Hitler's Panzer Armies on the Eastern Fron (25 page)

By the time of the Soviet summer offensive, Operation Bagration, the panzer army had no panzer divisions under command. In fact, higher headquarters had siphoned off many of Reinhardt’s units, assuming there would be no major enemy attacks and, as had previously been the case, he could handle any crises thrown his way. However, his seven infantry and two Luftwaffe field divisions manning a 220km front would face an overwhelming array of adversaries of long standing: 4th Shock, 6th Guards, 43rd, 39th, 5th, 11th Guards, 5th Guards Tank Armies of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian Fronts, with 24 and 28 divisions and 3 and 10 tank brigades respectively (plus numerous other
combat and support units). Soviet maskrovka (deception) plans worked on both the strategic and operational levels: Busch felt secure enough to travel back to Germany on the eve of Bagration, while Reinhardt’s intelligence staff fell for the feint towards Polotsk and missed indications of the real attack on Vitebsk.
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For the men of IX Corps the first attack on 22 June, the third anniversary of Barbarossatag, felt real enough. That day, the 43rd and 6th Guards Armies overran the 206th and 252nd Infantry Divisions. The 5th and 39th Armies had similar success against VI Corps south of Vitebsk and brushed aside a feeble counterattack by the 95th Infantry. Busch arrived back at his headquarters that afternoon and for the next 24 hours tried to rally a defense. The two divisions Reinhardt received as emergency reinforcements could not hold the Soviets back. By the second day of the offensive, VI Corps had fallen back and now it was Busch who requested permission to abandon Vitebsk. On that day and again on the 24th, OKH told him ‘No’. Two days later, Busch flew back to Obersalzberg to see Hitler in person, only to be refused again. Everywhere Red Army units took advantage of the chaos. On 25 June, they cut the rail line at Bogushevsk and continued on to the former Barbarossa battlefield (and high ground) at Senno, which essentially meant that LIII Corps had become trapped in Vitebsk. Now that it was too late, Hitler agreed to let LIII Corps escape. Four of five German divisions departed, while 206th Infantry remained to anchor the city’s defense.
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As a Fester Platz, a flawed concept for the defensive battles dating from the previous winter, the commander of Vitebsk gave his personal word to defend as long as possible. Ammunition and food had been stockpiled for the better part of four divisions plus the Luftwaffe’s 10th Flak Brigade now holed up there. Third Panzer lacked sufficient reserves to execute a viable counterattack; the three-division-strong relief effort that Reinhardt managed to hobble together came within 5–6km of the Vitebsk perimeter, but could get no closer. The LIII Corps commander, Lieutenant General Friedrich Gollwitzer, did pull off a breakout of sorts. In the end, approximately 8,000 men made it to the relative safety of the Third Panzer Army’s lines, while nearly 20,000 perished when the worthless ‘fortress’ fell on the 27th. A 40–50km gap now existed, into which the 3rd Belorussian Front sent the 5th Guards Tank Army and 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps. By 28 June, Hitler had had enough of Busch’s mediocre leadership and replaced him at the top of Army Group Center with the trusty Model. By the end of the month, the panzer army consisted of the weak IX Corps of three divisions with a total of about seventy artillery pieces: VI Corps had drifted south in an effort to maintain contact with Fourth Army, while LIII Corps had been obliterated at Vitebsk.
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The 5th Panzer Division raced by rail to Borisov, the site of the worst breech, but its counterattack was too small to achieve more than limited, tactical gains. At this stage of the war it was the Germans’ turn to mount tiny, ineffectual tactical counterattacks, when only larger operational assaults could possibly make a difference. By early July, crumbs of the once-proud panzer army trickled west to try and establish a legitimate defense along the Dvina and Ulla Rivers. That line could not hold the Soviets back, however. By 7 July, their advanced elements had already reached Vilnius. At this point, novel strategic factors came into play that complicated the entire northern portion of the Nazi-Soviet War. On 10 July, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, Kriegsmarine commander, met Hitler at the latter’s East Prussian headquarters. He explained that Army Group North could not continue to fall back to the southwest along with Army Group Center. Instead it would have to withdraw, on its own if absolutely necessary, to the northwest and toward the mouth of the Dvina. His navy needed the port of Riga if the Baltic Sea was to remain a ‘German lake’: essential for U-boat training, merchant shipping, and as Hitler noted, the continued participation of Finland as an Axis co-belligerent. In the first two weeks of Operation Bagration, Third Panzer had lost ten divisions; Reinhardt thought only of his army’s survival and fought on accordingly. Therefore, from this time onward, Third Panzer’s connection to the southern end of Army Group North grew ever more tenuous. As the summer continued, and despite the best efforts of many, the army group drifted north basically to ‘fight its own war’ until May 1945.
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By the second week of July, fighting in the Third Panzer Army area centered on encircled Vilnius. This Fester Platz had a 4,000-man garrison of assorted army units plus some Luftwaffe flak batteries (including 10 88s). Reinhardt created a relief force, ‘Kampfgruppe 1067’, consisting of a couple of field replacement battalions, and sent it towards Vilnius. When it too became encircled, Reinhardt now had two pockets to rescue. However, he said that he would not squander any more strength trying to save the stronghold, even if directly ordered by Hitler: ‘Constantly acting against my better judgment is more than I can do.’
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He told Model he had only enough strength for one mission: link up with Army Group North or relieve Vilnius: which would it be? Model told him to save the city. For the sake of his trapped men, he sent the 6th Panzer (with twenty Panthers), which had just arrived by rail, plus a tank battalion from Grossdeutschland (the division also began to arrive in the panzer army sector after a furious rail ‘blitz’ transport across Germany). This force reached Kampfgruppe 1067 about the same time that Hitler gave the men in Vilnius permission to escape – 2,000 of them made it back to friendly lines, while Red Army troops entered the city on 1 July. A week later, the 2nd Guards
Army caved in the panzer army’s southern flank when six guards rifle divisions surrounded one German division. The defense ‘fell apart’ as the Soviets created a penetration almost 60km wide and the same distance deep. Somehow, toward the end of July, the Third Panzer coalesced along its new line, running generally along the middle Niemen River, anchored at Kaunas and Grodno and even made solid contact with Fourth Army on the right. Its 13,850 men combat strength equaled that of an undernourished infantry division. Facing it were 18 rifle divisions, 3 tank corps, 1 mechanized corps and 3 tank brigades.
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Sadly, it seemed that with this correlation of forces there could be but one outcome to the upcoming battle.

On 29 July, about half of this Soviet force plunged over the Niemen, south of Kaunas. By the next day, they had advanced to Mariampol, but then halted of their own accord. Two divisions plus Fallschirmjäger Regiment 16 held out, defending the old First World War fortifications around Kaunas, but were soon in danger of being entrapped like so many other German units. Model would not acquiesce to Reinhardt’s request to evacuate the city. The panzer army commander neared the limit of his endurance. ‘Very well, if that is how things stand,’ he told Model, ‘then
I
will save my troops.’ At ten minutes past midnight on the 30th, he unilaterally ordered his men to abandon Kaunas. One can see that nearly three years of commanding many of the same units and men over much of the same ground was having an effect on Reinhardt. It was clearly time for Reinhardt to move on, and on 16 August, Colonel General Erhard Raus arrived to take command of Third Panzer. Reinhardt did not go far, however, he ascended to command of Army Group Center, where he would have to work all the more closely with Hitler.
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Colonel General Erhard Raus

Born in 1889 in Moravia, Raus became a lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Army in 1912. He fought in light infantry and bicycle units on the Russian Front during the First World War: an excellent example of the type of Wehrmacht officer whose First World War experience should have better prepared the Ostheer for the environment encountered from 1941–45. Following the Anschluss between Austria and Nazi Germany, Raus received a colonel’s rank in 1938. He sat out both the Polish and French campaigns.

Raus took command of Rifle Regiment 4 in July 1940, and then Rifle Brigade 6 in April 1941. Often at the front of XLI Panzer Corps, Raus led the way toward Leningrad, earning both classes of Iron Cross within two weeks and the Knight’s Cross after four months. Von Leeb failed to exploit Raus’ Luga River bridgehead, and soon the 6th Panzer transferred to the central sector to participate in Operation Typhoon. Often serving as acting division commander during that offensive, Raus’ men came very close to Moscow only to fall back, defending with his last two operational panzers. During the winter of 1941–42, Ninth Army commander Model put Raus in charge of defending the army’s rear areas. In April 1942, the 6th Panzer Division transferred to France to refit, with Raus now officially its commanding general. That November, disaster at Stalingrad cut this training short as 6th Panzer hurriedly railed east. Raus organized his rail shipment by ‘combat trains’ rather than for bureaucratic convenience, which minimized casualties upon arrival.

The 6th Panzer Division played a central role in the failed Sixth Army rescue effort. After this operation, von Manstein heaped praise on the ‘experienced old panzer division’ under its ‘admirable commander’. After retreating to the Ukraine, his new command, XI Corps (sometimes called Provisional Corps Raus) took part in the third Battle of Kharkov, in March 1943. He commanded the same headquarters during Citadel, the last Battle of Kharkov and the defense of the eastern Ukraine. With Raus now wearing Oak Leaves, XI Corps held open the Eighth Army’s bridgehead over the Dnepr River that autumn.

Hitler replaced Hoth with Raus at the head of Fourth Panzer Army on 1 November 1943. Determined not to retreat as had been his predecessor’s downfall, Raus organized the counterattacks by army and SS units at Fastov and Zithomir. Raus arranged his formations to absorb Vatutin’s winter offensive, but nevertheless had to give ground in the face of superior force. He did succeed in keeping his panzer army intact and in preventing the Soviets from achieving a breakthrough. On 1 May 1944, Raus moved south to take command of the First Panzer Army, now backed up to the Carpathian Mountains. At times during this period, he also had command of Hungarian and Slovak units.

Raus took over Third Panzer Army in the Baltic region on 16 August. Here he led a quick counterattack to regain contact with Army Group North in Courland (northwest Latvia) and also served under SS leader Heinrich Himmler. Hitler relieved Raus on 12 March, and the general spent the years 1945–47 as a POW. After the war, Raus authored a number of monographs for the US Army Historical Division. Raus was fluent in Italian, Czech and Slovenian and spoke some French. Raus proved his worth in the tactical and operational levels and in both attack and defense. He died in 1956.

The Third Panzer’s right stabilized after the loss of Kaunas, but less than 20km from German territory in East Prussia. In early August, the defenses of Army Group North on its left began to fall apart. Raus’ first day on the job as panzer army commander proved to be eventful. For starters, he had inherited a poorly planned operation, Doppelkopf, an effort to rejoin the two army groups along the Baltic coast, that involved more panzer divisions than the ‘panzer’ army had seen in years. Next, his relief force would have to cover 130km of
rivers, forests and marsh. However, thanks in large part to the German Army’s new Chief of Staff, Guderian, quite a number of panzer units massed in northern Lithuania. The XXXIX Panzer Corps (General of Panzer Troops Dietrich von Saucken, 4th, 5th and 12th Panzer Divisions) and Panzer Unit Strachwitz (SS Brigade Gross and 101st Panzer Brigade) assembled near the port town of Libau. The XL Panzer (General of Panzer Troops Otto von Knobelsdorff, 7th and 14th Panzer, 1st Infantry Divisions and Grossdeutschland) started from Tauroggen and attacked north toward Siauliai. With so many panzer thrusts, the Soviets had difficulty discerning Raus’ Schwerpunkt, if there even was one. After some initial success, the Germans ran into 10 rifle and 3 artillery divisions supported by 4 anti-tank brigades of 1st Baltic Front that were fully prepared and 2 lines deep. The XL Panzer halted on the Venta River, having gained only 40km.
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With 14th Panzer Division covering its exposed right flank, Grossdeutschland made it to Siauliai on 18 August. And 2 days later, XXXIX Panzer and Major General Hyazinzh Graf von Strachwitz’s formation moved out again, this time supported by 284 rounds of naval gunfire provided by the heavy cruiser
Prinz Eugen
, and destroyers
Z-25
and
Z-28
. Red Army units at Siauliai held out, but von Strachwitz prevailed at Tukums on the Gulf of Riga against elements of the 51st Army. When his men finally linked up with the 281st Security Division on the 20th, they opened an 18km-wide corridor to Army Group North. The first truck convoys headed north the very next day. Nearly simultaneously, Raus fought a small, sharp action to firm up the corridor’s shoulder. He withdrew his 400 remaining AFVs to Auce and then attacked toward the high ground near Doblen, where Red Army units overwatched the newly won strip of land. The assault surprised the 51st Army, and on the second day carried the heights with the help of Sixteenth Army’s Provisional Corps Kleffel (81st and 93rd Infantry Divisions), which attacked south from Riga.
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Occasionally, the Germans could pull off a small victory, but this armor concentration on the Baltic coast meant that somewhere else along the front opportunities to create a panzer grouping with operational significance were lost.