WINTER BATTLES, 1941-1942 the Russo-German War Entered Its

CHAPTER 111: WINTER BATTLES, 1941-1942 The Russo-German War entered its second major phase in December 1941. For the previous five months the Germans had held the strategic initiative, but on 6 December the Red Army seized the initiative, counterattacking first against Arw Group Center and later against all three German army groups (see Sketch 8). Lasting through the end of February, these attacks upset the calculations of Fihrer Directive 39, which had assumed that the front would remain quiescent until the following spring. The Soviet winter counteroffensives prompted significant changes to German strategy and to German tactical methods. These alterations emerged over the course of the winter fighting, and helped to shape German defensive practices throughout the remainder of the war. At the strategic level , the December crisis on the Eastern Front caused Hitler to override the recommendations of his military advisors by enjoining a face-saving "no retreat" policy that callously risked the annihilation of entire German armies. Then, his patience with independent-minded officers finally at an end, the German dictator followed this strategic injunction with a purge of the German Army's senior officer corps that left the Fbhrer in direct, daily control of all German military activities. These events had ominous longterm implications: Hitler's personal command rigidity, together with his chronic in- sistence upon "no retreat" in defensive situations, eventually corrupted both the style and substance of German military operations. The winter of 1941-1942 left its mark on German defensive tactics as well. During the defensive battles from December to February, German attempts to conduct a doctrinal Elastic Defense were generally unsuccessful. Instead, German units gradually fell to battling Soviet attacks from a chain of static strongpoints (Seltzpunkte). This defensive method was based on tactical expedience, and was successful due as much to Soviet disorganization as to German steadfastness. Parch 1942 W -72- Standing Fast The German High Command was slow to appreciate the magnitude of the Soviet counteroffensive effort. For weeks prior to the Russian onslaught, German units had been reporting incessant enemy counterattacks during their own drive toward Moscow. So routine had these counterattacks become that German analysts failed to recognize immediately the Russian shift from local counterattack to general counteroffensive. The German leadership seems to have projected its own conclusions onto the Soviets: heavy losses, supply difficulties, and severe weather conditions seemingly ruled out any further largescale offensive operations. The intell i- gence annex supporting Ffihrer Directive 39, for example, discounted the Red Army's ability to mount more than limited attacks during the coming poor weather period.' High-level German leaders also underestimated the abject weakness of their own units. The TAIFUN offensive had overextended the German eastern armies, and their spent divisions now lay scattered like beached flotsam from Leningrad to Rostov. As a discouraged General Guderian wrote on 8 December: We are faced with the sad fact that the Supreme Command has overreached itself by refusing to believe our reports of the increasing weakness of the troops ... [I have decided] to withdraw to a previously selected and relatively short line which I hope that I shall be able to hold with what is left of my forces. The Ryssians are pursuing us closely and we must expect misfortunes to occur. The greatest immediate danger loomed on the front of Army Group Center. Committed to offensive action until swamped by the Soviet counterblow, the divisions of Field Marshal von Bock's army group had prepared few real defensive works. On 8 December - the same day that Guderian was ordering a retreat by his Second Pan- zer Army - Army Group Center's war diary recorded Bock's own assessment that the whole of his army group was incapable of stopping a strong counteroffensive. 3 The most exposed forces were those of 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups north of Moscow, and of Guderian's Second Panzer Army south of the Russian capital. Occupying -73- salients formed during the late Operation TAIFUN, the plight of these panzer and motorized divisions was cruelly ironic. Once again offensive success had turned into defensive peril, as the formations most heavily beset by Sovtet attacks were also those least able to sustain a positional defense. Caught off balance by the Soviet counteroffensive, the Germans lacked any real concept for dealing with the deteriorating situation on the central front. The Chief of the German Army General Staff wrote in his diary that "the Supreme Command [Hitler] does not realize the condition our troops are in and indulges in paltry patchwork where only big decisions could help. One of the decisions that should be taken is the withdrawal of Army Group Center ...IM4 Still smarting from the earlier abandonment of Rostov by Army Group South, however, Hitler was unwilling to countenance any such retreat. Instead, German countermeasures during the first two weeks of the Russian offensive recalled the frantic half-measures taken during the summer defensive crises at Yelnya and Toropets: minor local withdrawals and piecemeal attempts to contain Soviet breakthroughs. For example, the hasty withdrawal of Second Panzer Army's beleaguered divisions from the area east of Tula was done solely on Guderian's own initiative and not as part of a coordinated general plan. A1 though reducing the immediate 1i kel ihood that exposed units would be cut off and destroyed, these measures did not address the fundamental German strategic problem. The thin lines of exhausted German troops seemed everywhere to be on the verge of collapse, few reinforcements were available, and puny local countermeasures merely invited greater danger. For instance, even as Guderian's forces were recoiling from Tula, gaps opened between those units through which sizable Russian forces poured into the German rear? Then a massive Soviet attack on Guderian's right flank overran and virtual ly annihilated the German 45th, 95th, and 134th Infantry Divisions of Second Army between 9 and 15 This -74- complete destruction of German divisions was unprecedented in the Second Worl d War, and an unmistakable omen of impending disaster. By the third week of Decem- ber, deep Soviet penetrations on both flanks of Bock's army group threatened to ripen into a double envelopment of the entire central German front. After tour- ing the splintered German lines, ailing Field Marshal von Brauchitsch confessed to Halder that he could "not see any way of extricating the Army from its present predicament. 'I7 In fact, only two alternatives offered an escape from the deepening crisis. One choice was to conduct an immediate largescale withdrawal, trusting that German forces could consol idate a rearward defensive 1ine before Soviet pursuit could inflict decisive losses. The other choice was to stand fast and weather the Soviet attacks in present positions . Neither course of action guaranteed success, and each was fraught with considerable risk. A winter retreat would cost the Germans much of their artillery and heavy equipment, which would have to be abandoned for lack of transport. Due to Hitler's reluctance in November, no rearward "East Wall I' defensive 1ine had been prepared, and so a withdrawal promised little improvement over the tactical situation pre- 8 sently faced. Too, as already shown on Guderian's front south of Moscow, retro- grade operations could easily lead to even greater crisis if enemy units managed to thrust between the retreating German columns. Finally, a retreat through the Russian winter conjured up the shade of Napoleon's 1812 Grande Amee. Though morale in the depleted German divisions still remained generally intact despite the harsh conditions, German officers fearfully reminded each other of the sudden moral collapse that had turned the French retreat into a rout nearly a century 9 and a ha1 f before. The alternative seemed even more desperate. A continued defense from present positions could succeed only if German defensive endurance exceeded Russian - 75- offensive endurance - a slim prospect considering the exhausted state of the German forces. The chances for success were best on the extreme northern and southern wings, where the Leningrad siegeworks and the Mius River line offered some protection. Between these two poles, however, a "stand fast" defense would surely cost the Germans heavily. The absence of reserves and the lack of defensive depth made it certain that some units would be overrun or isolated during the course of the winter. Moreover, this course of action forfeited the possibility of a new German offensive in the central sector the following spring or early summer, since surviving German divisions there would require substantial rebuilding. Conditioned by their professional training- to weigh rfsks carefully and to conserve forces for future requirements, German commanders and staff officers preferred the potential dangers of a winter retreat to the certain perils of standing fast. Guderian, for example, regarded ''a prompt and extensive withdrawal to a line where the terrain was suitable to the defense. ..[to be] the best and most economical way of rectifying the situation," while Brauchitsch and Halder agreed that "Army Group &entea must be given discretion to fall back ... as the situation requires. In anticipation that this course of action would be followed, Russian civilians and German labor units were hurriedly pressed into work on a rearward defense line running from Kursk through Ore1 to Gzhatsk.11 Once again Adolf Hitler confounded the plans of his military advisors. Hitler had watched the disintegration of the German front with great dismay, and had convinced himself that each retreat simply added momentum to the Soviet offensive. On 16 December the German dictator telephoned Bock to order Army Group Center to cease all withdrawals and to defend its present positions .

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