War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (71 page)

Forty years after the conclusion of the war, journalist Paul Kohl travelled the Army Group Centre route to Moscow during an academic pilgrimage to research Russian eyewitness accounts of the invasion and occupation. Cold War still reigned in Europe. Although it was difficult to avoid the ‘Great Patriotic War’ rhetoric, and it was a long time after the event, there was little doubt, despite exaggeration, that this had been an emotionally searing experience for those he met. Perceptions, like propaganda, can have the same impact as the truth. Inhabitants living in the communities on the approaches to Moscow suffered dreadfully. ‘The way they treated us!’, exclaimed Vera Josefowna Makarenko, from Klin, ‘they hardly regarded us as human beings!’ Her house was burned to the ground and her husband hanged. ‘Right on the first day,’ she wept. ‘Five days he hung there, and they did not allow us to take him down … When they came, they took everything,’ she said. There was nothing to eat or drink and it was forbidden to fetch water. Their bucket was shot full of holes to make the point. All their felt boots were stolen, despite it being the middle of winter. ‘Our legs were frozen,’ complained Makarenko.

‘If only this war had not happened we would have had an excellent life. But the war destroyed all that, everything, it ruined us.’

Her young niece was taken away for questioning. ‘Your father,’ they asked, ‘where is your father? Is he defending the homeland at the front? Or is he a partisan?’ The little girl’s finger was cut off during the interrogation.
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Istra – 30km from Moscow – was captured by the 4th SS Regiment ‘Der Führer’, alongside infantry and tanks from the 10th Panzer Division. Fighting raged against elements of the 78th Siberian and Manchurian units between 23 and 26 November through Istra cathedral, situated west of the river, and around a surrounding complex of six large ecclesiastical building ringed by a stout 5m-high wall. The ‘Der Führer’ companies were reduced to 25-man companies in the process.
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Sixteen-year-old Ludmilla Romanowna Kotsawa described the impact on its hapless inhabitants. ‘Many had already fled into the woods,’ she said, ‘and they stayed in holes dug in the ground in ice and snow with temperatures at −20°C for days and nights.’ Her music teacher, Michailow, was held up by soldiers in the street and robbed of her coat. ‘You bandits!’ she screamed at them. Kotsawa watched as ‘one of them cold-bloodedly shot her in the mouth’. Istra typified what could happen to a town in this theatre of operations. It remained occupied for only two weeks before it was back again. Only 25 children were found in its cellars from a former population of 7,000. ‘Istra was a beautiful green town,’ Kotsawa wistfully remembered, but the population had been driven out. During December and January its ruins were infested with wolves. A rebirth did not occur until the re-establishment of its school in 1943.
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Josef Deck recalled the surreal scene by night, observing the approaches to Moscow from the forward positions of Artillery Regiment 74.

‘As far as one could see the horizon stood out in flames. The Russians, using linked incendiary mines, were beginning to create a cleared “dead” security zone. Engineers over there were emulating an earlier self-inflicted solution that had been applied to Moscow in 1812 when Napoleon and his Grand Army saw only a blazing city on their line of advance.’
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Hatred arose among the scenes of unbelievable destruction visited by both sides upon the Russian population. Vera Josefowna Makarenko knew whom to blame:

‘Just consider it for a moment. From over there came foreign people from a land which we believed were our friends. We had read their Goethe and Heine. And now they come and want to destroy us. Can you understand that?’
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The 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions with the 23rd Infantry Division in between were the nearest German units to Moscow on 3 December during the final phase of the assault. There had already been some withdrawals as von Bock straightened his line on the Moscow–Volga canal to secure his northern flank before penetrating the city.

The 7th Panzer Division received the order to pull back from the Moscow side of the Yakhroma bridgehead at 02.15 hours on 29 November. It was a depressing development for the hard-pressed troops fighting on the enemy side, who had, in the words of their commander General Frhr von Funck, expended ‘sweat and blood’. They recognised the underlying negative implication for any future advance on the city. Von Funck described it as ‘an evil flash of lightning illuminating the great turning point of the campaign and, with it, the whole war… From now on one heard the oft-repeated expression “there are insufficient forces” with increasing frequency.’ Forward riflemen were told at about 04.30 hours that the bridgehead had to be evacuated by daylight, which would be in one and a half hours’ time. Heavy weapons and Panzers would have to recross the canal before they could be picked out in the murk. A sharp crack reverberated through the frozen air at 07.30 hours and an ominous black column of smoke rose from the centre of the bridge. It was regarded attentively and wistfully by the soldiers of the 7th Panzer Division. Only the centre part of the bridge span collapsed because there had been insufficient explosive. At 19.00 hours that night the Russians blew the remainder.

Explosives were also unavailable to burrow new defence positions into the west bank. Houses by the canal edge were fortified instead. Both sides appreciated the implications of this latest development. First Shock Army, forming up nearby in preparation for the forthcoming Soviet counter-offensive, had applied unremitting pressure to the bridgehead. Soviet artillery fire began to range in on the newly established German positions. Air attacks increased. On 2 December the 7th Panzer staff ominously reported, ‘Sixteen air attacks today!’
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Forty years later, Soviet artillery soldier Pjotr Jakowlewitsch Dobin, observing the canal bridge, reflected on the intensity of the fighting.

‘I fought then to prevent the Germans from crossing the canal. They were actually successful in getting across, but only for a day. For two days there was awful fighting here, on 28 and 29 November 1941, a hideous bloodbath in ice and snow. We then forced them back onto the west bank. I’m still astonished today that I managed to survive it all.’
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Many Germans remember the fateful bridge detonation early on the morning of the evacuation. ‘We were missing Unteroffizier Leopold,’ said one witness:

‘He had been sleeping and now made his way back, with long loping strides across the ice covering the canal. The sound of the explosion had been the first thing to wake him up. He was quite literally the last man to come back from “over there”.’

With victory no longer an option, the surge of morale that originally accompanied the capture of this Moscow entry point suddenly dissipated and reaction set in. There was nothing left to transcend the physical discomforts and threat. Fighting continued in driving snowstorms against a build-up of enemy attacks, which had to be opposed with faulty frozen machine guns. There were complaints ‘that urgently required warm winter clothing had still not arrived’, and these ‘became even more pronounced’.
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Now that Moscow was denied them, survival became the primary concern.

Gefreiter vom Bruch was attacking forward further south of the 7th Panzer Division; he was with Infantry Regiment 4, part of 6th Panzer Division and 7km from the canal. His squad, protecting the forward artillery officer of the battery in support, ‘soon ran out of ammunition.’ Caught on exposed flat ground, the company suffered appalling casualties. On 3 December they occupied the village of Jasikowo but were ejected by a surprise attack at midday by 10–15 Russian tanks which suddenly emerged from the wood. Vom Bruch described the pandemonium as they burst upon them.

‘We were overrun and could only flee. Many ran simply to conserve their naked lives. Equipment and various items fell into Russian hands. Some 20–30 men were missing from the battalion, including the battalion commander and two of the company commanders, who could not be saved.’

That night, with temperatures down to −32°C, their orders of several days, standing remained unchanged – ‘hold the ordered line’.
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The 1st Panzer Division had meanwhile advanced 5km east of Bely-Rast, placing it 32km north of Moscow. Below them the bulge created by the 2nd (Vienna) Panzer and 23rd Infantry Divisions was creeping south-eastwards toward the Moscow suburbs. The 2nd SS Division ‘Das Reich’, with its 4th ‘Der Führer’ Regiment, was further south of the Istra–Moscow road and had reached the western outskirts of Lenino, 17km from Moscow. Russian Worker’s Militia volunteers were thrown against them. ‘Moscow was near enough to touch,’ announced Otto Weidinger, one of its commanders.

‘The men of the Regiment were convinced they could count the number of days required to reach Moscow on the fingers of one hand. The spires of the city were visible to the naked eye in the clear cold weather. A forward 100mm battery placed harassing fire on the city.’
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Legends abound concerning which German unit penetrated the nearest to Moscow. Its suburbs may well have been reached and were frequently easily observed. To be within visual sight of Moscow during this attack was in German eyes of epic significance, comparable to other ‘glorious’ failures at Dunkirk or (later) Arnhem for the British. Little glory remained to an advance which had deteriorated to one of groping progress. A young SS ‘Deutschland’ Regiment officer wrote, ‘We are approaching our final goal, Moscow, step by step.’ But, as he recounted, there were supply difficulties and weapon malfunctions. ‘The day is coming,’ he said, ‘when the soldiers will not only be at the end of their strength, but companies will have lost their fighting strength due to the loss of numerous wounded, frozen and dead.’ This was no final sally at a crumbling fortress. On the contrary:

‘These fighting half-frozen German front-line troops stand and lie in a pitiless cold which occasionally drops below −45°C. They only wear regulation uniforms with normal leather boots, and are without gloves, overshoes or scarves while exposed to merciless combat and winter conditions.’
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North of the 2nd SS Division ‘Das Reich’, Unteroffizier Gustav Schrodek with Panzer Regiment 15 reflected in his diary: ‘the capital Moscow is our attack objective – will we reach it?’ He was a Panzer commander advancing with the 11th Panzer Division and was stalled by enemy action a few kilometres beyond the village of Krjukowa. ‘I saw a signpost,’ he said, ‘which read “MOSKWA 18,5 km”. His Panzer was abruptly reversed by its alert driver, just as a 76mm shell from a hidden T-34 whooshed by the turret.

‘But to our right another vehicle in the company was knocked out by a direct hit to the turret. I saw the commander and driver clamber out while I traversed my turret to take aim, but he had already disappeared. Only later did I realise the Panzer commander lost his legs and the driver’s hand had stuck, tearing flesh on the frozen track. Our ranks are thinning. Every day we lose a couple.’

Burying the dead in the frozen ground was hardly achievable with picks and shovels. ‘We could only create a shallow ditch using hand-grenades,’ he remarked. Temperatures had dropped to −35°C, and they were unable to advance further. Moscow was merely one hour’s drive by Panzer, but with no accompanying infantry, they had to leaguer up in the snow and wait. They felt isolated, virtually abandoned.
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The closest finger niggling at the Russian defences on the outskirts of the city was the 2nd (Vienna) Panzer Division. Its antitank battalion was becoming increasingly dismayed at the ineffectiveness of its 37mm guns against the increasing numbers of Soviet T-34s its battle groups were encountering as they advanced south-eastwards along the Solnechnogorsk–Moscow road. A lucky shot striking the machine gun aperture of a T-34 from only 10m during an attack at Turicina had set one tank ablaze. It suicidally carried on to crush its 37mm assailant. At Strelino four English ‘Matilda’ tanks were despatched by Panzer Regiment 3. They had all been recently manufactured and had ‘September 1941’ stamped on their engine plates – an indication of Allied resolve and urgency to stem the Axis advance. On 28 November American tank types were knocked out. As the Kampfgruppe ‘Decker’ rolled into Oserezkoje on 1 December soldiers remarked on the appearance of Moscow Omnibus line stops. A combat group of Panzers, infantry, artillery and engineers commanded by Oberst Rodt of the 304th Regiment occupied the three villages of Krassnaya Polyana, Putschki and Katjuschki on 30 November. Another battalion (the IInd) from the same regiment under Major Reichmann secured Gorki, nearby. A small salient had been driven into the area of Sixteenth Soviet Army, 17km from the outskirts of Moscow and only 27km from the Kremlin.
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