Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (38 page)

By all accounts the response from Kluge's headquarters was hardly promising. The next OKH reserves were still 90 kilometres to the rear, meaning the 29th Motorised Division's nearest relief was 4th Army's XII Army Corps
, but even this was still a long way off. The sheer distance between
Panzer Group 2 and 4th Army meant there was little Kluge could do about securing Guderian's supply lines, vast stretches of which still lay ahead of him, but he nevertheless promised what he could. On the final point, Kluge seemed to resent the inference that the best roads belonged to the panzer group and complained that the worse roads would slow the infantry's pace even further.
⁸⁰

With the campaign only in its sixth day, the tensions created by the two speeds of the army, one motorised and the other on horse and foot, were coming into sharp focus. In a private letter home to his wife on 27 June Guderian hinted at his frustration: ‘In addition there is some annoyance, one incident of some importance. But nothing of that in this letter.’
⁸¹
Days later in a second letter home he conceded that the source of his irritation lay with his immediate superiors and singled out Kluge for having ‘distinguished himself to good effect as a brake on progress’.
⁸²
Bock too was starting to become impatient with Kluge's progress, complaining that: ‘Indications of “standing still” are becoming apparent; 4th Army conceals this saying that it wants to build a “battle front”.’
⁸³
Bock's concern for the south-east side of the pocket, where the 29th Motorised Division alone held the line, forced him to the conclusion that, with 4th Army still too far off, the commitment of Guderian's reserve panzer corps (Vietinghoff's XXXXVI
) would be necessary.
Bock was very reluctant to give the order as he wished to preserve Guderian's armoured strength for the thrust east and leave the reduction of the pocket to the infantry, but he reasoned that having encircled
Western Front, ‘I must not allow the enemy out.’
⁸⁴
The
10th Panzer Division was therefore subordinated to Kluge on the morning of 28 June in order to effect the closure of a gap at
Zelwianka quickly. Kluge's vacillation, however, again became evident. In response to Bock's urging, Kluge declared: ‘I haven't been able to make up my mind to do so yet.’ When he finally did decide to attack, it was already too late and the operation had to be postponed until the following day.
⁸⁵

To the north, on 28 June Hoth's panzers entered
Minsk, but
Halder noted that the struggle to prevent Soviet forces from fighting their way
out of the pocket north of
Novogrudok was straining the northern ring to breaking point.
⁸⁶
Meanwhile, when Guderian received word that the 10th Panzer Division was being diverted to Kluge he immediately contacted the army group headquarters to complain that this made his whole operation towards Minsk ‘impossible’.
⁸⁷
Furthermore, upon learning that plans were afoot to bring the two panzer groups directly under Kluge's new command, Guderian promptly dispatched an officer to Halder at OKH to insist that such an action would force him to ask for relief from his command.
⁸⁸
Headstrong and impetuous, Guderian was known for his temper and it was not beyond him to threaten brash action to get what he wanted. In the event his incorrigible ego and driving ambition led him to suffer under Kluge rather than sit out the war on the sidelines. Similarly, his reaction to the loss of 10th Panzer Division and the alleged impossibility of reaching Minsk were characteristic overstatement, calculated for effect.

In addition to the transfer of the 10th Panzer Division
, on 28 June Bock also subordinated Guderian's
1st Cavalry Division
⁸⁹
to Kluge. This was operating on the extreme southern flank of the Army Group and according to Bock was out of reach of the panzer group.
⁹⁰
The orders did not however reach Panzer Group 2 until the morning of 29 June, whereupon Guderian again protested
⁹¹
and, to Bock's surprise, the cavalry division was now reported to be 100 kilometres north of its position on the previous day. Accordingly, the Field Marshal relented to Guderian's insistence that the division be returned to his command.
⁹²
Emboldened by his success, Guderian tried again later that morning to regain command of the
29th Motorised Division. This led to a series of strongly worded communiqués between the respective headquarters of Bock, Kluge and Guderian, with Panzer Group 2 insisting that ‘the release must without fail take place
today
’.
⁹³
Ultimately Guderian's demand was denied by Bock, who also recommended that the line from
Slonim to Minsk be reinforced by 1st Cavalry Division and the SS
Das Reich
Division.
⁹⁴
Guderian, on the other hand, was impatient to press on eastward with all the force he could muster and was contemptuous of the strength of Soviet forces attempting to escape the pocket. With a flight to Hoth's headquarters planned for the following day, Guderian was eager to see for himself the ‘supposed strong enemy-occupied forested area…from where 4th Amy
and Army Group Centre expect breakout attempts towards the south-east’.
⁹⁵

The wrangling for control of divisions represented much more than matters of prestige or the personal animosity of the commanding officers; these quarrels were the tangible result of the more important division over strategy and how the war was to be waged. Kluge was fixed on sealing the pocket as tightly as possible and thereby netting the greatest bag of prisoners. He was not in principle opposed to Guderian's desire to continue the advance eastwards, but the hasty continuance of the advance did not concern him to anywhere near the extent it did Guderian, and he was certainly not interested in winning more ground at the expense of undermining the accomplishment at Minsk. Guderian, by contrast, saw little point in expending precious time and strength on forces he regarded as beaten and of only modest threat to his rear area. In his opinion, rather than fretting about rounding up every last prisoner, it was better to maintain the momentum of the advance, keeping the enemy off balance, and seize the next objective. The two views proved irreconcilable and indicative of the fundamental strategic divide splitting the German command. For resolution both men looked to higher authority to win support, which found Bock and Halder thirsting for both alternatives and ultimately supporting neither
fully. The compromise between the competing extremes soured Kluge's triumph and left Guderian's continued drive conspicuously under-resourced. Yet it would be improper to suggest an obvious choice existed or that a golden opportunity was somehow missed. The fact remained that German forces were simply attempting too much. Guderian was right to seek a rapid solution through the deepest possible penetration, but he under-estimated the threat to his rear between
Slonim and Minsk, as well as the strength of opposition further to the east, for which he would desperately need Kluge's
infantry. The same dilemma confronted Hoth but, for the panzer generals, bold action in the face of danger was the hallmark of previously victorious campaigns and neither
man was about to shy away from the perils of forward operations, or give in to the wary reservations of army commanders. Even after the war Guderian maintained that the single greatest hindrance to his advance resulted from the unremitting doubts of Field Marshal von Kluge, who, he commented; ‘was inclined to stop the advance of the panzers at every difficulty arising in the
rear’.
⁹⁶

In spite of his ardent determination that
Army Group Centre's first priority be the closure of the ring at Minsk,
Halder still favoured sending elements of both panzer groups on towards the
Dvina and
Dnepr to secure bridgeheads for the next stage of the advance. Indeed, on 29 June Halder revealed in his diary for the first time his objective for the advance of Army Group Centre, namely the attack on Moscow. Upon expressing his hope for the seizure of
Rogachev and
Mogilev on the Dnepr, Halder added that this would ‘open the road to
Smolensk and from there the course to
Moscow’.
⁹⁷
Meanwhile, at
Hitler's headquarters a very different picture was emerging. Hitler too was casting an eye to the continuation of the campaign following the elimination of the pocket, and the question was posed whether the main thrust of operations should be directed towards Moscow or
Leningrad.
Brauchitsch is known to have been in attendance at the Wolf's Lair on this day (29 June) and, although the record does not specify, he may well have recommended the Moscow option to Hitler. Even if not, he most certainly would have supported it. Hitler, however, was more attracted to cutting the Soviets off from the Baltic Sea, thereby denying them access to the North Sea, securing Germany's ore transports from Scandinavia and allowing the concentration of
Finland's strength for their attack in the east. As for an eventual thrust on Moscow, Hitler contended that the drive on Leningrad would secure the left flank of the later operation and that for the time being the Soviet capital should simply be subjected to bombing. The following day (30 June) Hitler expanded on such sentiments, adding that the addition of panzer forces from Army Group Centre would allow the rapid seizure of Leningrad's industrial area and only then should the attack on Moscow be launched.
⁹⁸

In more immediate concerns Brauchitsch reported that Hitler was once again expressing a nervous anxiety about the depth of Schweppenburg's
XXIV Panzer Corps, which on that day (29 June) had reached Bobruisk and was building a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Beresina River.
Brauchitsch placated Hitler with assurances that this was nothing more than flank protection for the main operation at Minsk, but Halder (who was not present, but later received a report from Brauchitsch) recognised that Guderian would be content with nothing less than the quickest possible crossing of the
Dnepr. Personally, Halder supported Guderian in this endeavour as, with the encirclement at Minsk almost complete, the Chief of the General Staff now wanted to press on eastwards and capitalise on what he saw as the destruction of the Soviet front. Yet Hitler remained worried that the XXIV
Panzer Corps had over-extended itself and forbade the army command from issuing any further orders for the further eastward advance of the panzer corps, meaning that Halder's hands were officially tied. Halder regarded this as a grave mistake, but was not about to concede direction of the campaign so readily to
Hitler. In his diary Halder defiantly stated: ‘Let us hope that the middle levels of command will do the right thing on their own and without express orders, which we cannot issue because of the Führer's orders to
Brauchitsch.’
⁹⁹
Thus, while a strict interpretation of his orders prohibited the issuing of a command to advance, they did not explicitly require him to forbid the action if it was undertaken independently by the generals themselves – which he assumed it would be. Using this frail logic Halder convinced himself that he could still have his way without disobeying
orders.

While Germany's leading generals fought amongst themselves and against Hitler's headquarters for direction of the eastern campaign, the infighting was if anything even more intense among Germany's political institutions headed by some of the most unscrupulous personalities within the Third Reich, most notably
Hermann Göring and
Heinrich Himmler. With the toppling of the Soviet state predicted from all quarters, each man vied for the largest slice of the lucrative Soviet prize, seeking to build on their respective empires which made up the internal authorities of the Nazi state. Observing the unruly scene,
Goebbels (who was himself involved in a dispute with the OKW and the designated minister for the new eastern territories,
Alfred Rosenberg, over the dissemination of propaganda in the east), complained in his diary: ‘Always the same thing: spheres of authority’. He then perceptively added: ‘If we go down, then it will be as a result of these disputes.’
¹⁰⁰

On 29 June contact was finally established between
Hoth and
Guderian at Minsk, ostensibly closing the outer ring, although in practice the
south-east side was far from hermetically sealed. At
Army Group Centre,
Bock was also now anxious to proceed on to the great rivers, but despaired at the lost opportunities higher command had cost him by insisting on the Belostok–Minsk pocket. Venting his frustration, Bock wrote:

That is the curse of the evil deed! If we turn near Minsk, there will inevitably be a stop there until the entire Belostok–Minsk pocket has largely been cleared. I wanted to take possession of the
Dnepr or at least the
Beresina bridges quickly, so as not to have to fight for them later – which unfortunately will now be the case!
¹⁰¹

As it turned out, the challenge for Bock was not just quickly clearing the pocket, but ensuring all the gaps were plugged in the outer ring. Despite Guderian's reckless insistence that the presence of the
29th Motorised Division was no longer necessary, events on the ground proved quite the opposite to be true. On the evening of 24 June as the
18th Panzer Division swept eastwards forming the southern arm of the encirclement, Lemelsen's
XXXXVII Panzer Corps was inundated with radio messages from the division reading: ‘“Alarm”, “Help”, “enemy panzer breakthrough”’.
¹⁰²
As the division continued to battle through the gauntlet of escaping Soviet units instances of panic occurred among the supply columns of the rear, resulting from the fear of enemy tanks along their long exposed flank. One report noted: ‘Whole battalions have turned around on their tracks and fled back to the rear.’
¹⁰³
As the 18th Panzer Division continued eastwards, however, it was left to the following 29th Motorised Division and the smaller 5th Machine-gun Battalion to hold the long southern arc of the ring, which, by the morning of 27 June, extended to an impractical 60 kilometres.
¹⁰⁴
The length of front allowed no depth to the defences and, facing constant attacks which included Soviet armour, a mounting crisis developed within the division. Individual units of the 29th Motorised Division were frequently cut off from neighbouring units and then surrounded and forced to fight costly close-quarters battles in dense forests and swamps.
¹⁰⁵
By the night of 29 June
massed Soviet breakout attempts proved beyond the division's strength and the units of Infantry Regiment 71 and Panzer Regiment 7 had to withdraw and allow Soviet forces to surge past them to the east. Nor was this an isolated case. A great number of Soviet troops simply marched through the German
lines.
¹⁰⁶