conquered land as far eastward as the Russian city of Smolensk and

ullstein bild

were now less than 180 miles from the Soviet capital. It was time, Hitler decreed, for a push against the center— toward Moscow. Operation Typhoon, the campaign Hitler predicted would be “the last, great, decisive battle of the war,” was the result of a debate between Hitler and the army high command, Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), over the war’s military objectives. From the beginning of Barbarossa, Hitler had insisted that the Wehrmacht give top priority to the destruction of Soviet field armies, and only afterward to the capture of strategic assets in the north and south. Prestige targets like Moscow did not figure prominently in Hitler’s planning, and as late as August 1941, his orders to OKH stressed that “the most important missions before the onset of winter are to seize the Crimea and the industrial and coal regions of the Don,

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Bursting Soviet artillery shells send shrapnel, earth, and debris raining down on German soldiers near Moscow. The intensity of this bombardment is apparent on the faces of the frightened German soldiers in the foreground.

deprive the Russians of the opportunity to obtain oil from the panzer divisions, eight motorized divisions, and 47 infantry diviCaucasus and, in the north, to encircle Leningrad and link up sions—a total of about 1.9 million men. For the attack, Army with the Finns, rather than capture Moscow.” Group Center assembled 4,000 heavy artillery pieces, 549 comBut August brought smashing German successes to the north bat aircraft, and as many as 1,700 tanks. For once, Hitler’s genand south of the Eastern Front, lending credence to intelligence erals would enjoy numerical superiority over their Soviet opporeports that the Soviet regime teetered on the brink of collapse. nents in addition to their well-known qualitative edge. Moreover, a tempting cluster of Soviet divisions seemed to be The plan called for a double envelopment of Soviet frontmassing west of Moscow around the cities of Vyaz’ma and line forces at the rail hub of Vyaz’ma on the SmolenskBryansk, ripe for encirclement by Hitler’s fast- moving panzer Moscow highway. Col. Gen. Hermann Hoth’s Third Panzer spearheads. Army would surround Vyaz’ma from the north, while Col. Hitler thus allowed himself to be perGen. Erich Hoepner’s Fourth Panzer suaded by OKH and his field generals to Marshal Georgi Zhukov took command Army would attack from the south. Farlaunch a major attack against forces of the Red Army troops defending ther south, Col. Gen. Heinz Guderian’s defending the Soviet capital. On Sep- Moscow on October 5, 1941. Later in Second Panzer Army would encircle the the war, he led Soviet forces in the captember 6, he issued Führer Directive 35, ture of the German capital of Berlin. defenders at the crossroads center of which called for the destruction of Soviet Bryansk. Once Vyaz’ma and Bryansk armies opposite Army Group Center, to were encircled and their defenders wiped be followed by the pursuit of Soviet out, the Soviet capital would presumforces along the Moscow axis. ably be enveloped or overrun, as cirTo put Führer Directive 35 into operacumstances dictated. Guderian would tion, the staffs of Army Group Center strike out for Bryansk on September 30, and OKH prepared plans for Operation and the main thrust would begin on Taifun (Typhoon), a massive offensive October 2. along a 150-mile front employing 15 If the Ostheer had a weakness, it was 84

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IF THE SITUATION LOOKED DAUNTING FOR THE GERman planners, it was far worse for their Soviet counterparts. The grim task of defending Moscow fell primarily to the Western Front, or army group, commanded by Lt. Gen. Ivan Koniev. Koniev’s front consisted of six rifle (infantry) armies, a five-division cavalry group, and three reserve rifle divisions, and it was supported to the south by the three-army Bryansk Front under Lt. Gen. Andrei Yeremenko. These two fronts, plus a six-army reserve front under Marshal Semyon Budenny (which had two armies plugging gaps in the front line), had been engaged in piecemeal counterattacks at Stalin’s insistence since August and were considerably worn down, so that each Soviet army was, more or less, the equivalent of a German corps. While the Western, Bryansk, and Reserve Fronts amassed 95 divisions with 864,000 combat troops, they labored under crippling disadvantages. All three were seriously short of heavy artillery, combat aircraft, and medium tanks. The average rifle division—composed largely of ill-trained recruits—was around 5,000 to 7,000 soldiers, less than half the authorized strength of around 14,000. To make matters worse, the deeper German columns drove into Soviet territory, the less Stalin tolerated a strategy of trading space for time, which limited his generals’ options. The battle for the Soviet capital opened on September 30, with a lightning attack by Guderian’s panzers, which struck northeast toward the transportation hub of Orel and due north toward Bryansk. Guderian’s veterans smashed five divisions and ripped open the southern flank of the Soviet Thirteenth Army. On October 3, his panzers rolled into Orel so rapidly they overtook trams clattering down Orel’s streets, and the Thirteenth Army fled toward Bryansk. Typhoon’s main effort began on October 2, when the Third and Fourth Panzer Armies turned on the Soviet defenders around Vyaz’ma. Third Panzer, based in Smolensk, hit the juncture of Koniev’s Nineteenth and Thirtieth Armies, rupturing the two armies’ flanks. In two days, it captured bridges over the Dniepr River, opening the northern door to Vyaz’ma.

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its logistical tail. Captured rail lines were handling only around half to two-thirds of their former capacity, while competing demands by garrison commanders in Poland squeezed supplies passing through to the front. To make matters worse, Typhoon’s six armies had only four major railheads from which to draw ammunition, fuel, and food, and the armies could not operate far from these railheads, given poor road networks and Germany’s chronic shortage of motor transport. Two-thirds of Germany’s artillery was still horse-drawn as Operation Typhoon began. Of the 13,000 tons of supplies per day needed to sustain Army Group Center’s 70 divisions, its motor pool was able to supply just 6,500 tons over decrepit Russian roads.

Muscovite civilians were mobilized on October 12, 1941, to prepare the city’s defenses against the threat of imminent German attack. Here, women dig one of many antitank trenches which ringed the city.

South of Vyaz’ma, Hoepner’s Fourth Panzer Army attacked on a narrow front and broke through Budenny’s Forty-third Army, holding its LVII Panzer Corps in reserve to exploit the breakthrough. On the way, it dismantled Budenny’s Thirtythird Army, a second-echelon formation, and by October 5 Hoepner had bored a hole in Soviet lines wide enough to throw LVII Panzer Corps into the enemy rear east of Vyaz’ma. While Bock surged forward with his armored divisions, his three infantry armies (the Second, Fourth, and Ninth) succeeded in pinning the Soviet Sixteenth, Twentieth, Twentyfourth, and Fiftieth Armies. Fierce pressure prevented those four defending armies from either retreating or coming to the aid of their hard-pressed comrades around Vyaz’ma and Bryansk. At the time Typhoon was launched, the Kremlin was still preoccupied with its Ukrainian front; it took three irreplaceable days before Stavka, the Red Army high command, awoke to the threat posed by Army Group Center and summoned reserves from the Urals, Central Asia, and the Far East. To the north, General Koniev threw whatever reserves he could find into a futile counteroffensive to halt the Third Panzer Army, but these unlucky units were driven back with heavy losses. In the center, Marshal Budenny’s Reserve Front, which comprised largely militia or reconstructed units, collapsed entirely before the weight of the Fourth Panzer Army’s assault, and by October 4 Budenny’s front was virtually destroyed. Stalin, furious RUSSIAN FRONT

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with the performance of his generals, sacked Koniev (and considered executing him), replacing him on October 5 with his top commander from Leningrad, General Georgi Zhukov.

some 400,000 soldiers from the Sixteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-fourth, and Thirty-second Armies. That evening, five German infantry corps, plus heavy artillery and Luftwaffe bombers, were called in to begin the kessel (cauldron) battle that BY OCTOBER 6, THE SOVIET PICTURE HAD GROWN would result in the destruction of 25 rifle divisions and five tank worse. Koniev’s orders to his Sixteenth, Nineteenth, and Twen- brigades over the next five days. tieth Armies to retreat toward Vyaz’ma could not be heeded due Farther south, General Guderian closed the Bryansk pocket, to the intense pressure from Bock’s Fourth and Ninth Armies. although his mobile forces were delayed when his fuel supply Budenny’s Thirty-second Army, which guarded the approaches gave out on October 3. Three days later, his panzers finally to Vyaz’ma, collapsed under withering armored attacks from reached Bryansk, and by October 9 he had loosely encircled the north and south of the city, and on the morning of October 7, Soviet Third, Thirteenth, and Fiftieth Armies. But Guderian panzers linked up east of Vyaz’ma, forming a pocket that trapped failed to seal the pocket effectively, and from October 9 to 13 large portions of the Third and Thirteenth Armies limped away, while parts of at Top: During the autumn of 1941, German SS troops slog along a muddy road near least seven rifle divisions managed to Moscow. Resolute Red Army defenders and harsh weather combined to doom the German effort to capture the Soviet capital city. ABOVE: Wary Soviet infantryescape the cauldron. men remain alert as the Germans approach defensive positions in a forest near All told, the first phase of Typhoon was Moscow in October 1941. another disaster for the Red Army. Despite the imperfect closure of the Bryansk pocket, Bock estimated that his army group had captured 673,098 prisoners, killed around 300,000 defenders, and destroyed or captured 1,277 tanks and 4,378 artillery pieces. The Red Army had lost 64 rifle divisions, 11 tank brigades, and 50 artillery regiments— about one million men—during Typhoon’s first two weeks, and Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, confidently informed foreign correspondents, “The annihilation of Timoshenko’s [sic] army group has definitely brought the war to a close.” East of Bryansk, Guderian’s spearhead, the XXIV Panzer Corps, sat idle at Orel for two days of excellent weather while supply convoys went back to NovgorodSeversky to bring up more fuel. When Guderian resumed his drive toward Tula, an ordnance center along the OrelMoscow highway, a fierce counterattack by Soviet T-34 medium tanks slowed his progress at the Lisiza River. By October 7, the first light snows began to fall, and despite artillery and Stuka dive-bomber support Guderian’s spearhead ground to a halt before Soviet delaying actions at the roadside town of Mtensk. Soon the Russian razputitza, or “period of mud,” set in, immobilizing Guderian’s mechanized forces until win-

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ter freezes hardened the roads. Reflecting complete confidence in its ability to take Moscow at will, OKH convinced Hitler that Stalin’s Northwestern and Southwestern Fronts could also be destroyed while an all-out lunge at Moscow was attempted. Ninth Army and Third Panzer Army, therefore, were ordered to send detachments north to Rzhev and Kalinin (respectively 200 and 120 miles northwest of Moscow), which they captured by October 14. Guderian was similarly directed to dispatch his XLVIII Panzer Corps south toward Kursk. The result was a dilution of Army Group Center’s armored strength at the time Zhukov was placing every available platoon on the likely approaches to the Soviet capital. The lack of winter clothing, as seen in this photograph of German troops awaiting While the Vyaz’ma pocket was being orders outside a command post near Moscow in November 1941, hampered the liquidated, a halfhearted German pursuit efforts of the Wehrmacht to capture the Soviet capital city. under Hoepner’s Fourth Panzer Army commenced, using the SS Das Reich Motorized Infantry Divi- at the nearby town of Borodino, which was guarded by the sion as its spearhead. Before long, however, Das Reich was 32nd Rifle Division, some 50 tanks, and a like number of stopped cold on the Minsk-Moscow highway by two newly artillery pieces. It took two days for Hoepner’s panzers to grind formed tank brigades equipped with the excellent T-34 medium through the defenses there, but by October 18 Das Reich had tanks. The two tank brigades fought tenaciously for four days, blasted its way into Mozhaisk, 55 miles from Moscow. With delaying Fourth Panzer Army’s push toward Moscow and giv- the fracture of the Mozhaisk Line, Germany now occupied ing Zhukov some badly needed time to move forces—includ- roughly 600,000 square miles of former Soviet territory. ing strategic reinforcements from Siberia—into position at Zhukov was running out of room. Borodino, Yelnya, and Mozhaisk, a trio of strongpoints west of The significance of the German victory at Borodino was not Moscow. lost on Muscovites. In 1812, Napoleon’s success there had Guderian’s delays in pushing beyond Orel, unexpectedly opened the doorway to French occupation of Moscow. Resifierce Soviet resistance around Borodino, and the diversion of dents began fleeing the capital, and the government evacuated part of Army Group Center toward Kalinin gave Zhukov time most offices to the east, although Stalin and the Army’s high to throw together parts of 18 rifle divisions and 11 tank command remained within the city. brigades—around 90,000 men—to hold back the gray tide. As the fate of Moscow hung in the balance, Bock’s logistical He set up a new defensive line about 75 miles west of Moscow, vulnerabilities began catching up with him. Miserable weather centered around three cities on the main approaches to the cap- and muddy roads had hampered his ability to move supplies— ital—Volokolamsk, Mozhaisk, and Maloyarsoslavets. But by especially fuel and ammunition—to frontline troops. That, plus October 15, Bock was ready to attack once again. a lack of supply trains reaching his railheads, meant that from Maloyarsoslavets, guarded by the Forty-third Army, was the October 24 into November Army Group Center was forced to next of Zhukov’s positions hammered by the powerful LVII halt and settle for a war of attrition that it could ill afford. The Panzer Corps. The city fell on October 18, but Soviet defend- only German gains over the next few weeks would be along ers were reinforced by the Thirty-third Army and managed to Guderian’s sector to the south. prevent Hoepner’s panzers from exploiting the breach. To the Guderian’s objective after seizing Orel was to capture Tula, north, meanwhile, savage fighting at Volokolamsk further 100 miles south of Moscow. Having been stymied at Mtensk delayed the German advance until October 27, when snow, until October 11, then spending 11 days bringing up additional rain, and mud began to affect Bock’s mobility in a serious way. fuel and ammunition, on October 22 Guderian sent his XXIV At Mozhaisk, Zhukov faced his most serious crisis. There, Panzer Corps with three infantry divisions and flanked the the SS Das Reich and 10th Panzer Divisions met stiff resistance Soviet defenders the following day. Six days later, Guderian’s RUSSIAN FRONT

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spearheads were able to pierce defenses south of Tula and attempt a direct assault on the city. In a heroic last-stand effort, local militia, NKVD security troops, and antiaircraft crews fought off Guderian’s lead units just long enough for the 32nd Tank Brigade and two rifle divisions to come to their rescue. Deep mud limited Guderian’s mobility until the surrounding roads froze; Tula, like Moscow, gained a respite for the moment. Guderian prepared to renew his assault on Tula by bringing up the rest of his army in a flanking movement to the east, but by early November Second Panzer Army had bypassed so many smaller Soviet units that Guderian’s right flank was seriously exposed. He posted his LIII Corps on the right to deal with threats to his line of communications, but spoiling attacks by the Soviet Third and Fiftieth Armies set off a 10-day running battle that further delayed Guderian’s drive on Tula until November 18 and forced Second Panzer Army to consume vital ammunition and fuel stocks. By the end of October, the vast human resources of the Soviet empire had begun collecting on the Moscow axis. That month, Zhukov received 10 rifle divisions, 19 armored units, a cavalry division, five divisions of militia, and one airborne corps. During November, he would receive another 22 rifle divisions, 17 rifle brigades, 14 cavalry divisions, four armored units, and 11 ski battalions. By November 15, Zhukov and Koniev (whom at Zhukov’s request had been given command of the armies fighting at Kalinin) had assembled 38 infantry divisions, three tank divisions, and a dozen cavalry divisions, plus another 14 tank brigades. While many of Zhukov’s units would be thrown

into combat with little or no training, he now had sufficient numbers to make a decent stand around his capital. West of Moscow, Zhukov deployed seven armies—from north to south, the Thirtieth, in the north near the Moscow Sea and Volga Reservoir; the Sixteenth, along the Lama River; the Fifth, behind Mozhaisk at the town of Tuchkovo; the Thirty-third, along the Nara River south of the Minsk-Moscow highway; and the Forty-third, farther up the Nara. Below that, the Forty-ninth Army was charged with holding back Guderian’s panzers from the road below Tula, while the Fiftieth Army held Tula proper. Zhukov, whom Stalin had warned would face a firing squad if German jackboots touched Moscow’s streets, did not wish to repeat the mistakes made by Stavka when it had dispersed its strength in piecemeal counterattacks. A ruthless man who occasionally had incompetent generals shot as examples to others, Zhukov was not afraid to give Stalin his unvarnished military opinion. However, Stalin once again insisted upon offensive action, and Zhukov had no choice but to appease the dictator by conducting a number of spoiling attacks that dispersed his reserves but did little to create decisive results.

IN BERLIN, HITLER FACED THE SAME CROSSROADS decision that Napoleon faced at Smolensk 129 years before: should he press on toward Moscow, or should his men go into winter quarters and rebuild their strength? OKH intelligence reports claimed that the remaining defenders were demoralized remnants of defeated field armies, plus a scratch collection of untrained militia and NKVD troops. Hitler predicted to the Wehrmacht’s operations chief, General Alfred Jodl, “One final heave, and we shall triumph.” Thus, on November 12, OKH Advancing during their successful effort to recapture Klin, Soviet tanks with infantrymen aboard dodge German artillery shells. Numerous German units narordered Bock and his army commanrowly escaped annihilation during the fighting near Moscow. ders to resume their offensive on November 15. The second phase of Operation Typhoon called for Bock to encircle Moscow with another double envelopment. The Third and Fourth Panzer Armies (a total of 18 divisions) would attack from the north, while Guderian’s Second Panzer (nine divisions) would capture Tula and drive toward Moscow from the south. To keep Zhukov from reacting to these flanking movements, Field Marshal Guenther von Kluge’s Fourth Army would launch pinning attacks with his 14 infantry divisions along the Nara River. The plan seemed sound, but its execution, Bock knew, would be difficult. He had the equivalent of about 38 divisions for this last phase of Typhoon—roughly half the

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number that participated in his initial onslaught. To the north, the Third Panzer Army had committed its reserves around Kalinin, while local Soviet counterattacks forced Bock to deploy the Second and Ninth Armies on his exposed flanks. Bock’s logistical constraints also had not eased. He had no significant stockpiles at jumping-off points for his men, and the OKH quartermaster department, unable to supply Army Group Center’s requirements of 30 trains per day, simply cut the army group’s quota by onefourth; even that reduced amount did not get through to Bock’s forward railheads. It would be a close battle for both armies. The final struggle for Moscow opened with a three-division attack by Ninth Army’s XXVII Corps, supported by the 1st Panzer Division, against Maj. Gen. Dmitri Lelyushenko’s Thirtieth Army at the Moscow Sea. The Thirtieth, still recovering from bitter fighting around Kalinin, fell back toward Klin, 52 miles from the capital. This retreat allowed Third Panzer Army to move over the Lama River, 60 miles from Moscow. On November 18, the main German thrust began as Fourth Panzer Army’s V Corps and XLVI Panzer Corps, six divisions in all, ripped open a hole between the Thirtieth and Sixteenth Armies. The Sixteenth, commanded by Maj. Gen. Konstantin Rokossovsky, was forced to withdraw east toward Istra, 36 miles west of Moscow, leaving a gap between the two armies that Hoepner obligingly exploited with two corps. By November 23, Klin was in German hands, and Thirtieth Army was in peril. But with Koniev launching division-sized counterattacks from the Kalinin region, Bock could not afford to leave his left flank open. He ordered Col. Gen. Adolf Strauss’s Ninth Army to assume the defensive and keep Koniev’s forces away from his panzers moving against Moscow. While Thirtieth Army was falling back toward the Volga Reservoir, 35 miles north of the Kremlin, Rokossovky’s Sixteenth Army, west of Moscow, was taking a beating around Istra. There, his 78th Rifle Division, newly arrived from Siberia, was putting up a desperate defense against the SS Das Reich Division. The 78th conceded the town on November 27, but not before inflicting 926 casualties on Das Reich and tak-

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ing a good deal of the fight out of that elite unit. In addition to inflicting German casualties, the battle for Istra bought Zhukov critical time to establish yet another defensive line 21 miles northwest of Moscow. Time was, for the moment, on Zhukov’s side. The delaying actions around Klin and Istra allowed him to withdraw troops east and avoid another pocket disaster, while harsh weather and supply shortages seriously hampered Bock’s ability to move forward. But Bock had one last attack left in his army group, and no one knew whether it would end inside or outside the Kremlin walls. On November 27, advance units of the LVI Panzer Corps managed to reach the Moscow-Volga Canal, but they were thrown back by lead elements of the First Shock Army, and forward momentum on the north side of the capital was lost. Northwest of Moscow, on November 30 the 2nd Panzer Division captured the town of Krasnaya Polyana, 17 miles away, but fierce resistance by Rokossovsky’s army, increasingly severe weather, and fuel shortages stopped Hoepner’s advance there. RUSSIAN FRONT

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To the south, around Tula, Guderian spent late November fending off counterattacks against his line of communication and gathering fuel to launch one last attack. Meanwhile, at Tula, the Red Army moved replacements into Lt. Gen. Ivan Boldin’s Fiftieth Army. Spoiling attacks by Boldin’s Siberian 413th Rifle Division damaged Guderian’s right flank badly enough to require him to throw off divisions to protect his flank, delaying his planned encirclement of the city. It was not until November 24 that Guderian was able to send his XXIV Panzer Corps northeast of Tula in an effort to encircle the city. But his all-out effort ground down against unexpectedly strong Soviet defenses, and Guderian, to his disgust, received no help from the plodding Kluge, whose Fourth Army provided negligible support from its divisions north of Guderian’s advance. Although German tanks briefly cut the TulaMoscow highway on December 3, the next day armor dispatched by Zhukov forced Guderian to withdraw from the city’s outskirts and stand on the defensive. South of the Minsk-Moscow highway, Kluge’s army sat idle through the late November maelstrom, keeping watch along the Nara River and giving Zhukov the opportunity to move units from his Fifth and Thirty-third Armies north to assist the hard-pressed Rokossovsky. It was not until the early hours of December 1 that Kluge launched a four-division attack against well-prepared Soviet defenses. Kluge’s troops performed superbly, but by then Hoepner’s Fourth Panzer Army had been stopped, and there was little that the Fourth Army could do at this late date. After Zhukov moved his reserves back to the center to support the crumbing Thirty-third Army, Kluge

retired across the Nara, effectively quitting the battle. As Zhukov later commented, “In the absence of attacks at the center we were able to shift all our reserves, down to divisional reserves, from the center of the front to parry the enemy’s strike forces on the flanks.” Hitler’s Wehrmacht had reached its high- water mark. From the Moscow suburb of Khimki, less than 12 miles from the Kremlin, reconnaissance troops allegedly could see the gleaming onion domes of the city in the distance. But they were dangerously low on fuel and ammunition. They had sustained around 155,000 casualties and lost over 700 tanks in the second phase of Typhoon, and although OKH did not know it, the Red Army now held a numerical advantage. On December 8, Hitler agreed to suspend offensive operations, citing uncooperative weather, but ordered Bock to hold all conquered territory. Unbeknownst to OKH, three fresh armies— the First Shock, Tenth, and Twentieth—had arrived at Moscow, and on November 30 Stalin approved a counteroffensive proposal employing six armies. The new armies lacked significant armor, but Zhukov planned to use them to pull the steel fangs out of Bock’s panzer divisions. Soviet counterattacks began on December 5 at the north end of the line, east of Klin, where the Third Panzer Army deployed three panzer and two motorized infantry divisions. Col. Gen. Hans Reinhardt, who had replaced Hoth as commander of Third Panzer after Typhoon’s launch, made the mistake of keeping his few operational tanks, only around 80 or so by now, close to his front lines. They were therefore unable to act as a mobile reserve to plug cracks in his front and were vulnerable to a rapid With their hands up, German soldiers capitulate to Soviet troops. Many of those Germans who surrendered during the fighting on the Eastern Front died in captiv- thrust. ity. Others were held for years after the end of the war. On the morning of December 6, Thirtieth Army flung three rifle divisions and two tank brigades at Reinhardt’s overstretched 14th and 36th Motorized Infantry Divisions. The First Shock Army joined in the attack, and Twentieth and Sixteenth Armies began pressing attacks along the juncture of the Third and Fourth Panzer Armies. Reinhardt ordered Third Panzer to fall back upon Klin, while Hoepner withdrew Fourth Panzer Army to Istra. As Hoepner and Reinhardt were pulling back, the Soviet Fifth Army joined the battle, and Third Panzer suffered heavy losses in artillery and vehicles as Reinhardt tried to cobble together a Kampfgruppe (battle group) from two panzer divisions to hold back the red tide. Mis-

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erable weather and fuel shortages impeded cooperation between the two panzer armies, and by December 11 Rokossovsky had pushed the Germans out of Istra. Bock’s left wing was in danger of collapse. On December 12, Rokossovsky moved in for the kill, sending two tank brigades, two motorized regiments, and two cavalry units around Third Panzer Army to cut off its line of retreat. His force captured the road from Klin on December 14, isolating four panzer divisions plus the hard-pressed 14th Motorized Infantry Division. Leaving behind much of their heavy equipment, the divisions trapped at Klin forced open the road to Kalinin just long enough to escape the rapidly closing noose, and by December With the front line no more than 20 miles away, newly arrived Soviet tanks roll through the streets of Moscow to bolster the city’s defenses. 15 Third and Fourth Panzer Armies again were in retreat. To the south, around Tula, Boldin’s Fiftieth Army, plus rein- liquidation of the Vyaz’ma and Bryansk pockets, was brilliantly forcements from the I Guards Cavalry Corps and the newly conceived and almost flawlessly executed. Its few shortcomings formed Tenth Army, battered Guderian’s front and flanks. At can be attributed to logistical shortages and to Guderian’s failthe same time, Stavka sent two reinforcing armies toward Tula, ure to close the Bryansk pocket aggressively, allowing a numand by early December those armies had converged upon Sec- ber of Soviet troops to escape to Tula, where they would join ond Panzer’s flanks. As in the north, three of Guderian’s the reconstituted Fiftieth Army in defense of that city. infantry divisions were threatened with encirclement, but all The operational pause during early November, when the Red managed to withdraw southwest with heavy losses. Soviet Army was reeling, was due to structural flaws in the Ostheer thrusts at the juncture between Fourth Army and Second that prevented adequate fuel and ammunition from reaching Panzer Army threatened to isolate Guderian, and by Decem- Army Group Center’s front lines. By the time Bock was ready ber 12 he was in retreat toward Orel. Moscow had been saved. to resume his attack, both numbers and climate had begun to favor Zhukov. OPERATION TYPHOON WAS A NEAR RUN THING FOR It was the second phase of Operation Typhoon, the last push the Soviet Union. From September 30 to December 15, the Red to Moscow, that was the most flawed of all. Harkening back Army sustained roughly 1.5 million casualties (some 350,000 to the German experience at the Marne in World War I, when in December alone), and the Soviet government had been Germany might have defeated France had it thrown in its last forced to evacuate its capital. Army Group Center, for its part, reserves, both OKH and Bock were prepared to commit every lost over 150,000 men. Particularly crippling for the Ostheer remaining soldier on the assumption that the Red Army simwas the loss of heavy equipment—as many as 800 tanks, 983 ply had no reserves left. Hitler allowed himself to be persuaded artillery pieces, 473 heavy mortars, and 800 antitank guns were by overly optimistic reports claiming that the Red Army and destroyed or abandoned during December alone. Stalin’s dictatorship had sustained so many casualties that they Perhaps the greatest damage to the Nazi war machine was could be toppled with one last shove. When trained reinforcepsychological. The “subhuman” Slavic troops had shattered the ments arrived from Siberia and the Far East, and when Stavka myth of Wehrmacht invincibility. Hitler’s confidence in his gen- proved capable of forming fresh armies, the critical assumption erals was irredeemably shaken, and in short order he relieved the underlying Hitler’s lunge against the Soviet capital evaporated. head of OKH and took personal command of the Army. He The Soviet Union would not suffer the fate of Poland, France, sacked Bock, three of the six army commanders involved in and the Low Countries. Typhoon (Guderian, Hoepner, and Strauss), and four of the 22 Jonathan W. Jordan resides in Marietta, Georgia. He is the corps commanders. The first phase of Operation Typhoon, culminating in the author of the book Lone Star Navy, published in 2006.

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DISASTER AT DEMYANSK Scandinavian volunteers took part in Germany’s 1942 summer offensive against the Soviets— and paid a heavy price at the Demyansk Pocket. BY HENRIK LUNDE

ON THE SURFACE IT MAY seem odd that men of conquered nations would eagerly sign up to fight for their masters, but that is exactly what happened in Scandinavia in the 1940s. Although a small number of Scandinavians served in the German armed forces before 1940, it was not until after the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940 that Waffen-SS recruiting offices were opened in Copenhagen and Oslo. This was a result of Himmler’s order to establish a Waffen-SS unit composed of volunteers from the two countries and the Netherlands: SS Wiking— which was to be filled by what was referred to as “Germanic recruits.” The plan called for one regiment of Germans, one regiment of Dutch (Westland), one regiment of Scandinavians (Nordland), and a Finnish battalion. However, recruitment was not a roaring success as only 3,000 Scandinavians, including Finns, signed up. The Germans tried again in 1941, hoping that the war between the Soviet Union and Finland would spur the recruitment effort. However, now the 92

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A long line of German soldiers in snow camouflage, along with a Panzer III, prepare to meet the Soviet foe near Demyansk, spring 1942.

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Danes and Norwegians were organized in national legions— bers envisioned by SS chief Heinrich Himmler. the Norwegian Legion (DNL) and Frikorps Danmark. The greatest number of Danes served in three different forThe German attack on the Soviet Union, and Finland’s mations: Frikorps Danmark (Danish Legion), SS Division participation in that attack, made potential volunteers of Wiking, and, after the disbandment of the so-called legions right-wing nationalist groups who were not National Social- in 1943, the SS Division Nordland. Approximately 1,500 ists and had, up to then, been skeptical. Anti-communism Danish volunteers came from the German minority in southbecame the dominant recruitment theme. Potential recruits ern Jutland, and they served mainly in SS Division Totenkopf were encouraged to enlist in a war described as a crusade to and to some extent in that division’s infamous 1st SS Brigade. protect Europe against Bolshevism. Furthermore, physical The first group of Danish volunteers was deployed in the requirements for volunteers diminished in subsequent years summer of 1941 when SS Division Wiking participated in as the war on the Eastern Front resulted in heavy casualties. the attack on the Soviet Union; only a few hundred Danes Many nationalities served in Germany’s elite Waffen-SS served in this division at any one time. The majority of them during World War II, including Scanwere transferred to SS Division Norddinavians, and particularly Danes. The land after two years of serving in Wikrecruitment of foreigners was designed ing; most Danish volunteers were still to overcome the strict limits imposed undergoing training in Frikorps Danon the growth of the Waffen-SS by the mark when Wiking fought in the Wehrmacht, which had established a Ukraine. virtual monopoly on recruiting in GerFrikorps Danmark was created on many. This forced the Waffen-SS to June 25, 1941, within a few days follook outside Germany for manpower. lowing the German invasion of the Prior to 1940 there were only a few Soviet Union. About 500 volunteers volunteers, but after the invasions of signed up in the first couple of weeks, Norway and Denmark in the spring of but the unit grew to about 1,000-1,200 1940, their numbers increased considin the following months. The creation of erably. The Scandinavians in German the Frikorps was accepted by the Danservice were primarily Norwegians ish government and the Danish Army, and Danes although there was also a and officers who wished to serve in the smattering of Swedes and one battalFrikorps were given a leave to do so ion of Finns. from the Danish Army. Both the govThere is general agreement in the ernment and the army sent representasources that over 20,000 Norwegians “Norsemen—Fight for Norway” urges tives to the departure ceremony of the and Danes joined the Waffen-SS dur- this recruiting poster. With their Frikorps as the troops left Denmark and ing the war. These break down to “Aryan” heritage, Scandinavians were marched off to war. sought after by the Germans to augaround 13,000 Danes, 7,000 Norwe- ment the SS's ranks. Many of the Scandinavian volunteers gians, 1,500 Finns, and a few hundred were veterans from the Finnish Winter Swedes. Of approximately 13,000 War against the Soviets or had seen serDanish citizens who volunteered for German armed service vice in the Norwegian and Danish Armies; similar legions during World War II, some 7,000 were accepted. were recruited in the Netherlands and Flanders and were orgaThe vast majority—around 12,000—volunteered for the nized in cooperation with SS headquarters in Berlin and the Waffen-SS, and that organization admitted around 6,000. In various national Nazi parties. looking at the number of Danes, it should be remembered This arrangement with the various Nazi parties in occuthat the size of the prewar Danish Army was only 6,600. The pied Europe served to underline the national character of Finns spent most of their time in SS Division Wiking but the legions and gave them some autonomy by appointing were withdrawn to Finland in 1943. The Swedes served for officers from within their ranks rather than Germans. It the most part in Army Group North’s sector. was also designed to foster the anti-communist theme and At any one time, about 3,000 Scandinavians served at counter the belief in the occupied countries that the volthe front and acquitted themselves well. The SS Division unteers were composed only of people who were pro-GerNordland, for example, won the fifth highest number of man. However, recruits continued to come mainly from Knight’s Crosses of all the Waffen-SS divisions. However, Nazi circles in the occupied countries. the Scandinavian volunteers never reached the large numThe legions never reached full regimental strength in the 94

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early years. Their training and equipment were not the best, they had no armor, and there was a shortage of heavy weapons. In early 1942, the Norwegian Legion (Den Norske Legion) was sent to the siege lines around Oranienburg and Leningrad, where they spent a frustrating 18 months slugging it out with the Russians in almost World War Ilike conditions as their strength dwindled and reinforcements dried up. The Danes faced equally dismal or worse conditions when they were sent into the Demyansk Salient to reinforce the SS Totenkopf Division in the summer of 1942. Some of the general histories of World War II on the Eastern Front make only brief reference to the epic struggle that took place over the Demyansk Salient during the spring and summer of 1942. Consequently, the reader will find it useful to learn what this struggle was all about and how it factored into the strategic plans of both the Soviets and Germans. At times Demyansk is described as a salient extending eastward from the main German defensive lines, and at other times, when totally encircled, as a pocket. Depending on the situation, it will be referred to here as one or the Marching behind the Danish colors, volunteers in the 1st Battalion of Frikorps Danmark march to their barracks upon arrival in Germany, July 1941. Before long they other. While the role of the Danish Waf- would be fighting in the snows of Russia. fen-SS was, in many respects, minor in the overall scope of the conflict on the Eastern Front, it land in the north to the Black Sea in the south. The hopedresulted in the worst single bloodletting suffered by Dan- for results were the destruction of Army Group Center, the ish volunteers in Word War II. Since little has been written relief of Leningrad, and driving the Germans out of the in English about the Scandinavian volunteers in the Waf- Crimea and the Donets Basin. fen-SS, here is a summary that attempts to fill that void. In retrospect it is obvious that Soviet objectives were too ambitious. While the battle for Moscow had been a serious THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF THE SOVIET WINTER setback for the Germans, they were by no means as shattered offensive that began in December 1941 was to eliminate the and exhausted as the Soviets seem to have assumed. By German threat to Moscow posed by Generalfeldmarschall attacking everywhere, the Soviets diluted their efforts. Also, Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center. The Soviet success in by extending the conflict through the spring thaw, they crethe battle for Moscow delivered a serious blow to the man- ated a condition favoring the defenders. tle of German invincibility and caused Stalin and the Soviet This allowed the Germans to mount an extraordinary High Command (Stavka) to become overly optimistic and defense in a climate characterized by bitter cold and deep ambitious. The result was that Stavka extended the offensive snow—conditions for which the German soldiers were neithe whole length of the Eastern Front—from northern Fin- ther prepared nor equipped. The Soviets also suffered; a RUSSIAN FRONT

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White-clad Red Army infantry, accompanied by a T-34 tank, charge toward German-held positions during the Soviet winter counteroffensive in the Demyansk and Kholm pockets.

look at the casualty figures tells the story. The Soviets suffered a staggering 620,000 killed between January and March 1942 while, at the same time, the German death toll was roughly 136,000. This ratio remains essentially the same when total casualties (killed, wounded, captured, and missing) are considered. Furthermore, the Soviet mobility, operational effectiveness, and supply apparatus were not yet capable of supporting these massive offensives over extended distances. In his memoirs Soviet Marshal Georgi Zhukov notes angrily, “If you consider our losses and what results were achieved, it will be clear that it was a Pyrrhic victory.” The Soviet strategy of wearing the Germans down did not work, and, in return for huge losses, the Soviets gained little territory and were faced with having to rebuild their weakened forces before an expected German summer offensive, which the Soviets assumed would have Moscow as its main objective. When the Germans struck with the main effort in the south, they found the Soviet military in a precarious posture similar to that of the previous year. This was to a large extent the result of the widely dispersed Soviet efforts in the winter and spring. ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN Army Groups Center and North, the Russians had managed to drive deep into the German front. At one point it appeared that they would be able to encircle the Ninth Army and the Third Panzer Army. This possible calamity was averted, how96

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ever, and Feldmarschall Günther von Kluge, commanding Army Group Center after Bock was relieved in early 1942, was even able to push the Soviets back in some areas. The Russians did control a huge bulge extending into German lines around Toropets, in the northern part of Army Group Center’s sector. The northern part of the bulge actually extended into Army Group North’s sector as well, from Kholm in the southwest to Demyansk, a city located approximately 100 miles south of Leningrad, in the northeast. Army Group North, commanded by Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, consisted of two armies, the Eighteenth under General Georg von Küchler and the Sixteenth under General Ernst Busch. The Eighteenth Army was in the north, around Leningrad, and its front extended south as far as the northern shore of Lake Ilmen. Busch’s Sixteenth held the southern part of the army group’s sector from Lake Ilmen to a point near the town of Kholm. The Soviets hurled nine armies against Army Group North in their winter offensive, trying to break the siege of Leningrad and push the German front away from Moscow by levering it away from the strategic Valday Hills. It was even hoped that Küchler’s and Busch’s armies could be encircled and destroyed. Sixteenth Army tied into the LIX Corps of Army Group Center in the vicinity of Kholm. Its front was long because it incorporated a large salient extending toward the Valday Hills and ran northeastward from Kholm, then east past the city of Demyansk, and then back in a west-northwest

direction to the city of Staraya Russa, south of Lake Ilmen. During the German drive to the east in 1941, II Corps of the Sixteenth Army, under Lt. Gen. Walter Graf Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt, had captured Demyansk, reached the strategically important Valday Hills, and cut the railway line between Moscow and Leningrad. But here the corps became stuck. They held out in these forward positions throughout the early winter, although the Soviets gave this salient, sticking out like a finger eastward for over 60 miles from the main German line of resistance, special attention. The elongated salient was important to both the Germans and the Soviets, and for much the same reasons. Hitler and the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres) viewed the salient as an ideal jumping-off point for a possible resumed offensive against Moscow. Stavka was well aware of this, and the salient took on added importance in its calculations as the Soviets misread the enemy intentions in the expected German offensive: Stavka referred to the Demyansk Salient as a dagger pointed Ignoring a dead Soviet soldier (foreground), two German soldiers man their frigid at Moscow. MG 34 machine-gun position at Demyansk. The salient also posed a serious flank threat against the gigantic bulge the Soviets had driven into Army Group Center in the Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt, commanding II Corps assigned to Toropets-Velikiye Luki area. If the Germans could mount the Sixteenth Army, was given the mission of defending a southward offensive from the Demyansk Salient in con- the Demyansk Salient. He was a 54-year-old aristocrat who junction with a northward offensive by Army Group Cen- had entered the German Army in 1907 and had distinter, a large pocket of Soviet forces would be encircled. guished himself as a corps commander in the French CamWhile the Germans were aware of the opportunities pre- paign of 1940. sented by the Toropets bulge and the overextension of their When the Soviet offensive began in Army Group North’s enemy, they were unable to do anything about it. The Ger- sector in January 1942, Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt’s II Corps man armies were bled white in the offensive of 1941 and the had three divisions: the 12th Infantry Division from Mecksubsequent Soviet winter offensive. The bloodletting could lenburg, the 32nd Infantry Division from Pomerania and not be offset by replacements that were slow in arriving, and Prussia, and the 123rd Infantry Division from Brandenthere were virtually no reserves. The observations of Gen- burg. These divisions from northern Germany had taken eral Gotthard Heinrici, commander of the Ninth Army, part in the German invasion of Russia in 1941, and, as a show how drastic the personnel situation was. He reported result of the eastward drive and subsequent fighting, they that his battalions were down to about 70 men in strength, were, as other German units, well below their authorized with an average of seven light and heavy machine guns each. strength. Because of its importance to both sides, the Demyansk In addition, the men were fighting in summer uniforms Salient became one of the most hotly contested areas of with the temperature at times falling to below minus 40 the Eastern Front, and both sides fought over it bitterly. degrees Fahrenheit, virtually immobilizing both men and RUSSIAN FRONT

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TOP: Too cold to shave: General Theodor Scherer, commander of the 281st Security Division and commandant of Fortress Kholm, was photographed in the city during the seige. BOTTOM: Christian von Schalburg, commander of Frikorps Danmark, was killed during heavy fighting in June 1942.

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machinery. While frontline troops were given additional clothing by rear area personnel, it was of little help since those personnel also had only summer uniforms. The Soviet Northwest Front was commanded by Lt. Gen. Pavel Kurochkin. Its mission was to encircle the northern flank of the Sixteenth Army—a goal to be accomplished by two large drives by troops from both the Northwest Front and the Kalinin Front. Three armies made up the northern drive. The 11th Army, under Lt. Gen. V.I. Morosov, attacked in the Lake Ilmen area; the 34th Army, under Maj. Gen. Nikolai Bersarin, concentrated on the Valday Hills area; and the 1st Shock Army. The southern drive was made up of the 53rd Army, under Maj. Gen. Aleksandr Ksenofontov, the 22nd Army under Lt. Gen. V.A. Yashkevich, and the 3rd Shock Army. These units were to make the breakthrough to Kholm and constituted the southern force that was to encircle Demyansk. These attacks were supported by large-scale partisan activities in the German rear, particularly in the Staraya Russa area. The attack in the north was initiated on January 7, 1942, by the 11th Soviet Army, elements of the 1st Shock Army, and two Guards Rifle Corps (1st and 2nd) released from Stavka’s strategic reserve. Two days later the 3rd Shock Army from the Kalinin Front, along with the 53rd and 22nd Armies, attacked westward against Kholm and Lake Seeliger on the boundary between Army Group Center and Army Group North. A successful breakthrough in this area would leave the Soviets in a position to drive into the rear areas of both German army groups. The German X Corps, commanded by General Christian Hansen, on II Corps’ left flank, was also driven back by relentless Soviet pressure. The X Corps, like II Corps, had three divi-

sions, and these all ended up in the Demyansk Salient. These were the 30th Infantry Division from Schleswig-Holstein under General Kurt von Tippelskirch, the 290th Infantry Division from Hanover and Schleswig-Holstein under General Theodor Freiherr von Wrede, and the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division under the ruthless SS Obergrupenführer (equivalent to General der Infanterie) Theodor Eicke, who had once been in charge of all concentration camp guards. The Soviets infiltrated between the strongpoints of the 290th Infantry Division and the 30th Infantry Division on the night of 7/8 January. Dawn on the 8th found strong Soviet infantry and tank formations already behind the 290th Infantry Division, and Soviet transport gliders also brought in troops and tanks onto frozen Lake Ilmen. These infantry and tank forces crossed the ice and reached the junction of the Lovati, Redya, and Polisti Rivers, 25 miles to the rear of the 290th Division. A total of 19 Soviet infantry divisions, nine brigades, and several independent ski and tank battalions were meanwhile attacking the fronts of X and II Corps. The main effort of the 11th Soviet Army was against the front of the 290th Division near Tutilovo. To the north, the Germans mounted a desperate defense but were overrun in vicious fighting. The right flank of the division held for another day, and then it collapsed. Withdrawing to the west to avoid encirclement, the 290th ran into fierce battles around various towns and strongpoints on its way. The 1st and 2nd Soviet Guards Corps drove southward behind the 290th Infantry Division. The 2nd Guards attacked Parfino while the 1st Guards attacked toward Salueje; Soviet ski troops were approaching Staraya Russa. The Germans scraped together a motley array of rear area troops to try and hold them back while

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Red Army infantry leap from their accompanying T-34 tanks to attack German positions in a village.

the 51st Infantry Regiment of the 18th Motorized Infantry Division was brought in from Simsk in an effort to stabilize the situation. But the 290th Division became encircled and could only be supplied by air after January 25. The division repulsed a total of 146 enemy attacks between January 8 and February 13, the day it, with superhuman effort, finally was able to break out of the encirclement. The II Corps front was also collapsing. The Soviets placed the main effort of their offensive on the boundary between Army Groups North and Center. Here they attacked on January 9 after a two-hour artillery preparation. Six rifle divisions along with several tank and ski battalions attacked on either side of Ostaskhov on Lake Seeliger. The 53rd Army and elements of the 22nd Army and 3rd Shock Army smashed into and virtually annihilated two regiments of the 123rd Infantry Division, creating a large gap through which Soviet troops poured. The 34th Soviet Army, reinforced by two Soviet airborne brigades, was meanwhile pressing against the salient from the east. By January 12, General Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt had received permission to withdraw the easternmost part of his front. When Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt was appointed commander of all German forces in the pocket, X Corps commander Hansen, minus his divisions, was transferred to Staraya Russa to command German forces in this area.

The salient held by the Germans around Demyansk looked like a “misplaced thumb” on the map, in the words of U.S. Army historian Earl F. Ziemke. The pocket was threatened from the east by the Soviet 34th Army while the base of the salient was threatened by the First Shock Army from the north and the Third Shock Army and the 53rd Army from the south. Operationally, OKH thought, the pocket performed two services: it kept Russian troops tied down, and it might be used as one arm of an encircling operation against the Toropets bulge, but the question was whether anything of the sort was intended or could be executed. If not, Feldmarschall Ritter von Leeb maintained, the pocket was valueless. Leeb was greatly concerned about the situation on his front and called Führer Headquarters on January 12, proposing that his armies be withdrawn behind the Lovati River. Not surprisingly, Hitler immediately turned down the proposal. Leeb thereupon flew to East Prussia to personally argue his case; Hitler again refused. Leeb then requested to be relieved of his command, and Hitler agreed. General Georg Karl Friedrich Wilhelm von Küchler was given command of the army group; his place as commander of the Eighteenth Army was taken by General Georg Lindemann. By mid-January the southern front of the Sixteenth Army had ceased to exist. The battered 123rd Infantry Division RUSSIAN FRONT

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was reduced to defending strongpoints in the vicinity of Molvotisyn, and the division’s 415th and 416th Infantry Regiments were separated from the rest of the front. In 10 days of vicious fighting these two regiments made their way through enemy lines and back to their own front. When they arrived, their combined strength was a mere 900 men. The 32nd Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Wilhelm Bohnstedt) and the 123rd Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Erwin Rauch) from Brandenburg managed eventually to construct a temporary southern front—a front 118 miles wide. However, the combined strength of the two divisions had fallen drastically to about 12,000 men. The Russians could not fully exploit their initial successes because isolated German units formed strongpoints in villages that were bypassed by the initial Soviet assaults, and follow-on Russian units had to divert forces to try to overcome them. Some of the strongpoints fell, while others held out for weeks. The desperate resistance by these strongpoints helped to stabilize the front. However, the situation became critical as II Corps was in danger of being encircled. Fresh Soviet divisions poured into the 56-mile-wide gap in the south, forcing Bohnstedt’s and Rauch’s divisions to fall back. A message from II Corps to the Sixteenth Army stated that they would withdraw behind the Lovati River as soon as an opportunity presented itself. The answer, from OKH, was short and curt: Demyansk was to be defended to the last man. The II Corps withdrew all battalions that were under the control of SS Obergruppenführer Eicke and hastily trans-

ported them to the Salueje area to block the western front where these combat groups occupied a baseline in case the Soviets cut the salient near its base. They managed to do this just in time since the troops of the 34th Soviet Army and the 1st Guards Corps met on February 8 near Rambushevo on the Lovati River. The Demyansk Salient had become the Demyansk Pocket, containing approximately 100,000 German troops ready to be slaughtered. By January 23 the city of Kholm, about 56 miles southwest of Demyansk, was encircled by the 3rd Shock Army. The Germans’ 81st Silesian Infantry Division had just arrived in Army Group Center’s sector and was immediately sent north toward Kholm. The troops had no winter clothing or winter equipment, but they repulsed the attack of four Soviet divisions in minus 46-degree cold. Although this action disrupted the attack of the 4th Shock Army, the situation remained critical. Kholm served to break the force of the Soviet flood. If the Germans lost this city, the Soviets would be able to drive into the rear of both Army Group Center and the Sixteenth Army. Maj. Gen. Theodor Scherer, commander of the lightly armed 281st Security Division, was appointed commandant of Fortress Kholm. He scraped together whatever troops he could lay his hands on, which eventually numbered about 5,000. Contact between the troops in Kholm and their neighbors was lost at the end of January. Kholm, like Demyansk, had become a pocket that could only be supplied by air. The six divisions available to Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt in the Demyansk Pocket were disposed as follows: The 12th Mecklenburg and A Luftwaffe Ju-52 loads supplies to be dropped to encircled troops in the the 32nd Pomeranian Infantry DiviDemyansk and Kholm areas. The two pockets needed 265 tons of supplies daily. sions were located east and south of Demyansk, while the remnants of the 123rd Division were fighting in the southwest part of the pocket. The two infantry divisions from northern Germany—30th and 290th—defended north of Demyansk, while part of the SS Totenkopf Division [under SS Standartenführer (colonel) Max Simon] was in the northeast. The combat groups under Eicke held positions in the west. The size of the pocket was 1.865 square miles, the length of the front that had to be defended was about 186 miles, and the distance across the pocket was some 30-45 miles. In his first order of the day after the pocket was formed, Brockdorff-Ahlen-

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feldt defiantly stated, “There are 96,000 of us. The German soldier is superior to the Russian; this has been proven. So, let the difficult times come; we are ready.” Unlike the earlier pocket at Sukhinichi, Hitler refused to abandon either Kholm or Demyansk. After being assured by the Luftwaffe that the reinforced 1st Air Fleet could deliver the required 240-265 tons of daily supplies to the two pockets, Hitler ordered that the pockets be defended until relieved. ON FEBRUARY 18, THE OKH ordered the redeployment of the air transport command out of the Smolensk area and into Luftflotte 1’s area of operation—an operation that used almost all of the Luftwaffe’s transport capability, as well as elements of its bomber force. Since the Demyansk Pocket contained two usable airfields at Demyansk and Peski, the supply Bleak future: A German soldier tries to stay warm in the shelter of a demolished building while keeping a eye out for Soviet attacks in the Demyansk Pocket. effort involved both airdrop and airlanding (glider) operations. The weather improved in the middle of February, but there But the success of the Luftwaffe in bringing in supplies and was still considerable snow on the ground. Supply opera- replacements in Russia, as well as evacuating casualties, contions were generally successful, due primarily to the weak- vinced Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring that ness of the Soviet air forces in the area. they could conduct effective airlift operations in other places The Luftwaffe flew 33,086 sorties until the Demyansk on the Eastern Front. Later, when the Sixth German Army Pocket was evacuated in March 1943. The two pockets— was encircled at Stalingrad, Göring proposed that it be supDemyansk and Kholm—received 59,000 tons of supplies by plied by air. He and Hitler theorized that the outcome would both ground and air. A total of 31,000 replacement troops be similar to Demyansk and Kholm since the Sixth Army were brought in and 36,000 wounded evacuated. But the was in fighting condition. cost to the Luftwaffe was significant. It not only lost 265 airThey went on to posit that with the Luftwaffe supplying craft, but the loss of 387 experienced airmen was even more the army, the Soviets would expand their strength to contain serious. For their part, the Soviet Air Force reportedly lost the encirclement and this would allow the time needed by 408 aircraft, including 243 fighters. the German forces to regroup and counterattack. Author Werner Haupt incorrectly writes that this was the However, the conditions under which the two operations first air bridge in history, while Paul Carell notes that in (Demyansk and Stalingrad) had to be conducted differed 14,500 missions—apparently when the pocket was encir- greatly. While a single corps with about six understrength cled—the Ju-52 transport planes of the Luftwaffe established divisions was encircled in Demyansk, a heavily reinforced the first airlift in history; other writers have made similar army was trapped in Stalingrad. Whereas the Demyansk incorrect statements. In the 1940 German invasion of Nor- and Kholm Pockets together needed around 265 tons of way, an air bridge was established from Germany and Den- supplies by air each day, the Sixth Army required an estimark to Norway. Five hundred eighty-two transport aircraft mated daily supply of 800 tons, which had to be delivered flew 13,018 sorties and brought in 29,280 troops and 2,376 over much greater distances. The Stalingrad airlift also faced tons of supplies. In addition, smaller air bridge operations much better organized Soviet air forces. took place from Oslo to the other isolated landing sites on By the winter of 1942-1943, then, the German air transthe long Norwegian coast. port forces had already suffered heavy losses, and the disRUSSIAN FRONT

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tances to good airfields with maintenance and repair facilities were much greater. The Luftwaffe simply lacked the resources needed to supply Stalingrad.

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ERNST BUSCH’S SIXTEENTH ARMY BEGAN PLANning to break into the Demyansk Pocket from the west after Hitler’s refusal to allow a withdrawal behind the Lovati River. A group was formed under the command of General Walther Kurt von Seydlitz-Kurzback, the commander of the 12th Infantry Division. (This was the same Seydlitz who was captured at Stalingrad and became a key figure in a Soviet-sponsored anti-Nazi faction.) Seydlitz’s group was substantial and included two infantry divisions, two light infantry divisions, a motorized infantry division, a security regiment, a panzer regiment, a Luftwaffe field regiment, and various construction units, assault gun batteries, and air defense battalions. The plan called for a simultaneous westward attack by forces in the pocket; it was hoped that the two attacks would link up on the Lovati River. Group Seydlitz-Kurzback and the attackers from within the pocket reached the Lovati River near the destroyed village of Rambushevo on April 21, 1942. The men of the SS Totenkopf Division and the spearhead of Group SeydlitzKurzback were still separated by a 1,000-foot-wide swollen and turbulent river. As soon as bridges were built, a corridor existed again between the main German front of Sixteenth Army from Staraya Russa to Kholm and the divisions in the Demyansk

area. The Demyansk Pocket had again become the Demyansk Salient, as the corridor barred to the Soviets the way across the land bridge between Lakes Ilmen and Seelinger. The Rambuschevo Corridor was worryingly narrow in the beginning, though, and the Germans set out to widen it. There was a serious danger that the Soviets could cut the salient off at its base. That would have annulled the fighting for the corridor, which had cost the Germans 3,335 killed and over 10,000 wounded. The Russians, increasingly anxious to wipe out the Demyansk Salient, made a number of desperate assaults on the thin Rambuschevo Corridor; Obergruppenfüher Eicke had the primary responsibility for keeping the corridor open. The Germans were fighting desperately in subzero temperatures and in three feet of snow to prevent the Russians from severing the connection to Staraya Russa and the rest of Army Group North. The influential Eicke demanded reinforcements to keep his forces alive, but there were none available from either the Sixteenth Army or Army Group North. OKH, in looking around for available forces, decided to send Frikorps Danmark into the salient.

FRIKORPS DANMARK WAS LOCATED IN POSENTreskau where its Danish commander, the charismatic Danish/Russian aristocrat Christian von Schalburg, was training his organization, which had been plagued by internal dissent, and had transformed it into a solid and well-trained reinforced battalion after integrating 10 German officer instructors with Dressed for the weather: Soviet ski troops ride into battle aboard tanks and combat experience into key posts to sledges. stiffen the unit. But, as with its sister formation, the DNL, the majority of the Frikorps commanders were Scandinavian, not German. Frikorps Danmark had three infantry companies and one heavy weapons company. The latter consisted of two platoons of 75mm infantry guns, one platoon of 50mm antitank guns, and a combat engineer platoon, all at full strength. Most of the troops lacked combat experience, but the majority of the officers and noncommissioned officers had some, either from the Finnish Winter War, from service in the Wiking Division, or against the Germans in 1940. Although the unit was at full strength, it had only seven heavy-caliber weapons.

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Frikorps Danmark was declared combat ready in May 1942. In the early days the volunteer legions were considered second rate compared to German units and were judged unsuited for anything but static warfare and antipartisan fighting—a fact that goes a long way to explain their lack of heavy-caliber weapons. This perception was about to change. After receiving its deployment order, the Frikorps was flown into the Demyansk Salient from Heilingenbeil near Köningsberg on May 8, 1942. Historian Claus Bundgård Christensen and others have written that 1,200 Danes were flown into the pocket, but other sources mention a lower number. Christensen may have meant the total number in Frikorps Danmark or included a number of Soviet forces (shown in red) punch through defensive lines and encircle Germans Danes already serving in the 3rd SS south of Lake Ilmen at Demyansk and Kholm. Totenkopf Division. The Danes were attached to Eicke’s SS Totenkopf Divi- barrage killed Nielsen, who fell into the river and disapsion and immediately thrown into the fighting where they peared. Instead of occupying and remaining in the Russian took up positions along the Robja River with the mission positions, the Danes made the mistake of withdrawing to of keeping the Russians from expanding a bridgehead they their own lines. had in the area of Ssutoki. The Soviets were on the far bank Nielsen’s death at Ssutoki was only the first blow to the but had managed to get some troops over to the German- Frikorps leadership. A few days after Nielsen’s death, the occupied side where they formed a small bridgehead. If Soviets attacked across the river and reestablished their old they could expand the bridgehead and ferry across some bridgehead. The earlier withdrawal now forced the Danes tanks, the Reds would be in a position to launch a full- to make another, more costly, attack on June 2, 1942, to scale attack that would spell trouble for the hard-pressed try to eliminate the Russian bridgehead. The element of defenders of the Rambushevo Corridor. surprise did not work a second time as the Soviets knew The Danish commander Schalburg knew that the Soviet the Danes were coming; they blanketed the area with bridgehead had to be destroyed. He ordered Johannes Just artillery and mortar fire while the Frikorps was still in its Nielsen, a veteran of the Winter War and considered one of assembly areas. the best officers in the Frikorps, to carry out an attack on Schalburg went forward to encourage his men and get the the small bridgehead on the night of May 27/28. Nielsen attack going, but he was badly wounded when his leg was divided his force into two groups that approached the Sovi- shattered as he stepped on a mine. His men tried to bring ets from different directions. The attackers managed to get him back, but another Soviet barrage instantly killed him close to the Russians in the darkness without being detected, and the two men trying to carry him to safety. and Nielsen threw a grenade into the enemy positions as a Despite the heavy enemy fire, Alfred Jonstrup, another signal to start the attack. veteran from the Winter War, managed to recover his comThe Danes rushed the Russian trenches and, although the mander’s body. The Soviet indirect fire and the loss of the Reds had a considerable superiority in numbers, the shock Frikorps commander brought the Danish attack to a standof the sudden attack threw them into a panic. Some were still despite merciless fighting that resulted in 21 Danes killed while the survivors jumped into the river and swam killed and another 58 wounded. The Soviets held their for safety. bridgehead. While the operation was a complete success, the Russians Schalburg’s body was brought back to Denmark, where on the far bank opened up with mortars and artillery. One he was given a hero’s funeral with full military honors. He RUSSIAN FRONT

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became a martyr for the Danish Nazis, and his example encouraged a fresh wave of volunteers for the Frikorps, which needed new reinforcements badly as a result of the continuous fighting at Demyansk. A friend of Schalburg from Finnish Winter War days, SS Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) Knud Börge Martinsen took temporary command of Frikorps Danmark and stabilized the situation over the next few days while the Danes waited for a new commander to be appointed. The new commander, who was appointed by the Germans within a week, was an aristocrat named Hans Albert von Lettow-Vorbeck, who had served in SS-Division Wiking and had been on his way to take command of SS-Legion Flanders when he was diverted to Demyansk. In the meantime, parts of the SS Totenkopf Division were preparing to launch an operation code named Danebrog to secure the area up to the Pola River and establish a defensible line. The Frikorps had an important role in this operation: the capture of the town of Bolschoje Dubowizy. Von Lettow-Vorbeck arrived on June 10 and was briefed on the operation scheduled for the next morning. The Danes made a frontal assault on the town at dawn, supported by German artillery, but had to struggle through flooded meadows and swamps before reaching their objective. The Danes entered Dubowizy in the face of bitter enemy resistance and started clearing the town house by house, but their attack was interrupted by a strong Russian counterattack. Two Frikorps company commanders, Boyd Hansen and Alfred Nielsen, were killed in the battle.

By 11 AM on June 11, the Russians were on the verge of surrounding the 1st Company, commanded by Per Sörensen, a former officer in the prewar Danish Army and one of the original cadres in Frikorps Danmark. Sörensen eventually rose to head the Danish Waffen-SS before he and many other Danes and Norwegians died in the ruins of Berlin in 1945. Lettow-Vorbeck decided to move to the front and personally order Sörensen to withdraw before the unit was encircled, but he was killed in a burst of Soviet machine-gun fire. Losing its second commander in a little more than a week had a serious impact on the Frikorps, and, not surprisingly, the Danish attack faltered and collapsed. The Soviets remained in control of Dubowizy. The Danes had 25 of their men killed in the fight for the town in addition to over 100 killed and wounded in the fighting at Ssutoki and the Pola River. Obersturmbannführer Martinsen again took command of the Frikorps. This time the Germans did not appoint a new commander from the outside but confirmed Martinsen as the commander for the rest of the Frikorps’ existence. Martinsen survived the war but was tried and executed in Denmark for having murdered a fellow Danish SS officer whom he accused of having an affair with his wife. In early July 1942, the depleted Danes defended a long front between Biakowo and Vassilievschtshina as the Soviets launched repeated attacks against their lines with the objective of cutting the Rambushevo Corridor, which was the only overland connection existing between Demyansk and the main German lines. July 16, 1942, started out as a quiet Men of Max Simon’s 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf, many of whom are day. The Danish soldiers at the front wounded, slog through Russian mud to rear positions, spring 1942. were waiting for a hot meal to be brought forward from the field kitchens behind the lines, but before the food could be delivered or consumed the Danes were subjected to an exceptionally heavy Russian artillery barrage that lasted for over an hour. In typical fashion, masses of Soviet infantry then rushed toward the Danish defensive positions as soon as the shelling stopped. The Danes, stunned by the heavy barrage, fought back, but they quickly lost contact with the German unit on their right flank and were in imminent danger of being overrun. Every man in the rear area—cooks, clerks, engineers, and communicators—was sent forward to try to stop the Soviet attack; Luftwaffe Ju-87

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Stuka dive bombers were also called in to provide support. Sörensen’s 1st Company was again in the thick of things but was soon decimated and down to only 40 men from its earlier complement of 200. Sörensen called Martinsen and told him that his men would probably not be able to withstand another Soviet assault but that they would not abandon their trenches no matter what happened. The fighting continued throughout the night. An entire Soviet infantry battalion supported by tanks drove directly into the remaining positions of the 1st Company. The Russians poured into the Danish trenches, resulting in several hours of hand-tohand fighting as the combatants tried to kill each other with knives, grenades, and entrenching tools. The Russians finally gave up trying to overrun the Danes and withdrew after midnight. They had sustained heavy Men of Frikorps Danmark study a map, May-June 1942—about the time they lost two commanders. losses and simply did not have the power to capture the Danish defensive line. The Danes, too, were badly battered. It is not surprising that the Frikorps casualties were heavy. However, the battle was not yet over as the Russians Over 300 Danes were dead by early August, and only about brought in fresh reinforcements and the Germans also pro- 150 of the original force that was thrown into the fighting vided reinforcements in the morning in the form of two at Demyansk remained in the line in the form of two weak Jäger battalions—the 28th Jäger Battalion from Silesia and companies. The Frikorps had become combat ineffective, a battalion from the 38th Jäger Regiment. These two units and in early August the decision was made to withdraw it attacked along the road in an attempt to link up with their for rest, refit, and to receive replacements. comrades near Vassilievschtshina. The Russians repulsed The accomplishment of the Danes had not gone unnothe attack and threw the Germans back with heavy losses. ticed, and General Walther von Bockdorff-Ahlefeldt wrote The Soviets attacked again the following morning with and thanked them for their courage: “Since the 8th of May waves of fresh infantry supported by numerous T-34 tanks the Danmark Legion has been positioned in the fortress. and fighter-bombers. As with the Norwegian Legion, the True to your oath, and mindful of the heroic death of your Danes had no armor or assault guns of their own and had first commander, SS-Sturmbannführer Christian von Schalto rely on the few antitank weapons and infantry guns in burg, you, the officers and men of the Legion, have always their heavy weapons company. For the most part they were shown the greatest bravery and readiness to make sacrirather helpless against the T-34s and could only crouch in fices, as well as exhibiting exemplary toughness and their trenches as casualties mounted. endurance. Incredibly, despite their losses, the Danes and the German “Your comrades of the Army and Waffen-SS are proud of Jägers managed to repel the Russians and stabilize the front being able to fight shoulder to shoulder with you in the line over the next few days. By July 21 the crisis was over. truest armed brotherhood. I thank you for your loyalty and Stavka now appears to have concluded that the main Ger- bravery.” man summer offensive was in the south and not against After this endorsement, the Danes were withdrawn to Moscow as in 1941 and began to withdraw forces from the Latvia at the beginning of August before heading home to northern front already in June after reportedly suffering Denmark for a homecoming parade through Copenhagen 89,000 killed. and three weeks of leave. The Frikorps had been in combat RUSSIAN FRONT

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Soviet troops cross a stream on an improvised bridge to take the fight to the enemy still trapped in the Demyansk Salient, summer 1942.

for three months without a break, and in that time they had lost two commanders, a sizable number of junior officers and NCOs, and hundreds of men. According to the latest source on the subject, they had flown into the pocket with a fighting strength of 24 officers, 80 NCOs, and 598 men back on May 8. Only 10 officers, 28 NCOs, and 171 men were able to take part in the Copenhagen homecoming parade. Some of those who were missing from the parade were wounded and still in hospitals. There is no doubt, however, that the Frikorps was decimated in the Demyansk Pocket. They had acquitted themselves well. The SS Totenkopf’s Order of the Day on August 3, 1942, credited them with killing 1,376 Russians and capturing 103 others along with over 600 heavy weapons. While this recognition was gratifying, it did little to raise the morale of the survivors, who were heckled and mocked by some of the anti-German crowd watching them march through Copenhagen. THE DEMYANSK POCKET WAS A SOURCE OF CONstant concern for Army Group North. In a personal letter on September 14, 1942, Küchler attempted to persuade OKH that continuing to hold the pocket was useless. The II Corps, he wrote, had been fighting under adverse conditions since the previous winter. He worried about what 106

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might happen as winter was again approaching, and he desperately needed divisions in the salient to form reserves for both the Sixteenth Army and the army group. General Franz Halder, OKH’s Chief of Staff, answered a week later. He recognized that the army group would gain 12 divisions by abandoning Demyansk but pointed out to Küchler that such a withdrawal would also free 26 Russian infantry divisions and seven tank brigades. In any case, it was all academic since Hitler’s Haltenbefehl (hold order) remained unchanged. The Russians continued to attack the corridor linking the pocket to the main German defensive lines. The whole pocket was under continuous attack from November 1942 and, by mid-January 1943, the fighting had drained off the last army group reserves. General Kurt Zeitzler, the new OKH Chief of Staff, told Küchler on January 19, 1943, that he intended to raise the issue of evacuating the Demyansk Pocket with Hitler. Army Group North had just suffered a serious setback south of Lake Ladoga, and Zeitzler and Küchler agreed that the principal reason for the setback was the shortage of troops; the only way to avoid similar mishaps in the future was to create reserves by giving up the Demyansk Pocket. To both officers it was a foregone conclusion that Hitler would adamantly resist such a proposal.

However, on the night of January 31, 1943, after a weeklong debate, Hitler finally accepted Zeitzler’s arguments. The earlier setback around Leningrad may have influenced Hitler’s change of mind since he was anxiously trying to keep Finland in the war and this involved holding around Leningrad. OKH informed Küchler that it had been very difficult to get this decision and asked Küchler to withdraw quickly before Hitler changed his mind, but a quick withdrawal risked losing the vast quantities of equipment and supplies brought into the pocket over the past 13 months. Küchler decided to conduct a slow withdrawal that began on February 20, after three weeks preparation. He then collapsed the pocket in stages, completing the last on March 18, 1943. After a month’s leave in Denmark, the Frikorps returned to the front in November 1941. It was originally End of the line: After escaping from Russia, Scandinavian SS volunteers took part intended that it join the 1st SS Brigade in the defense of Berlin. Here a dead soldier from SS Division Nordland met his end in an armored vehicle while a comrade lies dead above him, April 1945. in Byelorussia, a unit infamous for its indiscriminate killing of civilians in areas associated with Soviet partisans. However, the dete- nia and, the next month, participated in the Sonnenwende riorating situation on the Eastern Front caused both the 1st Offensive before retreating to the Oder River north of SS Brigade and the Frikorps to be sent to the front at the Berlin. Already heavily decimated, SS Division Nordland Russian town of Nevel, some 250 miles west of Moscow. retreated toward Berlin. By the spring of 1943 the Frikorps had suffered so many The remnants of Norge and Danmark, in a mixed battle combat losses that it was down to just over 630 men. It group, fought in Berlin in late April and May 1945 alongwas withdrawn from the front line. side volunteers from the rest of Europe. The group was In the summer of 1943 the Danes from the Frikorps and obliterated in the fighting for the German capital. SS Division Wiking were united in the new 24th SS PanzMost writers hold that about 2,000 Danes lost their lives ergrenadier Regiment Danmark of SS Panzergrenadier Divi- on the Eastern Front. As a comparison, a recent book by sion Nordland. Most Norwegians who had served in Wik- Eirik Veum identifies 877 Norwegians who were killed on ing and other units were likewise united—in May, before the Eastern Front. This number includes 21 frontline female the Danes joined them—into the 23rd SS Panzergrenadier nurses. But both the numbers for Danes and Norwegians Regiment Norge and also in SS Panzergrenadier Division are open to question. For example, a controversial memoNordland. The third regiment was SS Panzergrenadier Reg- rial recently erected in Denmark—in central Jutland iment Nederland. between the cities of Randers and Viborg—asserts that At the end of August 1943, most of the 3rd SS Panz- 4,000 Danish lives were lost on the Eastern Front. erkorps, to which SS Division Nordland was assigned, was Despite having authorized the Danes to serve in the Wafmoved to Croatia to take part in antipartisan warfare. In fen-SS, the Danish government on June 1, 1945, a month December 1943, the unit was again moved north to the after the war, adopted retroactive laws criminalizing variOranienbaum Pocket southwest of Leningrad. ous forms of collaboration and made armed service for GerFrom there the division participated in the German retreat many punishable. About 3,300 former soldiers were sento Estonia and later to the Courland Pocket in Latvia. In tenced under this new law and served an average of two January 1945, it was evacuated from Courland to Pomera- years in prison.

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DEBACLE AT

LUBAN A Red Army offensive to raise the siege of Leningrad resulted in disastrous defeat and staggering losses. BY EDWARD PARAUBEK

ON FEBRUARY 23, 1942, RED ARMY DAY, THE People’s Commissar of Defense, Josef Stalin, issued Order No. 55. It read in part as follows: “But the enemy’s efforts have been in vain. The initiative now is in our hands and the futile attempts of Hitler’s out of tune, rusted machine are unable to withstand the pressure of the Red Army. The day is not far when a powerful blow of the Red Army will hurl back the enemy beasts from Leningrad, clear from them the towns and villages of Byelorussia and Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia, Estonia and Karelia, liberate the Soviet Crimea, and all over the Soviet land the red banners will again soar victoriously.” At the end of 1941, six months after the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Soviet losses in territory and human lives were staggering, without precedent in modern military history. Some 570,000 square miles, an area equal to that of all occupied Europe, with a population of no less than 70 million and enormous industrial and agricultural output, was lost. For all practical

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In this bleak painting titled Stuka Support by German war artist Helmut Gerorg, beleaguered soldiers of the Wehrmacht scan the sky as the dive bombers attack distant Red Army targets.

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Soviet troops clad in white camouflage suits and carrying automatic weapons charge toward German positions north of Moscow. The resurgent Red Army held the line at Moscow but continued to suffer serious reverses in 1942.

purposes, the original Soviet air force and armor ceased to exist, and of those Red Army men who met the German onslaught in June, only 8 percent were still in the ranks. Despite these tragic, crushing facts, the mood of the Soviet supreme commander, Premier Josef Stalin, was optimistic because of recent news from different corners of the front. A Soviet counteroffensive, launched on December 5, had driven the Germans from the gates of Moscow and liberated Tula and Moscow provinces. Rostov was retaken, and the railroad town of Tikhvin, the key to the survival of Leningrad, was recaptured after a desperate and furious offensive. Stalin was convinced that all strategic dispositions had changed in favor of the Red Army and that the Moscow offensive would continue unabated, in conjunction with massive strikes along all the length of the enormous front. When the always cautious and prudent Chief of General Staff Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov timidly suggested consolidating the achieved gains and switching to strategic defense all along the front, Stalin brushed him aside, saying, “Hitler is already exhausted. With a unified blow along all fronts we will overrun his armies and throw them off our land. The Soviet people will not understand us, comrades, if we will call them to passive defense.” On the last day of December a meeting took place in the Kremlin during which plans for the next year’s campaign were outlined. At the beginning of January, these plans were submitted for Stalin’s approval. The final product became known as the Soviet Supreme Command or Stavka’s directive letter. On 110

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January 5, Stalin personally dictated the final paragraph: “Our task is not to give the Germans breathing space but drive them westward without stopping, forcing them to spend their reserves before spring, when we will have new great reserves, and the Germans will have no reserves, thus providing the complete destruction of the Hitlerite forces in 1942.” It was a rather cumbersome piece of literary work, but its military implications would prove outright deadly for the Soviets. According to this plan, a few major strategic operations were to be conducted in which nine out of 10 Soviet Fronts, or army groups, including a newly created Crimean Front, were destined to take part. In the south an immediate campaign to liberate the Crimea and the besieged city of Sevastopol would begin. The Southwestern Front was to retake Kharkov and secure Donbass, with its rich coal deposits. In the west, the offensive toward Smolensk and Byelorussia was to continue. In the north, the combined efforts of the Leningrad Front and the recently created Volkhov Front would break through the German 18th Army defense line. The armies of the Volkhov Front, advancing in a northwesterly direction, would meet the troops of the Leningrad Front driving south, thus shattering the German ring around Leningrad. The enemy units in the area of Chudovo-Luban would be isolated and destroyed. The situation in Leningrad, the second largest city of the Soviet Union and one of its most important industrial centers, was catastrophic. The city had been under siege since September 8, 1941, when German troops captured the town of Shlisselburg, where the Neva River exits Lake Ladoga, and severed

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recently been the object of torture and humiliation in the cellars of the notorious Lubianka Prison in Moscow. The new Front received four armies, the recently formed 52nd and 4th, already blooded in the stubborn battle for Tikhvin, and two fresh armies from the Reserves of Stavka, 2nd Shock and 59th Regular. The influx of men and equipment gave the Volkhov Front and the left flank of the Leningrad Front numerical and technical superiority over their opponents in men, artillery, and aircraft. In the sector of the 2nd Shock Army, this advantage was an overwhelming five to one in men and three to one in tanks. However, a catastrophic shortage of ammunition, especially for artillery, seriously diminished these advantages. The terrain where the attack was planned was extremely unsuitable for military operations. It was a thickly wooded, roadless area with impassable marshes and numerous though The Soviet offensive aimed at the relief of besieged Leningrad failed miserably in the area near Luban and resulted in catastrophic Red Army casualties.

Map © 2014 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

all land communications with the rest of the country. In the west, Finnish troops reached the pre-Winter War border on the Karelian Isthmus and took up a defensive position there. In the north, they stopped at the Svir River in the LadogaOnega gap. The Germans cut off the city from the south, effectively blockading it. Since the end of November, the city had been supplied by auto road across the frozen surface of Lake Ladoga. The volume of delivered supplies was not even close to providing enough food for the fighting armies of the Leningrad Front and the remaining civilian population, which was still more than two million. People had begun dying from famine by the end of October. By the beginning of November, there were no dogs or cats left in the city. In December, the famine was exacerbated by the unusually low temperatures, pushing the death toll to 55,000. In January this climbed to 95,000. No less deadly, February was ready to follow. Stalin was informed about the conditions in the city. It is difficult to surmise what his real feelings were when he learned details about life in the frozen and dying city, about massive death from starvation, frozen corpses on the streets, cases of cannibalism. Allegedly for the safety of this city, he had started the war with Finland only two years earlier. When told of these details, he simply shrugged and said, “This is war. People are dying everywhere.” The strategic goals of the planned operation were very ambitious. The 4th Army of the Volkhov Front and the 54th Army of the Leningrad Front were ordered to break through the German defenses along the Volkhov River and advance in the direction of Tosno, a town on the Leningrad-Moscow railroad, capture it, and link with the advancing 55th Army of the Leningrad Front. This would isolate and eventually destroy the German forces in the Mga-Shlisselburg corridor. The 59th Army and the 2nd Shock Army, representing the main striking force of the coming operation, received the mission to attack northwest toward the Siverskiy station on the Luga-Leningrad railroad, conducting a deep envelopment of Leningrad from the south. A combined effort with the 4th Army would cut off the German XXVIII Corps in the Chudovo-Luban area. The 52nd Army was ordered to strike south, capture Novgorod, and link up with the forces of the Northwestern Front. The Soviet High Command expected that the result of this operation would be not only the end of the siege of Leningrad, but also the destruction of German Army Group North and the liberation of the Baltic republics. At the end of 1941, the Red Army was about to bite off more than it could chew. Lieutenant General Mikhail Khozin was appointed to command the Leningrad Front. Commanding the newly created Volkhov Front was Army General Kirill Meretskov, former chief of the general staff of the Red Army. He had only

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relatively small rivers and streams, with the sole exception of the 450-yard-wide Volkhov River. This forbidding terrain prohibited the use of armor; even infantry would be hard pressed to advance and keep its lines of supply and communications functioning. What were the Soviet High Command considerations for embarking on a strategic offensive on such difficult terrain? First, in the middle of a severe winter most marshes and all rivers were frozen solid and could provide enough support for armor and supply columns to move. It imposed, of course, rigid time restrictions on the operational schedule. The goals had to be successfully achieved before the spring thaw set in. The Soviet High Command, encouraged by recent success in fighting under winter conditions, believed that snow, cold temperatures, and difficult terrain would be allies of the Red Army. They based this assessment first on the fighting around Moscow, where the Germans proved to be completely unprepared for winter warfare. Second, the recapture of Tikhvin and a successful Moscow offensive reminded the political leadership of the old adage, “The summer was yours but the winter

will be ours.” Stalin, euphoric with high expectations, could not see what field commanders and the leadership of the general staff already realized—that the Moscow offensive was quickly running out of steam. The Luban offensive was scheduled to start at the end of December, but harsh winter weather impeded the concentration of troops and supplies. Stavka was forced to postpone the operation until January 6. Even this extra week could not remedy the numerous problems, but this time Stalin was adamant and refused any further delays. He ordered four armies to start their attack on January 6, without waiting for the 2nd Shock Army to get ready. Despite its numerical superiority, the Volkhov Front was clearly unable to mount a successful offensive. It was short of ammunition, fuel, and food. Its attacking troops were not properly concentrated. Its rear and reserve units were not in position to efficiently support advancing front-line troops. To add to the list of problems, the Germans were fully aware of the coming attack and were well prepared to meet it. After four days of continuous bloody attacks, the Soviet troops gained no ground and suffered heavy losses. The attack was called off Uniformed against the cold, Soviet soldiers with fixed bayonets advance on the on January 10. The troops received a few run toward entrenched German positions during bitter fighting in the winter of days of respite to prepare for a new 1941-1942. assault. The simultaneous attack, this time by all five Soviet armies, was resumed on January 13. After a few days of heavy fighting, the 2nd Shock Army under its new commander, Lt. Gen. Nikolay Klykov, finally succeeded on January 17 in crossing the Volkhov under enemy fire and penetrating the German defensive line, pushing aside the enemy’s 215th and 126th Infantry Divisions. After two more days of bitter fighting, the 2nd Shock Army broke through and captured the station and settlement of Miasnoy Bor on the Novgorod-Chudovo railroad. This promising news was immediately reported to Moscow. The response was not long in coming: “When the 2nd Shock Army consolidates this success, commit to the battle the 13th Cavalry Corps of General Gusev. I rely on you, comrade Meretskov. Stalin.” A cavalry corps consisting of three divisions, supported by the 111th Infantry Division, was thrown into the breach early in the morning of January 24. In five days, while brushing aside light covering detachments

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of the enemy, this force managed to west toward the Leningrad-Novgorod advance 30 miles to the northwest. Its task railroad, which it managed to sever, and was to reach the Moscow-Leningrad railnortheast toward Luban and the road between the Luban and Chudovo Leningrad-Moscow railroad. Originally stations, thus cutting off the main supply planned as a blow by a tightly clenched line of the German XXVIII Corps. fist, the operation turned into a two-finIn the beginning of the offensive, the gered poke. In mid-March, the 80th 2nd Shock Army concentrated its forces Cavalry Division of the 13th Cavalry and delivered a blow on a relatively narCorps broke through enemy defenses row 15-mile front. Unsupported by near the village of Krasnaya Gorka, less either the 52nd or 59th Army on its than 10 miles from its objective. It flanks, the 2nd Shock Army was eventuappeared that one more desperate effort Red Army General Kirill Meretskov ally forced to widen the front of its decorates a young Soviet soldier for would tip the balance, cutting off the advance. Originally ordered to head heroism on the battlefield. The Soviets XXVIII Corps. A couple of days later, west-northwest with the goal of cutting sacrificed thousands of troops in their German infantry and artillery hurled the to break the German ring around Soviets back from Krasnaya Gorka. Still, off the Luga-Leningrad railroad and effort Leningrad. blocking the retreat of the German 18th some considered this only a local setArmy, the 2nd Shock Army was forced back. It could possibly be reversed by a to advance northeast toward Luban and meet the 54th Army renewed effort from the 2nd Shock Army. of the Leningrad Front, thus encircling the XXVIII Corps in the Then, the weather turned brutally cold. The winter of Luban-Chudovo area. Moreover, the army’s failure to widen 1941-1942 was unusually severe, with temperatures dropping to and secure the six-mile gap between the villages of Spasskaya -35 degrees Fahrenheit on a daily basis. Tired and half frozen Polist’ and Lubtsy, the umbilical cord through which all supplies men would frequently fall asleep around campfires. Heavily and communications of the army were flowing, was to haunt the padded jackets and pants would catch fire like powder, often advancing army and eventually seal its fate. causing serious or even life-threatening burns. The most vulnerThe attempt of the Leningrad Front’s 55th Army to break the able of the soldiers’ winter clothing was their felt boots. When German encirclement from inside was repulsed. Though burned through, they would become useless, forcing the soldiers starved and exhausted, the army managed to tie down the Ger- to look for new ones. There were fully clothed corpses all around, man forces, thus preventing them from reinforcing the troops but it was impossible to remove the boots from frozen bodies. facing the attack of the 2nd Shock Army in the south. There were reports of some soldiers obtaining axes and hacking The 54th Army of the Leningrad Front was originally aimed off the booted legs of the dead. Others reportedly broke off a leg west toward Tosno on the Leningrad-Moscow railroad. After at the knee and then dragged the limb to the campfire, warming one and a half months of unsuccessful and bloody attempts to it sufficiently to remove the coveted item. break through, Stalin expressed dissatisfaction with its comThe terrible cold thickened the ice on rivers and streams to mander, Maj. Gen. Ivan Feduninsky. Stavka ordered the army five feet or more, enough to support not only wheeled transreorganized. The operational direction was changed, and the port but also armor. Despite such cold, some marshes were left army was ordered to strike southwest no later than March 1 unfrozen, and many trucks, artillery pieces, and men sank to to exploit the success of the 2nd Shock Army and join it at their deaths, betrayed by treacherous snow cover, which was Luban no later than March 5. All these Stavka orders turned hiding the danger. From the beginning, the Soviet command out to be too optimistic. knew about the terrain and was racing against time. At the end The 54th Army managed to start the new assault on Febru- of March it became clear that spring had arrived ahead of ary 28, but it achieved meager results after several days of Soviet military success. heavy fighting against well entrenched Germans. Regrouped Another factor intervened on March 19. The six-mile-wide and reinforced, the army resumed its offensive on March 5, corridor at Miasnoy Bor was the only passage connecting the again unsuccessfully. Only on March 15, after five days of bit- advancing army with its supply base. It was the most vulnerater fighting, did it finally manage to penetrate the German ble place in the whole disposition of the 2nd Shock Army; defenses and advance 14 miles to Luban. There were only 10 entrenched German units on both sides of the corridor were miles left between Soviet front-line units and Luban, but cov- poised like two daggers aimed at a jugular vein. It had never ering these 10 miles was beyond the army’s capacity. The road been easy for reinforcements and supply columns to cross this to Luban turned out to be two years long. narrow valley of death under the enemy’s artillery fire. HowIn March, the 2nd Shock Army continued its advance north- ever, columns were going in both directions, into the cauldron RUSSIAN FRONT

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with ammunition, food, and medicine, and out of it with wounded and sick. On March 19, this flow stopped; the Germans closed the corridor. The implications were felt immediately. The 2nd Shock Army had already been short of ammunition. During the advance the army was not able to build up adequate depots, and as soon as the flow of supplies stopped the shortage was immediately and painfully felt. The main casualty of this interruption was food, which on the list of priorities was allocated to the second or even third position, after ammunition and medical supplies. Hunger became part of daily life. It took the Russians two weeks of fierce fighting to restore the corridor, but the situation improved only marginally. The restored supply line was substantially narrower, and German artillery was able to completely shut down the flow of supplies during daytime. The April thaw finally arrived, and frozen roadways became seas of impassable mud, pockmarked with shell craters. The response to this new, though expected problem, was to build corduroy roads. Thankfully, there were abundant trees for these tasks. The work itself was backbreaking and time consuming. Units were mobilized to cut down the trees, drag them through the melting snow and mud, and put them into place. In March the first cases of scurvy and night blindness appeared, unmistakable signs of malnutrition. In the middle of the month, when these cases were growing at an alarming rate, the decision was made to employ a remedy used in gulag camps and in besieged Leningrad. This involved drinking a concoction of fir tree needles steeped in hot water. It was an effective, yet repulsive and bitter, liquid. By the end of March, it became clear that the Soviet troops had lost their race against time. Rations were reduced to a nonsustainable level, a few ounces of crumbs daily, occasionally accompanied by flour or oats. Men were reduced to scavenging. The horses, which had fallen during winter, their bodies now exposed by the melting snow, were consumed. The worst was yet to come. In desperation, the Soviet command turned to resupplying the troops by air. For this purpose they used the old workhorse of the air force, the light bomber and transport U-2 (since 1944 known as PO-2), which it was said could land on a five kopeck coin. It was a two-seat, single-bay light biplane used mostly for night missions, taking full advantage of the long winter nights in these latitudes. Because of its low speed, only 105 miles per hour, it was completely defenseless against German fighters. The number of available planes was very limited, a few dozen at best, with a maximum load capacity of only 550 pounds, or roughly five to six sacks of flour, 12 to 15 with dry bread, or 10 to 12 boxes of canned goods. They were flown by young lieutenants, who, to avoid attacks by marauding German fighters, were flying at tree- top level over the forest and even below that along the river valleys and marshes. In turn, 114

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it made them very vulnerable to ground fire, but it was the price of their deadly game. At the end of April, the Northern Lights took away their advantage of nocturnal cover. It was impossible to feed an army of 80,000 men with occasional deliveries of a few dozen sacks of flour, but those brave pilots continued their suicidal, hopeless work. Those young lieutenants often died before accomplishing their fifth mission. One day an American-built Douglas transport arrived. The pilot steeply banked his plane to the left, locked it into a circling pattern, and started passing over a clearing in the woods, dumping sacks of dried bread. A German fighter came out of nowhere, and its machine-guns set the transport’s right engine ablaze. “Jump, jump!” yelled the people on the ground, as though the crew could hear them. But they did not want to jump. They continued their doomed flight, trailing black smoke, dumping and dumping the sacks. The German fighter repeated its attack. The Douglas shuddered, wrapped itself in a black cloud of smoke, and went down. Each pound of food in those planes was worth its weight in gold, and every hour of flight was a hide-and-seek game with death. Yet, the political leadership saw fit to displace a portion of the food cargo with propaganda leaflets exhorting the starved soldiers to fight heroically for the Bolshevist cause and for Stalin. These pieces of paper could not even be used to roll a cigarette. There was no tobacco anyway. On January 18, Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, commander of German Army Group North, was dismissed from his position because of poor health and replaced by Colonel General Georg von Kuechler, the 18th Army commander. The health issue was, of course, a convenient excuse. In fact, the field marshal had persisted in his demand to withdraw the army group westward to a more defensible position. Leeb’s dismissal was the last in a chain of a major reshufflings at the top of the German High Command due to setbacks, which began with the fall of Rostov in November 1941. Now, in April, it was Stalin’s turn to rearrange his commanders. On April 16, the 2nd Shock Army commander, Lt. Gen. Nikolai Klykov, who had fallen seriously ill, was flown out of the cauldron to a hospital. He was replaced by the recently appointed deputy commander of the Volkhov Front, Lt. Gen. Andrey Vlasov, a hero of the defensive battles in the Ukraine in the summer of 1941 and a victorious commander of the 20th Army during the fighting around Moscow. On April 20, the new commander of the 2nd Shock Army arrived in the pocket. On April 23, a dumbfounded General Kirill Meretskov read a new directive from Stavka saying that the Volkhov Front had been abolished and its armies incorporated into the Leningrad Front under Lt. Gen. M.S. Khozin. Meretskov was ordered to depart for the western front line and to take the 33rd Army under his command. This untimely reorganization was the result of Khozin’s many tireless appeals

to Stalin with promises of long-awaited success. Stalin finally relented despite the objections of the Chief of General Staff, Marshall Boris Shaposhnikov. The presence of Meretskov in Malaya Vishera at the headquarters of the Volkhov Front in April and May would not have changed the strategic outcome of Luban operation; the campaign was lost, and the 2nd Shock Army was doomed. The only issue now was the extent of the catastrophe. On April 30, the 2nd Shock Army was ordered to stop all offensive operations, switch to strategic defense, and begin the gradual withdrawal of a few selected units toward Miasnoy Bor. The process of withdrawal started immediately and was conducted in an orderly manner under very challenging circumstances. The brave cavalrymen of the 13th Cavalry Corps, who in the middle of March were so close to Luban, were withdrawn, together with a few depleted infantry divisions and one armored brigade. Stavka issued a new order two weeks later under the signatures of Stalin and Alexander Vasilevsky, deputy chief of the general staff, who replaced the sick Shaposhnikov. The order authorized the 2nd bravery fortified by alcohol, drunken Soviet soldiers charge into heavy GerShock Army to break out of semi-encir- Their man fire in this stark, surreal drawing of life and death on the Eastern Front. clement. The line of the new defensive position for the 2nd Shock Army was designated along the western bank of the Volkhov River in the from hunger is taking place.” area of Miasnoy Bor-Spasskaya Polist’. It meant, for all pracIncidences of suicide increased among officers and enlisted tical purposes, that the 2nd Shock Army must return to the men. The corpses of dead soldiers were found with pieces of same position it had occupied at the beginning of the opera- flesh cut from their bodies. Occasional deliveries from deathtion four months earlier. It was a final admission of the fact that defying U-2s were not even drops in the bucket. Prevented from the operation had failed. By May 20, the strength of the 2nd landing, they had to resort to dropping canned goods or sacks Shock Army had decreased by half. with dried bread. Those cans that managed to land on solid On May 31, the Germans again closed the corridor—this ground were were sometimes the cause of fights among the soltime permanently. The last act of the 2nd Shock Army tragedy diers. Those who succumbed to temptation and hid or ate food had begun. The army, thoroughly exhausted from incessant instead of surrendering it to their commanders were all shot. combat, lack of food, and exposure to the elements, was in Besides the absence of food, ammunition, and medicine, there its death throes. The already meager rations were reduced was a lack of water. It was everywhere, in trenches, shell again, this time to 1.5 ounces of bread crumbs per day. In the craters, inside the tents, in men’s boots, but there was none to cauldron, young trees, at first aspens and lindens, then all drink, nothing with which to wash already used bandages, others, were stripped of their bark. Buds and later fresh leaves nothing to sterilize surgeons’ instruments. Even snow, the seadisappeared, worms, frogs, and tadpoles became rare delica- sonal water provider, melted and turned into undrinkable cies. The army staff reported to the Front headquarters in water. In desperation, a method was developed to obtain drinkone of its last radio communications, “Massive mortality ing water that would horrify any reasonable man. Large RUSSIAN FRONT

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wooden boxes without bottoms were built. They were wrapped in layers of medical gauze and lowered into holes dug in water-logged soil. In several hours, these improvised wells were full of dark brown water. It was picked up by buckets, filtered through multilayered gauze again, and distributed to medical stations, the wounded, and units in the field. The ration was one cup per day per man. On June 8, the Volkhov Front was reestablished. After Khozin was removed and sent to a command in the western area, he never managed to rise again to the position of Front commander. In March 1944, he was sent from the fighting army to command a secondary military district in the rear. In his place, Lt. Gen. Leonid Govorov, the valiant commander of the 5th Army during the fighting around Moscow, was appointed as commander of the Leningrad Front. General Meretskov came back to his resurrected Front with the specific task of saving the 2nd Shock Army. Meretskov was a good commander, but he was not a magician, and the task of extricating the 2nd Shock Army would have required a miracle. This miracle would have to be accomplished without any additional forces; Stavka had nothing left in reserve. At the end of May, two major Soviet offensives in the south, near Kharkov and in the Crimea, failed. A total of 240,000 troops of the Southwestern Front and 150,000 of the Crimean Front were facing annihilation. Besieged Sevastopol was doomed. The offensive of the Western and Kalinin Fronts in the Rzhev-Viasma area had come to a screeching halt, at the cost of

270,000 dead. In light of these catastrophes, the destruction of the 2nd Shock Army was a relatively minor setback. Since it had become clear in mid-March that the ambitious goals of the Luban operation were unrealistic, Stalin had begun losing interest in it. As soon as hopes of lifting Leningrad’s blockade and defeating German Army Group North were dashed, there was not much left to attract Stalin’s attention to this theater of operations. After all, just the capture of Luban, a name hardly known to anybody, rang hollow. Later, simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the Red Army’s multiplying disasters, Stalin switched his attention to other sectors. Only one thing related to this area still attracted his attention: the fate of the 2nd Shock Army commander, General Vlasov. Stalin ordered special army groups and partisan detachments to conduct searches for him. The reason for Stalin’s level of interest in Vlasov is unknown. The fact remains that he wanted him back. From the end of June until the middle of July, when the Germans announced Vlasov’s capture, Stalin asked daily about the progress in the search for him. In the middle of June, the Soviets, retreating to the southeast while engaged in heavy fighting, were squeezed out of their Olkhovka-Finev Lug defensive line. An attempt to stop the German advance along the Novgorod-Leningrad railroad at Glukhaya Kerest also failed. The distance from this abandoned line of defense to Miasnoy Bor in the center of the now-closed corridor was 16 miles. The 2nd Shock Army, finding itself

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A German soldier slogs through snow toward a field kitchen at his unit’s winter quarters near Leningrad. This man had drawn the hazardous duty of transporting food to troops on the front line by means of a sled.

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inside the tightening ring, continued its retreat toward Miasnoy Bor. The Germans regrouped their forces and organized a defense line along the eastern bank of the Polist’ river. The Soviets were stopped cold. The desperate Soviets had to abandon the only available landing strip, near the village of Novaya Kerest’. The corduroy roads were clogged with trucks, prime movers with artillery pieces in tow, and buses carrying wounded. Soviet artillerymen received orders to destroy the immobilized columns to prevent equipment from falling into the enemy’s hands. They fired through open sights. Many of those trucks and buses are still there today, 60 years later. On June 24, the staff of the 2nd Shock The charred hulk of a Soviet tank sits derelict following a clash with German Army received its last radiogram from armored units during a winter battle in 1942. Although Soviet forces were comthe Stavka, an order to filter through the mitted to the Luban offensive in large numbers, the resourceful Germans repelled them with great loss. enemy lines by dispersing into small, separate groups. By this time the army had ceased to function as a unified body. The army had been abanThe once 85,000-strong 2nd Shock Army ceased to exist, doned: there would be no help. melting into the mass graves, bottomless marshes, and prison Some groups tried to break through the German lines in the camps, or left unburied in the woods to the west of the Volkhov south, literally walking on corpses. Only a few managed to River. Almost 70,000 men were lost. The cumulative casualreach Soviet lines. More than 10,000 wounded were left behind ties of the Luban operation were staggering. During the offenin the meadow between the Glushitsa and Kerest’ Rivers, sive from January 7 to April 30, a total force of 325,700 comappropriately named “Valley of Death.” A few groups prising four armies of the Volkhov Front and the 54th Army attempted to move north, hoping that the Germans would not of the Leningrad Front lost 308,367 soldiers. The casualty rate expect them to move deeper into the German rear. The Ger- was 95 percent. Among them were 50,000 POWs. mans set ambushes along the Kerest’ River, where a great numOn June 29, Stalin instructed the Soviet Information Bureau ber of the Red Army soldiers perished or were taken prisoner. to broadcast the following communiqué: “The Fascist scribes The group that included General Vlasov moved away from are quoting astronomical figures of 30,000 supposed prisonthe slaughterhouse along the Polist’ River. They managed to ers of war and saying that even more than this were killed. avoid German patrols and cross the Kerest’. After a few days Needless to say, this is a typical Fascist lie. According to incomof wandering in the woods, the group split up on June 25. plete figures, at least 30,000 Germans were killed alone … Vlasov, accompanied by a few men, moved northwest. On July Parts of the 2nd Shock Army withdrew to a prepared position. 12, Vlasov was arrested by pro-German local police in the vil- We lost 10,000 killed and about 10,000 missing …” lage of Tukhovezhi, 30 miles northwest of the city of NovThe remains of some of the dead Red Army soldiers still turn gorod. He was handed over to the German XXXVIII Corps. up 60 years later in the marshy woods, startling occasional The following day, he was delivered by truck to 18th Army hikers and mushroom hunters. After his capture, General headquarters at the Siverskiy railroad station. Vlasov collaborated with the Germans. This betrayal cast a Individual stragglers from the 2nd Army continued appear- dark shadow over the memory of his vanished army for years ing at the front-line positions of the Soviet armies of the Volkhov to come. and even Northwestern Fronts until the end of August. The fate of most of them was not enviable. They were brutally interro- Edward Paraubek was born in the Soviet Union and served in gated by Special departments of the NKVD, the predecessor of the Red Army with the rank of senior lieutenant. He emigrated the KGB, the dreaded Soviet secret police. Many of them landed to the United States in 1978 and resides in Stoughton, Massachusetts. in the gulags or in deadly penal companies.

ullstein-bild/The Granger Collection, New York

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The execution of Marshal Georgi Zhukov’s master plan for Operation Uranus trapped the German 6th Army in Stalingrad BY PAT MC TAGGART

SOVIET CIRCLE OF IRON

IN THE FALL OF 1942, THE RED ARMY HAD ITS BACK to the wall once again. During the first six months of the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht had killed or captured almost three million Russian soldiers. December brought the Soviet Winter Offensive, which sent the German Army reeling back at the cost of another million Russian dead. Overextended Soviet supply lines, coupled with the onset of the spring thaw, brought the offensive to a halt, allowing both sides to regroup. As replacements and reinforcements rushed to the front, Adolf Hitler began planning a new offensive that he hoped would economically strangle his communist enemy. Code-named “Blau” (Blue), the offensive was aimed at seizing the oilfields in the northern Caucasus and establishing a defensive line running along the Don River from Stalingrad to

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Voronezh. The move would deprive the Russians of valuable oil and, at the same time, provide that much needed commodity to the German armed forces. It was an ambitious plan—one that would stretch German armies in southern Russian to their limit. To bolster the German attack forces, Hitler called upon his Italian and Romanian allies to supply divisions for the offensive. In response, Mussolini ordered his 8th Italian Army to participate while Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu offered the 3rd and 4th Romanian Armies. Hungary and Slovakia also contributed to the cause. Stalin had ambitious plans of his own. In mid-May, he ordered the Red Army to recapture Kharkov, which had been under German control since the previous fall. The offensive was a disaster, costing the Russians almost 300,000 casualties

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and shattering five Soviet armies. As the Russians reeled from this latest defeat, preparations went forward for Blau, with orders being sent out to corps and division commanders detailing their part in the operation. For the Russians, the Kharkov offensive was another blow for an army still trying to find its way in the Blitzkrieg era. From Stalin downward, commanders had made mistakes costing millions of lives. By mid-1942, the situation seemed like it would not improve in the foreseeable future. In the far north, the Germans were advancing on Murmansk. Leningrad was besieged and starving, and a German salient around Rzhev was only about 150 miles from the Kremlin. In southern Russia, the Kharkov offensive had failed and the Crimean port of Sevastopol was almost certain to fall within a few weeks. Now it appeared that the Germans were grouping for a southern offensive of their own, and staff and intelligence officers in Moscow were working day and night trying to figure out where and when the Germans would strike. For once, the Fates intervened on the side of the Soviets. On June 19, nine days before Blau was scheduled to begin, Major Joachim Reichel, the chief of operations of the 23rd Panzer Division, was flying back to his divisional headquarters after an aerial inspection of the front. His light aircraft, a Fiesler Storch, either developed engine problems or ran into turbulent weather. Whatever the cause, the Storch went down, forced to land behind the Russian lines. Against orders that forbade classified material being taken into the forward areas, Reichel had kept the operational orders

for Blau in his briefcase when he took off on his inspection flight. As he frantically tried to burn the briefcase, a Russian patrol appeared. Reichel’s fate is not known, but less than an hour later the plans were sitting in front of the commander of the 76th Rifle Division. It was all there—orders of battle, divisional operational plans, maps, and timetables. The gold mine of information made it quickly up the chain of command. Army and Front commanders gleefully waited for orders from Moscow concerning how the information could be used, but they were sorely disappointed. When news of the find reached Stalin, he dismissed the papers as either forgeries or a deception plot. He had the plans for Blau, and he did nothing. On the German side, Hitler was furious when told about the debacle. Several officers were sacked, and an air of uncertainty spread through the German high command. Did Reichel manage to destroy the documents or were they now in Soviet hands? No one knew. Nevertheless, Hitler was determined to achieve his goal. The offensive would not be called off. Blau began on June 28 with Generaloberst (Colonel General) Maximillian Freiherr von Wiechs’s 2nd Army and Generaloberst Hermann Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army advancing on Voronezh. On June 30, General Friedrich Paulus’s 6th Army began its attack to clear the Donets corridor. The Soviets fell back in disarray, suffering heavy casualties as they retreated. In mid-July, Hitler astounded his commanders by assigning more objectives for the offensive. He divided the powerful Heeresgruppe Süd (Army Group South), his main attack force,

In November 1942, Red Army units assemble for the beginning of an offensive that will result in the utter destruction of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad.

© The Dmitri Baltermants Collection/CORBIS

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into Heeresgruppe A (Field Marshal Wilhelm List) and Heeresgruppe B (von Weichs), and set a new list of priorities. List, with the 11th Army, 17th Army, and the 1st Panzer Army, was ordered to take all the oilfields north of a line running from Batumi, near the Turkish border, to Baku on the Caspian Sea. Von Weichs’s Heeresgruppe B (2nd Army, 6th Army, and 4th Panzer Army) was still assigned the mission of establishing a protective flank along the Don River, but Paulus was given one more objective for his 6th Army: capture Stalingrad! Hitler had hardly mentioned the city before July, but the idea of capturing a great industrial center named for his arch enemy slowly became a fixation. In designating Stalingrad as a major objective and adding objectives in the Caucasus, the Führer had upset the operational planning of his entire southern front. To accomplish his new plan, Hitler diverted Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army south to help in the Caucasus operation and to protect Paulus’s right flank, leaving a weakened Heeresgruppe B to continue slugging it out with the Russians in the Donets corridor. Despite Hitler’s meddling, von Weichs’s troops continued to press forward. In the south, Rostov was taken, allowing the motorized and panzer divisions of Heeresgruppe A to drive a deep wedge into the Caucasus. Hitler was ecstatic as he read List’s reports, but he grew increasingly impatient about von Weichs’s operations in the north. He complained about the slow progress in reaching Stalingrad, conveniently forgetting that he had stripped most of the motorized divisions from Heeresgruppe B. Growing more anx-

ious, he made another astounding move by ordering the 4th Panzer Army to disengage in the northern Caucasus and return north to help in the drive to the Volga. The order angered both List and Generaloberst Franz Halder, the chief of staff of the German Army. When they protested to Hitler, he dismissed them both, personally taking command of Heeresgruppe A. Other commanders cautiously brought up the fact that the drive on Stalingrad, coupled with the enlarged Caucasus operation, was dangerously stretching the German flanks to the limit. Hitler dismissed the danger, reminding his generals that the Italians, Romanians, and Hungarians were on the way. He assured them that these reinforcements could handle the flanks while German forces pursued their objectives. It was an amazing statement, considering the quality of the men and equipment that would be tasked with guarding those flanks. The equipment in the three allied armies was mostly obsolete, some dating back to World War I. Much of the artillery was horse-drawn, and heavier caliber weapons were sorely lacking. Officers in the Romanian and Italian Armies generally treated their men as ignorant peasants, and there was a vast difference in lodging and dining privileges between those that gave orders and the common soldier. Although allies of Germany, Romanian and Hungarian units could not co-exist on the same sector of the front. Age-old religious and ethnic rivalries remained ingrained, and the two sides could just as easily open fire against each other as they would on the Russians. When reviewing all these factors— Commander of the Soviet Don Front, General Konstantin Rokossovsky observes Hitler’s meddling, dubious allies, and an units moving forward to attack German positions around the embattled city of increasing list of objectives—it seems Stalingrad. incredible that the Wehrmacht made it as far as it did in the fall of 1942. On August 23, Paulus reached the Volga north of Stalingrad, and the battle for the city began in earnest. The 2nd Army had taken Voronezh, establishing a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Don, and Heeresgruppe A continued its drive south, reaching the Kuban River and heading for the Caucasus oil wells. The void left by these operations was filled by the arriving allied armies. With the 6th Army, assisted by elements of the 4th Panzer Army, engaged at Stalingrad, General Petre Dumitrescu’s 3rd Romanian Army (two cavalry and eight infantry divisions) took over a defensive line northeast of the city that ran for about 90 miles along the Don River. To his right was General Giovanni Messe’s 8th

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German soldiers pick their way through the rubble of a demolished factory in Stalingrad.

Italian Army, which formed a wedge between the Romanians and the 2nd Hungarian Army. General Constantin Constantinescu’s 4th Romanian Army (two cavalry and five infantry divisions) was thrown in south of the city. It occupied a line running approximately 170 miles from Straya Otrada to Sarpa. The dispositions of the allied armies were a clear invitation for disaster. Stalin had already ordered that Stalingrad be held at all costs, but the meat grinder was destroying units almost as fast as they could make their way into the city. He needed a miracle to break the stranglehold at Stalingrad, and he found his wizard in the person of Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgi K. Zhukov. Born in 1896, Zhukov was conscripted into the Army at the beginning of World War I. In 1918 he joined the Red Army. For more than 20 years, he served in the Red Army’s cavalry and armored forces until joining the Soviet high command in 1939. Escaping the purges that ravaged the Red Army in the 1930s, Zhukov was sent to the Far East, where the Japanese had already made two incursions into Soviet territory the previous year. In May 1939, the Japanese struck again and drove toward the Khalkin Gol River. Fighting raged for four months until a counterattack, led by Zhukov, encircled and all but annihilated the Japanese 6th Army. Zhukov’s meteoric rise to fame was assured as a result of the victory.

As chief of the general staff, Zhukov was involved in organizing western Russian defenses in early 1941. When the Germans struck in June, he helped organize the defense of Leningrad. He was also instrumental in developing the plans for the Soviet winter offensive that drove the Germans back from the gates of Moscow. In August 1942, with the Germans fast approaching Stalingrad, Zhukov was made deputy supreme commander of the Red Army. His plan to save Stalingrad was to trade land for blood. The longer the Germans had to fight for each mile of Soviet territory, the more time he had to gather reinforcements for the signature counterattack that had already brought him fame. He was willing to take enormous losses to achieve his goals, and he made no excuses for his actions. Zhukov’s cold-blooded approach to warfare was balanced by his genius for operational organization. His offensives and counteroffensives were marked by meticulous work from his hand-picked staff. Careful placement of artillery, armor, and infantry at the precise point of an intended breakthrough was his hallmark. His method of fighting also showed careful consideration: Let the enemy overextend himself while fighting bloody engagements at every turn. When the enemy’s offensive momentum faltered, strike him at his weakest points and annihilate him. The battle for Stalingrad and the Caucasus raged throughout September and October as both sides continued to pour RUSSIAN FRONT

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more men into the region. Meanwhile, using the maxims that had served him so well, Zhukov and the general staff were working on a plan that would change the balance of the war in the east once and for all. The plan was known as Operation Uranus. Looking at the extended front in the Stalingrad sector, Zhukov and his staff immediately grasped the opportunities afforded by the large areas held by the Axis allies. The Soviets had two extensive bridgeheads on the western bank of the Don facing Dumitrescu’s forces, which would provide them with their northern strike points. Constantinescu’s army, with its long, thinly held defensive front, would provide the perfect spot for the southern strike. The Russians were already masters of deception and camouflage, but Zhukov and his staff turned it into an art. As the plans for Uranus got under way, the Soviets launched several small attacks against Heeresgruppe Mitte. Dummy formations with their own radio nets were set up in the sector, giving German intelligence officers the impression that the Russians were concentrating forces for a late fall or early winter offensive against the Heeresgruppe. Generaloberst Reinhard Gehlen, the head of the German high command’s Fremde Heeres Ost (Foreign Armies East), was in charge of gathering and deciphering intelligence information on the Eastern Front. Although surprised at the number of Russian divisions identified during the first few months of the 1941 invasion, his office still did not appreciate the vast

manpower reserves possessed by the Soviet Union. With the purported buildup of Soviet forces in Heeresgruppe Mitte’s sector, Fremde Heeres Ost was convinced that the Russians could not possibly possess enough men to launch any sort of major offensive in the south. When nervous Romanian commanders brought up the subject of a possible Soviet offensive, they were told not to worry because the Russians were already stretched to the limit. Zhukov faced a daunting security problem. Massing the divisions for his offensive without being discovered by the Germans meant that the units could only be moved at night or in bad weather as they neared the front. During the day, the trains and convoys transporting men and materiel for Uranus would stop, and troops would camouflage the vehicles, making them invisible from the air. In all, Zhukov would have 11 armies to mount his offensive. They would be augmented by several separate mechanized, cavalry, and tank brigades and corps. About 13,500 artillery pieces and mortars were assembled along with 115 rocket artillery detachments, 900 tanks, and more than 1,000 aircraft. It was a tremendous logistics operation, but the Russians were able to pull it off without the Germans being any the wiser. Although stationed in Moscow, the Soviet marshal made extensive visits to the front to confer with his commanders about Uranus. Although they were not privy to the overall scope of the operation, the Front and Army commanders made suggestions about objectives in their particular sectors and coordination with neighboring units and gave other opinions that the marshal sent Soviet tank commanders are briefed by a commanding officer. The quality of the back to his Moscow staff. Soviet T-34 tank was a major factor in the ultimate victory of the Red Army. The supreme headquarters and Zhukov’s staff incorporated many of the suggestions into the final plan for Uranus. Intelligence concerning opposing enemy units was also funneled directly to Moscow. As German and Russian soldiers fought and died in the rubble of Stalingrad, the buildup continued. By mid-October, the final plans for Uranus were being fine-tuned, and it was hoped that the operation could begin sometime in the first weekof November. As November approached, German commanders in the 6th Army were facing shortages in both men and materiel. They were also becoming increasingly nervous about unconfirmed reports that the Soviets were massing on their flanks. Zhukov’s deception had worked for the most part, but even the Russians could not totally mask the movements of such

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a massive force as it came within earshot of the Germans. Motors rumbled and horses neighed, and the sounds carried well in the crisp late fall air. On Paulus’s left flank, General Karl Strecker’s XI Army Corps had three divisions to cover a front of more than 60 miles along the Don bend. Strecker knew that this was too much for his divisions to defend, so he pulled them back to well-prepared secondary positions, cutting his frontage by half. Lieutenant General P.I. Batov immediately took advantage of the situation by sending units of his 65th Army across the Don to establish yet another Soviet bridgehead. Batov then conducted several spirited attacks against Strecker’s new positions, but the Germans were too firmly entrenched to make any progress. While pleased with his own divisions’ performance, Strecker kept a wary eye on the Romanians to his left. The 3rd Romanian Army was woefully short of everything, especially antitank weapons. Their own were obsolete, and Dumitrescu continually badgered the Germans for more effective pieces. Some November of 1942, the Red Army launched the highly successful Operation 75mm guns had been transferred to his In Uranus, concentrating on encirclement of German forces around Stalingrad. army, but not nearly enough to stop any major Russian attack. Berlin had also ordered General Ferdinand Heim’s XLVIII Moving on to the headquarters of General Fedor I. TolPanzer Corps to disengage from its sector on the front and bukhin’s 57th Army south of Stalingrad, Zhukov was told that form a ready reserve behind Dumitrescu’s army. Elements of men and equipment were not arriving on schedule and that the 14th Panzer Division and the 1st Romanian Tank Division the artillery had yet to be entrenched and targeted. He returned were also ordered to the area. It seemed a good plan, but the to Moscow and postponed Uranus until November 17. Upon nucleus of Heim’s corps, the 22nd Panzer Division, was hearing that air units marked for the offensive might not be equipped mostly with outdated Czech tanks. Also, one of its ready on that date, Zhukov postponed the operation for two panzergrenadier regiments had been detached from the division more days. and moved to another sector of the front. Stalingrad was on the verge of collapse as Uranus was postZhukov planned to begin Uranus on November 9, but the poned not once, but twice. The more time that elapsed, the date had to be postponed after the marshal made another series more chance that the Germans would find out about the masof visits to his commanders. Arriving in Serafimovich, a small sive buildup. Luckily, Berlin had other problems to deal with. Cossack farming and fishing village on the middle Don, he On November 8, the Allies landed in French North Africa, conferred with Generals Konstantin K. Rokossovsky and threatening Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s rear and dooming Nicholai F. Vatutin, the commanders of the Don and South the vaunted Afrika Korps and Panzer Army Afrika. The GerWest Fronts. They pointed out that the freezing rain and hard man high command now had to split its attention, focusing on frosts of the previous week had made things very difficult for potential disasters on two fronts. the forces trying to reach the front. They also said that shortAs the 19th approached, Zhukov sent out his final orders. ages in winter clothing had to be addressed before they felt Uranus would involve a double envelopment of Stalingrad with their men were ready for battle. a primarily infantry force encircling the city itself. An outer RUSSIAN FRONT

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ring, consisting of tank, mechanized, cavalry, and infantry units, would form a steel buffer against any possible German counterattack. German and allied units caught between the two rings were to be systematically destroyed and, if the opportunity arose, Soviet forces in the south would advance to Rostov and trap the divisions of Heeresgruppe A, which was still engaged in the Caucasus. The first phase of the operation involved Vatutin’s South West Front attacking the 3rd Romanian Army out of the bridgehead on the west bank of the Don. At the same time, Rokossovsky’s Don Front would begin the envelopment of Stalingrad from the north and east. A day later, General Andrei I. Eremenko’s Stalingrad Front would attack the 4th Romanian Army in the Lake Sarpa area south of Stalingrad. Both fronts were to send armored and mechanized forces to link up near Kalach. At the same time, other units of the fronts would spread out and head west to protect flanks as the outer ring formed. The senior Soviet officers got very little sleep during the night of November 18. Shortly after midnight, the Russian artillery started firing smoke shells from the eastern bank of the Don. Soviet propaganda units had already set up loudspeakers close to the front weeks before, so the Germans and their allies paid little attention to the political messages and music that blasted through the night air. As usual, Axis soldiers regarded the loudspeakers as more of a nuisance designed to keep them from getting a good night’s sleep. This time, however, the smoke and noise from the Russian line had a different purpose. Under cover of these distractions, Soviet armored and mechanized forces streamed across the Don to the already established bridgeheads. A little after 2 AM, more than a million men from the three attack fronts received their orders. They were told that they were about to participate in a deep raid toward the enemy rear. The word “encirclement” was not mentioned to the troops in case something went wrong with the plan. Nevertheless, the old timers knew that something was up. There were too many men and too many vehicles for this to be just a raid. Are we, they wondered, finally starting to see the beginning of the road to victory? The Russians were helped by snow and a thick fog that cut visibility down to almost nothing. On the German-Romanian line, sentries strained to see just a few feet ahead of them, but all seemed fine except for the damned Soviet loudspeakers blaring in the distance. Only a few yards away, Red Army engineers, camouflaged in white uniforms, had been working their way toward the enemy lines all night, clearing mines and cutting wire obstacles to make a path for the Russian assault forces. On the Soviet side, commanders anxiously looked at their watches. The fog offered good concealment and would not hinder the effects of the planned Russian artillery bombard124

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ment, as the guns had been pre-sighted for just such a situation. Minutes ticked away until, at 7:20 AM Moscow time (5:20 AM German time) the Soviet artillery commanders received the code word “Siren.” The earth trembled as battery after battery of Katyushas (Stalin Organs) sent their rockets screaming toward the enemy lines. A ghostly glow reflected off the fog as the batteries fired again and again. To be on the receiving end of the rockets tested the courage of the best German units. For the Romanians of Dumitrescu’s 3rd Army, the effect was devastating. Strongpoints and trenches literally disintegrated as the rockets struck their preplotted sites. Communications between the forward outposts and higher headquarters were shattered, and many of the ammunition dumps close to the front were destroyed in spectacular explosions. Many of those not killed outright in the bombardment were already fleeing to the rear, trying to escape the carnage. Ten minutes later, the massed Russian artillery was given the order to fire. Thousands of guns roared at once, causing many an artilleryman to bleed at the ear from the concussions caused by so many artillery pieces firing at the same time. Almost immediately, shells began crashing into Romanian artillery emplacements and secondary positions behind the front line. Those fleeing from the opening bombardment were now caught in a second rain of steel, which further decimated the retreating troops. Black earth churned up from shell impacts was interspersed on the snow with red blotches that had a few seconds earlier been men fleeing for their lives. The bombardment kept up for one hour and 20 minutes. Dazed Romanians lucky enough to escape death from the rain of explosives were in a state of near paralysis as they desperately tried to dig their way out of their shattered positions. Wounded men howled in agony for their comrades to help them while the surviving NCOs and officers worked to regain control over their troops. Above the cries of the wounded, a new sound was heard. It was not the sound of artillery or tank motors, but the deep, guttural sound of a beast preparing to pounce on its prey. The Romanians strained to see through the fog, hoping not to see what they knew was coming. As the fog lessened, shapes appeared—first hundreds and then thousands. Coming toward them were the massed echelons of Romanenko’s 14th and 47th Guards and 119th Rifle Divisions. The sound that the Romanians now heard—the one that struck fear into their very souls—was the Russian battle cry coming from thousands of soldiers: “Urra! Urra! Urra!” In some sectors of the Romanian front, soldiers made splitsecond decisions on whether they would live or die. Hundreds of them threw down their weapons and, with hands held high, hoped for the best as the Russians bore down on them. For the most part, the Soviet assault forces bypassed them and con-

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Advancing across a snow-covered Russian steppe, German soldiers clad in white camouflage snowsuits support tanks and self-propelled assault vehicles.

tinued their advance, leaving the surrendering Romanians to be picked up later by units in the second or third wave of the attack. In other Romanian sectors the story was different. The 13th Romanian Infantry Division, for example, occupied a sector of the front opposite the 21st Army. When the Soviet infantry attacked, survivors in the front trenches repulsed them. A second attack, this time supported by tanks, met the same fate. Frustrated, Christyakov ordered another round of shelling. At the same time, he ordered A.G. Kravchenko’s 4th Tank Corps and P.A. Pliev’s 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps to prepare to attack. Christyakov wanted to hold these units in reserve until the Romanian line was broken, but the resistance of the 13th and some other Romanian divisions had already upset his timetable. Together with fresh waves of infantry, the Soviet assault smashed the remaining positions of the Romanian IV Army Corps, allowing the 21st Army to advance. To the west of the IV Corps, the Romanian II Army Corps, facing the 5th Tank Army, was undergoing its own personal hell. Following the bombardment and infantry assault, Romanenko unleashed V.V. Butkov’s 1st Tank and A.G. Rodin’s 26th Tank Corps, followed by the 8th Cavalry Corps. The attack hit the Romanian 9th, 11th, and 14th Infantry Divisions like a sledgehammer, and their positions crumbled as the Russian armor rolled forward. The Soviet cavalry spread out toward the west, severing communications between the Romanians and General Giovanni Messe’s 8th Italian Army. As the Romanians fled, the cavalry formed a barrier against any possible counterattack while the

armored and infantry forces swung southeast toward the Chir River and Kalach. The gods smiled on the Soviets about mid-morning as the fog dissipated enough for the Red Air Force to enter the fray. Aircraft from K.N. Smirnov’s 2nd and S.A. Krasovsky’s 17th Air Armies swooped down upon the retreating Romanians with a vengeance. The Luftwaffe was nowhere to be seen as the Soviet pilots bombed and strafed enemy troops and positions. On the Don Front, the going was more difficult. Batov threw his 65th Army at General Alexander Freiherr Edler von Daniels’s 376th Infantry Division, but his infantry made little progress against a determined German defense. Batov found easier going at the junction of the 376th and the 1st Romanian Cavalry Division, and the Soviets were able to advance as they pushed the Romanians aside. Von Daniels was forced to arc his left flank to prevent the Russians from breaking into his rear as a result of the Romanian cavalry’s retreat. In Stalingrad, Paulus was informed of the Soviet attack at 9:45 AM, but he seemed relatively unconcerned. The German general ordered Heim’s XLVIII Panzer Corps to advance toward Kletskaya to support the Romanians and then went back to briefings concerning the fight for the city. Heim put his units on the road and headed toward his objective, but at 11:30 new orders arrived, this time from Hitler’s headquarters. The feisty panzer general cursed roundly as he read the message ordering him to turn his forces northwest to the Bolshoy area and stop Romanenko’s armored units. Valuable time and fuel were lost as he reformed his attack force. Meanwhile, Paulus began receiving more reports concernRUSSIAN FRONT

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ing the Russian attack. The first fragmented information had caused little alarm. After all, they were coming from Romanians, and everyone knew that they tended to exaggerate and were prone to unnecessary panic. Toward noon, the situation became clearer. This time the staff officers of the 6th Army definitely took notice. A Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft reported hundreds of Soviet tanks advancing across the steppes northwest of Stalingrad. Clear reports from German liaison officers flatly stated that the 9th, 13th, and 14th Romanian Infantry Divisions had been shattered and were no longer capable of any organized resistance. Although Paulus had three panzer divisions (14th, 16th, and 24th) and three motorized divisions (3rd, 29th, and 60th) at his disposal, he did nothing to form a strike force to stop the Soviet armor. Preferring to keep them engaged in and around Stalingrad—a pure waste of armor in an urban battle—he relied on Heim’s panzer corps to deal with the Russian attack. A German panzer corps in 1942 was a formidable weapon that could take on a Soviet Tank Army and usually come out on top. Heim’s corps, however, was a panzer corps in name only, something that seemed to slip by the generals that were expecting him to stop the Russians. By the time Heim was ordered to attack, his 22nd Panzer Division had only about 30 combat-ready tanks. His motorized elements were critically short of fuel, and the orders changing the direction of his attack only made the problem worse. Heim’s mechanized units were also plagued by the forces of nature. While bivouacked, mice had gotten into the tanks and armored personnel carriers and had gnawed on or through some of the electrical wires in the vehicles, causing them to break down as the systems shorted out. Another problem was the width of his tank treads. The Russian T-34 had a wide, gripping track while German tanks had narrow tracks, causing them to slip and slide on the icy terrain. Nevertheless, Heim and his men pushed forward, hoping to surprise the Russian spearhead. The weather worsened during the afternoon of the 19th, with the freezing mist lowering visibility to almost zero, and maps were practically useless as the Soviets continued their drive. Taking into account the possibility of bad weather, Russian commanders had enlisted area peasants as guides, but even they were having a difficult time traversing the mist-shrouded landscape. It started getting dark before 4:00 PM, which only added to the difficulties faced by the Russian tank crews as they pushed toward their objectives. To make things worse, the wind picked up and snow began falling, which led to almost blizzard-like conditions on the steppes. Having essentially obliterated the Romanian defenses, the Soviet tank commanders felt reasonably assured that their only threat would come from a possible German counterattack. All 126

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things considered, that attack would probably be directed against Kravchenko’s 4th Tank Corps, as that unit was advancing closest to the main 6th Army forces at Stalingrad. It would have worked that way if Heim had not received new orders sending him toward Bolshoy. Heim’s panzers, now numbering about 20, hit Butkov’s 1st Tank Corps near the Chir River at Pestchany. It was an uneven battle from the start, with the Germans being outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. In an almost suicidal action, an armored group led by Oberst (Colonel) Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski tore into the Russians. Supported by the 22nd Panzer’s antitank battalion, von Oppeln’s tanks managed to isolate and destroy several Soviet tanks in Butkov’s spearhead. The Soviets regrouped, and the unequal struggle continued into the night until Heim ordered the battle to be broken off. He told his commanders to make for the Chir River crossings and get to the west bank of the river, thus saving his panzer corps from encirclement and annihilation. Those retreating units would remain a thorn in the side of the Russians for days to come. The retreat order had the expected consequences for Heim as a furious Hitler recalled him to Berlin, stripped him of his rank, and had him imprisoned. He was released 10 months later without having been tried. On August 1, 1944, his rank was restored, and he was appointed commander of Fortress Boulogne on the Western Front. At Heeresgruppe B headquarters, Generaloberst Baron von Weichs recognized the danger he faced earlier than most. He issued directives at 10:00 PM on the night of November 19 to try and forestall the looming disaster. “The situation developing on the front of the 3rd Romanian Army dictates radical measures in order to disengage forces quickly to screen the flanks of 6th Army,” he wrote. Among those measures was ordering all offensive operations in Stalingrad to cease. He also directed Paulus to detach two motorized formations, an infantry division, and all anti-tank units he could spare to stop the assault forces of Vatutin and Rokossovsky. These measures may have blunted the Soviet advance, but it was already too late. On November 20, the second stage of Uranus began as Eremenko’s southern anvil began moving to meet the northern hammer. The same bad weather plaguing the northern Soviet forces also hampered the Russians in the south. Icy fog made the going slow as the assault forces of the Stalingrad Front edged closer to Constantinescu’s 4th Romanian Army. At 10 AM, the Russian artillery opened up along the front. Soon after, the initial assault troops were already pouring through the Romanian line. German soldiers in the 297th Infantry Division, adjacent to the 20th Romanian Infantry Division, watched in awe as the human flood of Russians advanced. As on the northern sector,

some of the Romanians fled or surrendered almost immediately, while others fought bravely until being overwhelmed. Reports came in speaking of Romanian antitank crews firing their pitiful 37mm guns until they were crushed beneath the marauding Soviet tanks of the initial attack forces. The leading Russian armored and mechanized forces performed well, but command and control problems, the bad weather, and problems getting across the Volga River crossing points delayed the spearhead units designated to exploit the breakthrough. Maj. Gen. V.T. Volsky’s 4th Mechanized Corps, designated to advance with Maj. Gen. N.I. Trufanov’s 51st Army, was supposed to strike between Lakes Sarpa and Tsatsa, but its units had not yet concentrated. The same could be said for Colonel T.I. Tanaschishin’s 13th Mechanized Corps. Angry messages flew back and forth as the delay continued. The spearhead units were supposed to attack at 10 AM, but it was already well after noon, and there was still no sign of movement from the corps. General Markian M. Popov, the deputy commander of the Stalingrad Front, headed to Volsky’s headquarters Corpses and the wreckage of tanks and guns lie strewn about at a former German position around Stalingrad. The overwhelming strength of Russian firepower and and confronted him directly. The angry exchange between the two superior numbers left many German units devastated. lasted for some time before Volsky finally gave in and ordered his still disorganized units forward. Farther west, the Soviets were running rampant through the Tanaschishin was also ordered forward immediately. It was retreating Romanians. Leyser was ordered to turn his division already past 4 PM, and the Soviet timetable was hours behind around to protect the exposed southern flank of the 6th Army, schedule. As they moved out, Volsky’s units became inter- leaving the field to Tanaschishin’s forces, which were regroupmixed, causing further confusion as they headed westward. ing for a counterattack. The Germans reacted much more quickly to the southern While the fighting raged south of Stalingrad, the northern attack than they had on the previous day. General Hans-Georg sector reeled under hammer blows from the South West and Leyser’s 29th Panzergrenadier Division, nicknamed the Falcon Don Fronts. General Strecker’s IX Army Corps, its left flank Division, was ordered to hit the flank of Tanaschishin’s 13th left hanging by Dumitrescu’s retreat, was forced to form an Mechanized Corps. The 29th was a first-rate division, and its arc to meet the advancing Russians. General von Daniels’s troops moved out quickly to meet the foe. 376th shifted its front westward to meet the 3rd Guards CavAbout 10 miles south of Beketovka, Leyser’s armored alry Corps, while General Heinrich-Anton Deboi’s 44th columns slammed into elements of Tanaschishin’s corps. The Infantry Division, forced to leave much of its heavy equipment panzers bloodied the Russian tanks and sent the mechanized in place because of lack of fuel, extended its line to cover the units reeling, causing the Soviets to beat a hasty retreat. It was gap left by von Daniels’s shift. a shining moment in an otherwise dismal day for the Germans, Meanwhile, Kravchenko’s 4th Tank Corps turned toward but the victory was short lived. the southeast. Its objective was the Don River town of GoluRUSSIAN FRONT

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binski, which happened to be Paulus’s headquarters. At the same time, units of the 5th Tank Army continued to smash isolated pockets of Romanians that tried to stand and fight. The Russian infantry was now moving steadily forward, leaving the armored and mechanized units to continue to work on closing the jaws of the trap. Rodin’s 26th Tank Corps took Perelazonvsky, about 80 miles northwest of Stalingrad. Butkov’s 1st Tank Corps snapped at the heels of Heim’s XLVIII Panzer Corps, which was starting to retreat to the southwest, while the 8th Guards Cavalry Corps continued its drive to the Chir River. Despite several difficulties, the 20th had been an excellent day for Uranus. On Saturday, November 21, the 21st Army spearhead continued moving southeast, closing on Golubinski. Paulus, finally realizing the disaster overtaking him, asked Berlin for permission to pull his army out of Stalingrad and for a new defensive line on the Don. He then relocated his headquarters to Nizhnye Chriskaya, a village about 40 miles to the southwest. Later that day, Paulus received two messages from Hitler. The first one read: “The commander-in-chief will proceed with his staff to Stalingrad. The 6th Army will form an all-round defensive position and await further orders.” Later in the day, Hitler sent Paulus the following message: “Those units of the 6th Army that remain between the Don and the Volga will henceforth be designated Fortress Stalingrad.” The two messages not only sealed the fate of the 6th Army, but they also meant that Zhukov would not have to worry about any kind of breakout attempt by the Stalingrad forces. In effect, it gave him the opportunity to start solidifying his inner ring around the city while concentrating on closing the outer ring. Between the inner and outer rings, Germans and Romanians were still fighting. Heim’s XLVIII Panzer Corps, trying to make its way to the Chir River crossings, actively engaged Soviet forces in several pitched battles as they made their bid for freedom. General Mikhail Lascar had gathered remnants of the V Romanian Army Corps farther north and was resisting repeated Russian attempts to overrun his hastily constructed defenses. Hoping for German support, Lascar would wait in vain for any relief effort. While these clashes were taking place in the north, Eremenko’s southern offensive was running into problems, despite having effectively split Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army in half. Most of Hoth’s German units were trapped inside the ever tightening ring around Stalingrad. The 4th Romanian Army, which had been subordinated to Hoth’s Panzer Army, was in disarray, and the 16th Panzergrenadier Division, the only German unit outside the Stalingrad sector, was making a fighting withdrawal through heavy opposition. It was a golden opportunity for the Russians, but command 128

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failure was still a problem that plagued even the highest ranks of the Red Army. Tolbukhin’s 57th Army and Shumilov’s 64th Army were making good progress closing the inner ring around Stalingrad. Trufanov’s 51st Army was a different matter. Once the breakthrough was achieved, Trufanov was supposed to send his 4th Mechanized Corps and 4th Cavalry Corps speeding northwest to Kalach while the bulk of his infantry was to head southwest as a shield for his left flank. The coordination and complexity of controlling both armored and infantry forces moving in different directions proved too much for Trufanov and his staff. Instead of the quick thrust toward Kalach, the mechanized and cavalry forces moved sluggishly to the northeast, giving many of the retreating Romanians a chance to flee for their lives. The flanking infantry advanced even more slowly, amazing even Hoth as he followed their progress. Although his remaining forces could have been destroyed by a more aggressive Soviet posture, all he faced on the battlefield before him was “a fantastic picture of fleeing (Romanian) remnants.” Sunday, November 23, found the Russians in the north advancing on the Don in force. In the predawn hours, an assault unit captured a newly constructed bridge across the river at Berezovski near the primary objective of Kalach. It was the first Soviet victory of the day, but it would not be the last. By now, communications between the 6th Army headquarters and outlying units had almost completely broken down. At Kalach itself, word of the Soviet breakthrough only reached the garrison on the morning of the 21st. The troops occupying the town, which was located on the eastern bank of the Don, consisted mostly of maintenance and supply personnel and included the workshops and transport company of the 16th Panzer Division. They were augmented by a Luftwaffe flak battery and a small force of field police. There had been no other word about the breakthrough since a message concerning the breakthrough in the south was received on the afternoon of the 21st. Tasked with defending both Kalach and the western bank, the garrison faced an impossible situation. The town commander had no idea that three Soviet corps were heading directly for him, and even if the Germans had known, the garrison had no way to stop them. With the Berezovski Bridge in Russian hands, Maj. Gen. Rodin sent Lt. Col. G.N. Filippov and his 19th Tank Brigade speeding along the Don to Kalach. Using captured German vehicles to lead the way, Filippov’s men overwhelmed the detachment guarding the Don bridge. On the western heights, Luftwaffe 88mm field guns opened fire and destroyed several Russian T-34 tanks. Filippov, not waiting for his mechanized infantry, ordered a detachment of tanks to cross the river and form a bridgehead on the eastern banks while other T-34s continued to duel with

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Hurrying past a smoldering German tank, Red Army soldiers plunge into the haze of combat with their rifles at the ready.

the 88s. When the infantry did appear, he once again split his forces, sending some infantry across the river and ordering the rest to support the tanks trying to take the heights. A combined assault finally silenced the German guns, and the heights were taken by midmorning. From their new vantage point, the Russian tanks on the western bank poured round after round into Kalach, while their comrades on the eastern bank stormed the town’s flimsy defenses. Those Germans that could escape loaded themselves on anything drivable and fled toward Stalingrad. By early afternoon, Kalach was in Russian hands. In the south, Trufanov was finally getting his forces under control. Although his infantry was still slowly plodding westward and southwestward, his mechanized units were advancing at a faster pace. By the end of the day, Volsky’s 4th Mechanized Corps had taken Buzinovka and was moving toward Sovietski, a few miles east of Kalach near the junction of the Don and Karpovka Rivers. In essence, by the end of the day any German or Romanian units east of the mechanized ring had only one place to go— Stalingrad. General Lascar, surrounded and running low on ammunition, refused several Russian requests to surrender. His force was overwhelmed, its survivors forming long gray columns marching east toward a very uncertain future. By now, there was little to stop the northern and southern spearheads from completing their missions. Volsky reached the

south bank of the Karpovka a little after noon on November 23. The 45th Tank Brigade of Kravchenko’s 4th Tank Corps arrived on the opposite bank around 4 PM. Zhukov’s trap was finally closed, with about 300,000 of the enemy in the giant cage called Stalingrad. The meeting of the northern and southern pincers was later restaged for Soviet propaganda films, but there is little doubt that the emotions shown on the screen were the same felt by Volsky’s and Kravchenko’s troops as they first joined. Although Heeresgruppe A was able to make a masterful withdrawal from the Caucasus in the months to follow, the Red Army had bottled up the 6th Army and a good deal of the 4th Panzer Army. It was a great victory. Operation Uranus was only the first step in the annihilation of Fortress Stalingrad, but it was a giant one. Despite control problems, Zhukov and his commanders in the field had shown that they had learned the lessons vital to modern mechanized warfare. Methods developed during Uranus were finely honed and used again by Zhukov and others in later operations that would shake the foundation of the German military and finally bring it crashing down.

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Pat McTaggart is an expert on World War II on the Eastern Front. He is also the author of the book Siege! about six epic sieges during the war in that theater. He resides in Elkader, Iowa. RUSSIAN FRONT

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