The Road to Berlin (16 page)

The vital decision was to let the German offensive lead off. Though Stalin evidently wanted and went on wanting to pre-empt, he was dissuaded from this dangerous predilection, and here the views very forcefully propounded by Vatutin
seemed to have triumphed (and to have been especially influential). Soviet operational planning at Kursk, and in the complex of operations connected with Kursk, proceeded from three premises:

1.An offensive to spoil the German attack would be pointless.

2.The Central and Voronezh Fronts would remain strictly on the defensive, and would grind down the enemy in defensive battles, but the moment the assault lost its power they would go over to a decisive counter-offensive.

3.The Bryansk and Western Fronts would prepare an offensive aimed at Orel.

There was much upon which Stalin had to brood. While the top-level agent ‘Lucy’ supplied him through the spring of 1943 with nothing less than the day-to-day decisions of the
OKW
(‘the Centre’ acknowledged its indebtedness for information in January on the Caucasus and for detailed items on the movement of German divisions eastwards from Europe), during the winter of 1942 Soviet intelligence had also dispatched a ‘special group’ of highly trained, regular intelligence officers to enemy-occupied areas in southern Russia. Among these Soviet officers was N.I. Kuznetsov, who operated as
Oberleutnant
Kurt Ziebert. In this capacity, he was a party to the secrets of the infamous Koch,
Reichskommissar
of the Ukraine, with his headquarters in Rovno; Kuznetsov certainly transmitted information on ‘Citadel’ (and a little later he stumbled on the details of a German plan to kill ‘the Big Three’, Stalin among them, when they met in Teheran at the end of the year).

Although after March the longest ‘lull’ in the whole war set in, both sides worked feverishly to prepare for a decisive encounter. Step by step, the Soviet plan took shape, each item of information fitting into the gigantic jigsaw. The
Stavka
was persuaded that the Red Army could indeed take the field first, but this time the Soviet intention was to absorb the German blow before going over to a Soviet offensive. The strategic objective for the summer–autumn offensive was fixed at pushing German forces back to a line running from Smolensk to the river Sozh and the middle and lower reaches of the Dnieper, to smash in the German defensive system of the ‘Eastern Wall’ and also to wipe out German forces in the Kuban; the main Soviet thrust would be in a south-westerly direction to liberate the eastern Ukraine and the industrial region of the Donbas. A second offensive would be aimed due west, to liberate eastern Belorussia and to destroy Army Group Centre. Already as a result of field intelligence data, certain assumptions could be made about impending German operations; the concentration of crack
Panzer
divisions was almost certainly a sign of an offensive intention, and when the blow came it would be mounted this time not on a broad front but ‘as a limited blow on a single axis’. Kursk was the axis, and Kursk it had to be. With a major offensive towards the south-west scheduled after the outcome of the defensive battle, there was every reason to build up Soviet forces in this area; within a short time almost half (40 per cent) of the rifle formations of the Red
Army, together with
Stavka
reserves, augmented by every existing Soviet tank army, had been jammed into the reaches of the salient. A year before the General Staff had pleaded for a strategic defensive; Stalin accepted in principle but exploded it in practice. Now, as
Stavka
directives for the most rigid defence went out to the Voronezh and Central Fronts, the die was irretrievably cast, and men, machines, ammunition, aircraft, guns, tanks,
SP
(self-propelled) guns and army engineers, rolled steadily into the salient. The fortifications, when they were finished, stretched in their various configurations the equivalent distance of Moscow to Irkutsk. At the beginning of April, both the Voronezh and Central Fronts had received the first batch of reinforcements: Voronezh Front formations were brought up to strength, the Front itself being stiffened with four rifle divisions and 1st Tank Army, while Central Front acquired one tank corps (2nd Tank Army being taken into reserve) and six rifle divisions. On 1 April 1943 both fronts mustered a combined strength of 1,200 tanks. Two months later this had tripled. With the output of Soviet tanks and
SP
guns running at some 2,000 per month—and aircraft at 2,500—the Russians stood fair to win the war of the production-shop. It was as Manstein had warned Hitler—to delay with
Citadel
would mean no less than sixty newly-equipped Soviet armoured brigades at the front.

Early in April, Marshal Zhukov made both an extensive tour and a minute inspection of the Voronezh Front, where Vatutin had been installed. One immediate result was to stiffen 52nd Guards Division, which Zhukov felt to be particularly vulnerable, but a much vaster enterprise was afoot, a major ground and air reconnaissance effort mounted by the Central, Voronezh and South-Western Fronts to register enemy strength and to estimate enemy reserves. Marshal Vasilevskii and the General Staff assumed responsibility for seeing this through, and on 8 April Zhukov considered the information acquired adequate enough to submit a major strategic appreciation to Stalin, a key document in the planning process on the Soviet side (Zhukov,
Vosp
. (2), pp. 139–41):

To: Comrade Vasil’ev [Stalin]

  0530 hrs. 8 April 1943.

I herewith submit my view on possible enemy operations in the spring and summer of 1943 and my estimates of our defensive operations in the immediate future:

1. The enemy, having suffered heavy losses in the winter campaign of 1942/3, cannot apparently establish by the spring large reserves in order once more to renew his offensive operations to seize the Caucasus and break through to the Volga with the object of deeply outflanking Moscow.

In view of the limitation of his major reserves the enemy will be forced in the spring and in the first half of the summer of 1943 to develop his offensive operations on a much narrower front and to solve his problems stringently by stages, having as the basic aim of the 1943 campaign—the capture of Moscow.

Considering the deployment of enemy forces at the present moment against our
Central, Voronezh and South-Western Fronts
, I am of the opinion that the main enemy offensive will develop against these three fronts in order to destroy our forces
on this axis and thereby gain freedom of manoeuvre for the outflanking of Moscow on the shortest line of advance.

2. Apparently, in the first stage, the enemy, having assembled his maximum forces, which will include up to 13–15 tank divisions, supported by large numbers of aircraft, will direct a blow with his Orel–Kromy concentration to outflank Kursk from the north-east and with his Belgorod–Kharkov concentration will attack to outflank Kursk from the south-east.

A supporting attack, designed to split our front, can be expected from the west from the area of Vorozhba, between the Psel and Seim rivers, to drive on Kursk from the south-west. With this attack the enemy will attempt to destroy and encircle our 13, 70, 65, 60, 38, 40 and 21 Armies.

The terminal stage of this phase of the operations must be to bring enemy forces on to the line of the river Korocha, Koracha, Tim and the river Tim, Droskovy.

3. In the second stage the enemy will try to break into the flank and rear of the South-Western Front, in the general line of advance through Baluiki–Urazovo.

To meet this attack the enemy can launch an attack from the Lisichansk area along a northern axis towards Svatovo, Urazovo.

In the remaining sectors the enemy will try to reach the line Livny, Kastornoe, Stary and Novy Oskol.

4. In the third stage, after regrouping, the enemy very possibly will try to reach a front running from Liska to Voronezh and Yelets and, covering himself to the south-east, can organize a blow to outflank Moscow from the south-east through Ranenburg, Ryazhsk, Ryazan.

5. It is to be anticipated that this year the enemy will put the chief burden for offensive operation on his armoured divisions and his air force, since at the present moment his infantry is much less ready for offensive operations than in the previous year.

At the present time the enemy deploys in front of the Central and Voronezh Fronts up to 12 tank divisions, and by drawing off 3–4 tank divisions from other sectors, the enemy could commit against our forces at Kursk up to 15–16 tank divisions with a strength of some 2,500 tanks.

6.
So that the enemy should smash himself to pieces against our defences, in addition to the measures to strengthen the anti-tank (PTO) defence of the Central and Voronezh Fronts, we must as speedily as possible draw off from passive sectors
and concentrate in
Stavka
reserve for use on heavily threatened axes 30 regiments of anti-tank artillery, concentrate all self-propelled gun regiments on the Livny–Kastornoe–Stary Oskol sector, part of the regiments if so desired being given at once to reinforce Rokossovskii and Vatutin, and concentrate as many aircraft as possible in
Stavka
reserve, so that massed air attacks in co-operation with armour and rifle formations can smash enemy attacks and thus frustrate his offensive plan.

I am unfamiliar with the latest disposition of our operational reserves, but I consider it right to suggest their deployment in the area of Yefremov, Livny, Kastornoe, Novy Oskol, Valuiki, Rossosh, Liska, Voronezh and Yelets.

This would put the main body of the reserves in the area of Yelets, Voronezh. The deep reserves would be at Ryazhsk, Ranenburg, Michurinsk, Tambov.

In the area of Tula, Stalinogorsk, it is essential to have one reserve army.

An offensive on the part of our troops in the near future aimed at forestalling the enemy I consider to be pointless. It would be better if we grind down the enemy in our defences, break up his tank forces, and then, introducing fresh reserves, go over to a general offensive to pulverize once and for all his main concentrations.

KONSTANTINOV [Zhukov]

Shortly afterwards Marshal Vasilevskii arrived at Voronezh Front
HQ
and here the two marshals worked out a draft
Stavka
directive on reserves and the establishment of the new Steppe Front.

On the evening of 11 April Marshal Zhukov arrived in Moscow to attend the
Stavka
conference scheduled for the evening of 12 April, for which Stalin ordered all operational maps, calculations and proposals for future operations to be prepared. From early morning onwards on 12 April Marshal Zhukov, Marshal Vasilevskii and General Antonov worked furiously to prepare all the documents and maps Stalin had called for. The Front commanders had also submitted estimated and operational plans, Central Front (Lt.-Gen. Malinin’s report) on 10 April, Voronezh Front on 12 April itself. These estimates of German intentions conformed very largely to Marshal Zhukov’s first appreciation, but in Moscow the three senior Soviet officers worked out a final appreciation for Stalin himself. Zhukov and Vasilevskii took the view that German forces would attack on one of the main strategic axes and that the most dangerous area was at Kursk. The German command was prepared to break through ‘at any price’ in order to restore the strategic balance in favour of the German Army: destroying the Central and Voronezh Fronts would do just this. The German attack at Kursk would be concentric, one attack reaching out from south of Orel, the other from the Belgorod area. Elsewhere on the Soviet–German front German troops would go on the defensive, for by General Staff calculations the
Ostheer
no longer disposed of sufficient strength for multiple offensive operations.

Stalin duly met his commanders late in the evening of April 12. To the reports and the appreciations he listened ‘as never before’. He agreed that the main German striking forces were clustered around the Kursk salient, but his overriding concern remained for ‘the Moscow axis’. To cover all eventualities it was agreed to begin the construction of deeply echeloned defence systems on all the ‘main axes’, but to give priority to Kursk. On the basis of this decision, Front commanders were given preliminary orders and the General Staff set about a systematic movement of
Stavka
reserves to bring them up to the areas under threat. By mid-April the decision for a planned defensive action by Soviet troops, to be followed by a carefully timed offensive, had begun to take on fairly solid shape. The Front commanders Vatutin and Rokossovskii also submitted their wider appreciations, and both plumped for the defensive. General Vatutin in his report (12 April) set out his view of German intentions:

The enemy is preparing to attack and will mount concentric blows from the area of Belgorod-Borisovka to the north-east and from the area of Orel to the south-east, with
the aim of encircling our forces deployed west of a line running from Belgorod to Kursk. By way of development, the enemy may seek either to repeat his offensive to the south-east into the rear of the South-Western Front with a subsequent sweep northwards or this year he may refrain from an attack to the south-east and adopt a different plan, namely, after concentric blows from the Belgorod and Orel areas he will aim his attack to the north-east to outflank Moscow.
[IVOVSS
, 3, p. 246.]

The enemy would rely heavily on massed air and tank attacks, so it would be advisable to plan offensive air actions to deal with German airfields and to deploy Soviet ground forces to deal with massed tank blows. Once the enemy had been worn down in the defensive fighting, the Soviet forces ‘at a favourable moment’ should go over to a counter-offensive ‘aimed at the final destruction of the German forces’, a drive to destroy enemy forces in the Ukraine, thereby putting out of action ‘the most active section of the German Army’. Rokossovskii in his
sluzhebnaya zapiska
set out similar views from the Central Front—German attacks would materialize from the Belgorod–Kharkov and the Orel concentration areas, and substantial German success would pose a grave threat to the rear of the Soviet fronts, the Central and Voronezh. The primary role of Soviet troops must for the present be a carefully prepared defensive action; in order to give the defence effective operational depth, a powerful reserve—two or three armies at the very least—must be set up east of Kursk.