Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (83 page)

Only after these threats to our ranks have been entirely overcome and armoured formations have been rehabilitated will it be possible to continue the offensive, on a wide front and with echeloning of both flanks, against the strong enemy forces which have been concentrated for the defence of Moscow. The object of operations must then be to deprive the enemy, before the coming of winter, of his government, armament, and traffic centre around Moscow, and thus prevent the rebuilding of his defeated forces and the orderly working of government control.
¹³⁹

When
Halder received news of the new directive on 13 August he reacted with cautious optimism. While acknowledging that it freed the path to Moscow, he was wary of the many conditions Hitler attached, particularly the success of Leeb's operations towards Leningrad. These, he determined, ‘severely handicapped’ the operational freedom of the
army.
¹⁴⁰
Essentially Halder was annoyed that Bock's decisive drive on Moscow was being made secondary to the lesser concerns of Leeb's front
. This concern was greatly exacerbated on the following day (14 August) when a powerful Soviet offensive south of
Staraia Russa proved too strong for Leeb's over-extended
X Army Corps. To Halder's mind this was an inconsequential development, but when word reached Hitler's headquarters it evoked, in Halder's view, a wholly unwarranted response.
Jodl was first told by Hitler that an entire panzer corps would need to be sent, but later changed his mind to a single panzer division. Halder complained bitterly in his diary about disproportionate ‘reactions to pinpricks’ which frustrated planning and the concentration of forces.
¹⁴¹
On 15 August Hitler changed his mind again, and insisted to Brauchitsch that one panzer division and two motorised infantry divisions would need to be sent to Army Group North as fast as possible. Halder was incensed: ‘Once again the old mistake, with the result that a brash thrust by a single Russian division ties down 3 to 4 German divisions. In view of our limited resources and the immensity of space, we will never come to a success.’
¹⁴²
Yet Halder's assessment failed to appreciate the seriousness of the Soviet offensive, which only became clear to him over the course of the day. Instead of one Soviet division, by the evening of 15 August Halder was made aware that X Army Corps had been attacked by ‘motorised divisions and a cavalry division’ as well as ‘6 new divisions and 2 cavalry divisions of the Soviet
34th Army’.
¹⁴³
The situation was hardly inconsequential and Army Group North, which had already ordered elements of Manstein's
LVI Panzer Corps north to aid the drive on Leningrad, now reversed the decision, sending them back to the south. Having taken eight hours to travel a distance of 200 kilometres on 15 August, Manstein noted that on the following day the corps was ordered down to
Dno – 257 kilometres to the south, ‘along the same dreadful route we had covered the day before…what the troops thought of it all I do not care to imagine’.
¹⁴⁴
The situation so concerned Leeb that he made what Halder referred to as ‘[w]ild requests’ for engineers, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and anti-tank guns, all of which Halder rejected.
¹⁴⁵

When
the order reached Bock's headquarters that he would have to give up a panzer division and two motorised infantry divisions, despite
the already excessive demands of his front, Bock was stirred to a frantic outburst of dismay. In a telephone call with Halder, Bock sharply criticised the removal of the three motorised divisions, claiming this would leave his own front unbearably weakened and without the strength for further offensive operations. Army Group Centre's war diary then quotes the following exchange:

BOCK:
In this case I don't know any more how I can move the army group forward. Today is the beginning of positional warfare!
The units to be given up can only be moved in a partly finished condition [owing to their incomplete refitting]. I must make you aware, that after the loss of this corps an attack by Strauss's army, except for the special action towards
Velikie Luki, is no longer possible. The offensive intention of
9th Army is dead.

HALDER:
In my opinion this goes for
2nd Army too.

BOCK:
Please inform the Commander-in-Chief of the Army [Brauchitsch], that with this order any thought of an offensive posture by the 9th Army, and as a result probably by the whole army group, ceases to exist. It is also to be borne in mind, that going over to a defensive position is not possible given the current position. The existing line is not adequate for a lengthy defence. I have the intention to inform the Führer's chief adjutant [Schmundt] of the same thing.

HALDER:
I don't know myself what I should do. I am utterly desperate and will try to save what there is to save.
¹⁴⁶

Such depressing assessments of the situation speak for themselves about the stark decline in Germany's fortunes. There was now real doubt in the minds of senior commanders about the direction the war was taking. Beyond this, Bock was even expressing deep-seated doubts about the ability of his weakened forces to remain on the defensive in the open expanses of the Soviet Union. As Bock repeated in his diary, ‘I told Halder that after being so weakened, a major offensive by the 9th Army and thus probably the army group as well, would no longer be possible. At the same time I pointed out that going over to the defensive was no simple matter considering the large frontages held by my weak divisions.’
¹⁴⁷
Halder's diary also alluded to the problem in the most dire terms. He too reiterated the conclusion that 9th Army, and by extension the whole army group, was probably now unalterably stalled. Halder wrote:

Moreover it should be taken into consideration that changing over to the defensive in the present position is not possible. The front of the army group, with its 40 divisions over 730 kilometres is so strained that moving to a determined
defence entails far-reaching considerations, which have not been thought through in detail. The present deposition and line organisation is in no way suited for a sustained
defence.
¹⁴⁸

The implications of Bock and Halder's conclusions spelled unmitigated disaster for German operations in the east. By mid-August 1941, it had already become exceedingly difficult to move the front forward and yet it was also impossible to maintain a sustainable, long-term defence. German resources were simply overtaxed and grossly inadequate for their assigned tasks, especially with more Soviet offensives being planned (see
Map 16
). The rigours of long marches and heavy fighting had exhausted the army, leaving too many units badly worn out, insufficiently supplied and sprawled out over the vast expanse of the Soviet hinterland. Added to this was the wayward strategic direction of the campaign which had become so haphazard that it was now being improvised on a day-to-day basis, without any semblance of inter-command agreement or joint long-term objectives. Indeed Halder had become so disillusioned with the turn of events that the re-assignment of Bock's motorised forces caused him to conclude in despair: ‘everything that has so far been achieved is for
nothing.’
¹⁴⁹

If there was an exception to the dejection and melancholy at OKH it came, oddly enough, from
Brauchitsch. This is somewhat curious given his own deeply pessimistic remarks to Hitler's army adjutant, Major Engel, as recently as 9 August. On that occasion Brauchitsch appeared to have given up all hope of implementing the Moscow alternative, but his optimism was probably reignited with the issuing of
Directive 34a on 12 August. Bolstered with renewed hope, Brauchitsch called
Bock on 15 August (shortly after the call between Halder and Bock) and attempted to allay his fears, claiming that the three motorised divisions would be returned to him and it was therefore only a temporary loss. Bock, however, was not to be so easily distracted from the magnitude of the problem and pertinently pointed out that, due to the great distances involved and the current condition of the units, a return of the divisions was out of the question. Bock then stubbornly restated his belief that the whole army group suffered from ‘a hardly bearable weakness in offensive strength’. Brauchitsch was equally blunt in his response and told Bock: ‘I don't see the situation in such catastrophic terms as the army group.’
¹⁵⁰

Map 16 
Dispositions of Army Group Centre 15 August 1941: David M. Glantz,
Atlas of the Battle of Smolensk 7 July–10 September 1941

Even before the Soviet offensive against Leeb's weakened forces south of
Staraia Russa had caused such a commotion in the German command and placed new demands on Hoth's forces,
Panzer Group 3 was already confronting grave difficulties. It was proving impossible to make a complete withdrawal of all motorised forces from the heavy demands of the front, and therefore the refitting process was still staggered rather than general. The motorised
Lehrbrigade 900
, a special unit formed from the infantry training school at
Döberitz, was still tied up in the fighting on 15 August and
Schmidt's XXXIX Panzer Corps, to which it was subordinated, reported that it would need eight days of refitting after relief before it could again be committed.
¹⁵¹
Of far greater concern for the general state of the panzer group was that the units already behind the front were unable to make full use of the time for refitting owing to the persistent delay in delivering spare parts. Even before the order arrived informing Hoth that he would have to give up forces to assist Army Group North, a report from
Schmidt's panzer corps advised that the foreseen operation to recapture
Velikie Luki would require an entire panzer corps because of the reduced strength of the panzer divisions. Schmidt's report, sent on 14 August, also stated that, even if this operation was not undertaken for another six days, until 20 August, it would still have to be carried through with limited numbers of trucks and without replacement manpower.
¹⁵²
Central among the numerous shortages was the crucial absence of replacement tank engines, which had become a vexing source of frustration. Having already waited since early August and with the refitting period due to be completed by 20 August, Hoth noted on 15 August that the long overdue motors and spare parts were only expected on 16 or 17 August.
¹⁵³
Shortly after Hoth's assessment, the panzer group's war diary suggested the critically needed spare parts would not arrive until 17 or 18 August,
¹⁵⁴
leaving pitifully little time to achieve anything like the degree of restoration originally hoped for, and indeed demanded, by the tasks ahead.

Figure 9.3 
Having failed to convince Hitler of Moscow's importance, Halder sent Guderian in a last-ditch attempt to change the Führer's mind. Yet the popular panzer commander did not want to fall out of favour and soon backed Hitler's plan.

When the orders reached the panzer group that one of its panzer divisions and two motorised divisions were to be redeployed in the north, Schmidt again sought to warn Hoth that instead of the requested one
panzer division, two should be sent because one would simply not have sufficient strength. This, however, was immediately rejected by Bock. Schmidt also made Hoth aware that in the course of the 500-kilometre march ‘a large number of the trucks will reach the end of their
serviceability’.
¹⁵⁵