Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (81 page)

As the front-line units struggled with the partisan menace, the seeds of rebellion against German rule were steadily being sown in the occupied territories. A report on 5 August from Himmler's notorious
Einsatzgruppe B
(Action Group B) operating in Army Group Centre's rear area noted: ‘Among the population of the erstwhile Soviet Republic of Belorussia a worsening mood has recently become apparent. This is due, above all, to the constant plunder and requisitioning, in both town and country, by the German troops.’
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By the start of September the new civilian-administered
Reich Commissariat Ostland took over from Army Group Centre,
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supporting mass repression and the retention of the hated Soviet collective farms. This quickly dispelled the myth of benevolent German rule and fuelled sympathies for underground communist propaganda. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1941 the majority of the civilian population in the occupied territories were preoccupied with their own survival, and most felt it wiser to await a clearer outcome of the conflict before becoming actively involved in the struggle on either side. For the German troops, the perceived danger, whether from Red Army fugitives or armed civilians, was widespread enough to have a manifest psychological affect which, at this early stage, was more potent than the actual military threat posed by the
partisans.
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Even before Guderian had completed his encirclement at Roslavl,
Bock was keen to seize the opportunity and launch an offensive with
2nd Army to solve the problems on his southern flank. Bock, however, determined Weichs's forces to be too weak and therefore ordered
Guderian to give up one panzer division to support the attack. Though not opposed to the idea of an offensive, Guderian was loath to relinquish any of his forces and protested to the point of refusing the order, which in the end had to
come directly from OKH.
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Guderian vented his fury and despair in a letter to his wife. ‘[S]omebody [he chose not to name Bock or Halder] interferes as before and endeavours to deploy the tanks in dribs and drabs, ruining them by useless journeys. One despairs! How I can overcome this stupidity I do not know. Nobody helps me.’
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On the following day Guderian was saved from having to begin the transfer by a general Soviet withdrawal from the
Roslavl area, which he immediately seized upon to propose a new offensive to the south-west, thereby relieving himself of the need to give up a division by directly assisting 2nd Army's advance
. Bock approved the operation
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and, early on 9 August,
Schweppenburg's XXIV Panzer Corps was again in action attempting to cut off Soviet forces at
Krasnopolye.
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In spite of Guderian's desire to maintain his offensive operations, the panzers of Schweppenburg's corps had not been adequately rested or refurbished and lacked sufficient supplies, especially of oil. Hastily conducted field repairs to the
4th Panzer Division resulted in about 50 per cent of its panzer strength being available for the attack, but the desperate shortage of oil supplies was to prove a greater obstacle than enemy resistance.
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Moreover, the heavy rains slowed the attack and hindered movement even for the tanks, with the added consequence that oil consumption rose by 75 per cent above normal levels.
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Bock wrote on 9 August: ‘The tanks are making slow progress over bottomless roads.’
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Before the attack began, Bock chose Krasnopolye as Guderian's first objective (about 120 kilometres south-west of Roslavl), to be followed by a further advance to
Checkersk (a further 60 kilometres to the south-west). At the time, Guderian was dismissive of Checkersk and proposed marching immediately to the vital Soviet concentration point at
Gomel
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(a distance of about 90 kilometres from Krasnopolye). In the light of the difficulties, on only the second day of the attack, Bock
enquired as to whether the more limited advance on Checkersk was still possible, to
which Guderian replied: ‘No, that would mean the end of the corps.’
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It is indeed instructive to note the continual over-estimation of strength on behalf of the German command, as well as the profound decline of the German offensive capacity. The operation to Krasnopolye was being undertaken by an entire panzer corps (
3rd and
4th Panzer Divisions, followed by the
10th Motorised Infantry Division) against fleeing Soviet resistance, over a distance hardly comparable with the vast stretches of land to be conquered if Soviet resistance was indeed to be crushed. Yet instead of the panzers’ difficulties causing Guderian to exercise caution, the very fact that they were moving spurred him to precisely the opposite course of action. He came up with a bold new offensive plan to roll up the Soviet flanks to the north of Roslavl, just as he was now doing in the south. This would mean that, after its small encirclement around Krasnopolye
, Schweppenburg's panzer corps would have to perform a complete about-face and retrace its steps back to the area around Roslavl
, before launching an even more ambitious offensive against much stronger Soviet formations. Guderian believed that if he added the available strength from his other two panzer corps he could relieve the Yel'nya salient, while also destroying the Soviet reserve armies in the rear.
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After the war Guderian alleged that this plan would have opened the road to Moscow, and claimed that its rejection by Bock and Halder was evidence of their hesitant commitment to the thrust on Moscow.
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As usual Guderian only saw one way of going about things and that was his
way.

In fact, Bock's rejection of Guderian's proposal was based on a far more sound military assessment.
Bock believed that such an operation might yield a brief tactical success, before resulting in another costly battle, with Guderian's exposed right flank providing a vulnerable target for the Soviet reserves to attack. Clearly Bock was better informed as to the depth and strength of the Soviet reserves. On the whole, Bock concluded:

Army Group Guderian is too weak to also defeat these forces on its own. 4th and 9th Armies are busy, Panzer Group Hoth will not be ready to attack until the 20th [of August]. The whole thing becomes a partial blow which places the armoured groups at risk without promising a strategic success.
¹⁰²

By 11 August Schweppenburg's corps was shattering the weak
Soviet 13th Army, but its own forces were likewise being ground down. The
4th Panzer Division had only 64 tanks left and only 33 of these were Mark IIIs (25) and IVs (8).
¹⁰³
On the same day the panzer group's war diary noted: ‘The technical requirements of this attack are not favourable. In spite of the rest period, it was not possible to bring up the necessary spare parts. The number of panzers in the army group [Army Group Guderian] has not increased significantly. It is also not known whether or when the spare parts (motors etc.) will be delivered.’
¹⁰⁴
At this point
Brauchitsch abruptly declared that
Checkersk and
Gomel would also have to be taken, which probably reflected his recognition that Hitler would never allow the march on Moscow before being convinced that the problems on Bock's southern flank were solved.
Bock was very doubtful that Schweppenburg's corps had the strength to undertake such an order and suggested that more panzer forces would have to be transferred to the south, but even then he concluded: ‘With the poor equipment state of the panzer divisions, I have doubts whether they can force this order to be carried out.’
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As the Soviet position opposite
2nd Army became untenable, Weichs's infantry divisions launched their own offensive on 12 August. The infantry attacks were generally able to move forward, but at certain points the attacks were thrown back with heavy casualties. In the attack on
Kostjaschowo, an entire German battalion advanced to within 10 metres of a large, but well concealed, Soviet force defending the town. The Soviets waited till this point to open fire, routing the Germans and wiping out half the battalion. In one company only 35 men survived.
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Nevertheless, by 13 August Schweppenburg's corps had eliminated a pocket at
Krichev, capturing 16,000 prisoners, 76 guns and 15 tanks.
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Bock, however, was still unconvinced that the seizure of Gomel was possible, writing: ‘material and human strengths will probably no longer be sufficient.’
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This was certainly reflective of the strain Schweppenburg's corps was under and, as the heavy fighting continued, the 4th Panzer Division's war diary noted on the evening of 14 August: ‘Battles on 13 and 14 [August] very costly, also in material. There was little benefit [in the fighting] because the enemy mass had already evacuated. Trucks in bad condition. Men
tired. Division increasingly more worn out…Russian tanks, especially the
heavy
ones, are
good.’
¹⁰⁹

On 8 August, as Guderian was about to commence his attack in the south,
Bock asked
9th Army if there was any prospect of conducting a renewed attack towards
Velikie Luki in the north. The difficulties facing Strauss convinced Bock that, as in the south, the infantry would be unable to advance without support from Hoth's panzers. On 9 August, when Halder expressed an interest in Bock's plans, the Chief of the General Staff proposed a new large-scale operation in the north. Bock, however, was careful to point out to Halder Strauss's reservations concerning his ability to attack because, Bock remarked: ‘I have the feeling that the Army High Command has overestimated the army's forces.’ With Hoth's refit not projected to be finished until 20 August, Bock was prepared to put off the northern offensive until approximately 23 August.
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As Bock's offensive strength floundered, the importance of refitting the panzer divisions assumed critical importance, but this required uninterrupted rest, spare parts and sufficient time. The corps with the greatest success in meeting these requirements was
Lemelsen's XXXXVII Panzer Corps, which on 11 August recorded an improvement in its combat strength. Despite the rigours of continually running supplies, by remaining stationary the corps had been able to arrest the decline in its transportation fleet and even raise vehicle numbers through a combination of repairs and the seizure of 300 captured vehicles (mostly trucks) from the Soviet material around Smolensk. In addition, the
18th Panzer Division, which had been kept out of the line for the past two weeks and allowed complete rest, had raised its combat strength to 129 serviceable tanks. The
17th Panzer Division was still fighting, but managed to field 80 tanks.
¹¹¹

Lemelsen's corps, however, was the exception, not the rule. There were not enough spare parts to service all the divisions, and the endless demands of the front denied many of the motorised and panzer divisions the time and rest they needed to conduct repairs. Indeed, it was only on 11 August that the remaining elements of the
20th and
19th Panzer Divisions were finally relieved by the infantry and able to begin their refitting, while the
18th Motorised Division would not be fully released from the front until 15 August.
¹¹²

By
13 August the problem of significantly raising tank numbers within the panzer divisions reached a critical apex. Time was exceedingly short and the promised delivery of tank motors had still not materialised. It was at this point that Army Group Centre revealed there were now only 150 tank engines to be expected – although still not delivered – for both Hoth's and Guderian's panzer groups.
¹¹³
At the 4 August conference Hitler had promised 400 engines, a figure Guderian had described as ‘totally inadequate’.
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With
the scaled down number of new engines to be expected, Hoth's panzer group determined that only a 15 per cent increase in panzer strength could now be anticipated.
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Yet even achieving this slight rise was provisional to when the delivery would take place, especially given the inadequate field installations and working conditions of the army technicians.
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In spite of such unpromising conditions for improvement within in the panzer groups, estimates circulating around the OKH stubbornly insisted upon upwards of 70 per cent of the ‘full authorized establishment’ being restored during the refitting period. Colonel Burmeister, who had reported this figure to
Paulus on 12 August, however, also made the ominous admission that once operations began again the army would have to expect swift losses of up to 25 per cent.
¹¹⁷
Clearly, the extent of the repairs and the serviceability of many tanks was highly provisional and not to be counted on for the wide-ranging operations to come.