Barbarossa (49 page)

In their advance from the left bank of the Don the Russians
reverted to the techniques they had employed the previous winter,
advancing on a broad front with groups of mixed arms, maintaining
constant pressure at the price of diluting the concentration which
would be needed for a deep and narrow thrust. While Manstein was
compelled to hold his army as close as possible to Stalingrad,
Russian tactics were effective. But once Paulus had been abandoned
and the Germans could start using the space of the Don bend for
manoeuvre, it was possible to delay the Russian advance at a much
lighter cost in men and equipment. Ironically, it was after it had
forfeited all hope of relief that the Stalingrad garrison played its
biggest part in the recovery of fortune by its comrades. For
throughout January, Zhukov was pursuing the Germans with his left
hand tied behind his back. Over half the Soviet infantry and 30
percent of its artillery were still in the Stalingrad area at the
conclusion of the siege.

It seemed, then, that Manstein could continue to run risks on his
left flank to achieve what had now become his most urgent aim—the
extrication of Army Group A from the Caucasus and the redeployment of
the fresh units of which it was composed. The most powerful force in
Army Group Don was still Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, in spite of its
casualties on the Aksai, and Manstein decided to leave it in
position, granting Hoth the discretion to pull back gradually toward
Rostov while keeping open the line of retreat for Army Group A. Such
an operation was just feasible, given the obvious decline in Russian
offensive vigour and the ability of Paulus to hold out for at least
one more month.

It soon became evident that there were other obstacles to this
course of action, and they threatened to be more intractable than the
enemy in the field. The first stumbling block was to be found in that
familiar German handicap—duality and contradiction in the chain
of command. Army Group A had been commanded by Kleist since October.
Nominally it was of equal status to Army Group Don. Both received
their orders from OKH and did not communicate directly, other than on
particular and incidental problems at divisional level. In addition,
the army group, like the 6th Army, was one of those which were
subject to a great deal of personal attention from Hitler, and so
received separate (and sometimes conflicting) orders from OKW.

Hitler did not at this time envisage a complete evacuation of the
Caucasus—he thought in terms of contracting the front, to leave
a "balcony" from which a later operation against the
Russian oil fields could be mounted. He believed that it was
important to hold on to Novorossisk, thereby confining the Russian
Black Sea fleet to one port (Batum); that even if Rostov should fall
it would still be possible to supply Kleist across the strait from
the Crimea; and that German presence in the Kuban as well as at Kerch
would seal off the Sea of Azov. Hitler's argument was at a strategic
level. At the start of the campaign he had said, ". . . if we do
not capture the oil supplies of the Caucasus by the autumn, then I
shall have to face the fact that we cannot win this war." The
projected "balcony" offered him the chance of one more
lunge at the oil fields if the main front could be stabilised, and
from a defensive aspect, the Kuban protected the Crimea, which in
turn protected the Reich's only source of natural oil—the
Rumanian fields at Ploesti.

Manstein and Kleist, in contrast, viewed things from a narrower
tactical (not to say personal) standpoint. Manstein did not want
Kleist, and his staff, and his independent command structure. What he
wanted were Kleist's fresh and intact divisions—particularly
the 1st Panzer Army—and he wanted them under his own control.
Kelist, not unnaturally, was very reluctant to see them go. He had no
taste for seeing his vigorous and undefeated army reduced in size and
strength to a mere appendix. In the result, although the
subordination of Army Group A to Manstein was "under consideration at OKH for some time," nothing more was heard of the
idea.

[It is not hard to read between the lines of Manstein's comment on
the command dilemma:

. . . Generally speaking, it is not a good thing to put an army
or army group under a headquarters of equal status. In the present
critical situation, however,
this would probably have had its
advantages
—provided, of course, that no strings were
attached. Any possibility of interference by Hitler
or of Army
Group A's invoking his decisions in opposition to my own
had to
be expressly barred. Hitler, however, was unwilling to accept my
conditions, and Army Group A consequently remained autonomous. [My
italics.]
]

The result of this quadripartite division of opinion and
attitude—between Manstein, OKH, Hitler, and Kleist—was
that no positive order was ever sent to Army Group A as a whole.
Instead it was moved about piecemeal, one division or two at a time,
a course of action which gave the maximum scope for muddle and
procrastination.

It has already been shown how these delays affected the striking
power of Hoth's relief force in December. At that time it had been a
question of moving two divisions; in January, when the whole future
destination of the army group was under consideration, the inertia
became leaden. The army group staff contended that "a
substantial period of grace" would be required if a large-scale
evacuation were intended. Immovable weapons would have to be lifted
from their emplacements, reliefs arranged, stores packed and
despatched, horses brought up to the line, wounded moved from the
hospitals . . . Then again, what were the specific movement orders?
Was the army group to move west, or northwest? Or was it to divide?
Was it to take up intermediate positions en route, and if so which?
Could the positions and times be clearly scheduled? Was it to halt on
the Kuma line? In default of positive instructions to the contrary it
would halt on the Kuma line. To reach the Kuma line the army group
would require twenty-five days, as "in the interests of getting
the equipment out" the withdrawal would take place "sector
by sector."

When Manstein finally succeeded in getting one division (SS
Viking) given to Hoth, he had to supply most of the fuel to move it.
The 1st Panzer Army staff also pleaded fuel shortage for its
continued delay in relieving the 16th Motorised at Elista. Kleist
made inordinate demands on the railway system, claiming that 155
trains would be required to move the army back to the Don, and that
when this had been done he would need 88 more to stock up the Kuban
bridgehead. On 18th January, Manstein, who had threatened to resign
ten days earlier, was still grumbling, ". . . whether First
Panzer Army will be withdrawn towards Rostov or into the Kuban is
anybody's guess." By now, so much time had been consumed that it
was too late to move the infantry—except across the strait of
Kerch—and a very good division from the 1st Panzer Army, the
50th (Mountain), also had to be left behind. On the last day of
January, the 13th Panzer, for which the door was still being held
open at Rostov by Hoth's battle-weary formations, was reallocated to
Army Group A, turned around, and sent back to the Kuban. The result
of this was that there were nearly 250,000 men (over 400,000 if
satellites are included) fit, well equipped, but virtually
immobilised, at the extreme southern end of the Eastern front.

Army Group A was kept in being, its area to include the Crimea as
well as the Kuban, and Kleist was made a Field Marshal "for his
achievements in conducting the retreat."

[Kleist has given his own version of the events of January 1943,
under interrogation by Liddell Hart at the end of the war,
subsequently published in
The Other Side of the Hill
, pp.
230-31. (Published in the U.S. under the title
The German Generals
Talk
.) His account is extremely foreshortened and inaccurate,
takes the traditional avoiding action by blaming Hitler and, where
factual, runs counter to the other evidence—namely that of
Manstein and the OKH movement orders. However, in fairness to the
Field Marshal, it should be cited:

When the Russians were only forty miles from Rostov, and my
armies were 390 miles east of Rostov,"(a) Hitler sent me an
order that I was not to withdraw under any circumstances. That looked
like a sentence of doom. On the next day, (b) however, I received a
fresh order—to retreat, and bring away everything with me in
the way of equipment. That would have been difficult enough in any
case, but became much more so in the depths of the Russian winter.
(c)

The protection of my left flank back to the Don from Elista had
originally been entrusted to the Rumanian Army Group under Marshal
Antonescu. (d) Antonescu himself did not arrive on the scene, thank
God! Instead the sector was placed under Manstein, whose Army Group
South included part of the Rumanian forces. With Manstein's help we
succeeded in withdrawing through the Rostov bottleneck before the
Russians could cut us off ... Even so, Manstein was so hard-pressed
that I had to send him some of my own divisions (e) to help in
holding off the Russians who were pushing down the Don towards
Rostov. The most dangerous time of the retreat was the last half of
January. (f)

The following comments suggest themselves:

(a) These distances never coexisted. For example, from the Sal,
south of Kotelnikovo, to Rostov, is 130 miles. From Rostov to the
Kuma is under 300.

(b) The date of these two "orders" is not given, and
there is no other record of their having emanated from OKW.

(c) The climate prevailing was unseasonably mild, in an area which
has the mildest winter weather in all Russia.

(d) Presumably Kleist is referring to the order of battle prior to
the start of the Russian counteroffensive on 19th November, 1942.
There was no Rumanian army incorporated in Manstein's dispositions
here (i.e., after December 1942).

(c) See text above.

(f) If by "the retreat" Kleist refers to the withdrawal
of the 1st Panzer Army (the 17th Army remained in the Kuban), this
was not even authorised by OKH until "the last half of January."
(
Vide
Manstein, quoted above.)]

Hoth had fought a clever and flexible battle, with forces which
had been in almost continuous action for two months, many of them for
far longer, and his tanks were completely worn out by their constant
marching and countermarching. Nonetheless, it must not be taken as a
detraction of Hoth's skill and the endurance of his soldiers to
repeat that the main burden throughout the month of January was being
carried by the beleaguered divisions of Paulus' 6th Army. This should
always be borne in mind when the argument of the "useless
sacrifice" at Stalingrad is expounded.

After the failure of the relief attempt at Christmas, Zhukov had
stepped up the rate of transfer of armour and mechanised forces from
the Stalingrad perimeter, but he continued to retain a total strength
there of nearly half a million men, a ratio of two to one against the
Germans. In contrast, the forces deployed between the Don and the
Sal, toward Rostov, were by no means as strong as the Germans
believed at the time, or claimed subsequently. Only the 2nd Guards
Army was properly balanced, with tank and self-propelled artillery
brigades; four of the infantry corps had been badly mauled in the
fighting on the Aksai; and the two fresh infantry corps, the 51st and
28th, did not have the mobility to keep up with their prey in the
open conditions which characterised these battles.

The real moment of crisis had come and passed on 8th January, when
the Russians presented a demand for the surrender of the 6th Army,
and it had been rejected. The appeal had been signed by Rokossovski
and Voronov, and offered

Honourable surrender . . . sufficient rations . . care for the
wounded . . . officers to keep their weapons . . . repatriation after
the war to Germany or any other country.

Hitler was still in daily touch with Paulus by short-wave radio,
and the army commander would not consider surrender without the
Führer's permission. Nor is there evidence that any but a tiny
proportion of the rank and file thought seriously of taking advantage
of the Russian offer. "We did not have much faith in Russian
promises." "Anything was better than Siberia." "We
all knew 'Ivan' too well; one never knew what he would do next,
promises or no promises." This was the typical reaction,
although by that time the beleaguered army was suffering miseries
which would have impelled any Allied commander to surrender, on
humanitarian grounds alone. Some German authorities even attribute to
the 6th Army more altruistic motives: ". . . we were surrounded
by three Russian armies which would be free for other operations if
we capitulated . . ." And there was always the hope—for
man must have hope, however slender—that they would be
relieved.

Until 10th January the Russians had mounted no serious attacks
against Paulus' perimeter, but had been content to maintain harassing
fire from their immensely superior artillery and conduct local
operations aimed at paving the way for the final assault. Throughout
December and the first week in January conditions within the
perimeter got worse and worse.

Only twenty to thirty cartridges were distributed daily to each
man, with the order to use them solely to repulse an attack. The
ration of bread was reduced to 120 and then 70 grams—a slice
only! Water came from melted snow. Because of a lack of potatoes a
kilogram box had to make do for fifteen men. There was no meat; we
ate our horses at Christmas.

The 6th Army's minimum requirements of supplies of all kinds had
been estimated at 550 tons. The round trip from the airfields at
Tatsinskaya and Morozovsk involved a flight time of nearly three
hours—excluding that spent loading and unloading—so, with
only one sortie per day likely, this meant that a force of 225 Ju 52
aircraft would have to be serviceable every day. In fact, there were
never more than eighty Junkers operational at a time. Their efforts
were supplemented by two squadrons of Heinkel 111's (which had a
capacity of only 1.5 tons), but the largest amount ever brought into
Stalingrad in one twenty-four-hour period was 180 tons, on 14th
December. After Christmas, when Tatsinskaya and Morozovsk had been
overrun, the nightly average fell to about 60 tons.