Hitler's Panzer Armies on the Eastern Fron (10 page)

Von Kleist’s men had not been idle during these high-level machinations, they merely changed azimuth with each succeeding order. With 14th and 22nd Panzer Divisions leading across the steppe like two great racehorses, III Panzer described a 180 degree clockwise arc, heading northeast on 9 July and southwest two weeks later. Covering the left wing was XL Panzer. Considering the arid terrain, von Mackensen’s men had to cross a surprising number of rivers. Retreating Soviets had been very diligent in demolishing most bridges. Naturally, in view of the need to keep combat power well forward and with the severe fuel shortage (German logistic woes did not improve with distance), bulky bridging equipment often seemed to be at the back of the column. In quick succession, the III Panzer crossed the Derkal (12 July), the Glubokaya (14th), the Donets - again (15th), the Kundryuchya (19-20th) and the Tuzlov (21st). Right until the gates of Rostov the fighting was light. After a time-wasting reorganization, and against non-existent resistance, Seventeenth Army approached the city via the direct route, over the same ground used by von Kleist the previous November. These Landsers, along with von Kleist’s 22nd Panzer, entered the outskirts of Rostov on 23 July. The XLIX Mountain Corps joined the fight on the 24th, but despite the efforts of determined NKVD units, again the Red Army eschewed a serious defense of a hopeless location. Portions of the 12th and 18th Armies had been trapped north of Rostov, but this was certainly not the Kessel on a Barbarossa scale that the Germans hoped for. First Panzer’s POW haul for the first four weeks was negligible: 83,000 after a 300km tour of the steppe. As happened at Millerovo ten days earlier, Rostov also witnessed a massive concentration of fuel-starved panzers, waiting for orders.
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Hitler issued Directive 45 on the same day Rostov fell. Blau was long forgotten and the directive introduced Operation Braunschweig. As it applied to von Kleist, the typically unclear directive ordered an assault on Maikop. Army
Group A translated Directive 45 into its own Operation Edelweiss. List’s order saw a three-phase operation: first, an encirclement of Red Army forces south and southeast of Rostov, to be closed by First Panzer and Seventeenth Armies near Tikhoretsk, 120km from the city; second, an advance on Maikop and Armavir, and; third, occupying the mountain passes of the Caucasus and oil-rich Baku. At least Army Group A had better logistical arrangements than B did. On 27 July, while consulting with von Kleist and Hoth at the latter’s command post, List began to tweak his own plan and that of Hitler as well. He had huge distances to cover over daunting terrain, only 400 panzers, little air support, too few mountain divisions and other problems. All indications pointed to continued Soviet retreats so the three generals decided among themselves to ignore the intermediate objective of Tikhoretsk (to the southwest), and instead move south-southeast.
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For Edelweiss, von Kleist commanded the following: XLIV Corps (97th and 101st Jäger Divisions), III Panzer (13th Panzer and 16th Motorized), LII Corps (370th and 111th Infantry) and LVII Panzer (SS Viking and the Slovakian Motorized), and after 30 July, XL Panzer (3rd and 23rd Panzer). They moved out on a 150km-wide front on 26 July. On the 27th, lead elements crossed the Manich River, considered by many to be the boundary between Europe and Asia. Upstream, the Soviets demolished dams that held back large reservoirs, flooding the valley and increasing the width of the river a hundredfold, from 40m to 4km. It would be three days until the 60th Motorized crossed the river to reinforce the small bridgehead. The terrain, the 40° C weather and ever-present logistic problems were all that held First Panzer back; the Red Army offered virtually no resistance. With von Kleist halfway to the Kuban River, List officially asked OKH to cancel the planned maneuver to Tikhoretsk. The idea of a Kessel had been overcome by events, but von Kleist continued to veer southwest - to help trap Budenny’s North Caucasus Front along the Black Sea coast, rather than toward the oil to the southeast. As had been the case prior to the capture of Rostov, von Mackensen conducted a series of almost unopposed river crossings: Yegorlyk (1 August), Kuban (5th), Laba (8th) and finally Byelaya (10th). General of Panzer Troops Friedrich von Kirchner’s LVII Panzer took a parallel course, some 50km to the west, but also converging on Maikop. The XLIV Corps stood between III and XL Panzer corps, eventually moving up the upper Kuban valley. The XL Panzer aimed for Pyatigorsk, while LII Corps covered First Panzer’s far eastern flank, reaching Elitsa and beyond. Once across the Byelaya River, 13th Panzer stormed Maikop on 13 August, aided by Stukas and Brandenburgers. But the heavily wooded foothills of the Caucasus beyond the city were no place for a panzer
army and therefore Seventeenth Army infantry began relieving the panzers. Von Kleist turned east once again.
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Although First Panzer had scattered the 18th, 12th, 37th, 51st and 56th Armies before it, von Kleist could not create the desired Vernichtungsschlacht. He had lost the relatively light Grossdeutschland (an asset in the steppe) because of Hitler’s concern over an Allied invasion in the west (the Dieppe raid was only days in the future). By early August, German overconfidence told them the battle for the Caucasus was over and so the Schwerpunkt switched to Army Group B, now approaching Stalingrad. As of 18 August, the Seventeenth Army had responsibility for the Black Sea coast, while First Panzer aimed for Baku, via Grozny. The 1,300km distance from Rostov to Baku was equivalent to that from the German-Soviet frontier to Rostov, and von Kleist was down to two corps: III and XL Panzer. As had been the case for nearly two years, German staffers did not allow such reality to intrude on their planning. Meanwhile, across the front lines, on 28 July, Stalin issued his famous Order #227, with its well-known injunction, ‘Ni shagu nazad!’ (‘Not one step back!’). Therefore, near the Kuban River, Soviet forces had finally stopped retreating and faced about to offer resistance for the first time during the summer. A week later, Tyulenov announced to the Red Army chief of staff that his Trans-Caucasus Front would defend along the Terek River, with which Stavka concurred.
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By 16 August, von Kleist reoriented his forces on Voroshilovsk and began heading southeast toward the Kuma River. Two days later, despite the ever-present fuel shortages, they had levered Maslennnikov’s Northern Group out of those positions. From then on, movement came in lunges as fuel shipments arrived. Around the 24th, what was left of III Panzer reached the Terek at Isherskaya, while XL Panzer did the same at Mozdok, 40km west. Tyulenev rushed to reinforce the already formidable river, 300m of white-water rapids, well covered by defensive fire. Except for distance, itself a considerable obstacle to von Kleist, the Terek represented Tyulenev’s last natural barrier west of Grozny. Help for the defenders came from an unexpected source: the German high command. By mid-August First Panzer lost the 22nd Panzer, the three divisions of the Italian Alpine Corps, Flak and Nebelwerfer units, and perhaps most importantly, almost all support from Luftflotte Four. On 22 August, it additionally lost the 16th Motorized, sent by Hitler on a fool’s errand to Elitsa.
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Despite being desperately short on fuel, III Panzer moved nearly 100km west to the vicinity of Maisky, near the confluence of the Terek and Malka Rivers. With the addition of the Romanian 2nd Mountain Division, reinforced by some German Jagers, and weakened elements of the 23rd Panzer, von
Mackensen anchored his line on the Caucasus foothills to the southwest. With his right flank thus secure, on 2 September, 3rd Panzer Division and some Brandenburger commandos of XL Panzer finally had a bridgehead over the Terek at Mozdok on the panzer army’s left. On the 18th, LII Corps, relieved of guard duty at Elitsa and now manning the center, gave a nudge against the Soviet lines only to have them cave in completely; for over a week von Kleist’s men pursued the retreating defenders. The trusty 13th Panzer, the newly arrived SS Viking and even the 111th Infantry Division gobbled up ground like the glory days of July. Unfortunately for von Kleist, Viking could get no further than Malgobek by 26 September, while 13th Panzer stalled at Elkhotovo on 3 October.
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On 25 October, First Panzer began one last push, one assumed to carry it past Ordzhonikidze and on to Grozny. As before, the Romanian 2nd Mountain Division (again reinforced by 1st Battalion, Mountain Jager Regiment 99) initiated the attack, coming from the direction ofBaksan. Heavily supported by the Luftwaffe, they managed to destroy the command post of the 37th Army, leaving the defenders figuratively headless. The main attack began the next day, with 13th Panzer to the right and 23rd Panzer to the left. The Romanians captured Nalchik the day after that and the two panzer divisions swung left toward Ordzhonikidze. On 1 November, 23rd Panzer took Alagir, the northern terminus of the Ossetian Military Road, while its sister division pushed on against the still disorganized defenders. The 13th Panzer took Gizel, less than 10km from Ordzhonikidze, the capital of the Caucasus region and more importantly from a strategic standpoint, where the Grusinian Military Road exited the mountains. If the Germans blocked both military roads, over which much of the logistic support for the entire Soviet southern theater flowed, the impact would be tremendous. At this point the heavily reinforced defenses stiffened. Under massive Luftwaffe CAS, von Mackensen shifted his Schwerpunkt left, right, left to find a weak spot upon which to capitalize. There was none. By 5 November, the Red Army had seized the initiative to the extent that 13th Panzer was temporarily encircled. When that storied formation, the keystone of Von Kleist’s operations since Barbarossatag, had to break out to the west in order to avoid destruction, First Panzer Army knew its ‘massive expedition’ had reached the limits of its endurance.
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The SS Division Viking took over for the bruised 13th Panzer at the First Panzer’s easternmost point. For a few more weeks it remained close enough to Ordzhonikidze to keep the military road under sporadic artillery fire, but not close enough seriously to interdict the traffic. On 1 November, Hitler left Vinnitsa and returned his headquarters to East Prussia. He simultaneously
relinquished command of Army Group A to von Kleist, while von Mackensen rose to command First Panzer Army.
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Because they are relatively confined in time and space, Operations Blau, Braunschweig and Edelweiss make interesting study. However, as military undertakings they failed in every one of their objectives: the Red Army’s southern tier of forces were not annihilated, Stalingrad resisted capture and hardly a drop of oil was taken out of the ground in the Caucasus. Changing missions and priorities plus logistics woes deprived von Kleist of much operational impact. Perhaps allowing Seventeenth Army to deal with Maikop while First Panzer raced to seal off the Caucasus military roads would have brought more success in capturing the oil fields at the eastern end of the mountain range. Soon First Panzer Army, and indeed the entire Ostheer, would be fighting for its very existence.

Hitler did not stay long at Rastenburg, but within a week was in Munich, congratulating himself over the 1942 campaign in a speech marking the anniversary of his Beer Hall Putsch nineteen years earlier before taking a much-deserved vacation in Berchtesgaden. News, first of the Allied invasion of North Africa, and then of the Soviet counteroffensive on either side of Stalingrad, Operation Uranus, dampened his festivities. However, Stalin had more ambitious objectives than simply destroying the Axis armies assaulting his namesake city. The follow-on Operation Saturn aimed at Rostov and the destruction of First Panzer and Seventeenth Armies fighting hundreds of kilometers to the south in the Caucasus.
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The German high command was lethargic: slow to awaken to the threat to Stalingrad, slow to arrange a rescue effort for the entrapped garrison and slow to recognize the danger to Army Group A. For much of the remainder of the war, the Soviets would operate within the Boyd Loop of the Germans.

The attention of both armies concentrated on the main front around Stalingrad. Unsurprisingly, the Soviets made little effort in the far south, correctly believing that if they succeeded at Stalingrad and Rostov, the problem of Germans in the Caucasus would solve itself. Toward the end of 1942, panzer army rear echelon troops began an orderly withdrawal to the north. At the time, it consisted of the following subordinate units: LII Corps (Ott, 50th, 111th and 370th Infantry Divisions), III Panzer (Lieutenant General Hermann Breith, 13th Panzer and Romanian 2nd Mountain), XL Panzer (3rd Panzer, Cossack Regiment von Jungschulz) and various Cossack squadrons and volunteer units of Caucasus Mountain peoples (but not SS Viking, which Hitler sent to von Manstein’s new Army Group Don). First Panzer had reached the Kuma River before Tyulenov began actively pursuing on about 7 January 1943. Stavka knew
that in order to destroy Army Group A, the Southern (at Stalingrad) and Trans-Caucasus Fronts would have to work together, but they were too slow. By mid-January, with 16th Motorized between them, First and Fourth Panzer Armies had made contact and enjoyed a measure of ‘operational cooperation’. The danger area for them, and Seventeenth Army, was the narrow German bottleneck around Rostov, which von Manstein knew he had to keep open. Less that 40km separated General AI Eremenko’s men at Bataysk and mouth of the Don on the Sea of Azov. The field marshal pleaded with Hitler to allow First Panzer to escape. By 27 January, the Fuhrer had made a decision. He would break up Army Group A, have Seventeenth Army retreat to the Kuban Peninsula opposite the Crimea, while First Panzer became part of Army Group Don. Further, he allowed the panzer army headquarters, two corps headquarters, one panzer division, one infantry division and two security divisions to escape, the rest would fall in on the Seventeenth Army. On the same day, von Mackensen’s troops evacuated Armavir, which they had first occupied six months earlier. A week later, Hitler decided to pull First Panzer across the Don completely, while Fourth Panzer held open the door at Rostov. Panzers and heavy vehicles went through the city, while infantry and Cossacks escaped over the frozen Don River delta. By the end of the month, the panzer army passed through the ‘gateway to the Caucasus’ one last time. It had retreated 550km in one month.
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