Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (36 page)

While Bock focused his frustrations on his superiors at OKH, their stance was in fact more moderate than the increasingly conservative attitude emanating from Hitler's ‘Wolf's Lair’ (
Wolfschanze
) headquarters in
East Prussia. By the evening of 25 June Halder's headquarters received orders expressing the concern that
Army Group Centre and
South were operating in too much depth – a charge Halder dismissively rejected as: ‘The old song!’ This referred to Hitler's faltering nerve in sustaining operations towards the English Channel the year before. Halder then obstinately declared: ‘Our intentions will as a result of this not be changed.’
⁴¹

On the same evening Halder sent orders to Army Group Centre informing Bock of his intended reorganisation of the command structure.
⁴²
This would not in fact take effect until 3 July but, when Bock discovered what was intended, he again found himself at odds with his superiors at OKH and protested against the decision
. He even implied his own refusal to comply with the orders, writing in his diary for 26 June: ‘The “pocket” can best be taken care of by the two armies that created it and that is how I am going to do it.’
⁴³
Evidently Bock shared Halder's rigid stubbornness and contempt for higher authority, which were paralleled in the wilful ego of each man and embittered the process of strategic direction, particularly given their respective agendas privately being pursued. Adding a further complication was the erratic flow of instructions from Hitler's headquarters which were received as unwelcome interference in the exclusive preserve of army affairs. Not surprisingly, the outcome was an undeclared wrestle for control in which each man assumed foremost authority for the direction of Army Group Centre
. It was now that the lamentable planning process with its confused strategic conception was making itself evident, engendering much ill-feeling and frustration, even though the campaign was only days old and the army was clearly dominating the battlefield.

When Brauchitsch paid a visit to Army Group Centre's headquarters on the morning of 26 June to offer his congratulations on the developing pocket, Bock was still so annoyed at its premature closure that he tersely slighted Brauchitsch's
praise, retorting: ‘I doubt there's anything left inside now!’
⁴⁴
This, however, was only sarcasm on Bock's part and the new task of sealing the eastern perimeter of the pocket, containing hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops, many attempting to fight their way out, presented a formidable problem. Reluctantly, Bock agreed to re-assign the
29th Motorised Division from 2nd Panzer Group to
4th Army to help plug the gap
⁴⁵
but, even so, the pocket's eastern border remained extremely
porous.

The speed of the German advance and the depth at which the army was now operating left the main force of the Soviet
Western Front
out-flanked, but as yet undefeated behind the panzer spearheads. The result was an astonishingly large and varied area of combat which, unlike conventional wars, was by no means limited to the frontal zone of the attacker's advance. With every mile of progression eastwards, German strength had to be dissipated vertically, to cover the expanding funnel of Soviet geography, and horizontally to isolate and close the main pocket as well as eliminate bypassed strongpoints and protect supply routes and installations. In the vanguard, massed panzers made swift thrusts often sweeping aside weak and unsuspecting opposition, while in other quarters set-piece battles took place between main elements of each side. Small arms fire-fights and hit and run tactics were an increasingly common feature along the length of the German penetration, and there remained the bloody task of overcoming fanatical Soviet resistance from troops held up in entrenched fortifications. From 2nd Panzer Group's point of entry into the Soviet Union at
Brest, the entire
45th Infantry Division, with the aid of the enormous rail-borne artillery piece known as ‘Karl’, was still heavily engaged in reducing the Soviet stronghold and weeding out resistance.
⁴⁶
On 26 June Bock commented: ‘All parts of the citadel at Brest have still not fallen…Unfortunately casualties there are high. The enemy is also holding out in other, smaller groups of fortifications far behind the front.’
⁴⁷
One such smaller group encountered by 9th Army's
28th Division presents a closer picture of the toll these battles were taking. The report, coming from a former company commander, noted that in this instance the Soviet position consisted of a line of bunkers and half-finished fortifications protected by a system of trenches. One regiment of the division was assigned to assault the Soviet defences which resulted in a tenacious three-day battle. The company commander's battalion alone suffered 150 casualties.
⁴⁸
In another infantry division from 4th Army, Lieutenant
Georg Kreuter noted on 25 June: ‘We cannot move forward, everywhere there are small battles. Above all at night…Very close to me four officers have fallen. They will soon be buried together with other comrades in the town [Ozgmowicz]. Under no circumstances can this continue!!’
⁴⁹

After
the many disparaging pre-war assessments of the Red Army, the initial days of the campaign left a contrasting impression. The Soviet Union's predicted strategic debacle was tempered somewhat by the impressive display of fervour among the vast majority of its rank and file. It was also in these opening days that the Germans were confronted with the startling reality of the latest Soviet armour and its clear superiority to their own. With a measure of aloof detachment Halder simply recorded the imposing dimensions of the KV-1,
⁵⁰
noting that the only defensive possibilities for the standard German infantry division were to use the new 5cm anti-tank guns and aim shots under the turret. As Halder must have known, the new 5cm anti-tank guns were in short supply and greatly outnumbered by the obsolete 3.7cm standard anti-tank guns. In any case, the prospect of the 5cm anti-tank gun hitting a moving target with such precision was exceedingly doubtful. The more powerful 8.8cm anti-aircraft gun, which could be lowered to fire at a flat trajectory, was also a defensive option, but Halder was not even sure if this mighty weapon could penetrate the thick side armour of a KV-1.
⁵¹

Although the utter disarray consuming the Soviet
Western Front's position doomed most counter-moves to failure, the impact of the Red Army's new tanks was evident even in the most one-sided contest. Attempting to cut off the German penetration and seal the perilous breach in the Soviet front, Lieutenant-General Dmitri
Pavlov, the commander of the Western Front, launched frantic counter-attacks on 24 and 25 June against
Army Group Centre's left wing using his
11th and
6th Mechanised Corps. The 11th Mechanised Corps was comparatively weak with only 60 T-34s and KV-1s supported by 200 of the outdated T-26s and BT series. By contrast, of the 960 tanks fielded by the 6th Mechanised Corps, approximately half were of the newer medium and heavy T-34 and KV-1 design. Plagued by communication problems and a lack of precise intelligence, the Soviet offensive was hopelessly ill co-ordinated and, as a result, missed its intended target of Hoth's
3rd Panzer Group, ploughing into the
XX and
VIII Army Corps of the following
9th Army instead. Even before contact was made, the counter-attack, directed by Pavlov's adroit operations officer Lieutenant-General
Ivan Boldin, was greatly hindered by the unceasing aerial attack of Colonel-General
Wolfram von Richthofen's
VIII Air Corps. Boldin's scattered forces suffered terribly just trying to reach the designated assembly areas in the Lunna–Indura–Sokolka area
south of
Grodno. His long, armoured convoys proved easy prey for the redoubtable Ju-87 Stuka dive-bombers, in some instances equipped with phosphorus bombs. Complicating matters further, the complement of T-34s and KV-1s were a recent addition to the two Mechanised Corps, arriving in April and May 1941. Many of the KV-1s still had no ammunition, while drivers for the new models were only assigned in late May and early June, ensuring that training was rudimentary at best.
⁵²
As a result, Boldin's counter-stroke ended up being a mere shadow of what was intended
. Even so, the appearance of massed Soviet tanks led by the previously unknown T-34s and KV-1s stirred panic among the German
Panzerjäger
anti-tank units as they watched round after round bounce off the Soviets' impenetrable armour. Frantic calls were sent out for more armour-piercing shells and again Richthofen's
squadrons provided invaluable close-air support.
⁵³
The almost total absence of aerial cover cost the Soviets dearly and the offensive soon developed into another calamitous Soviet defeat with heavy losses, but two factors of significance emerged. One was the delay the battle caused to the forward progress of 9th Army's right wing and the resultant widening of the gap between 3rd Panzer Group and its infantry support
. Even more importantly, the battle revealed the vulnerability of German units to attacks by the latest model Soviet tanks which, with Soviet tank factories now working at an exhausting pace, boded ill for the Germans if the war was to drag on longer than its prescribed
duration.

A report about a junior Soviet officer, Lieutenant
Pavel Gudz, commanding five KV-1s and two T-34s on the first day of the war on the southern part of the front, was recorded as follows:

The Germans started bombing the column…A shell from a German anti-tank gun bounced off the tank's heavy armour…Gudz, who was the tank's gunner as well as its commander, fired a single shot in return and the gun was destroyed. He and his platoon went on to knock out five German tanks, three armoured personnel carriers and several cars…After lunch the Germans attacked again. Gudz knocked out three more tanks. His driver Galkin rammed another German tank, dislodging its caterpillar track and forcing it into a ditch. The fields were covered with burned-out tanks and dead Germans.
⁵⁴

Ammunition and fuel soon ran short as German aircraft systematically attacked the Soviet rear, forcing Gudz's division to retreat. Ultimately, Gudz and his tanks got as far as
Kiev where he and his men were forced to burn the tanks to prevent their capture.
⁵⁵

Further evidence of the looming danger was provided by an attack of Soviet KV-1s against leading elements of the German
6th Panzer Division on 24 June in the area of
Army Group North. It is significant to note that aerial cover for Army Group North, provided by Colonel-General
Alfred Keller's
Air Fleet 1, contained none of the dive-bombers afforded to Army Group Centre.
⁵⁶
Accordingly, ground forces were left to fend for themselves, but without prior knowledge or forewarning of the preponderant Soviet advantage in tank design, this was not understood to constitute a risk. The Soviet attack was directed against the newly formed German bridgehead across the
Dubyssa River, north-east of
Rossienie. The following account comes from Colonel
Erhard Raus of the neighbouring battle group:

It was not so much the numerical superiority of the enemy which made the situation precarious for our command and troops, but the totally unexpected appearance of colossal tanks for which German tanks and anti-tank weapons appeared to be no match…Even the concentrated fire of the artillery and all other heavy weapons of the
Kampfgruppe
[Battle Group] was not able to keep off the steel pachyderms. Though enveloped in fire and smoke, they immediately started attacking and crushed everything in their paths. Untroubled by the shower of heavy howitzer shells and earth falling down upon them, they attacked road block 121 in spite of the flanking fire of the anti-tank guns from the wooded areas, rolled over the anti-tank guns dug in there and broke into the artillery area.

About one hundred friendly tanks, one-third of them were Panzer IVs, now assembled for a counterattack. Some of them faced the enemy in front, but the bulk made an assault from the flanks. From three sides, their shells hammered against the steel giants, but the effort to destroy them was in vain. On the other hand, very soon we had casualties ourselves.
⁵⁷

It
has been suggested with due merit that this clash, as one of the first major tank battles of the eastern campaign, heralded a new era in the role of the German tank. Previously tanks had primarily been employed against infantry and their supporting arms. Now, however, the KV-1's menacing appearance proved a watershed by introducing an instrument beyond the reach of almost anything on the existing battlefield and transforming future German tank design into larger, heavier models with
much greater firepower, primarily aimed at meeting this new threat.
⁵⁸
Tangible results, however, would not be seen on the battlefield until 1943 – far too late to influence Germany's fate in
World War II.

Figure 5.2 
During the German advance the dust and the dreadful state of Soviet roads accounted for far more German tank losses than battles with the Red Army.