Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (57 page)

While spreading forces too thinly on Army Group Centre's northern flank had resulted in Kuntzen's panzer corps getting thrown back, the situation on the southern flank threatened far more serious consequences. The headlong drive at the centre of Bock's front was expanding his already elongated southern flank, and it was not long after forging across the Dnepr that Schweppenburg's
XXIV Panzer Corps (Guderian's southernmost corps) was fully engaged in holding off Soviet attacks and keeping the army group's precarious flank intact. On 16 July
Schweppenburg even feared that the strength of Soviet thrusts, striking south from the encirclement at Mogilev and north from
Novy Bykhov, might sever his rearward communications. Accordingly, he requested that the
XII Army Corps, of Weichs's following
2nd Army, be sent immediately to his aid.
¹⁵
While
Schweppenburg
did his best to hold the line against the attacking formations of Timoshenko's
21st,13th and
4th Armies, the front was far from hermetically sealed and gaps were constantly opening and closing. The attempts to resume the advance eastward only stretched these lines further and therefore had to be broken off before any real progress was made. The solution sought by
Weichs was to use the bulk of
2nd Army's strength to attack southwards, which, together with Schweppenburg's panzer corps, could seize the Soviet concentration point at
Gomel and clear the troublesome enemy forces on the southern flank.
Bock, however, was unconvinced and remained adamant that 2nd Army stay on a north-easterly course towards the main objective – the pocket forming at Smolensk. Just as Bock had disputed Halder's plan for an offensive operation on the northern flank, Bock again sought to pool his resources and not be distracted by secondary operations which pulled his forces further from the centre.

In spite of Bock's clear instructions, Weichs demonstrated a wilfulness befitting Guderian and sought to compromise Bock's demand. On 18 July Weichs informed Bock of the growing enemy strength in the south and declared that he would probably have to commit
XIII Army Corps to shore up the line. Bock was very reluctant to agree and insisted that such a move was only to be considered ‘in the most extreme emergency’. Later that day Bock discovered that Weichs was considering committing two army corps to attack in the south. He immediately telephoned 2nd Army and spoke with Weichs's Chief of Staff who confirmed the report, saying: ‘Nothing has happened with piecemeal attacks and the situation there can't be cleared up by fighting a defensive battle. Therefore the Commander-in-Chief [Weichs] wants to commit
XII and XIII Corps to attack to the south.’
¹⁶
Bock was incensed. He tersely forbade the operation and restated that Weichs's primary mission was to advance to the north-east leaving only the minimum possible forces to guard the flank. He then issued written instructions to 2nd Army so as avoid any further misunderstandings. Yet the matter did not end there and the following day (19 July) Bock had the impression from the morning report that 2nd Army ‘was not acting as I wished’. Bock therefore dispatched
Greiffenburg, his Chief of Staff, to Weichs's headquarters to set things straight and assert his view.
¹⁷

Although Bock was essentially right in seeking to concentrate his forces at the main battle and relieve the hard-pressed motorised forces in the centre of the front, his ardent disregard for Weichs's concern in
the south was foolhardy. Here Bock must be faulted for slipping into the all too common tendency among German generals of the period – under-estimating the strength of Soviet forces. On 19 July Bock derisively referred to the enemy forces attacking in the south as ‘scraped-together elements’ and judged Weichs's concerns ‘exaggerated’.
¹⁸
Thus, while Weichs might rightfully be accused of failing to grasp the bigger picture by seeking an offensive towards
Gomel, Bock certainly failed to appreciate the swelling threat intensifying on his southern wing. Not even on 20 July, when heavy attacks pounded Schweppenburg's
10th Motorised Division from all sides, forcing
4th Panzer Division to race to the rescue, did Bock recognise the scale of the problem (see
Map 8
).
¹⁹
It was only on 21 July, when the whole southern flank was threatening to buckle under the pressure, that Bock relented, admitting in his diary: ‘The situation facing
XXIV Panzer Corps on the southern wing was so threatening that I had to order the
2nd Army to restore it.’
Weichs estimated this required the full commitment of two army corps (XIII
and IV). The setback also made an indelible impression on Bock who remarked: ‘A quite remarkable success for such a badly-battered
opponent!’
²⁰

Map 8 
Dispositions of Army Group Centre 20 July 1941: David M. Glantz,
Atlas of the Battle of Smolensk 7 July– 10 September 1941

Despite the importance of the action on the flanks, it was at the centre of Bock's front that the main German forces were concentrated and where the battle of Smolensk would have to be won. To this end
Hoth employed Schmidt's reinforced
XXXIX Panzer Corps to advance in a long arching manoeuvre around the main Soviet force north of Smolensk. The advance proceeded swiftly and by 15 July the spearheading
7th Panzer Division captured the main Moscow–Smolensk railroad and highway junction at
Yartsevo. It was a potentially definitive achievement but for the fact that the southern arc of the encirclement was missing. Guderian's
panzer group was still a significant way off – a source of some irritation in Hoth's panzer group. On the evening of 15 July the war diary noted: ‘Unfortunately the link-up with Panzer Group 2 is lacking, just as at Minsk.’
²¹

Of Guderian's panzer group, composed of three panzer corps, the southernmost, Schweppenburg's XXIV Panzer Corps, was tied up holding the southern flank. On Guderian's northern wing,
Lemelsen's XXXXVII Panzer Corps was entirely committed to holding the southern side of the encirclement and accordingly could spare no units to link up with Hoth east of Smolensk. This left Vietinghoff's XXXXVI Panzer Corps which operated in the middle of Guderian's group and could have been used to swing north-east to seal the gap. Instead, Guderian was
already thinking about the next stage of the offensive and therefore drove this corps further east to seize the high ground at
Yel'nya. This fateful decision illustrated yet again the ineptitude of the German generals in grasping the dangers of
over-extension.

Understanding this harmful, and ultimately self-defeating predisposition is inconceivable without realising the power of the superiority myth which pervaded the German army at the time. In spite of the mounting obstacles, confidence in victory was still palpable. Problems or doubts, in so far as they were acknowledged or reported, were often treated as localised occurrences, or matters of short-term duration. In the end, however bad things may have appeared, solace was taken from the fact that things must have been much worse for the Soviets and consequently the war would have to be over soon. On 15 July the collapse of Timoshenko's front at Smolensk was predicted by
Panzer Group 3 to be only days away.
²²
It was a confidence shared by many of the rank and file.
Karl Fuchs, a tank gunner in the 7th Panzer Division, wrote home on 15 July: ‘We are now positioned outside the city of
Smolensk and have penetrated the highly acclaimed
Stalin lines. I would imagine that within eight to ten days this campaign will be over.’
²³
Ernst Guicking, a soldier from the
52nd Infantry Division, wrote to his wife on 14 July: ‘If you could see the frantic advance here you would surely be completely speechless. Something like this has never been recorded in the history of the world. The main thing is that the campaign will soon be over, of that we are all convinced.’
²⁴
Walter Tilemann, an orphan from a German family living in the Soviet Union, noted after being adopted by a German unit early in the campaign: ‘The word “Blitzkrieg” did not seem to be only an empty phrase. Many believed in it and that the war would soon be won.’ Yet he also added: ‘It was more hope than belief and the dull feeling that it must not turn out differently.’
²⁵
A general of the Waffen SS,
Max Simon, later attested to the valour of the Soviet infantry and their powers of resistance in this early phase of the war. He then cited Germany's failure to comprehend this as a key failing of their war in the east. ‘Very soon we had to admit that we were up against a very different adversary from the one we had expected and I believe that this underestimation was one of the reasons for the unfortunate course [
sic
] which the campaign in Russia
took.’
²⁶
Other events such as the capture of Stalin's son on 18 July (he was a battery commander in the 14th Tank Division) seemed to suggest that the disintegration of the Red Army was closer than ever.
²⁷
Indeed, the accolades of success were already flowing. Throughout July 1941 the Knight's Cross
²⁸
was awarded to
Lemelsen,
Schweppenburg and
Model (commander of the 3rd Panzer Division), while
Schmidt,
Hoth,
Guderian and
Richthofen (the commander of the
VIII Air Corps) were all awarded the prodigious Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross.
²⁹

Figure 7.1 
In the early days and weeks of the fighting German war cemeteries, neatly ordered and well prepared, were established, but as losses soared simple birch crosses were erected.

Thus
it was with a resplendent confidence that Guderian, like so many of his fellow officers, viewed the progress of the war and, accordingly, he saw little danger in the bold move to seize Yel'nya before ensuring the closure of the main pocket around Smolensk. Yet, just as in the Belostok–Minsk pocket, Soviet forces were able to escape the encirclement and rejoin Soviet lines through the open corridor to the east. On 17 July Panzer Group 3 observed with frustration: ‘In the hole left by Panzer Group 2, eastwards of Smolensk, countless enemy groups are succeeding in escaping to the southeast.’
³⁰

Not
surprisingly, pressure was soon mounting on Guderian to close the pocket, but he was not prepared to do this at the expense of giving up his drive on
Yel'nya. On 18 July
Bock emphasised to
Kluge the importance of closing the ring near
Yartsevo
³¹
and on the following day he requested that 4th Panzer Army ask Guderian ‘whether or not he is in a position to carry out the order of three days ago to link up with Panzer Group 3’. Bock's further questioning even implied a degree of dissatisfaction with Kluge's handling of the matter, given that he was Guderian's nominal superior and in Bock's view should have dealt with the matter earlier. This provoked an outburst from Kluge and resulted in a brief argument.
³²

In fact Guderian had been attempting to close the gap by mustering forces for a drive on
Dorogobuzh, south-east of Yartsevo. On 18 July he visited the stricken
18th Panzer Division and, in spite of acknowledging its wretched state, ordered it towards Dorogobuzh.
³³
The division had lost more than three quarters of its initial panzer strength and almost half of its anti-tank guns. In one regiment which had started the campaign with 2,359 men, losses by 19 July had reached 1,000. The terrible road conditions also had a devastating affect on the division's mobility with 1,300 trucks classed as total losses and a further 1,000 trucks in repair.
³⁴
Beyond the division's internal difficulties, Guderian's decision to move it from the southern flank of the Smolensk pocket, before the arrival
of the replacement infantry, imperilled the panzer group's rear
area. In essence, he was attempting to close one hole by opening another, but Guderian was firmly of the opinion that his panzer forces should not stand on static lines when they could be used in the attack. Consequently, just as at the Belostok–Minsk pocket, Guderian fell foul of
Kluge, who immediately countermanded the order to remove the division. Such was the antipathy between the two men that Kluge didn't even bother to inform Guderian.
³⁵