Between Giants

by Prit Buttar

  Soviet artillery on high ground overlooking Utena subjected the German battlegroup to a short but heavy bombardment, and then Soviet light tanks, with infantry in support, attacked from the east. With more of his tanks arriving in a steady stream, Brandenberger deployed his armour to attack on a broad front either side of Utena, with support from whatever infantry was available. For the loss of one Pz.38(t) and one Pz.IV, his division captured or destroyed one Soviet tank, four armoured cars, and a variety of anti-tank guns and field guns. Pursuing the shattered Soviet troops, 8th Panzer Division’s tanks pushed on to Degučiai.22

  The vital bridges – the main road bridge, and a rail bridge about a mile to the west – over the Daugava at Daugavpils were now within striking range. In order to capture them, Brandenberger reinforced Crisolli’s battlegroup to increase its strength to the bulk of his division’s panzer regiment, four battalions of infantry (including one from 3rd Motorised Infantry Division), a motorcycle battalion, and an artillery battalion. But in order to maximise the chances of seizing the bridges intact on 26 June, Crisolli was also assigned 8 Company of the Brandenburg Regiment.

  The Brandenburg Regiment was the Wehrmacht’s ‘special forces’ unit, and owed its origins to a successful, if short-lived, battalion of Polish-speaking German soldiers who enjoyed conspicuous success in 1939, capturing and holding important road junctions in advance of the Wehrmacht. Under the aegis of the Abwehr – the military intelligence branch of the Wehrmacht – a new unit was raised after the end of the Polish campaign. In stark contrast to the racially selective policies of other German bodies such as the SS, the new unit specifically sought out soldiers who looked like, or actually were, Poles or Slavs. All recruits were required to be fluent in at least one language other than German, and were familiar with the customs and behaviour of the inhabitants of other countries. 8 Company, under the command of Oberleutnant Knaak, was made up of fluent Russian speakers. Dressed in Soviet uniforms, the company led the advance towards the bridges in two captured Red Army trucks.

  The division’s war diary described the advance to the Daugava:

  10th Panzer Regiment set off in the early morning hours towards Daugavpils. After a short but tough fight, it succeeded in seizing the bridge at Zarasai in a surprise attack, breaking through the Russian defences there and pushing on to the Daugava bridges without halting.

  With them was a detachment of 800th Regiment [the Brandenburgers] under the command of Oberleutnant Knaak, who had received a gunshot wound in a similar operation at Kėdainiai, but had stayed with his troops. The left group of 800th Regiment, which was sent against the railway bridge, drove past five enemy armoured cars and reached the bridge, where it encountered more enemy armoured cars, which it could not attack with its machine-guns. As a result, it pulled back to the main road to the south and took up positions near the road bridge. There, Feldwebel Krückeberg was able to cut through a cable, which he had guessed had been laid in preparation for demolition of the bridge.

  The second group from 800th Regiment was deployed against the road bridge, with Oberleutnant Knaak in the leading vehicle. The Russian guards on the west side of the bridge, who were chatting to civilians, were taken completely by surprise and gunned down, and the group from 800th Regiment drove over the Daugava bridge to the other bank. Meanwhile, an anti-tank gun had been spotted there, and it fired on the leading vehicle, knocking it out and mortally wounding Oberleutnant Knaak. At the same time, a deadly fire started up from the Daugava bank, which was strongly occupied, and from all the houses on either side of the bridge.

  It was thanks to the foresight of Oberstleutnant Fronhöfer that the tanks of 10th Panzer Regiment were following immediately behind the groups from 800th Regiment.

  Although the tanks did not succeed in thrusting over the rail bridge to the east bank, as the enemy artillery fire had blown a large hole in the bridge and set off part of the demolition charge laid there, the tanks motored across the road bridge without pausing, destroyed the troops on the bank, engaged the Russians firing from the houses in an energetic firefight, and immediately thrust on into the inner part of the city, fighting everywhere with the Russians who were rushing up from all directions. Major Wendenburg sent a detachment along the east bank of the Daugava to the rear of the railway bridge, to secure it from behind.

  These tanks too succeeded in rushing the railway bridge, which was thus secured by tanks at either end, and was in German hands …

  At the same time, the armoured personnel carrier company (1 Coy, 8th Rifle Regiment) under Oberleutnant von Flotow followed the tanks, and in further advance with the tanks, in heavy fighting, platoon alongside platoon, moved into the city.23

  Fighting on the north-east bank of the Daugava was intense. The Soviet defenders – many of whom were identified by the Germans as ‘tough Kirghizians’ – attempted to disable the German tanks by rolling hand grenades under their tracks. At the same time, Soviet aircraft also attacked, but to no avail. The bulk of a German tank battalion, commanded by Major Wendenburg, broke through and secured the road running north-east from Daugavpils, and took up defensive positions to prevent any Soviet counter-attack. By mid-afternoon, with 8th Panzer Division’s motorised infantry beginning to arrive, the balance tilted firmly in favour of Brandenberger’s men. Some of the infantry were deployed to reinforce the defensive screen to the north-east, just in time to help intercept a determined Soviet counter-attack. A company of German tanks, led by Hauptmann Kühl, surged into the attacking Soviet forces, and claimed to have destroyed 20 light tanks, 20 field guns, and 17 anti-tank guns in a brief but fierce engagement, utterly disrupting the Soviet attack. One group of Soviet tanks succeeded in penetrating the German defences to the east, and accompanied by infantry, almost reached the road bridge before being brought to a halt by a German anti-tank battery that had only just crossed the river. By mid-evening, the Soviet attacks had all been repulsed.24

  Further elements of 8th Panzer Division, including Kampfgruppe Scheller, continued to arrive throughout the night. On 27 June, units of 3rd Motorised Division also reached the Daugava, taking up positions to the right of 8th Panzer Division. Manstein’s LVI Panzer Corps had advanced an astonishing 185 miles since crossing the border, and had completely dislocated Kuznetsov’s defensive line. For their extraordinary achievements, Brandenberger, Crisolli and Fronhöfer were all awarded the Knight’s Cross. The same award was granted posthumously to Knaak and Flotow; the latter, who led the armoured personnel carriers that crossed the road bridge immediately behind the tanks, was killed in the battle to secure the north-east bank.

  In an attempt to restore the situation, STAVKA – the newly established Soviet High Command – ordered Berzarin’s 27th Army, still in reserve, to fill the gap in the Soviet line, where Kuznetsov’s two armies had retreated on diverging axes. To give it additional strength, Lelyushenko’s 21st Mechanised Corps was attached to 27th Army, and 22nd Army was also dispatched to the area, to deploy around Kaunas and prevent further retreats by 11th Army. Berzarin was to establish a defensive line along the Daugava, but this would be of little benefit if 8th Panzer Division were able to exploit the bridgehead that it had already established. Both sides rushed troops to the area. The Red Army committed Lelyushenko’s mechanised corps, supported by considerable air assets, to an attack against the bridgehead on 27 June, and heavy fighting erupted. German fighters of Jagdgeschwader 54, which had just deployed to the airfield in Daugavpils, found themselves engaged almost immediately in attempts to defend the city from Soviet aircraft. The confusion that reigned in Soviet circles is amply demonstrated by the arrival at the same airfield on the afternoon of 27 June of three Soviet reconnaissance aircraft, which were promptly captured by the Germans.25

  Although the Soviet attempts to destroy the bridgehead across the Daugava continued until 29 June, the heaviest attacks were on the first day, and by 28 June, sufficient German forces had gathered for a resumption of the advance, with Soviet attacks restricted to the east
ern part of the bridgehead. But in contrast to the opening days of Barbarossa, Brandenberger’s immediate superiors – Manstein at LVI Panzer Corps and Hoepner at 4th Panzer Group – showed little appetite for another audacious surge forward. It seems that the sudden mood of caution originated at the headquarters of Army Group North. Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb had actually retired from active service in 1938 after 43 years in the army, and was a conservative figure, in every sense of the term. In 1938, he published a book entitled Die Abwehr (‘Defence’), describing how the German army might deal with an attack from the west while German forces were committed in Poland. Unlike Hoepner and Manstein, he did not visit the front-line headquarters of his panzer forces, and was thus isolated from the confident mood that reigned there; similarly, he did not experience first-hand the sense of elation at the clear disintegration of the Soviet defences. Instead, he insisted that the forces on the Daugava hold their positions until the slow-moving infantry divisions of 16th Army arrived. An early advance, he insisted, would be too risky. Despite his own inclinations, Hoepner was forced to pass on these instructions to his corps commanders:

  The Commander in Chief of the Army Group is strongly influenced by the idea that given the existing situation, the Panzer Group alone cannot break enemy resistance between the Daugava and Leningrad and is taking measures to bring up the infantry armies closer yet to the Panzer Group.26

  This appears to ignore the fact that a single division of the panzer group had completely disrupted Soviet resistance between the frontier and Daugavpils. On 29 June, Brandenberger interpreted his instructions to hold and enlarge the bridgehead as allowing him to probe forward, and pushed his division 20 miles further north, encountering only light Soviet resistance. Despite this, he was ordered to halt, and his division remained stationary for the next two days.

  Although 8th Panzer Division was straining at its lead and was desperate to push on, German losses in the face of the Soviet assaults on Daugavpils were severe; SS Division Totenkopf, deployed from the German reserves, lost nearly a third of its combat strength, forcing the temporary disbandment of one of its regiments. But Soviet losses were heavier still. 21st Mechanised Corps lost 79 of its 107 tanks, and was unable to dislodge Manstein’s bridgehead.27 Gradually, even in the hard-contested eastern part of the bridgehead, the advantage tilted in favour of the Germans, who steadily levered the Soviet forces back. Exhausted and decimated, the Soviet divisions facing Manstein’s corps – from west to east, 163rd, 46th, 185th, and 42nd Tank Divisions, with 112th Rifle Division at the eastern end of the line nearest Krāslava – were forced to concede defeat and withdrew north-east.

  In any event, a prolonged defence along the line of the Daugava was now impossible. Moving up on Manstein’s left flank, Reinhardt’s XLI Panzer Corps reached the river on 28 June and took Jēkabpils that day, but another attempted coup de main by the Brandenburg Regiment failed to capture the bridge. In less than ten hours, German combat engineers built a pontoon bridge, while infantry crossed on rafts to secure the north bank. Two days later, 6th Panzer Division crossed the Daugava a little to the east at Līvāni. The Soviet unit in this sector, 202nd Rifle Division, had been in continuous action since the war had begun, and had lost most of its heavy equipment in the preceding days. It lacked the firepower or numbers to hold back the German armour.

  Even as Reinhardt’s panzer divisions were forcing their way across the Daugava, a mixed German battlegroup approached the Latvian capital, Riga. Colonel Otto Lasch led a force consisting of an infantry regiment from 1st Infantry Division, with a battalion of Sturmgeschütz assault guns and a company of anti-aircraft guns, to Joniškis late on 27 June. From here, he was ordered to press on towards Riga, in an attempt to cut off the Soviet forces in Courland. He set off at 0030hrs on 28 June, rushing forward to Bauska, where he beat off strong Soviet attacks from the west. With the bridges over two rivers near the town secured, Lasch continued to fight off Soviet counter-attacks, and the following night pressed on towards Riga itself.

  As it grew light, Lasch found himself pressing forward through the retreating Red Army. Wherever he met resistance, he deployed and attacked, overrunning two motorised artillery batteries in the process. His line of march lay across a series of tributaries to the Daugava, and the bridges over these small rivers were vital to a rapid advance. In the confusion, his column rapidly captured the crossings at Iekava and Ķekava. At 1020hrs, Lasch’s vanguard reached the western edge of Riga, and pushed on swiftly towards the vital bridges across the Daugava. As they approached the road bridge, the Germans ran into a Soviet column on foot, also making for the bridge. Immediately, a hectic fight erupted at close quarters; aboard the leading vehicle, Lasch personally shot at and silenced a quad machine gun mounted on a Soviet truck. Continuing his wild advance, Lasch sent five assault guns and supporting infantry racing over the road bridge, while he set up a defensive perimeter on the east bank. His combat engineers moved onto the railway bridge, where they found that demolition charges had already been prepared; they located and cut a command wire, but were unsure whether there might be others.

  The German column had successfully seized the road bridge across the Daugava, but suddenly found itself assailed on all sides. In addition to the road and railway bridges, there was a pontoon bridge over the river, and within minutes of Lasch’s spearhead reaching the east bank, there were two huge explosions as Soviet troops detonated the charges in the pontoon bridge and road bridge. The former was completely destroyed, the latter badly damaged. Soviet forces in the main part of Riga, on the east bank, now began to organise themselves for an assault on the small detachment that had crossed the river, while large numbers of Soviet troops that were retreating to Riga from the west launched a series of attacks on the main German contingent under Lasch’s personal command. The fighting raged all day at close range, with repeated – though poorly coordinated – attempts by the Soviet troops to penetrate Lasch’s lines and reach the bridges; in addition to wishing to destroy the German force, the Soviet soldiers were aware that German control of the bridges prevented their own escape to the east.

  Knowing that the small contingent on the east bank was coming under heavy pressure, Lasch dispatched two assault groups from a motorcycle battalion to cross the railway bridge on foot, in order to reinforce the eastern bridgehead. The Soviet forces on the east bank spotted their movement, and poured a heavy fire onto the railway bridge; most of the German infantry was killed or wounded, and no soldiers reached the east bank. Meanwhile, during the early evening, there were two major assaults on the western bridgehead. Several tanks were destroyed on the western approach, and only a determined counter-attack on the south-west perimeter restored the defensive line. Shortly after, the German commander of the eastern bridgehead retreated back across the badly damaged road bridge, with three of his men. All were wounded, and they reported to Lasch that they were the only survivors of the force that had rushed across the bridge.

  As the evening drew on, the Soviet units on the west bank launched further attacks. Lasch’s men counted over 40 knocked-out tanks around their perimeter. With darkness came a pause in the fighting, but there were suddenly more loud explosions as the Red Army succeeded in blowing up parts of the railway bridge. For Lasch and his exhausted men, the worst was over. Reinforcements had been hurrying to catch up with them all day, and the first elements of 61st Infantry Division arrived before dawn. A final Soviet attempt to break up Lasch’s bridgehead was beaten off at first light, and the battle for Riga was effectively over. Early the following day, 1 July, German infantry crossed the Daugava in boats and found that the Red Army had abandoned the city.28

  Lasch was justifiably proud of the achievements of his men, and was awarded the Knight’s Cross for his part in the battle. He claimed that his command had fought off most of the Soviet 8th Army; whilst his men certainly defeated several times their number, much of 8th Army actually succeeded in escaping beyond the Daugava by crossing further ups
tream. On 27 June, faced with catastrophe on all parts of the front, Kuznetsov had ordered 8th Army to retreat north into Estonia, while 11th and 27th Armies withdrew to the north-east. Prior to the deployment of 27th Army, the advance of Manstein’s LVI Panzer Corps had opened a large gap in the centre of the Soviet lines, and now a new gap opened between the two axes of retreat, leading directly to Ostrov and Pskov and, beyond there, to Leningrad. Keen to exploit this, Hitler wanted all of 4th Panzer Group to press on to Ostrov. However, Leeb continued to insist that circumstances on the ground demanded a pause in the advance. With the infantry divisions still struggling to catch up with the panzers, he continued to resist pressure, from both above and below. Kuznetsov was grateful for the short time that he was granted by Leeb’s caution, but even if he had been given more time, there were limits to what could be achieved. His armoured strength had fallen to 150 tanks, and his front had only 154 combat aircraft available.29

  In any event, Stalin had run out of patience with Kuznetsov. He was removed from command, and replaced by Sobennikov, who had been commander of 8th Army. Unlike the unfortunate Dmitri Pavlov, the commander of the Red Army’s Western Front at the beginning of the war, Kuznetsov survived his demotion.30 He continued to be in command of armies and fronts until the end of the war. To stiffen the command structure of the North-west Front, Stalin dispatched Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff, to become Sobennikov’s chief of staff, with stern instructions to resist the German advance at all costs.

  On 1 July, Manstein was finally given orders to advance again. He issued orders to Brandenberger’s 8th Panzer Division to renew its advance early the following day, setting it the objective of reaching Kārsava, about 51 miles to the north-east. Early on 2 July, the brilliant sunshine that had lasted since the beginning of the campaign was replaced by heavy rain. The combination of deteriorating road conditions and determined Soviet defenders prevented an easy resumption of the rapid advance of earlier days. The main thrust on the right flank of 8th Panzer Division struggled to drive back the Soviet defences, and it was only when Brandenberger ordered his reconnaissance battalion, which was advancing with the left flank of the division, to attack east in order to outflank the Red Army units blocking the main thrust that significant gains were made. On 3 July, slowly overcoming the Soviet defences, the two battlegroups of 8th Panzer Division worked their way forward to Rēzekne, taking the town in the evening.