Hitler's Panzer Armies on the Eastern Fron (32 page)

A couple of hours later, at 0215, Blau began for the men of Fourth Panzer Army. Hoth’s Schwerpunkt, XLVIII Panzer punched through the first Soviet defenses and by noon had gone 16km, crossed the Tim River, then went another 16km to cross the Kschen. The XXIV covered the left flank, and the 16th Motorized (part of Hungarian 3rd Corps, and the only element of that formation to cross the Tim) covered the right. The death and destruction all around as Hoth’s men passed over the shattered Soviet defenses was welcomed news: the enemy did not seem to be withdrawing as he had earlier during Fridericus II and Wilhelm. Rain on Blau’s second and third days slowed XLVIII Panzer, but not so much that it could not overrun 40th Army headquarters. Operationally and strategically the Red defenses were uncoordinated and hamstrung by logistics woes. On 1 July, Grossdeutschland passed 24th Panzer to take the lead of XLVIII Panzer and reached the Olym River, 60km from Voronezh. In the first six days of the campaign, Grossdeutschland destroyed 100 tanks without losing a single panzer. The 16th Motorized continued to guard the right flank of General of Panzer Troops Werner Kempfs panzer corps. Stalin and his staff urged an attack against Hoth’s spearhead, in the area around Gorshechnoye, where the Soviets believed that they had a 2: 1 superiority over Fourth Panzer’s 500 AFVs. After much milling around by 1st, 4th, 16th, 17th and 24th Tank Corps, a small engagement did occur south of the town on 1 July. None of this did much to slow down Hoth, and by the 2nd,
even Stavka admitted their Voronezh defenses had deteriorated.
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Not that it would matter all that much in the end, Stalin and the rest of the Soviet high command had already decided that this year they would give up space if it meant keeping its army in the field.

Hoth continued toward Voronezh according to original OKH plans. By the 5th, XLVIII Panzer had three bridgeheads over the Don quite near the city, while 9th Panzer and 3rd Motorized Divisions of XXIV Panzer began a spirited five-day armored battle against the 5th Tank Army. Over 800 KVs and T-34s attacked half that number of panzers, the latter supported by Luftwaffe CAS. But the Wehrmacht was still the master of the blitzkrieg and could run circles around the still inexperienced Soviet commanders, so the tank army counterattack achieved little. Kempf’s men approached Voronezh that same evening of 5 July, but initially were told not to enter the city. The next day, elements of 24th Panzer, Grossdeutschland and 3rd Motorized occupied the western portion of city from the west and north anyway, and later that day von Bock asked permission to do what had already been accomplished. The battle for Voronezh would shortly cost von Bock his job. As for the Soviets, loss of the city and the ineffectiveness of the 5th Tank Army’s attack, seem to have confirmed to Stavka at least, that the time for the general retreat had arrived. An overall loss of firm control by various Red Army field units over their organizations led to an unorganized retreat around the same time. The end result was that by 6-7 July, much of Bryansk and Southwest Front pulled back and the Germans, specifically von Bock, noticed the weakening resistance immediately. Unfortunately, Hitler only partially understood the meaning of this, even thought it was happening before his eyes and Halder missed it completely.
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However, the Germans seemed to be losing some of their mental alacrity, perhaps Stalin’s staff was now operating within a faster decision loop, so the German high command had real difficulty adjusting to the new reality. Von Bock suggested OKH needed to reconsider Blau’s objectives. In other words, unless they made some changes fast, the opportunity for the intended Vernichtungsschalcht might soon slip away.

Von Bock therefore ordered much of Fourth Panzer (XLVIII and XXIV Panzer Corps) south on 6 July, for an intended link up with Sixth Army forces at Rossosh. Three days into the operation reality intruded, the recurring nightmare of logistics, and derailed his grandiose plans. Some mobile units sat at Voronezh and waited to be relieved (3rd and 16th Motorized), while others were stranded all over the steppe without fuel (23rd and 24th Panzer, Grossdeutschland). By 11 July, Hoth’s van met Sixth Army’s XL Panzer and VIII Corps and absorbed them into his panzer army. In fact, they now became the Fourth Panzer’s main striking force since the organizations with which he
began Blau were waiting to be refueled. Fourth Panzer received orders on the 12th to continue past Millerovo and another junction, this time with von Kleist. Von Bock accurately predicted that two panzer armies’ worth of combat power clustered around the town to no advantage. Again, the massive Kessel with its huge haul of POWs failed to materialize, making false any analogies between Lochvitsa ten months earlier and Millerovo. That von Bock was right made no impact on higher headquarters, which changed Hoth’s direction of attack from east (possibly Stalingrad) to south (probably Rostov). On the next day von Bock made a counter offer to Halder, a drive on Morozovsk, well over 100km east, as the field marshal believed, with a real chance of catching more than just a few retreating Southwest Front troops. Meanwhile at Rastenburg, Hitler got involved and within a very short time that same day von Bock was out of a job - again. Von Bock took the fall, probably justifiably, for poor planning and execution that hamstrung Blau. Suffice it to say, four reasons for this are: 1. Inadequate logistics planning and preparations; 2. Too much effort expended on empty victory at Voronezh; 3. Failure to keep panzers concentrated; and 4. Hitler sensed a victory in the making and did not want to share credit with von Bock.
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Barely a fortnight into Blau (or what was left of it), however, the operation bore little resemblance to its original conception.

On that same fateful 13 July, new instructions came down calling for another giant trap at Rostov. Hoth would cover von Kleist’s left flank as the two panzer armies drove south-southwest, even brushing by Morozovsk as suggested by von Bock. Then Fourth Panzer would cross the Don and follow the river west, presumably trapping prodigious numbers of Soviets. Indeed, First and Fourth Panzer Armies joined hands near Millerovo on the 15th, and a day later Hoth reached the Don at Tsimlyansky. Two days later, Hitler overrode Halder’s objection to the concentration of so much armor to so little purpose
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and thereafter, Hoth was not to cross the Don, but try to close the supposed encirclement north of the big river. Just 48 hours after that, on the 19th, the Führer changed his mind again: now half of Hoth’s army would remain to the north of the Don and participate in the Rostov battle, while the other half crossed over, but would move first east then west or southwest! Fourth Panzer, which had grown quite large when it absorbed two mechanized divisions from the Sixth Army on the 11th, eight days later gave Paulus the XIV Panzer (one panzer and two motorized divisions near Millerovo) and LI Corps (three infantry divisions by Morozovsk) for the evolving Stalingrad attack. Jerked first one way and then the other, Hoth never figured prominently in the battle for Rostov, and on the 24th, handed over XXIV Panzer (one panzer division) to the Sixth Army. In the wide open spaces of the steppe, pulled along two operational axes and countless tactical axes, the Germans
violated most tenants of their own blitzkrieg doctrine, with no concentrated mass of panzers and no large enemy force to vernichten (destroy) even if there had been.

One reason there was no sizeable Soviet force ready to be destroyed is that Stavka could not divine where Hitler and Blau were going. Besides deliberately avoiding a repetition of the disasters of 1941, Operation Kremlin (see Chapter 2) had worked so well that through early July Stalin expected a German turn north toward Moscow at any moment. Also, with two divergent main axes and panzer armies zigzagging throughout the great Don bend, Stavka did not know where to make a serious stand. But while First Panzer and Sixth Armies had clear missions following Führer Directive 45 (Caucasus and Stalingrad, respectively), Hoth, greatly reduced in size, continued to drift. On 21 July his men moved to the south bank of the Don in order to advance against the oil region, only to be redirected a short time later toward Stalingrad. In the meantime, Fourth Panzer kept heading toward the Caucasus, roughly between the Manych and Don Rivers. At a meeting at Führer headquarters on the last day of the month, Hitler revised his eight-day-old directive (much as he had done a year earlier with Directives 33 and 34). Forthwith, Hoth’s headquarters plus the XLVIII Panzer, IV Corps and Romanian VI Corps were reoriented toward Stalingrad. Here, even the robust Sixth Army was not strong enough to overcome ever-growing Soviet resistance. So the panzer army made yet another 90 degree turn and headed northeast. This surprise move caught the Soviets unaware again, and against 51st Army’s disorganized defenses, Fourth Panzer reached Kotelnikovo, about 150km from Stalin’s city on 2 August. By 4 August, what was left of the panzer army crossed the Aksay R. River and semi-officially entered the Battle for Stalingrad from the city’s relatively unprotected southern side.
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As happened so often during the Nazi-Soviet War, inadequate German logistical arrangements came to the Red Army’s rescue while Hoth waited for Paulus. Arranged Romanians, XLVIII Panzer and IV Corps (left to right), Hoth came to a halt along the Aksay R. River. Over the next fortnight his men barely advanced 20km. To the north, Paulus’ LI Corps won a surprise bridgehead over the Don which was then exploited by his XXIV Panzer. With this new development, during the last week of August, Army Group B commander von Weichs ordered Fourth Panzer and Sixth Armies to unite for a final drive on Stalingrad. That was easier said than done, especially for two armies hanging tenuously at the end of fragile logistical threads. By 26 August, Hoth had made only modest progress against the 64th Army, now part of the Southeast Front, commanded by one of the Ostheer’s chief nemeses, Eremenko. (On that same day another general, his name even more dreadful to German
ears, became Deputy to the Supreme Commander (Stalin) and 72 hours later arrived in Stalingrad: Zhukov.) A day later the first rain in five weeks came to the desert. At the same time, a Red Army attack came out of the region of Lake Sarpa into Hoth’s right flank. Two days later, undeterred by the ineffective threat and well supported by the Luftwaffe, XLVIII Panzer reached the Karpovka River, which it overcame on 30 August. With the forward movement of Paulus, the two inner armies of both Soviet fronts defending Stalingrad needed to be pulled back to the city to avoid encirclement. Here, the stubborn defense against the Romanians worked against them. But while Soviet resistance against the Romanians and in front of the Sixth Army stood firm and made a junction of the two armies impossible, Fourth Panzer could see no enemy to its front. Therefore on 2 September, von Weichs ordered Hoth to drive on Stalingrad, with or without Paulus. Within 24 hours, Hoth and Paulus linked up at Goncharry, fewer than 20km from the city center. Kempfs 14th Panzer and 29th Motorized Divisions pushed aside the 62nd and 64th Armies and 29th Motorized Division reached the Volga at Kuperosnoye on the 10th. Simultaneously, LI Corps pulled along side to the left, at the very edge of Stalingrad. The 29th lost its foothold with the Volga to Soviet counterattacks that same day and the battle for that tiny suburb raged for four days. Hoth then directed Kempf to continuing assaulting northward, all the while telling von Weichs that combat in Stalingrad exceeded anything yet experienced in the USSR by the Wehrmacht.
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On 13 September, Hoth’s 14th and 24th Panzer plus the 29th Motorized Division joined by some Sixth Army units, attacked the 62nd Army. They reached the railroad station and Tsaritsa River the next morning and even the Volga that afternoon. Hoth lost XLVIII Panzer to Paulus on the 15th, and here our detailed account of the Battle for Stalingrad will end, its story has been told too well, too often elsewhere. Suffice it to say, Fourth Panzer would hardly behave like a panzer army for the next two months. As is well known, the urban fighting was gruesome, casualties mounted inexorably, life was miserable, the wounded did not receive adequate care, the men had to eat their horses, camels and whatever other scraps they could forage. In short, life during the Rattenkrieg (war of the rats) of Stalingrad was no life at all, and death lurked around every corner, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After the war von Kleist wrote that Hoth ‘could have taken Stalingrad without a fight at the end of July’, but Hitler diverted Hoth toward the lower Don where no need existed. At the end of August and in early September, Stalin, Zhukov and the rest of the Soviet high command worried about their ability to hold Stalingrad with only 40,000 defenders in the city and Hoth and Paulus so close. Both points of view are probably correct.
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As had been the case with Moscow the year
earlier, if Hitler had really wanted to take Stalingrad and if the Wehrmacht had really been focused on a single objective, the Germans probably could have done it. But that is another story. On 17 November, a memorandum from the Führer came down the panzer army’s chain of command to the men of the 297th Infantry Division:

I know of the difficulties of the struggle for Stalingrad and of the sinking combat strength. But the difficulties for the Russians are greater, especially with the Volga iced over. If we use this time now we will save blood later. Therefore, I expect leaders to use conspicuous energy, and troops, demonstrable dash, and as a minimum to stake all on attacking through the weapons factory and metallurgy works to the Volga, and to capture these parts of the city.
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For Hitler to use the word ‘dash’ (Schneid) to describe any part of the Stalingrad fighting indicates he actually had no clue ‘of the difficulties of the struggle’ there. Paulus’ Landsers almost granted Hitler’s wish and got close to the Volga in numerous places. Not that it mattered, two days after Hitler’s missive the Soviets launched Operation Uranus.