Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (72 page)

A few 8-cm. mortars, some 3-7-cm. anti-tank guns, and one 5-cm., as well as two light infantry guns—that was all the heavy equipment inside the pocket. There were no heavy guns or howitzers. How then was the fortress able to hold out against a powerful enemy attacking it with guns and tanks? How could a fortress hold out even for a few days without its most vital weapon—the fortress artillery?

In Kholm this problem was solved in a manner that is probably unique in military history. The fortress artillery was emplaced outside the fortress, but its fire was directed from within.

The guns which pounded the Soviet concentrations by day and night, the artillery barrages which came down to protect the German lines whenever the enemy charged—all these came from heavy batteries standing at the end of a narrow corridor which General von Uckermann's combat group had driven to within 6 miles of Kholm, straight through enemy country.

Against all the rules of military practice these batteries of 218th Artillery Regiment and Heavy Artillery Battalion 536 were emplaced at the end of this corridor, as if on a proffered dish, firing for all they were worth.

In Kholrn itself First Lieutenant Feist and Second Lieutenant Dettmann acted as forward observers and directed the fire by manually keyed telegraphy. On some days more than 1000 heavy-calibre shells would roar overhead, across Kholm, into the Russian positions or into charging enemy formations.

The forward observers in Kholm, the artillery officers and their signallers, gradually developed such skill that even individual attacking Russian tanks were shelled and knocked out by direct hits.

The Soviets were determined to take Kholm before the onset of the thaw. They wanted to get past this accursed barrier which was holding up an entire Army. On some days, therefore, they launched as many as eight attacks. They would make penetrations. They would be thrown back again in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. They would come again. They would occupy a ruin here, a snowdrift there, or a bomb-crater. An immediate counter-attack would be launched with hand-grenades and flame-throwers. Thus it went on day after day. Among the German combat groups there were specialists in the lobbing of hand-grenades who could hit pin-point targets, and there were tank-wreckers who performed their task with the unruffled expertise of spider-men working on tall buildings.

The incipient thaw with its mud and slush imposed a temporary halt on the Soviet attacks, but it also made life inside the pocket unbearable. In the cellars of the ruined houses 1500 wounded were lying on the bare floors; a few lucky ones were bedded on planks. Their lot was far worse than that of the 700 wounded who were flown out of the pocket.

Doctors and medical orderlies under the command of Dr Ocker worked until they dropped. Dr Huck, the surgeon, risked the boldest operations in an attempt to save the lives of badly wounded men. But the dirt and the lice were almost more dangerous enemies than the Russian shells and exacted a heavy toll. The situation is illustrated by two figures: there were 2200 wounded and 1550 dead.

On 12th March Second Lieutenant Hofstetter made the following entry in his diary: "The first case of typhus." There it was, the spectre of all besieged fortresses—typhus.

Vaccine was dropped. Medical personnel and doctors spent every free minute inoculating the men. War was declared on the lice. The race against time began. Then came the news: hold on—divisions under General von Arnim are on the way to get you out. But on 1st May it seemed as though all the heroism and all the sacrifices had been in vain. The Russians mounted their full-scale attack. First an artillery barrage— then the tanks. And after them the infantry. "Urra!"

The eastern end of the front snapped. The Russians were within a hundred yards of the Lovat. If they succeeded in covering these hundred yards that would be the end, for they would hold the higher river-bank and would be able to crack the fortress from inside. But they did not manage it. They were stopped by the Stukas, by Uckermann's guns, and by the sangfroid of Scherer's men.

One of these men was Sergeant Behle with his 5-cm. antitank gun at the southern cemetery. His optical sight was out of action. Five Soviet tanks were approaching. Behle aimed by looking down the barrel. He shoved in the shell. He slammed the breech shut. He fired. A loud crash—a direct hit. Behle fired twenty rounds. Not one of the five tanks got past him. The fifth was stopped only 40 yards in front of his gun.

On the airstrip Sergeant Bock was lurking behind cover with his anti-tank rifle. Standing, his barrel supported on a piece of masonry, he knocked out four Russian light tanks.

All was quiet on 2nd May. But on 3rd May action began again at 0300 hours. It was a rainy, hazy day. The German aircraft could not take off. But the men in the pocket could hear the approaching noise of battle from the south-west. "Those must be our chaps," they called out to each other. The hope lent them new strength. They must not give in now.

On 4th May they saw German Stukas dropping their bombs just outside their pocket. They were blazing a trail for the relieving units.

On 5th May the weather was again hazy. A runner came bursting into Captain Waldow's command post. "Herr Rittmeister, two German assault guns!" A moment later the soldiers could hear the clank of the tracks. Doubled forward, the grenadiers were advancing alongside the steel monsters camouflaged with twigs and branches. "Are they really our men? Or is this a Russian trick? Careful!" But now they were here, the steel-helmeted men and the self- propelled guns of the "Greif" Battalion under Lieutenant Tornau and the sappers of Lieutenant-Colonel Tromm's 411th

Infantry Regiment, a unit of 122nd Infantry Division. Second Lieutenant Dettmann, describing the scene, says, "The men were received with wonderment, like visitors from another planet."

The relief came at the eleventh hour. There were only 1200 men left in the firing-pits, the trenches, and the ruins. Some 1500 wounded were cowering in their miserable quarters. About the same number of dead lay buried between the positions. Lieutenant-Colonel Tromm joined them at the last moment: he was hit by a Soviet shell.

Kholm was once more part of the German front, part of the main fighting-line in the stabilized area south of Lake Ilmen. From then onward that line held until 1944.

5. General Vlasov

A crack Soviet Army in the swamp—The wooden road across the clearing Erika-A merciless battle—Engineers Battalion 158—Break-out from hell—The disaster to the Soviet Second Striking Army—"Don't shoot; I am General Vlasov"—Maps buried under a river.

WHAT had happened in the meantime on the Volkhov, where Vlasov's Second Striking Army had been cut off in the forests? Here, too, spring had come. The snow had melted away, and the ice on rivers and swamps had thawed. In the dug-outs and trenches the water stood waist-high. In the dead forests thousands of millions of midges woke to new life. Where columns on sledges and skis had darted swiftly only a short while before there were now water-courses and throbbing swamps. And in the very midst of this hell was General Vlasov with his fourteen Soviet rifle divisions, his three cavalry divisions, his seven rifle brigades and one armoured brigade—an Army in the swamp.

Vlasov was an energetic general. On 27th March he had burst open the German: barrier in the clearing Erika by striking at it with Siberian assault brigades and tanks from the west. Admittedly, the gap they punched was only a mile wide, but nevertheless it was a gap through which the encircled units could be supplied. In vain did the battalions of the German 58th Infantry Division and the SS Police Division try to drive Vlasov's Siberians out of the clearing. They did not succeed. They were too weak themselves, and the swampy and wooded ground on both sides of the clearing Erika was too difficult to allow the bringing up of sufficiently strong formations to seal off the Soviet pocket completely. As a result, the 58th Infantry Division and the group holding the area north of it had to stand up to continuous Soviet attacks throughout six difficult weeks.

At last, at the beginning of May 1942, a second, carefully prepared attack by the 58th Infantry Division, which had by then been reinforced, resulted in success—
i.e.,
in a solid linkup with the Police Division employed to the north of the clearing Erika.

At that stage Vlasov decided to break out of the hell of the Volkhov swamps.

But by then his regiments were no longer able to cross frozen marshes or make their way through the thick forests. The marshy forest floor and the swamps forced them to keep to roads and paths. And there was only one path open to them

—the wooden causeway across the clearing Erika.

On 20th May General of Cavalry Lindemann issued an Order of the Day to his Eighteenth Army. It opened with the words: "The Russians are pulling out of the Volkhov pocket." It was like a signal for the German men fighting on the Volkhov. On that 20th May they once more sealed the gap across the clearing Erika, Throughout the heavy fighting of these months the infantrymen, the gunners, and Panzerjägers were helped by the sappers of Engineers Battalion 158 under Captain Heinz. Day and night, under the most difficult conditions, the men were in action. Their casualties were heavy. At the end of the battle, when the gallant battalion was pulled out, the combat strength of its three sapper companies was down to three officers, three NCOs, and thirty-three men. The commander of the 2nd Company Engineers Battalion 158, Second Lieutenant Duncker, a parish priest in civilian life, was awarded the Knights Cross in recognition of the part he played in the successful fighting at the clearing Erika.

By the end of May 1942 the savage battle on the Volkhov had been won by the German troops. Those units of Vlasov's Army which had not succeeded in slipping out were now irretrievably caught in the trap. They were nine rifle divisions, six rifle brigades, and units of an armoured brigade. The end of the Soviet Second Striking Army was at

hand.

That end was frightful. Only 32,000 men survived the battle, and they were taken prisoner. Several tens of thousands were lying in the forests and swamps—drowned, starved to death, bled to death. It was an appalling field of slaughter. Huge swarms of flies buzzed over the marshes and over the corpses which were sticking out of the swamp. A terrible stench hung over the clearing. It was hell itself.

Through that hell roamed General Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov with his staff. The Germans were after him. Suddenly the general had vanished. Where was he? Had he been killed? Had he shot himself? Or was he hiding out?

Vlasov's description, complete with photograph, was dropped by German aircraft in many thousands of leaflets over the villages of the Volkhov pocket. High rewards and special leave were promised for his capture. Naturally, from that moment onward reports were coming in every day: Vlasov has been seen; Vlasov has been found dead; Vlasov has been taken prisoner. On being followed up the reports invariably proved to be based on mistakes, empty boasts, and misunderstandings.

On llth July yet another report arrived at XXVIII Corps to the effect that Vlasov had been found dead. Captain von Schwerdtner, the Intelligence Officer, set out at once. He found a dead officer covered with a general's greatcoat. He was about six foot two tall—about Vlasov's height.

But it was no longer possible to identify the body or to establish any similarity. Schwerdtner gave orders for the body to be taken to Corps and himself drove back.

In the next village the Russian headman stopped him and reported, "I've got a man locked up in my shed who looks like a partisan. There's a woman with him too, maybe an agent. Would you like to see them?"

Schwerdtner told him to lead him to the shed. The village headman unlocked it. Schwerdtner's interpreter and escort party held their machine pistols at the ready.
"Vykhodi!"
the Russian shouted. "Come out!" Out of the dark into the blinding light of day stepped a giant of a man, covered in dirt, with a beard, in an officer's tunic with leather shoulder- strap and muddy leather boots. He blinked his eyes behind the thick black horn-rimmed glasses. He saw the machine pistols, raised his hands, and said in broken German, "Don't shoot; I am General Vlasov." The sun was high in the sky. The flies were buzzing; otherwise there was complete silence.

Out of that shed in a Volkhov village history pushed a man—one of the best produced by Bolshevik Russia—a man whom the carnage and the corpses on the. Volkhov had turned into a mortal enemy of Stalin. Vlasov was Russia. If anyone could defeat Stalin it was he.

The battle in the forests by the Volkhov was one of the most frightful battles ever. The mere fact that one of the best and politically most reliable Soviet generals emerged from it as an opponent of Stalin and Bolshevism merely confirms the horror of the hell through which Vlasov's Second Striking Army had passed. From that date onward Vlasov remained a political factor of considerable importance in the background of the duel between Hitler and Stalin.