Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (67 page)

While the
Roslavl operation offered a tactical solution to an immediate problem confronting Guderian's front, its consequence was to extend Army Group Centre's threadbare forces even further to the south, while still not alleviating the threat to the southern flank emanating from around
Gomel. The flank was simply too long, and
Army Group South was still too far off and too heavily opposed to offer any aid in the foreseeable future. Thus, the army group was drawing strength from its centre to solve its problems in the south, which Bock feared further endangered the prospect of resuming the advance towards Moscow. Upon discussion of this point with Halder, Bock noted in his diary on 28 July: ‘Halder is in no doubt that under these circumstances a significant advance to the east by the weak forces left to the army group for the drive to the east
will be impossible. He still hopes to change the Führer's mind.’
³⁴
Unbeknown to the army commanders, Hitler was already beginning to accept the implausibility of
Directive 33a, but was as yet uncertain how best to proceed. In the meantime, however, Bock fretted about how to carry out the clearly impracticable demands of Hitler's directive and impressed upon the OKH the offensive weakness of his army
group.
³⁵

Map 12 
Dispositions of Army Group Centre 28 July 1941: David M. Glantz,
Atlas of the Battle of Smolensk 7 July–10 September 1941

Although the chaotic struggle for control over the strategic direction of the campaign was dominated by the firm belief that each side knew how best to win the war, there is evidence that the Soviet Union's performance up until the end of July was having a profound impact on the German command's changing understanding of the war. Previously, the road to victory over the Soviet Union was accepted as a preordained certainty, dependent for its success entirely on German strategic manoeuvring and not to be called into question in any way by Soviet counter-measures. By late July, however, the ground was shifting and a new outlook was emerging. At
Army Group Centre on 28 July the view was expressed: ‘A collapse of the Russian system is for the time being not to be expected. Because the Russian is so tough his tactical methods are unpredictable.’ Moreover the wide expanses of the east were acknowledged to be ‘impossible to rule’, while the human resources of the country were said to represent an infinite supply which ‘cannot be reduced’. Accordingly more emphasis was placed on the seizure of industrial centres, such as Leningrad and Moscow, which were said to be arming the Soviet masses.
³⁶

Figure 8.2 
Combat readiness of Panzer Group 2 on 29 July 1941. ‘KTB Nr.1 Panzergruppe 2 Bd.II vom 22.7.1941 bis 20.8.41’ BA-MA RH 21–2/928. Fols. 78–79 (29 July 1941).

Before
any continuation of the offensive could be initiated, the German army had to address the fact that its motorised divisions were greatly weakened and, in the more extreme cases, barely functional. This posed extremely awkward problems for the army commanders who, owing to the woefully deficient planning before the campaign, found themselves wholly unprepared for the scale of the task, and forced actions to be undertaken on a decidedly ad hoc basis. On 28 July concern was expressed at Panzer Group 2 about the fact that just 45 replacement tank engines were being made available per month for the entire eastern front.
³⁷
On the following day new figures were reported from all the panzer divisions showing a severe decline in the number of serviceable tanks. On 22 June 1941 Guderian's panzer group fielded 953 tanks of all
models,
³⁸
but by 29 July the total had sunk to 286 tanks – only 30 per cent of the original strength. As the war diary noted, ‘this figure is
exceedingly low
’.
³⁹
More worrying still, no fewer than 132 of the remaining tanks were Mark Is (4) or Mark IIs (128), both long since outdated models. In addition, armoured command vehicles accounted for a further 19 vehicles on the list, leaving Guderian's panzer group with just 135 Mark IIIs (97) and Mark IVs (38) spread throughout four panzer divisions on divergent sectors of the front (see
Figure 8.2
).
⁴⁰
Assessing such dramatic losses, the panzer group's war diary pointed to the disastrous combination of bad roads, dust and great distances, with the result: ‘The high fallout rate is not surprising.’
⁴¹
Yet, with so many disabled tanks, the prospect of them all receiving the required repair work, and in some cases complete overhauls, was entirely unrealistic, especially given the unavailability of replacement engines and other spare parts. Recognising this fact, there was discussion in
XXXXVII Panzer Corps on 30 July about merging the
17th and
18th Panzer Divisions to make up the personnel and material losses, but even this drastic measure could not ensure a hybrid division of anything approaching full strength in
panzers.
⁴²

Hoth's
panzer group was also suffering with Schmidt's
XXXIX Panzer Corps reporting on 27 July: ‘The combat strength of the panzer divisions, mainly the panzer force, especially the Mark IV, has been weakened.’ In fact,
Schmidt's entire corps retained just 23 Mark IVs, with an overall panzer strength at 40 per cent of their original number.
⁴³
In a letter to
Paulus, Schmidt wrote that his Panzer Corps had suffered greatly and that his material was now ‘totally run down’ (
total auf den Hund
).
⁴⁴
Comprehensive figures for
Kuntzen's LVII Panzer Corps are not available, but among the two most important tank models employed by the corps only 14 Mark IVs (from 61 at the start of the campaign) and 76 Czech Kpfw 38 (t) (from 234) remained in active service on 27 July. Based on these figures, the panzer corps could field an average of just 30 per cent of its original strength. In addition, a report from LVII Panzer Corps noted that:

It must be understood that without a rapid and
plentiful
supply of track rollers, track links and bolts for the Mark IV and track bolts for the Kpfw 38 (t) the number of available panzers will sink further, so that the combat strength of the panzer regiments will be greatly weakened. Still especially urgent is the delivery of fully operational motors, gearboxes, oil and specialised panzer grease.
⁴⁵

Map 11 
Dispositions of Army Group Centre 26 July 1941: David M. Glantz,
Atlas of the Battle of Smolensk 7 July–10 September 1941

Three days later on 30 July,
Hoth stated that the combat strength of his divisions had become ‘especially strongly impaired’ by the losses among Mark IV panzers. He then cast real doubt on the plans for the rest and refitting of the panzer divisions, claiming that, with no replacements to be expected from Germany, ‘even
after
the forthcoming refitting period, a substantial shortfall in the number of Mark IVs will remain’.
⁴⁶
Guderian too was worried by the steep decline in tank numbers and foresaw the dangers of adequate replacements not reaching the front in time to redress the critical shortages. Upon a visit by
Schmundt, Hitler's chief adjutant, on 29 July, Guderian relayed an impassioned plea to Hitler (via Schmundt) imploring the dictator ‘not to withhold the new tanks and our replacements’.
⁴⁷
Beyond the primary subject of tanks, the maintenance of the panzer division's mobility depended on its trucks, on which Hoth
remarked on 31 July: ‘[A] great number of the trucks now stand at the limit of their operational capacity and any further delay in their refitting will see a greatly increased total loss in a short period of time.’
⁴⁸
Clearly the panzer divisions were approaching the end of their strength, which meant any hope of resuming the blitzkrieg on a scale required for the success of Barbarossa was appearing more and more
improbable.

Figure 8.3 
Army Group Centre's advance captured hundreds of thousands of Red Army POWs reinforcing the illusion that victory was only a few weeks away. Owing to German treatment, the great majority of these Soviet POWs would be dead by early 1942.

Personnel
losses in Guderian's panzer group presented a different set of problems. On 29 July casualty figures up until 25 July exceeded 20,000 men, with only 10,000 replaced, and the rest still outstanding largely because of transportation difficulties. Yet it was not simply a matter of replacing one lost man with another. The high losses included many experienced veterans and skilled specialists, while officer casualties were exceedingly high – over 1,000 in only 34 days of combat.
⁴⁹
Hoth's panzer group was similarly affected, with the high casualties unable to be directly replaced and a resultant deficit of some 7,500 men and 350 officers.
⁵⁰
Furthermore, Hoth returned from a visit to the
20th Panzer Division with the impression that the high officer casualties ‘were making themselves very noticeable among the
troops’.
⁵¹
Bock too was worried by this development, and not only in the hard-pressed panzer groups; already on 29 July Bock commented: ‘Powerful Russian attacks are in process on almost the entire front of the
9th Army. The fact is that our troops are tired and also are not exhibiting the required steadiness because of heavy officer casualties.’
⁵²

In
the last days of July the pressure of the Soviet attacks was being absorbed more and more by the arriving divisions of the 9th and
2nd Armies. This provided a welcome relief to the motorised divisions but, given the weight of the Soviet attacks, most of Hoth's and Guderian's divisions could not yet extract themselves fully from the front to begin the technical refitting of vehicles and rest their exhausted troops.
⁵³
On 30 July Army Group Centre reported a general increase in offensive enemy activity against the entire front (with the exception of 2nd Army's right wing). ‘Above all’, the report added, ‘is the manifest strength of the strong artillery on every front.’ Furthermore: ‘The reinforced commitment of the enemy air force remains undiminished.’
⁵⁴
The relentlessness of the Soviet assaults proved a harsh baptism of fire for the newly arrived infantry divisions. On the open fields, General of Infantry Hermann
Geyer, commander of the
IX Army Corps, noted the added difficulties infantry divisions faced over their motorised cousins in lack of mobility and communications. In addition to this, the crisis of supply was denying the infantry the use of their guns to answer the powerful Soviet bombardments. To illustrate the point, Geyer stated that during this period the
263rd Infantry Division received 1,000 shells per day which allowed each gun one shot every minute for 30 minutes a day.
⁵⁵
Not surprisingly Geyer noted: ‘We soon learned that in the defence not artillery duels…but rather digging in quick and deep proved decisive.’
⁵⁶
Accordingly, Geyer also alluded to the ‘changed character of the war’ in which, ‘[w]e entered into a form of positional warfare’.
⁵⁷
With the blitzkrieg stalled, Soviet strength of arms came to the fore as the predominate force on the new immobilised battlefield. Reflecting this fact,
Geyer wrote that in the
137th Infantry Division 850 men were lost in the first three to four days of reaching the front, while the
263rd Infantry Division lost 750 men and the
292nd Infantry Division 300
men.
⁵⁸
The attrition of Army Group Centre was proceeding rapidly.