Ostkrieg (38 page)

Prestige and propaganda, as always, were also important for Hitler, who sought to use the declaration of war as a means by which to regain the initiative. In his speech to the Reichstag on 11 December, he stressed the endless series of provocations by the United States, until now unanswered, behind which he saw the “Satanic insidiousness” of the Jews, set on the destruction of Germany. He had at last, his patience exhausted, been forced to act. Now, however, with the support of the Japanese, he could take the gloves off and boost Germany's prospects in the Atlantic. The next day, in a speech to his Gauleiter, he stressed the inevitability of the confrontation with the United States but also revealed something of his strategic thinking. He indicated his firm intention of finishing off Russia in the coming year or at least its European portion. “Then it would perhaps be possible to reach a point of stabilization in Europe through a sort of half-peace” by which this German-dominated continent could exist as a self-sufficient fortress. Problems had arisen that had delayed the German timetable, he acknowledged, but once again he emphasized his vision of the east as Germany's India. He also stressed, as we have seen, his determination to solve the Jewish problem. “If the German people has again sacrificed 160,000 dead in the eastern campaign,”
he vowed, “the originators of this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their own lives.” To Hitler, the Jews had begun the war in Europe and had succeeded, despite his warnings, in making it a world war. They would now pay the price; indeed, from Hitler's point of view, they had to be eliminated to ensure that Germany was not again “stabbed in the back.” On several occasions in 1943 and 1944, both Hitler and Himmler voiced their belief that only the timely “removal” of the Jews had enabled the Nazi regime to survive military reverses and the aerial bombardment of German cities. This time, unlike 1918, there would be no revolutionary unrest. The matter, Hitler said, could not “have been handled more humanely” since Germany was “in a fight to the death.”
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Given his assumptions, then, Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States was not all that baffling, nor was it fraught with the deep significance claimed by many historians. It was not the decisive moment in taking Germany down the path of catastrophe: that had already happened. Hitler himself had acknowledged, if only fleetingly, German failure in grasping at world power status in his late November remark to the Danish foreign minister quoted above. Certainly, American entry into the war sealed Germany's fate, but not before it was able to recover, remarkably well, from the winter crisis that threatened to destroy the Ostheer and achieve amazing victories in 1942. Nor was Hitler's analysis fundamentally incorrect, for the United States was forced to commit significant resources in the Pacific in 1942, despite Roosevelt's “Europe first” approach, and not until 1944 was it able to bring to bear substantial ground forces in Europe. Germany had gained a year to win the Lebensraum necessary to compete with the United States and came amazingly close to achieving some sort of triumph over the Soviet Union. Not until the end of 1942, with the Battle of Stalingrad and the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa, did Hitler's gamble finally, definitively, fail. Even then, as Churchill remarked, it was not the beginning of the end, but only the end of the beginning. The war had a long way to go, and, despite his admission that he had no idea how to defeat the United States, Hitler hoped that some sort of victory over the Soviet Union in 1942, combined with a Japanese stalemating of the Americans in the Pacific, might yet retrieve the situation. Unlike the year before, however, Germany had clearly lost its freedom of action and could no longer depend on its own resources for victory. Hitler's worst fear had proved correct: time was against him.
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The six months between June and December 1941 had proved crucial in determining the fate of the Third Reich. In attacking the Soviet Union, in seeking to realize his ideological vision, Hitler gambled that
Germany could remedy its strategic dilemma in a quick campaign that would elevate it to world power status and leave it in control of a continental imperium. In so doing, he also set in motion all the aspects of his war of annihilation: the extermination of the Jews, the starvation and murder of the Soviet civilian population, the homicidal treatment of prisoners of war and partisans, and the colonial exploitation of the conquered territories. Military reverses at the end of the year meant that it was likely that he could not now win the war in the way he originally envisioned, but the change of fortune was not so great that he had to abandon the murderous projects already begun. Although his gamble would ultimately fail, the number of his victims would also soar over the next few years.

When the Soviet counteroffensive came on the night of 5–6 December, it could not have been better timed. German troops, having passed the culmination point, were overextended, mentally and physically exhausted, without supplies or winter equipment, and with dangerously vulnerable supply lines. No preparations for the defense had been made, nor could any positions now be built, for both manpower and construction materials were lacking. The Wehrmacht had thrown the last available men into the attack, struggling on largely out of fear of the alternative. As Bock stressed in a telephone call to Jodl on 3 December, “If the attack is called off then going over to the defensive will be very difficult. This thought and the possible consequences of going over to the defensive with our weak forces have . . . contributed to my sticking with this attack so far.” Two days later, however, Bock admitted that the offensive strength of his forces was shot. The unbearable cold (temperatures had plunged to –36°F on 5 December) not only exhausted his troops but also left German tanks inoperable. Assessing the reasons for the German failure, Bock cited the autumn muddy period that paralyzed movement and robbed him of the ability to exploit the victory at Vyazma as well as the failure of the railroad system. Significantly, he also acknowledged that the Germans had underestimated Soviet reserves of manpower and materiel. The enemy, he marveled, had ruthlessly mobilized so that the Red Army actually had twenty-four more divisions now than in mid-November. The headlong pursuit of the Russians had been justified as long as the OKH believed that the enemy was fighting with the last of his forces; now, Bock noted accusingly, this had proved a grave mistake that placed his army group in serious danger. In this serious situation, however, the Germans comforted themselves with the belief that the Russians could not launch a major attack.
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German intelligence had, in fact, noted at the end of November a buildup of strong, new Russian forces behind the front but believed that they could not mount an immediate, serious counteroffensive. By then, however, Soviet counterattacks designed to achieve local success as well as hold German troops in place had already begun at the far ends of the front, at Tikhvin in the north and Rostov in the south. At the same time, preparations for a far more ambitious attack near Moscow had been completed. The Soviets had begun raising new divisions as early as October, while, in November, troops from Siberia, the Far East, the Volga area, and the Caucasus had been moved into the Moscow region. The true extent of Soviet manpower reserves would have shocked Bock, had he known, for, instead of the twenty-four new divisions he thought he faced, the Russians had formed thirty-three rifle divisions, seven cavalry divisions, thirty rifle brigades, and two tank brigades. These troops were admittedly badly trained, poorly equipped, inexperienced in combat, and led by officers with little training or experience, but they were there, at a time when just the appearance of new enemy formations had been enough to panic the depleted German forces. Despite their astounding losses, the Soviets managed to assemble slightly more than a million men, with more than seven hundred tanks and thirteen hundred aircraft for the operation; actual Soviet combat strength opposite Army Group Center was now greater than it had been when Operation Typhoon began in October. The time was right, Zhukov stressed to Stalin on 29 November, for German strength was sapped. The Soviet dictator agreed and sanctioned the attack. Ironically, in the first two days of December, it appeared as if the Soviet action might have come too late. To the surprise of the Germans as much as the Soviets, units of the Fourth Army broke through the Russian defense line south of the Smolensk-Moscow highway, while elements of Guderian's Second Panzer Army made headway around Tula. By the third, however, declining strength, stiffening resistance, and the cold forced Bock to call off the attack.
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The Soviets having brought the Germans to a standstill, the time had come for them to go over to the counteroffensive, an action that resulted, over the next few months, in a vicious dogfight as both sides struggled in the shadow of the events of 1812. The initial Soviet intent was modest: to force the enemy away from Moscow in order to eliminate the immediate threat to the capital. The Soviet plan originally aimed not at the large-scale encirclement and destruction of German forces but merely at biting off the Third and Fourth Panzergruppen as well as the Second Panzer Army to the south. The point of main effort was in the north,
where German forces had penetrated closest to the city, with the objective of relieving pressure on the Moscow-Volga Canal and driving toward Klin. While the central sector was supposed to contain German troops and prevent their deployment elsewhere, a stronger southern wing was to rupture the link between the Second Panzer Army and the Second Army and thrust deep into the rear of the former, threatening it with encirclement. Still, the Soviets hoped merely to push the Germans back some thirty miles in the north and sixty miles in the south. Armed with good intelligence indicating a lack of supplies and instances of panic among German troops, Zhukov believed the enemy to be exhausted and likely to be caught off balance, but he was unwilling to risk anything more ambitious in view of the enfeebled state of his own men.
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Although most of the Soviet troops were untried in battle, they were at least fresh and warmly dressed as they launched their attack in bitter cold on the morning of 5 December. That night the temperature had again plunged, so, when reports of enemy action came in, the Germans discovered, to their distress, that tanks failed to start, machine guns and artillery would not fire because lubricants and oil had congealed in their recoil mechanisms, and many men suffered from frostbite. The assault, led by shock armies heavy in armor, motorized vehicles, and automatic weapons, succeeded in breaking through German lines, but both it and attacks over the next two days in the center and south failed to meet Soviet expectations. The pace of the advance was disappointingly slow as Red Army commanders still lacked experience in executing offensive operations. As a result, time and again they would attack German positions frontally rather than bypassing points of resistance to drive deep into the enemy flank and rear. Still, Russian successes raised immediate concerns since German efforts to shift troops to stem the tide were hampered by lack of fuel, equipment breakdowns, icy roads, massive snowdrifts that blocked rail lines, and the general exhaustion of the troops. Gradually, the many local penetrations and the serious damage done to some German divisions had a cumulative impact that allowed Soviet forces to advance deep into the rear and threaten supply lines.
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Although front commanders sent increasingly panicked messages, Hitler and the OKH were slow to recognize the brewing disaster. In a detailed discussion of the military situation with Halder on the sixth, Hitler dismissed German and enemy casualty figures as not reflective of the true fighting strength of the two armies. Nor did the Führer entertain any notion of abandoning territory to shorten the line and, thus, free up troops. Instead, his thoughts had turned already to planning for the spring offensive. Brauchitsch, amazingly enough, even issued
orders to Army Group Center that, “after the conclusion of the operation against Moscow,” it was to organize itself so as to turn away the Russian attacks directed at its center and flanks. Halder was only slightly less deluded; he took note of Soviet actions but regarded them as merely of limited tactical importance.
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By the eighth, however, enemy pressure on the left flank of Army Group Center had built to such an extent that Bock felt compelled to shake the OKH out of its illusions. Not least, he was influenced by dire warnings from the Third Panzergruppe that its forces were no longer operational as well as a bleak telephone call from the usually confident Guderian, who warned of a growing “crisis of confidence.” Bock now presented his quandary to Halder in stark terms. If he was to have any chance of holding the line, he needed immediate replacements and supplies, which were not likely to arrive in time. If, on the other hand, he attempted a withdrawal, the deep snow, shortage of fuel, and lack of tractors to pull the heavy weapons meant that an enormous loss of equipment and supplies was unavoidable. His troops would, thus, arrive at unprepared defensive positions with no heavy weapons with which to halt the Russian advance. Bock had posed a devil's dilemma: German troops could fight where they were, and likely be destroyed, or carry out a large-scale withdrawal, with the threat that any retreat might turn into a rout. Halder attempted to reassure him by dismissing the attacking Russian units as only rear elements and untrained recruits, adding, “I presume that [the Russian counterattacks] will continue until the middle or end of the month and then things will quiet down.” To that Bock replied bitterly, “By then, the Army Group will be kaputt.” Aghast, Halder tersely rejoined, “The German soldier does not go kaputt.”
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Despite Halder's bravado, things looked rather different at the front. Even as Bock snatched all available men from logistics, signals, and headquarters units and transferred rear security divisions to the front, the Germans proved unable either to halt the breakthroughs or to eliminate the growing gaps in their lines. By the tenth, a near-complete breakdown of the transportation system led to a rations crisis, with virtually no supplies getting through to the troops. On the thirteenth, the Sixth Panzer Division reported that it had only 350 riflemen and no tanks, while, three days later, the Seventh Panzer was left with only 200 men, ten fighting vehicles, and no heavy tanks: the last one had broken down and been blown up. Continuous fighting had brought the Landsers to the brink of physical and mental collapse. Morale suffered as confidence in the higher command faltered, a private complaining on 6 December, “My God, what is this Russia going to do to us all? Our superiors must . . . listen
to us, otherwise, in this state, we are going to go under.” Sacrifices were not unexpected, noted another, “but when nothing of use” resulted, “then that is something to think about.” Discipline and order mingled with panic and unalloyed fear at the prospect of being captured by the Russians. A Third Panzergruppe report illuminated well the dramatic state of impending collapse: “Discipline is breaking down. More and more soldiers are heading west on foot without weapons, leading a calf on a rope or pulling a sled loaded with potatoes. The road is under constant air attack. Those killed by bombs are no longer being buried. All the hangers on . . . are pouring back to the rear in full flight.” A system of strongpoints slowed the Russian advance but left individual Landsers with a sense of isolation and abandonment. As Harald Henry despaired, “I seem to be the last single survivor from the whole company.”
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