EIGHT
HITLER AND HIS HIGH COMMAND—FIELD MARSHAL Walter von Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW), Colonel General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations of OKW and Colonel General Franz Halder, Chief of the General Staff—were very optimistic about the decision to invade Russia. They had every reason to be, with any doubts dispelled by the dramatic lightning victories in France and the Low Countries. No force had thus far defeated the German Army. Germany had conquered most of Western Europe in short campaigns, and they could expect to do the same in Russia. Only Great Britain remained undefeated, but she had been driven out of France, Norway and Greece. So hubris reigned supreme, and the few generals who felt disquiet or opposed the plan remained silent. However, they had all underestimated the strength of the Soviet colossus. They were helped in their optimism by the gross miscalculations of Foreign Armies East, a branch of Army Intelligence headed by Colonel Eberhard Kinsel.1 His department estimated the Russians had no more than 200 effective divisions when in reality they had more than 360.2
The plan presented to Hitler was to invade Russia with three army groups. Army Group North, under Ritter von Leeb, would strike from East Prussia through Lithuania and the Baltic States to advance on Leningrad. Army Group Centre, under Fedor von Bock, would thrust through Byelorussia and on to Moscow. Army Group South, headed by Gerd von Rundstedt, would capture the resource-rich Ukraine. For Adolf Hitler, resources were a vital part of his plans for a rich and sustainable Reich. He was acutely aware that in the last war, German society and parts of its military disintegrated through privation, lack of resources and hunger brought about by Germany’s insufficient agricultural and industrial strength, along with the inability for replenishment due to the British naval blockade. The grain, coal and industrial might of the Ukraine would prevent a repetition. For this reason, Hitler placed great emphasis on Army Group South. Many of his generals, however, including Guderian, Halder, von Bock and others were fixated on Moscow. This was the political, commercial, transport, and communications hub of the Soviet Union and was their primary target. The difference in emphasis between Hitler and his commanders was to create a great deal of discord in the months to come.
To make matters worse, Operation Barbarossa did not have clearly defined objectives, beyond drawing a halt line that stretched from Archangel to the Caspian Sea. This would be where the German forces would halt to consolidate and absorb the conquered territory that would provide the living space for German colonists and resources for the Reich. The occupied peoples were to provide slave labour for their German masters.
To reach this stop line, the Red Army would have to be destroyed, and this was Barbarossa’s general objective. It was anticipated, going on past experience in France and elsewhere, that this would not take long; or as Hitler told von Rundstedt, “You have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
The chief instrument of this destruction was to be the German armoured force. Its tanks were to be concentrated into four separate panzer groups. The 4th Panzer Group under General Hoepner would be attached to Army Group North. The 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups under Generals Guderian and Hoth were part of Army Group Centre, with nearly 1,500 tanks between them. Army Group South’s 1st Panzer Group under von Kleist had five Panzer and three motorised divisions with 600 tanks, mostly Panzer IIIs. It was to this Panzer Group that Graf von Strachwitz and the 16th Panzer Division were attached as part of the XIV Panzer Corps under General Gustav von Wietersheim.
Von Kleist’s Panzer Group faced the Soviet South-Western Front. This was the strongest of the Soviet Groups, as the Russian dictator also valued the riches of the Ukraine, which he had plundered at the expense of the native Ukrainians, and was fully cognisant of Hitler’s need of it to fuel his war machine and feed his Reich. The war would develop into an economic one, based on manpower, fuel, food, mineral and industrial strength, all of which Germany lacked in sufficient quantities to sustain her war effort over a long period of time. The Soviet Union and the West dwarfed Germany’s available resources, although the full extent of this factor was not fully appreciated by Adolf Hitler or his planners. Had he been fully aware, the Führer would still have invaded Russia on ideological grounds and belief in his own unconquerable will. He may however have hesitated, or refrained, from declaring war on the United States of America, although this was done partly in the hope that Japan would reciprocate by declaring war on Russia.
For Germany to achieve victory, it had to wage a “total war.” Adolf Hitler made this very clear to his generals in Mach 1941 when he told them it would be a “clash of civilisations” and the Wehrmacht would have to be part of “a war of extermination.” He could not have made it any clearer, so his generals should not have been under any illusion as to what was expected of them. To give practical meaning for his words and to translate them into a workable policy Hitler issued an order to be given to all army, corps and divisional commanders concerning the treatment of the civilian population and prisoners of war in Russia. It stated, that in the event of any excesses committed against civilians or prisoners, the soldiers responsible for these excesses were not to be automatically punished according to military law. Disciplinary action was to be at the discretion of the soldiers’ immediate commander. Field Marshal von Brauchitsch and Colonel General Guderian, among others, were concerned about the effect the order would have on preserving discipline. To this end von Brauchitsch appended an addendum stating that the order would only apply if there was no danger of discipline suffering because of it.3 The sheer criminality and immorality of the order was not remarked upon, nor was it challenged on those grounds. Discipline was the generals’ only concern. Along with this order was another specifying that all political commissars who were captured were to be summarily executed. This was more overtly criminal and was objected to more vociferously by a greater number of officers. Then again, this could have been because it was disseminated more widely. Some corps and divisional commanders didn’t pass these orders on, while others briefly mentioned them with the implication being that they were not to be rigorously enforced, if at all. Alexander Stahlberg, in his memoir, gives one example of how the order was transmitted and received. The order was passed on by the divisional commanders to the battalion commanders, who then announced it to their officers:
He announced the Commissar order. When he had finished there was deathly silence in our circle, until one of the company commanders asked how would one recognise a Commissar. Lieutenant Colonel Becker seemed to have been expecting the question and said cuttingly that he had no idea, nor did he wish to know. He and all the other commanders had been ordered by the divisional commander to pass this order on to all officers—but only to officers. The order came from the highest level. He, Becker, had now carried out his orders.
After another pause he said: “Gentlemen, the officers briefing is not yet over. There is reason to remind you of The Hague Convention on Land Warfare. I am now speaking of the treatment of prisoners and wounded. Anyone who abuses prisoners and wounded I shall have court-martialed. Do you understand me, gentlemen?4
Nevertheless many commanders did enforce the order. General Hube ensured that the order would not apply to the 16th Panzer Division. Even if he had tried to implement it, there would have been no chance for it to be carried out by men like von Strachwitz and Sieckenius. Their code of honour and inherent decency would not have allowed it. Field Marshal Kluge also had his concerns about the order and the SS activities behind the lines. It should be noted these concerns were not about the Waffen SS (military wing of the SS) but of the Security police. He sought to have the order rescinded, albeit not personally, as Major Gerhard Engel recorded in his dairy for 23 May 1941:
Visited Field Marshal v Kluge. Kluge more or less confirmed scenario. Russians were marching up and massing near border. Numerous grass airstrips in immediate proximity to frontier. Kluge pleaded with me to get F. to change the dangerous Commissar Order, and especially to put the SD Kommandos more under military control. There had been some very bad goings on in Poland, and he had to intervene personally on several occasions, for example in Modlin and Lublin. Considered political tactics in Poland as very unfortunate.
The worst was the uncertainty about police and SS measures. In the evening I reported this in same terms to F.5
One could well imagine the Führer’s reaction and it was another reservation Hitler had about von Kluge.
By 22 June when Operation Barbarossa was launched, the Germans had amassed 136 divisions including 19 Panzer divisions along the frontier with the Soviet Union. The Romanians and Finns also joined in from their borders, while the Slovaks, Croats, Italians and Hungarians were to contribute smaller contingents. The Germans left 46 divisions to guard the West, far too large a number considering there was no real threat of an invasion by Britain. Half that number would have been more than sufficient while the remainder would have made a welcome addition to the invasion force. The total number of tanks fielded by the Germans was 3,550. Opposing them the Soviet had 193 equivalent divisions near the frontier and a staggering 12,000 tanks, most of which were the BT-series light tanks, but there were sufficient T-34 medium tanks and KV heavy tanks to make a significant difference.6
At dawn a massive artillery barrage blazed across the entire frontier, pulverising Soviet defensive positions in a storm of fire and hot metal. Werner Adamczyk, an artilleryman, described the barrage in his memoir:
0500: The inferno broke loose. North and south of us our artillery began firing at a rapid pace. I could not see anything of the action, except clouds of smoke rising in the air not too far away. The dense forest obstructed our view. The artillery fire increased steadily. I learned quickly to distinguish between the muffled sound of the guns firing and the sharp crackling sound of the shells landing. But soon the firing was so fast that the sounds mingled into one incomprehensible wall of noise. I could feel vibrations shaking the earth and the air.7
The shocked and dazed survivors staggered around while their equally stunned commanders—those who still had some communications intact—called for instructions and assistance. They had very little time to grasp the reality of the situation and organise a defence, for as soon as the barrage lifted hundreds of thousands of men in field-grey uniforms stormed into the Soviet defence line. They cut down with machine pistol and rifle fire anyone who dared to resist while the German tanks clattered through the lines, spitting death and destruction as they thrust towards the Soviet interior lines.
The Russians were taken completely by surprise, despite many warnings that the invasion was coming. The Lucy Spy Ring passed on full details, while aerial reconnaissance revealed the massive buildup on the border. The night before the attack three German deserters crossed the lines to warn the Russians. When he was told about them Stalin raged that it was disinformation, that they had been planted by the Germans to provoke him into action. He ordered that at least one—Alfred Liskow, a young communist from Berlin—be summarily executed, so convinced was he that the German invasion was a sheer impossibility. Stalin simply refused to believe that Hitler would attack. Just as importantly he did not want to believe it. After all he was not ready to face Hitler just yet. His plan was to let Hitler and Britain fight themselves to exhaustion, and then he would simply move in and mop up. At the very least, he wanted time to build up his strength and take on Hitler at the time and place of his own choosing, or defeat Hitler with a massive counter-blow should the German dictator invade first. Because of his unpreparedness, Stalin would go to any lengths to avoid provoking the Nazis, so he refrained from any action at all. His generals, being acutely aware of their master’s wishes, were equally prepared to do nothing as the episode between General Ivan Boldin, deputy commander of the Western Military District and defence commissioner Semyon Timoshenko shows:
“Comrade Boldin, remember no action is to be taken against the Germans without our knowledge.” Timoshenko told him, “Will you please tell [General Dimitry] Pavlov that Comrade Stalin has forbidden to open artillery fire against the Germans.”
“But how is that possible?” Boldin yelled. “Our troops are in full retreat. Whole towns are in flames, people are being killed all over the place.”8
Timoshenko would not relent, not while Stalin was determined to refuse to face reality. Even when Stalin’s chief of General Staff, Geogy Zhukov, informed him of heavy German shelling and bombing raids all across the western frontier he ordered him to avoid retaliating. He later told him, “Hitler surely doesn’t know about it,” speculating that the German military was acting on its own. He sent Molotov, his foreign minister, to see the German ambassador Graf von Schulenburg, for clarification; from him he got the official declaration of war.
Crucial to the Germans’ continuing success was the destruction of the Soviet Air Force. Most Soviet airfields were close to the frontier, and every one was bombed and strafed comprehensively. By 23 June the Soviets had lost 1,811 aircraft, of which 1,489 were destroyed on the ground. After 90 days their losses totalled 4,800 with 3,176 being destroyed on the ground. The pilots of those planes destroyed on the ground were of course still available to fly other and better aircraft later, so it was a temporary victory only. The Germans for their part lost a mere 330 aircraft.9 Most importantly they had achieved total air supremacy in a very quick time. This was essential if the blitzkrieg and swift destruction of the Russian army was to be achieved.
An excellent representative summary of how the campaign was actually conducted in the early stages is given by Siegfried Knappe, an officer of the 87th Infantry Division, in his memoir:
Our forward scouts—usually motorcycle troops [in Panzer divisions it could also be armoured cars, light tanks or troops in armoured personnel carriers] although we had some cavalry—went ahead of us, reconnoitring. When they drew fire, the point battalion would immediately spread out. The troops behind the point battalion would also spread out from the road on which we were marching. Once we knew how strong the resistance was we would prepare an attack. We would have an idea how strong the resistance was from the type of fire we received. The first fire would always be rifle fire and sometimes machine-gun fire, but the type of fire that followed—mortar, tank, artillery—would tell us a lot about how strong the resistance was. We would then make decisions based on that information.
Interestingly the forward scouts were rarely killed, and far more often they were not even hit. The Russian soldiers firing at them were usually not there to fight, but only to stop us momentarily, and then very quickly get back to report to their superiors what they had seen.10
Overall resistance was patchy. Some Russian units fought ferociously to the last man, while others were quick to flee or to surrender. Some even cooperated with the Germans. In one instance a Soviet artillery officer actually gave his captors the coordinates to his guns as the Germans were firing short. This was more evident on the southern front where Ukrainians in the Red Army had scores to settle with the Soviet regime. It is estimated that some 20,000,000 Ukrainians died from starvation brought about by the forced collectivisation of peasant farms. Well-to-do peasants, known as kulaks, as well as the intelligentsia, and any objectors were shipped off to Siberian slave labour camps from which very few returned. There was thus a large reservoir of hatred for the communists in the Ukraine and indeed all over the Soviet Union, which the Germans squandered by their bestial behaviour towards the conquered peoples. Overall, apart from committed Communists there was no great love for the Soviet Union, but there was for Mother Russia and it was to this patriotism that Stalin was forced to appeal. Many of his soldiers wanted to surrender simply to fight against Communism, and entire units would surrender upon the approach of the Germans. In other instances the troops shot their commissars or any officers who objected to their surrendering. They were also more than willing to point out any commissars taken prisoner, who were pretending to be common soldiers. All this would change when the brutality of the Germans in the rear areas became evident and the criminal neglect of the prisoners of war became known.
On the southern front where Graf von Strachwitz was located with the 16th Panzer Division, the Germans assembled 34 divisions and 809,000 men. Of these, five panzer divisions including 16th Panzer and eight motorised divisions were combined into the 1st Panzer Group under von Kleist. In all, they had 923 armoured fighting vehicles, of which 425 were Panzer IIIs and short-barrelled Panzer IVs, none of which were a match for the Russian T-34 medium or KV heavy tank.
Facing the Germans was the Russian South-West Front under Marshal S.M. Budenny, a civil war crony of Stalin’s and completely out of touch with modern warfare, and General Kirponos, a far more competent armoured force commander. Their force consisted of 58 divisions and 907,000 men, of which 16 were tank, and eight were mechanised divisions. Their tanks totalled 5,465 including 496 T-34s with their deadly 76mm long-barrelled guns and sloped armour, and 278 heavy KV-1s and KV-2s. These last two were slow but heavily armoured, with 90mm and maximum 110mm frontal armour, and gunned with a 76mm or 152mm gun. Despite their armour superiority the Soviet tanks had a major weakness. Unlike the Germans, the Russians did not carry radios, so communication was by flags waved from the command tanks, rarely visible in the heat of battle. Changes in tactics or movement were not easily communicated, so the individual tanks generally followed the original plan, or the movement of the command tank if it could be seen or was still mobile. Some command tanks carried radios, but could only contact higher headquarters and were unable to communicate with other tanks.
The Soviet crews also lacked training in modern up-to-date tactics, which the Germans had acquired through their recent campaigns. Just as importantly they lacked vital battle experience, which the veteran German tank crews had in abundance. These factors went a long way in negating Soviet armoured superiority. Graf von Strachwitz made full use of these Soviet disadvantages to destroy superior Russian forces time and again. It was a question of knowing one’s own strengths and the enemy’s weaknesses. It might sound obvious but few commanders exploited these to the same effect as did Graf von Strachwitz.
However, these weaknesses were not clearly apparent to the Soviets and did not diminish their capacity to do battle. They were more than willing to fight, and General Kirponos was not prepared to remain on the defensive. He attacked at every opportunity. His actions made a lie of the German propaganda, which showed an all-conquering German Army steamrolling everything before it. Certainly the Russian Army was in headlong retreat with long columns of dejected prisoners trudging into a captivity that would result in most of them dying from disease, starvation, deprivation and execution—but it was nowhere near the easy battle the propaganda portrayed.11
For Hyazinth von Strachwitz and 16th Panzer, the campaign started a little late as they were kept in reserve. His brother Manfred, a panzer battalion commander in the 18th Panzer Division, had already crossed the River Bug with 80 submersible tanks, seeing action well before his older sibling. On 24 June the advance guard of 16th Panzer crossed the River Bug near Sokol-Krystinopol, leaving Russian-occupied Poland and entering Soviet territory for the first time. Marching in the wake of the 11th Panzer Division, where Graf von Strachwitz’s eldest son was serving, Hube’s division began its odyssey into Russia. The amount of combat Hyazinth von Strachwitz and his men saw in the first few days was negligible, consisting of gunning down pockets of resistance from hold-outs and taking some sporadic artillery fire. Nevertheless these hold-out actions were both numerous and often fanatical as Dr Heinrich Haape, a doctor with the 18th Infantry Regiment, recounts:
Suddenly shots rang out not more than fifty feet ahead of us from a field of rye. Neuhoff pulled his horse back onto its hind legs. We dismounted and in the confusion a volley of bullets went over our heads as Hillemanns, the adjutant and a number of our men dashed into the cornfield firing their rifles and automatics as they went. There was a melée in the tall corn, a confusion of revolver shots, upraised rifle butts and screams.
A tall infantryman from the HQ company brushed his way back through the rye. With his hands still gripping the barrel of his rifle he shrugged and said “Finished!” I noticed the butt of his rifle was splashed with blood.
Neuhoff and I strode into the corn. A commissar and four Russian soldiers were lying on the trampled earth, their skulls battered into the soil, which had been freshly dug and thrown up into a mound for their suicidal ambush. The commissar’s hands were still grasping uprooted cornstalks. Our casualties were negligible—one man with a bayonet wound in the arm, another man with a grazed calf. A little iodine, gauze and a couple of strips of adhesive plaster and they were ready to march on with the rest of us. Neuhoff, Hillemanns and I rode on together at the head of the column.
“I didn’t expect that,” Neuhoff said shakily. “Sheer suicide, to attack a battalion at close quarters with five men.”12
The Panzer Graf had a similar experience with a Soviet rearguard when his tank broke down. He waved the rest on, knowing the repairs would not take long and he would quickly catch up. A major repair requiring separation from his unit would have necessitated his transferring to another tank. The sight of the lone disabled tank was noted by a squad of Russian infantry hiding in a maize field, who rushed at the rear of the tank, away from its gun and hull machine gun. Von Strachwitz saw the danger and reacted instantly. He grabbed a machine pistol, quickly clambered out of the tank and, firing from the hip, he charged the enemy. The surprised Russians were stunned and halted momentarily. It was enough: they were stationery targets. The Graf calmly fired short, aimed bursts, as he had been trained to, bringing three Russians down before they could react. A fourth raised his rifle but was too slow, the Graf’s bullets hitting him square in the chest. The remaining two turned and ran in panic-stricken flight. Two short bursts from von Strachwitz’s machine pistol brought them down to the ground in a heap. His quick reactions had saved his life and that of his crew.
That sort of exposure to enemy action was typical of von Strachwitz. He personally led from the front and his battalion was usually in the van. He invariably pushed his unit forward in what amounted to a reconnaissance in force. Hube didn’t interfere. He had the option of using his reconnaissance battalion, which was lightly armed with armoured cars and motorcycle troops, or his tanks. The reconnaissance battalion could only overcome light resistance, having to wait for reinforcements if engaging a superior force. Von Strachwitz’s tanks on the other hand could smash their way through most opposition, thereby maintaining the momentum of the advance.
As a battalion commander, von Strachwitz had to assess what type of engagements and resistance he was likely to encounter. This was vital for the appropriate logistics required by his unit and for its overall effectiveness. If strong resistance was anticipated, his forward supply echelon would have to carry a greater amount of ammunition than fuel. In this event he had to also decide whether to alter the standard ratio of armour-piercing to high-explosive rounds, depending on whether he expected to be engaging enemy tanks or soft-skinned vehicles, infantry anti-tank guns, or artillery. If his assessment was wrong he would be carrying an excess of the wrong type of ammunition with possible fatal results. The Russian armoured brigades at this time were almost exclusively carrying high-explosive rounds as their envisaged role was that of infantry support. They were changing over to more armour-piercing ammunition when the German panzer force struck. Their mistake would cost them dearly.
If very little resistance was expected, then von Strachwitz’s support vehicles would carry more fuel than ammunition. An error here could also prove costly. Insufficient ammunition meant a greater risk of casualties and allowing Soviet tanks to escape destruction. A lack of fuel meant his tanks becoming immobilized and sitting targets at worst, or at best the enemy escaping while his tanks were waiting to be refuelled. Either way the momentum of the advance was lost allowing the enemy to regroup and counterattack. Towards the end of the war when fuel was drastically short, tanks would often have to be abandoned when they ran out of fuel. A grave situation made worse when every single tank was needed to halt the swarms of T-34s surging forward through the German lines. However the Graf’s excellent tactical awareness played a vital role and he very rarely made the wrong logistical choice.
Ideally a tank battalion commander led from the front, often along with, or immediately behind the lead company. That way he could quickly assess the tactical situation and react to the changing circumstances as they arose. Not so the Panzer Graf. More often than not he was with the lead platoon, and if his armoured force was small, due to casualties or maintenance requirements, he was in the lead tank. This exposed him to frequent danger, as his 14 wounds testified. For greater observation he spent most of his time with his upper body exposed above the turret. It was the only way to get a good view of the battlefield. For this reason tank commanders suffered heavily from head wounds, often fatal ones, from either rifle or sniper fire and shrapnel from artillery, bombs or high-explosive tank rounds. It wasn’t considered unusual for a tank commander to be decapitated.
Von Strachwitz quickly learnt to use only one earpiece from his radio headset. With both ears covered, his hearing was too restricted, and he couldn’t track sounds outside the tank. The sound of tank engines or the clatter of their tracks frequently betrayed the presence of the enemy well before they could be seen. It was a practice eventually adopted by the most aware tank commanders along the front.
For all the planning the Graf conducted, nothing prepared him for the sheer brutality of the enemy. The Hague Convention did not exist for the Red Army, and Russia was not a signatory, so as a consequence the Red Cross and respect for the wounded meant absolutely nothing. The 16th Panzer Division’s field ambulance unit belonging to the 64th Regiment was overrun by the Soviets during one of their frequent counterattacks. The Russians cruelly massacred the entire unit including the wounded. Their bodies were found mutilated, with most having been subjected to torture and an agonizing death. Dr Heinrich Haape describes an example of the Bolsheviks’ disregard for the Red Cross flag in his memoir of the advance into Russia:
The hollow pointed out by the stretcher-bearer lay a hundred yards from the house. We made a dash for the ditch and plunged into it as sniper’s bullets bit into the earth on either bank and showered us with dust. The machine gun from the farmhouse chattered and I seized the opportunity to dash across the remaining twenty yards to the hollow.
Six bodies lay sprawled in the hollow. A stretcher-bearer lay on his back, arms flung wide, and four other soldiers lay close by just as they had fallen. And there was the doctor, lying face downwards, Red Cross band on his sleeve, a bold red cross on the flag by his side. The contents of his medical pack were strewn around him.
As if afraid of being overheard, the Pfarrer whispered: “A hundred yards from here—see, there, behind those gorse bushes, the Russians were lying. The doctor had brought the wounded men into the hollow and was attending to them when the Russians started firing. I was watching from the farmhouse but could do nothing. The doctor stood up and waved his red cross flag, but they kept firing at him. He fell, and they fired and fired until nothing moved in the hollow. It was horrible … cold-blooded murder.” His voice broke and tears were in his eyes.13
The Russians frequently mounted local counterattacks as their reserve and second-line forces were still largely intact despite being badly mauled by Stuka dive-bombers. In the Huka sector a large Soviet infantry unit attacked the 16th Panzer spearhead. At its very tip was Graf von Strachwitz with a small force of Panzer IIIs. The Soviet infantry surged forward shoulder to shoulder, a mass of brown uniforms, their bayonets gleaming in the sun. They swarmed literally from their hiding places, where they had been waiting concealed for the first German unit to come along. An attack against tanks was suicidal but they were helped along by large doses of vodka. To ensure there would be no shirkers or stragglers, the commissars ran behind them brandishing their nickel-plated pistols ready to shoot anyone who wavered. It was to become a common combination ensuring blind obedience in the face of certain death. Very quickly the Graf’s force was surrounded by the horde, and while it looked to be an easy task to wipe out the field infantrymen, in reality it was far from simple. They mounted the tanks, placing grenades in vulnerable spots to disable them, and molotov cocktails to start fires in engine bays, while firing guns fire into the driver’s observation slit.
The Graf quickly ordered a defensive circle with each tank covering the one to its front. His orders were clear and calm. To panic now could break their defence and leave them vulnerable. Their machine guns sent long chattering bursts into the enemy masses while their main guns, depressed as low as possible, fired high-explosive rounds into the troops swarming at the tank to their front.
Bodies and body parts flew through the air as Russians fell in groups and rows, yet still they came, trampling over their own dead, seemingly oblivious to the awful carnage around them. The wounded who staggered to the rear were shot by their haranguing commissars, either out of mercy or sheer bloodlust. Many Russians, fuelled more by hatred than alcohol, made almost superhuman efforts to climb on to the German vehicles. The hull machine guns of the tanks blew them away. But nothing seemed to stop the red horde. Not death, wounds or fear. Finally, with almost the last machine gun rounds expended, the attack ebbed away. Even the commissars realized the attack had failed, and ran back with the surviving troops.
When it was over, even the normally imperturbable Graf was shaken. Such fanatical disregard for death was new to him. He climbed out of his tank to survey the damage and remove the bodies sprawled over it. A single shot rang out. Von Strachwitz staggered a step, then collapsed. The bullet had ricocheted off his tank and hit him. The tank commander of the nearest tank scrambled out of his turret and, disregarding his own safety, ran over to assist. No other shots were fired, so presumably it had been the last desperate effort from a wounded or dying Russian.
After a field dressing was put on his wound von Strachwitz was helped into his tank and he returned to the German lines for treatment. Ignoring the doctor’s advice, he refused evacuation, opting to stay with his troops. As long as he was capable of leading he would lead. His wound was simply something he had to accept as part of his job, and fortunately it was a ricochet with only shallow penetration. It was the first of many wounds for the Graf.
His shooting was typical of that received by a tank commander, as most deaths and wounds occurred while the crewmen were outside their tanks, or partially exposed in the turret. Commanders frequently had to leave their tanks to reconnoitre, attend orders groups, give verbal instructions to other commanders, liaise with the officers of their supporting infantry, change tanks or undertake a myriad of other duties required of them. Because of their command responsibilities they were at greater risk of death or injury than ordinary tank crewmen. Very often casualties were caused by sudden salvoes of artillery, and snipers were also a constant danger.
The inexorable advance of 16th Panzer continued with the tanks at the front and long trailing columns of motorized infantry, artillery and supply troops bringing up the rear. Soviet aircraft, flying from airfields in the hinterland, tried to hinder the Germans progress. They bombed 16th Panzer’s columns in a sustained attack, but the bombs fortunately fell alongside, causing only minimal casualties and damage. The Russian Air Force had a habit of bombing across a column instead of along it, consequently causing nowhere near the damage they would have otherwise. It was certainly less dangerous for the Soviet aircrews, as it reduced their exposure to ground fire because the German self-propelled anti-aircraft guns had very little time to fire. However as a bombing run it often proved ineffectual and the Russian Air Force never achieved the massive impact of the Western air forces, despite having total supremacy for most of the war.
The impetus of the division’s advance was slowed by exceedingly heavy rain, which quickly turned the dirt roads into a morass. Soft-skinned vehicles got bogged down to their axles, and only tracked vehicles could move. However there were insufficient tracked prime movers available, so von Strachwitz’s tanks had to be employed as towing vehicles, much to his chagrin. Tanks were fighting vehicles not tow trucks. Every hour lost pulling trucks out of the mud delayed the advance by an hour, giving the enemy time to regroup and prepare defences. But there was nothing to be done. To make matters worse, the heavy pulling used up precious fuel, and if that wasn’t enough, the fuel trucks were not getting through quickly enough. He partially solved the problem by having his tanks carry fuel cans on their hulls, but this created another problem should they be caught in a surprise attack, with the flammable liquid making an excellent funeral pyre.
Fortunately the rain didn’t last but it was a foretaste of what was to come during autumn and the following spring, when whole armies would be immobilised. Hube reported “slow but steady progress” to headquarters, who were greatly unimpressed, wanting lightning advances, smashing into the enemy’s rear and capturing large tracts of enemy territory. Little did anyone know, that they were heading into the biggest tank battle of the war so far. Graf von Strachwitz was to have the opportunity to demonstrate his superb tank-fighting abilities.
NOTES
1. Kinsel would be replaced by Colonel Reinhardt Gehlen who proved more realistic in his estimates and raised the ire of his Führer who refused to believe them. He survived Hitler’s wrath to become head of West Germany’s intelligence service after the war.
2. Alan Clark, Barbarossa (Macmillan, 1985), pp. 42–43.
3. General Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (Futura Publications, 1977), p. 152.
4. Stahlberg, Bounden Duty.
5. Major Gerhard Engel, At the Heat of the Reich (Greenhill Books, 2005), pp. 113–114.
6. F.J. Goodspeed, The German Wars (Bonanza Books NY, 1977).
7. Werner Adamczyk, Feuer! An Artilleryman’s Life on the Eastern Front.
8. Andrew Nagorski, The Greatest Battle: The Fight for Moscow 1941–1942 (Simon and Schuster NY, 2007).
9. German Research Institute for Military History Volume IV.
10. Siegfried Knappe, Soldat, p. 181.
11. Close to 3,000,000 Soviet POWs died from disease, starvation, overwork and neglect in German captivity. Admittedly in the early stages of the war the Germans were overwhelmed by the number of captives they took, but equally they made very little and often, no effort to care for them so that it amounted to mass murder. The sad irony was that those that did survive captivity were nearly all sent to Siberian slave labour camps for having surrendered, and for being exposed to the West and its ways. It must be added that German POWs fared little better and died in their hundreds of thousands, for the same reasons. Soviet sources admit to 580,589 German deaths, but the actual number is well in excess of one million.
12. Dr Heinrich Haape with Dennis Henshaw, Moscow Tram Stop (Collins Publishing, London, 1957). Dr. Happe was one of only few doctors to be awarded the German Cross in Gold for bravery in recovering the wounded under fire and maintaining his aid post close to the frontlines.
13. Ibid.