Hitler's Panzer Armies on the Eastern Fron (33 page)

Logistics

The military witticism that ‘amateurs talk about tactics while professionals speak of logistics’ may not apply to the Wehrmacht. Throughout modern military history, the Germans have given scant consideration to matters not directly connected with ‘operations’, especially logistics, but also military intelligence and other less-sexy aspects of making war. From the Barbarossa’s earliest planning stages, logistics was dealt with as an afterthought: troops were forced to forage for food and even Luftwaffe maintenance officers had to scour the Russian countryside for wrecked aircraft in order to scrounge repair parts. When Landsers were freezing to death in front of Moscow during the winter of 194142, it was not because the Wehrmacht did not possess warm clothing; many hundreds of rail cars full of winter equipment sat idle back in Germany. The high command could not – or would not – ship them forward to the fighting front. So it would be for much of the Nazi-Soviet War, although retreating toward their homeland did shorten German lines of communication.

Despite the First World War experience of many German leaders, the Soviet Union’s crude and under-developed infrastructure ‘surprised’ and confounded them. Fortunately for the panzer armies, the best of the Russian roads were reserved for their use. Sand or snow, but especially mud, reduced speeds while multiplying fuel and maintenance estimates absolutely wreaked havoc with pre-Barbarossa staff calculations. The Polish, Western and Balkan campaigns had poorly prepared the Wehrmacht for Russia. Civilian Reichsbahn rail authorities had responsibility ofgetting supplies to the main depots in the army group or army rear echelons. From there a complicated intermediary system called the Grosstransportraum brought stores from railheads to corps or divisional supply points. Here responsibility fell on the Kommandeur der Divisions Nachschubtruppen (Kodina or Commander of the Division Support Troops) to put together truck or quite often native panje horse and cart convoys to the fighting troops. While fighting in the Caucasus, First Panzer Army even made extensive use of camel caravans! All this work was complicated by partisans, climate and terrain, nearly 100 vehicle types in the Wehrmacht inventory (indigenous Axis makes, plus plundered equipment from all over occupied Europe), draft horses dying by the tens of thousands and inaccurate maps. Bizarre Nazi notions about biology and race (i.e., ‘blood’) further complicated the overtaxed medical care system.

Civilian buses intended for the streets of Berlin and simply given a coat of gray paint failed in Russia. Maintenance troops were overwhelmed by the sheer destructiveness of the Nazi–Soviet War, and countless AFVs littered the battlefield even when the Germans were victorious: repair parts were in short supply and recovery assets were swamped with work. The differing railroad gauges between Germany and the USSR is a well–worn trope in the litany of excuses dragged out by the Germans to explain their logistical failures against the Soviets. As before, this situation was common knowledge to a generation of First World War veterans and should have been known by the youngest captain on the general staff. Equally important was the wanton destruction of Soviet rolling stock and roadbeds by over zealous panzer commanders or Stuka pilots. Once the Nazi-Soviet War shifted from the hoped-for ten-week stroll in the park to a struggle of attrition, German logisticians must have rued such wasteful sport.

Strategically, Germany could not sustain a war against most of the rest of the world. Its manpower pool, the capacity of its industry to produce enough Flak shells and panzers, its petroleum stocks and countless other measures never added up.

Fourth Panzer Army’s contribution to Operation Blau was limited by the same factor that had bedeviled Barbarossa: the Germans’ inadequate resources plus their inability to stick with a set of objectives and to work toward that goal as a team. When the Red Army did not stand and fight when the odds against them were overwhelming, Blau began to unravel, and Hoth’s men paid the price by wastefully wandering over the steppe. Through no fault of their own, they spent the summer of 1942 mainly consuming massive quantities of precious fuel to little advantage and ended the campaign in temporary possession of Stalingrad’s southern suburbs.

Eremenko launched his Stalingrad Front’s portion of the offensive on 20 November. As also happened northwest of the city, in Hoth’s southern sector the 51st and 57th Armies singled out Germany’s less than totally committed allies as targets, in this case the Romanian VI and VII Corps. The Romanian VII Corps had only arrived in the panzer army area about three weeks before. His one remaining German outfit, IV Corps itself had one Romanian division out of three in total. All of his allied units suffered from ‘tank fright’ and fell apart on the first day, despite Hoth’s efforts to stiffen their resolve. The Romanian 20th Division fought bravely, but stood little chance against the waves of enemy tanks. The panzer army had no panzer corps or divisions and only about twenty panzers in its two motorized divisions. The best units Hoth had under command soon became trapped in Stalingrad, IV Corps and 29th Motorized. Only trepidation on the part of Red Army commanders across the front from Fourth Panzer saved the remnants. In fact, excessive Soviet concern about reducing the Stalingrad pocket may have been the main thing that prevented the destruction of more German forces in the area. By the end of November Hoth’s command was renamed Armeegruppe Hoth (Fourth Panzer plus Romanian Fourth Armies), with only one German formation in its order of battle, 16th Motorized. It was backpedaling south toward Kotelnikovo, from whence it had come just three months earlier, gingerly pursued by the overcautious 51st Army. By early December, however, Fourth Panzer began to receive some much-needed reinforcements. First, the new Army Group Don under von Manstein assigned LVII Panzer Corps (6th Panzer, its refit in France cut short by the crisis, and 23rd Panzer, coming north from the Caucasus but quite beat up) and later the reliable old XLVIII Panzer (currently 11th Panzer, 336th Infantry and 7th Luftwaffe Field Division). Soon Hoth had assembled 232 panzers (most of which belonged to 6th Panzer), including a battalion of the brand new Tigers. Paulus was to prepare to break out and meet Hoth anytime after 8 December. Threatening Soviet activity near the Chir River first diverted XLVIII Panzer, and then delays in assembling LVII Panzer forced sequential postponement of the rescue operation, named Operation Wintergewitter (Winter Storm). Stalingrad was over 100km distant.
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General Hoth received orders to attack on 12 December, regardless of weather and the availability of 17th Panzer. General of Panzer Troops Friedrich Kirchner’s LVII Panzer got off to a good start, back over the familar ground between Kotelnikovo and the Aksay River, which it crossed at 0800 hours the next day with VIII Fliegerkorps CAS. Raus’ 6th Panzer took the lead, with 23rd Panzer providing flank security with its remaining thirty panzers. With XLVIII Panzer struggling to keep contact with Hoth’s left-hand neighbor, it
could not assist Kirchner, whose men would have to go it alone. Raus described Soviet efforts to halt the relief operation:

the Russians attacked the southern bridgehead three more times with newly–arrived tank and infantry forces – twice on 14 December and once on 15 December. Each time, our panzergrenadiers in their narrow trenches and deep dugouts were overrun by tanks without suffering the slightest injury. As veteran eastern front campaigners, they had long since become immune to the shock effects of tanks. As soon as the black monsters had trundled past, the heads of the German infantry reappeared, directing devastating machinegun fire across the battlefield. This suppressive fire threw the Russian troops following in the wakes of the tanks back to their line of departure or forced them to remain motionless in shallow depressions until nightfall . . . Out of nearly a dozen enemy tanks that penetrated into Saliyevsky during each attack, not a single machine survived to return to its line of departure. The village street was blocked by the burnt-out wrecks of their predecessors . . .
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Hitler finally freed up 17th Panzer on the second day of the attack (it had been sent to bolster the XLVIII Panzer on the 10th, but it would not return until the 17–18 December) and Hoth made steady but unspectacular progress against 57th Army. During a three-day battle at Verkhne-Kumsky nearly 200 panzers and Sturrngeschutze faced between 450–500 tanks of Rokossovsky’s 4th Mechanized and 13th Tank Corps; in normal times the Germans considered these good odds. By the 19th, Kirchner had overcome the Red Army defenses and Raus crossed the Mishkova River, half way to Paulus’ outpost. Though the assault by one battle-weary panzer corps progressed slowly, it was having a major effect on Soviet operational planning; during the third week of December Stavka downgraded Operation Big Saturn (attack to Rostov) to Little Saturn (attack to Morozovsk), largely based on the impression created by Hoth. Risk-taker that he was, even this reduced effort was more than von Manstein could handle. He nevertheless had to strip Kirchner of his strongest element, 6th Panzer. By 21 December, Hitler, evidently frozen in inaction, could not bring himself to order Paulus to break out of the trap and the general would not make the decision on his own. On Christmas Eve, 2nd Guards Army pushed LVII Panzer back over the Aksay for the last time. Hoth was now even in danger of becoming encircled himself near the river by elements of the 2nd and 51st Armies. The 7th Tank Corps stove in Fourth Panzer’s left flank, being held by the Rumanian VII Corps, endangering Kirchner’s corps. Hoth pulled back to Kotelnikovo with 17th and 23rd Panzer and newly assigned Viking
SS Motorized Divisions being chased by 43 enemy units of at least brigade size, supported by 635 tanks and 1,500 guns. Whatever slim chance Fourth Panzer had ofsucceeding with Wintergewitter was gone. Von Manstein kept retreating, pulling the panzer army over the Sal River on the 28th. A week later Hoth occupied a line of strongpoints on the south bank of the Manich facing north, between Prolyetarskaya and the river’s confluence with the Don.
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Stavka devoted most of its attention to subduing the Stalingrad pocket or else the plight of German units on the outside would have been much worse. Fourth Panzer Army of von Manstein’s Army Group Don and all of von Kleist’s Army Group A (see Chapter 1) depended on rail lines routed through Rostov for sustenance. Hoth’s lines stretched well over 300km along the Manich, but ironically were weaker the closer they got to Rostov. One week into the new year, the 5th Shock and 2nd Guards Armies stood mere kilometers from von Manstein’s command post at Novocherkassk. Hitler pinned his hopes on the ability of the battalion of new Tigers to destroy the entire 3rd Guards Tank Corps. On 21 January, the Soviets began their attack anew across a broad front, worked their way behind the panzer army and were soon only 15km from Rostov. First Panzer would not be through the city until the end of the month and Hoth’s men had the mission of holding the door open. Von Mackensen duly extricated his panzer army through Rostov, and then it was Hoth’s turn, with Armeeabteilung Hollidt barring the way of the Red Army. During the first half of February these two formations withdrew over 150km, west of the Mius, with the 3rd Guards Mechanized on their heels. Hoth kept moving west toward the Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhe. As this occurred, the lead elements of the follow-on maneuvers to Saturn, Operations Gallup and Star were closing on the river crossing sites. If Mobile Group Popov and 25th and 1st Guards Tank Corps, driving through a nearly 300km hole in von Manstein’s defensive front, could reach these two cities on the Dnepr bend and hold them, he would lose the foundation of his army group’s logistical support and the entire southern tier of the German line would become unhinged.
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The field marshal had other plans, however, and Fourth Panzer Army represented their centerpiece. On 17 February, Hitler and his retinue arrived at army group headquarters at Zaporozhe, fully intending to replace von Manstein with Model. With the two fresh tank corps 50km distant, no German forces between them and with the sound of combat as a backdrop, von Manstein explained to the Führer how Hoth would counterattack into the void between First Panzer and Armeeabteilung Kempf, recapture Kharkov and regain the Donets River Line. Since Stavka had mistaken the Fourth Panzer’s reorientation to the west as a general retreat, it had imprudently pushed its tank forces to
pursue without regard to its separation from Vatutin’s main body. Hitler liked the risky but bold plan, basically the same idea von Manstein presented at Rastenburg on 6 February, and the next day Fourth Panzer received its orders. It would be the main force in a broadly conceived move involving First Panzer and Army Detachment Kempf, respectively south and north of the Soviet salient. Before he left on the 19th, Hitler released seven weak mechanized divisions from his reserve and agreed to reduce greatly the Taman bridgehead opposite Kerch on the Crimea, and fly tens of thousands of troops to von Manstein’s potentially fatal main front. Von Richthofen’s Luftflotte Four accomplished this mission and would be instrumental in the upcoming battle, where his 950 aircraft (over half the total available on the eastern front) contributed an average of 1,000 sorties per day. However, the key to the entire operation was undoubtedly the new SS Panzer Corps (Das Reich and Totenkopf SS Panzer Divisions), the most powerful organization the Soviets were to encounter since the heyday of Operation Blau, eight months earlier. In addition to Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser’s SS, Hoth commanded LVII Panzer (6th and 17th Panzer) and eventually XLVIII Panzer Corps, while von Mackensen and Kempf contributed numerous mechanized formations on the flanks.
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Soviet intelligence noted the concentration of German armor, but incorrectly assumed its purpose was to cover a continued retreat. So when von Manstein’s men counterattacked on the evening of 19 February, their surprise was complete. With panzers to the front and Stukas overhead, the Germans painted a picture of the good old days of the blitzkrieg. By the offensive’s second day, the danger to the Dnepr crossing had already passed. Three days later, the 6th and 17th Panzer Divisions (the latter down to eight panzers and eleven assault guns) advanced east of Pavlograd, while SS Totenkpof crossed the Samara River on its way north. Hoth’s main objective was destroying Popov’s three corps (greatly weakened, as were most Soviet formations at this time, with only twenty-five operational tanks in total). By 26 February, his advance elements closed on Lozovaya, and 2 days later nearly 400 panzers reached Petrovskoye, aided by Vatutin’s stubborn refusal to allow his men to escape danger. On the 28th, von Manstein ordered Fourth Panzer north towards Kharkov, which Hausser had disobediently (but fortuitously) abandoned just two weeks earlier. With the SS in the lead and XLVIII Panzer on a parallel course to the north, despite signs of an early rasputitsa thaw, the panzer army covered over 70km in five days. By 5 March, it stood barely a dozen kilometers from the Soviet Union’s fourth city. The exhausted 1st Guards Army tried to mount an effective defense, but as the Germans noted, did not fight with much enthusiasm; its 12th and 15th Tank Corps were each the size of battalions. Likewise, the bulk of the 3rd Tank Army succumbed when pincers launched by Hoth’s SS and
XLVIII Panzer Corps and Kempf’s Grossdeutschland met near Rogan. When temperatures dropped again on 7 March, Hoth decided to march on Kharkov, swinging clockwise in order to maintain communications with Kempf. By the 9th, the SS Panzer Corps reached the city’s western suburbs and Hausser announced his intention to take Kharkov by storm. He had only 105 panzers still operational out of the original hundreds. Hoth ordered him not to, but as the SS general had done a month earlier to his then commander, General of Mountain Troops Hubert Lanz, he disobeyed and sent his men into Kharkov from the west and north. After a three-day battle, Kharkov fell on 14 March. By the 18th, the SS men had covered the additional 50km to Belgorod, which they captured along with Kempfs Grossdeutschland, despite fierce resistance from the NKVD rear guard. In the process, numerous 40th and 69th Army units were trapped between Hausser and ‘Corps Raus’ (based on the 6th Panzer, under Kempfs command) in the so-called Udy Kessel.
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By this point the rasputitsa had arrived in earnest, and compounded by exhaustion, the Germans’ planned elimination of the Kursk bulge died a natural death and both sides settled down to four months’ stalemate. For most of that spring of 1943, the Wehrmacht pulled Fourth Panzer Army out of the line, and as twelve months earlier, it prepared for a leading role in the upcoming summer offensive.