Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (66 page)

By 25 July the supply capacity of the hopelessly overstretched logistical network behind Army Group Centre was threatening some sectors of the precariously held front with collapse. Ihno
Krumpelt, a general staff officer who at the time was serving in an infantry division, later wrote in a study of the Barbarossa campaign that the combination of the supply situation and the defensive battles in the summer constituted in his opinion; ‘the culminating point of the offensive operations’.
²
Nowhere was this
better seen that at
Yel'nya, where the
XXXXVI Panzer Corps was fighting off immense Soviet pressure with fewer and fewer resources. Most particularly, artillery shells were sorely lacking,
³
while the Soviet guns were capable of delivering a bombardment, according to one participant, ‘to be compared with the heaviest days of the western front in the [First] World War’.
⁴
In the zone of one company, 156 artillery shells landed in just five minutes, while the Soviet air force dominated the skies above. According to one account: ‘Unhindered, [Soviet] bombers and fighters attacked the infantry the whole day.’
⁵
When the next Soviet assault came it was led by Soviet T-34 tanks which the SS
Das Reich
division encountered here for the first time. It was during this attack that the SS men discovered to their horror the uselessness of their 3.7cm and 5cm anti-tank guns. The T-34s could only be destroyed once inside the German lines by setting them ablaze with Molotov cocktails or, in one instance, climbing onto the tank from behind and emptying a can of petrol onto the hulk which was then ignited.
⁶
Helmut
Günther, a motorcycle dispatch rider assigned to
Das Reich
, noted how the Soviets displayed no shortage of ammunition and even opened fire with heavy artillery during his lone dash to deliver orders. Given that Günther was constantly ferrying dispatches around the Yel'nya bend he saw a great deal more of the carnage and destruction than the average soldier. Early on in the battle he recalled: ‘[M]y journey continued through Yel'nya, which had changed greatly in recent days. Only ruins indicated that buildings once stood and people had lived here. I continued past the German military cemetery, where long rows of graves gave notice what the Yel'nya bend signified.’ Days later Günther brought back a dispatch from divisional command which one of the officers read aloud. ‘All that I remember of it is that the enemy we were facing greatly outnumbered us. Several Russian divisions and mechanised regiments were listed with their unit designations. It was doubtful whether our division could long stand these debilitating enemy attacks. I saw extremely black prospects for the continued advance.’
⁷
It was desperate and costly fighting, but, for the sake of renewing the thrust towards Moscow, the heights of Yel'nya were ordered to be held at all costs.

The bulging salient at Yel'nya was not the only sector of Bock's front straining at the seams. To the south on 25 July the
18th Panzer Division defended against heavy Soviet attacks from the direction of
Roslavl, and made the worrying observation ‘[e]verywhere new enemy columns with artillery’.
⁸
On the following day the divisional diary recorded; ‘
constant heaviest
artillery fire, of a kind the troops have seldom experienced’. The diary then went on to question the morale of the men,
⁹
which a report by a battalion doctor diagnosed as collective battle fatigue:

A state of absolute exhaustion is noticeable…among all men of the battalion. The reason is…far too great mental and nervous strain. The troops were under a powerful barrage of heavy artillery…That the men were promised a few days of rest…but instead found themselves in an even worse situation…had a particularly grave effect. The men are indifferent and apathetic, are partly suffering from crying fits, and are not to be cheered up by this or that phrase. Food is being taken only in disproportionately small quantities.
¹⁰

Casualties were also extremely high with one battalion reduced in size to almost company strength.
¹¹

To the north in Hoth's panzer group, the pressure was equally fierce with Halder noting on 26 July: ‘[i]ncreased enemy aircraft activity and also panzer deployment, especially against Hoth's left shoulder’.
¹²
Kuntzen's LVII Panzer Corps reported the difficulty its four divisions had defending a 200-kilometre-long front covered by large marshes and forests. ‘This does not make the defence any easier’, the war diary noted, as the terrain could not be traversed by motorised forces, but enemy infantry and cavalry ‘can break through in many places’.
¹³
The defensive battles were further hindered by the fact that Kuntzen's divisions were far from full strength. The
20th Panzer Division reported on 27 July that its motorcycle component was ‘very weakened’, while the other motorised forces had suffered ‘numerous losses, also in panzers’.
¹⁴
Helmuth Dittri, a soldier in the division, wrote in his diary for 26 July: ‘On taking stock of our regiment we are driven to the sad conclusion that there is very little left of it…There isn't enough to make a decent detachment. Our losses
have been heavy, not only in men, but also in material.’ On the following day (27 July) Dittri described the ordeal of life at the front:

From early dawn the enemy [artillery] rake our lines with his accurate, well-directed fire…The Russians have been shooting for 48 hours now, the only lull having been 3 hours during the night.…

[S]everal [German] bombers wheeled above our heads and as long as they were about the Russians warily abstained from firing. But as soon as they disappeared…we landed in a cross-fire so terrific that we did not know if we were dead or alive. A few more tanks went the way of all flesh – or metal, rather, to be exact. They're bringing in an endless line of wounded. The motor-cyclists fared very badly. Their casualties were
tremendous.
¹⁵

The desperate situation along Bock's extensive front heightened calls for more infantry to be brought forward to release the motorised and panzer units for rest and refitting. However, the infantry divisions were themselves not without losses, and the strain of forced marches lasting over a month had greatly tired them before they even made contact with the main Soviet formations on the eastern front. Adding to the gloomy outlook,
Halder noted on 26 July the presence of new Soviet armies moving up to support the Soviet offensives against Army Group Centre.
¹⁶
In addition, he noted that at Yel'nya the enemy attacks were to continue ‘supported by new divisions and new panzers from the east’.
¹⁷

By 26 July
Panzer Group 2 judged the situation at Yel'nya to be ‘exceedingly critical’
¹⁸
and the war diary of the
10th Panzer Division reported: ‘Heaviest attacks on all fronts with bombers, fighters and tanks’.
Vietinghoff, the corps commander, insisted a mobile reserve was urgently needed behind the front of the SS
Das Reich
division, but he refused to countenance a withdrawal of men believing it to be only a temporary crisis (see
Map 11
).
¹⁹
Throughout the day, however, reports coming back from the SS division to Vietinghoff's command spoke of copious losses in men and material.
²⁰
By the afternoon the tone had become increasingly critical with the situation in Regiment
Der Führer
described
as ‘unbearable’. This was then followed by a plea to the higher command that something had to be done immediately: ‘Action must be taken now. There exists the danger that otherwise the division will be completely
pummelled.’
²¹
The deteriorating situation was well known at Guderian's headquarters and the panzer group's war diary tellingly illustrates the horrific cost of defending the Yel'nya salient. On the late afternoon of 26 July the panzer group's diarist recorded:

At the fighting around Yel'nya the situation is especially critical. The corps has been attacked all day from strongly superior forces with panzers and artillery. The enemy achieved a breakthrough at
Lipnja which has not yet been dealt with…Constant heavy artillery fire is inflicting heavy casualties on the troops. In addition there is the impact of enemy bombers. As a result of the artillery fire, the evacuation of the many wounded has so far not been possible…The corps has absolutely no reserves available. Artillery munitions have been so depleted that no shells remain for bombarding the enemy artillery. For the last few days the panzer brigade of the
10th Panzer Division has been immobilized because oil and fuel supplies are lacking. The corps can maybe manage to hold on to its position, but only at the price of severe bloodletting.
²²

For reasons of both prestige and the much hoped for continuation of the advance on Moscow, none of the senior commanders advocated the evacuation of the Yel'nya salient and so the frightful attrition of
Vietinghoff's XXXXVI Panzer Corps
continued.

On 27 July the Smolensk pocket was finally closed by
Hoth in a final drive from the north.
²³
This still left sizeable forces inside the pocket which would attempt to break out to the safety of Soviet lines,
²⁴
as well as the ongoing pressure from the east resulting from
Timoshenko's stolid offensives to relieve the pocket. Wary of the weakness of his forces and with a view to the difficulty of sealing off large encirclements, Bock was unsure whether his units could withstand the expected counter-pressure.
²⁵
Unlike in the Belostok–Minsk pocket, the Soviet forces fleeing the destruction of the pocket had only a relatively narrow corridor of German lines to penetrate, and although this was a treacherous undertaking, smaller groups continued to escape.

Figure 8.1 
A 1941 Soviet propaganda poster which reads: ‘Napoleon suffered defeat and so will Hitler!’

On 28 July
Bock hosted a meeting of all the senior commanders of the army group (
Kluge,
Weichs,
Strauss, Hoth and Guderian) to discuss the latest directive and set new operational objectives. None were happy about the switch to smaller tactical encirclements, and the generals were right to question the ramifications of this decision for achieving the audacious strategic goals required by the Barbarossa plan.
²⁶
Yet, realistically the army group was presently incapable of anything more ambitious than small-scale local operations. Bock himself commented: ‘Whatever can be found in the rear army area is being scraped together for the coming missions, for the army group is much too thin, especially south of the Dnepr, to undertake anything serious.’
²⁷
Guderian was fiercely opposed to the operation ordered by Hitler towards
Gomel and bluntly informed Bock that deployment of his forces into this area would be ‘impossible’. Instead the panzer commander wanted to amass strength for an operation towards
Roslavl which, along with the Yel'nya salient, he regarded as the most threatened sectors of his front. Typically, Guderian did not attribute the critical situation his forces faced in these sectors to over-extension, but rather blamed
Kluge for retaining his forces on the Dnepr
and west of Smolensk. Consequently, according to Guderian, ‘crises and losses had occurred…which could have been avoided.’ The dispute further embittered the relationship between the two men and led to an almost unbearable atmosphere, which Guderian guardedly described in his memoir as ‘strained to an undesirable degree’.
²⁸
Thus, in order to relieve his threatened front, Guderian was determined to use the prospect of a renewed offensive to end the critical situation near Roslavl caused by the Soviet
28th Army (otherwise referred to as the Kachalov Group, see
Map 12
). This move was supported by Bock and, seemingly in defiance of Hitler's order, planning proceeded for an offensive towards Roslavl, not Gomel. As Guderian recalled in his memoir: ‘Regardless of what decisions Hitler might now take, the immediate need of Panzer Group 2 was to dispose of the most dangerous enemy threat to its right flank.’
²⁹
Moreover, much to Guderian's delight, his panzer group was removed from Kluge's command and renamed ‘Army Group Guderian’
³⁰
with the allotment of the
VII Army Corps for the attack on Roslavl and the
IX Army Corps for the relief of the Yel'nya
bulge.
³¹
Likewise Hoth's panzer group was re-subordinated to Strauss's
9th Army,
³²
dissolving Kluge's
4th Panzer Army (although Kluge's Fourth Army, made up of infantry divisions only, was later reinstated between 2nd and 9th Armies).
³³