The Kampfgruppe commander looked at his exhausted Panzertruppen. The men had been in constant and desperate action for many hours. He leaned out of his tank turret and screamed in rage at the men, ‘You want to be my regiment? Is this what you call an attack? I am ashamed of this day!’
That provoked just the response he had intended. The panzer crews were so infuriated at the colonel’s insult that it was like a shot of adrenalin for each man. He ordered that they break into the village, ‘at maximum speed whatever the losses’. They attacked with such fury, spraying their machine-gun fire in every direction, that the Russians were unnerved and fled across the steppe.14
Even now the Germans could not rest. Butkov’s and Rokossovky’s brigades were converging on them. Out of ammunition and with very many wounded loaded onto the tanks, Hünersdorff withdrew his Kampfgruppe. The Russians converged on the village in triumph, their tanks wending their way through scores of other burning Soviet tanks and over the bodies of their own motorized infantry. It was a Pyrrhic victory. They held a meaningless village, but it had cost them most of a tank corps. The Germans had thirty tanks knocked out but were able to recover almost every one before they withdrew. Panzergruppe Hünersdorff and the rest of 6th Panzer had lived to fight another day. That was the essence of Manstein’s elastic concept of battle on a tactical level. Holding terrain is not important; killing the enemy in large numbers is. Trading one to achieve the other was the essence of the art of war. As such it earned the ultimate accolade of the army group commander for 6th Panzer.
The very versatility of our armour and the superiority of our tank crews was brilliantly demonstrated… as were the bravery of the panzergrenadiers and the skill of our antitank units. At the same time it was seen what an experienced old armoured division like 6 Panzer could achieve under its admirable commander General Rauss [sic]…’15
To the west Hörnlein was making easier progress against 1st Tank Corps, weakened as it was by sending two of its four brigades to help Maslov. Infantry were streaming in from Lyapichev; Butkov fed them into the fight, holding his own tanks back for counterattack. To his distress, Grossdeutschland was crushing them in its advance. Butkov commented bitterly to his deputy, ‘the Germans are spitting out our infantry like sunflower seed shells’, referring to the way Russians would eat a mouthful of seeds and be able to spit out a stream of shells.
On the ground it was less colourful and more brutal. German Private Alfred Novotny found himself in his baptism of combat, a recent replacement. He watched in stunned amazement as the artillery roared its preparation for the assault. Stukas followed to dive into the attack. Panzers were arriving adding to ‘the smoke, the noise, and the confusion’. He could think only of school and old friends as fear seeped through him.
Then the signal for the attack was given:
We got up from our foxholes and started running towards the Russian lines, screaming ‘Hurra’ as loudly as we could. The moment this happened, all fears and thoughts of being wounded disappeared. We were all on our feet, screaming and running, as one, green replacement beside old hares.
The Russians opened fire and its noise mixed with the screams of the wounded, and the suddenly still bodies of men with whom we had spoken just moments before. We hit the first positions of the Russians and I jumped into a hole to escape the artillery barrage. I could not understand that I was still alive with so many of my comrades already dead.
The fighting was fierce. A small unit which was equipped with flamethrowers was attached to us. On our flanks and ahead of us, they burned everything in sight. The smell of burning flesh, cloth and wood became unbearable. With the screaming of the Russian soldiers, the whole scene was like something out of a horror movie.
Novotny felt something shift under him. It was not the dirt but the face of a young, dead Russian soldier:
I will never forget his face, which seemed to be looking directly at me. It was my first hour of combat.16
Through the back door, 8 November 1942
Just as Butkov was preparing his counterattack against Hörnlein’s penetration, Hoth unleashed the last of his panzers to break out of the encirclement. General der Panzertruppen Werner Kempf, commander of XLVIII Panzer Corps, was in overall command of the breakout effort. His force was such an amalgam of survivors that it was called Kampfgruppe Kempf rather than by any unit name. It included barely fifty operational tanks, a regiment’s worth of panzergrenadiers (out of the six that had belonged to the XIV and XLVIII Panzer Corps), engineers, flak and antitank elements. Attached also was the Hoch-und Deutschmeister, in the strength of a weak regiment, all that was left of the 44th Infantry Division. Every gun within range fired as part of an intense barrage, most using up what little ammunition they had left.
The artillery fell on the 14th Guards Rifle Division defending the inner side of the encirclement. The division had only arrived the day before in a special convoy of American trucks stripped from the supply services to exploit 1st Tank Army’s crossing of the Don and seizure of Lyapichev. The Soviet Guards were frantically trying to turn every ripple or depression in the ground into a defence position when the artillery struck them. Bodies flew into the air or were torn apart like rag dolls, antitank guns were broken and twisted, and the Russian batteries were decimated. Yet the surviving Soviets hung on and waited for the Germans.
As the German panzers had ground through the outer encirclement belt, frantic calls up the chain of command had led to Vatutin going over into an all-out attack to break into the pocket before the Germans could break out. Such an attack would prevent the encircled Germans from concentrating enough force to break out. He had not reckoned enough on Seydlitz’s single-minded determination not to remain passive about his own fate.
Nevertheless, Vatutin’s attacks were wearing down 6th Army’s exhausted divisions. With its artillery concentrated on supporting the break-out, 6th Army had little with which to oppose 21st and 5th Tank Armies’ attacks. Only the Luftwaffe could fill the gap, but every aircraft was committed to supporting the breakthrough. At that moment when Vatutin’s armies were cracking open the pocket in the north, Kampfgruppe Kempf flung itself south at the 14th Guards.
The soldiers of the 14th Guards were veterans, and their political officers had been hammering home that they were the only thing standing between the German 6th Army and escape. Now was the time to hold firm and extract a bloody vengeance for the sufferings of the Motherland. Their comrades dead about them, half their antitank guns destroyed, and their artillery shattered, they hung on. Rolling towards them were men motivated by a similar determination, but this one was fuelled by desperation. Every weapon the Soviets had left opened up as the panzers flew at them in a wedge formation. To their right came the Hoch- und Deutschmeister, men even more desperate and determined than the panzer crews. They had been through one harrowing retreat and were fed up with being hounded by the Russians. This time Ivan was on the receiving end.
Stalingrad, 8 November 1942
The East Saxons of the 24th Infantry Division were simply not prepared for what they encountered as they entered Stalingrad from the south. They and the other divisions of 11th Army’s LIV Corps thought they knew what the siege and destruction of a fortress city looked like. The men of the 24th Division were, after all, veterans of the epic siege of Sevastopol. Had they not finally broken the formidable Fort Stalin?
Sevastopol had fallen in the bright July sunshine of the Crimea framed by the blue water of the Black Sea. Stalingrad was not like that at all. Winter had left the blackened ruins sprinkled with filthy snow under dull, leaden skies. The destruction was far more thorough, and everywhere among the broken brick and concrete were the bodies, frozen excrement, and the detritus of countless used-up divisions. The few people they saw were civilians scavenging through the ruins. They fled as soon as they saw Germans. The East Saxon regiments filed up in awe past the grain elevator, all scorched and with huge, jagged holes.
Eventually, they met a patrol in SS unifor
m whose men spoke with a thick Danish accent and claimed to be from SS Wiking. They guided them to an outpost of that division. The commander of the lead regiment was put in touch with the senior SS officer, who excitedly told him that air reconnaissance just reported large numbers of Soviet troops marching back up the west end of the pocket towards the city. On his own authority the commander changed the direction of march to the northwest. His decision was immediately confirmed by his division, corps and army commanders. The rest of the corps was turned in that direction as well.
They were in a race to intercept the enemy’s 64th and 299th Rifle Divisions of 66th Army, directed by Stalin himself to retake the city from the German contingent that had occupied it. Stalin would have been far less satisfied with this action had he known that the army commander had selected the 64th Rifle Division for the mission. Given Stalin’s obsession with treason, the knowledge that this division was being trusted to retake the city that bore his name would have enraged him. As well it should: the men of the 64th were still disaffected from their suppressed mutiny in August and now bore a deep and abiding hatred for the ‘justice’ meted out to so many comrades.
Werewolf, 8 November 1942
Hitler’s face turned red. His eyes glowed with rage. His staff knew the signs of an impending tirade. In his hand was the message from Manstein that finally had answered his constant stream of precise orders, every one of which had been disobeyed.
Mein Führer,
There are… cases where a senior commander cannot reconcile it with his responsibilities to carry out an order he has been given. Then, like Seydlitz at the Battle of Zorndorf, he has to say: ‘After the battle the King may dispose of my head as he will, but during the battle he will kindly allow me to make use of it.’ No general can vindicate his loss of a battle by claiming that he was compelled — against his better judgement — to execute an order that led to defeat. In this case the only course open to him is that of disobedience, for which he is answerable with his head. Success will usually decide whether he was right or not.17
I have disobeyed your specific orders in order to fulfill the greater strategic goal of destroying the Red Army which you yourself have stated repeatedly. We have reached the crisis. Now let me finish this battle, and I will lay before you a great victory.
Manstein
Stauffenberg was ready. An aide hustled in a young soldier dressed in the black uniform of the Panzertruppen, his arm in a sling. At his throat hung a Knight’s Cross. ‘Mein Führer, allow me to introduce a front soldier straight from the Kalach pocket, Hauptmann Bruno Detweiler. He has a message for you from the men of the 6th Army.’
If there was anything that tempered Hitler’s conduct it was a front soldier — he imagined he had a bond with the combat veterans dating to his own service in the trenches of the First War. Here was one who had been wounded in battle and wore the Knight’s Cross, proof of his valour. The fires in Hitler’s eyes banked, and he suddenly looked kindly.
The young man was plainly awestruck. He pulled himself together, saluted, and began his report. He described the conditions of the fighting, the state of the men and their morale. Then he said,
Mein Führer, the men have great faith in you. You have promised them that you will rescue them from the encirclement, and the men say repeatedly that their Führer has never broken his word to them.
Hitler was greatly affected by the speech. He took the Hauptmann’s hand in both of his and warmly shook it. When the man had departed, he grumbled to Stauffenberg, ‘I will give Manstein enough rope to hang himself.’18
Kotelnikovo, Army Group B Headquarters, 9 November 1942
Manstein had no intention of measuring himself for a noose. He was preparing one for Zhukov. He had also had one in mind for the GröFaZ himself with the help of the other Gerichten. But the battle was reaching that point when all the previous actions, both German and Russian, suddenly presented opportunities. Most of those opportunities were now tumbling into the hands of the Germans.
The 11th Army was wheeling in on the Soviet flank and rear as well as breaking into the Kalach Pocket. It was for this reason that he had fought Hitler tooth and nail to retain it as a powerful operational reserve. Now his Sevastopol veterans were flooding through the ruins of Stalingrad. The reports kept streaming in:
09.30, 11th Army HQ. Two enemy divisions defeated on the outskirts of the city. The lead rifle division collapsed at first contact. Thousands of men have just shot their political officers and surrendered.
09.52, LX Panzer Corps HQ. Panzer Corps destroyed two remaining tank brigades; linked up with Panzergruppe Kempf. Resupply convoys are flowing into the pocket.
Manstein did not know that the men of 6th Panzer as they broke into the pocket were shouting their division motto to the benumbed survivors of Seydlitz’s army, ‘Raus zieht heraus!’
10.25, 6th Army HQ. Northern front of pocket holding. Directing LX Panzer Corps to attack enemy in direction of Kalach.
12.10, LX Panzer Corps HQ. Panzer Corps passing through 6th Army to continue attack against enemy 5th Tank Army.
14.44, 11th Army HQ. XXX Corps attacking flank of enemy 24th Army. LIV Corps attacking enemy rear. Enemy appears to be panicking. Very few enemy tanks in this sector.
16.35, 6th Army HQ. Major tank battle in progress.
That tank battle was the epic clash between the panzers of Raus, Hörnlein and Kempf and those of Vatutin’s 26th Tank Corps and 8th Cavalry Corps. Overhead the air forces filled the sky and rained down disintegrating or flaming aircraft as the struggle in the air was as intense as that on the ground. Zhukov took personal command of this battle and committed the Southwest Front reserve, 1st Mechanized Corps. Even that was not enough.
The German panzer commanders had thrust into the Soviet positions and then gone over to the defence. The enemy threw in wave after wave of tanks backed by entire rifle divisions. Raus never forgot the scene:
Thousands of Russians filled the snowfields, slopes, and depressions of the endless steppe. No soldier had ever seen such multitudes advance on him. Their leading waves were thrown to the ground by a hail of high explosive shells, but more and more waves followed.19
Here the superior gunnery skills and optics as well as the powered turrets made the German T-34s such killing machines that they never were in Soviet hands. Artillery from 6th Army’s replenished guns joined the fight as well while the war lover Rudel showed up with his squadron to join the battle as did other squadrons of Stukas and Ju 88s.
Sergeant Alexei Petrov was overwhelmed by the massive shelling and air attack:
To Petrov it was worse than Stalingrad… On the flat plain were thousands of bodies, tossed like broken dolls onto the ground. Most were Russians… At the height of the bombardment Petrov saw a tiny figure no more than three feet high.
It was the upper torso of a body of a Red Army man. His hips and legs had been severed by a shell burst and lay beside him:
The man was looking at Petrov and his mouth opened and closed, sucking air, trying to communicate one last time. Petrov just stared at the poor creature, until the arms stopped flailing, the mouth slackened and the eyes glazed. Somehow the soldier’s torso remained upright and forlorn beside the rest of his body.20
Into this chaos 6th Panzer lurched forward with 150 tanks, cutting through the Russian masses. Raus’s assault-gun battalion attacked on a parallel axis cutting off large numbers of the enemy between them:
Even the strongest nerves were unequal to this eruption of fire and steel. The Russians threw their weapons away and tried like mad men to escape the infernal crossfire and the deadly armoured envelopment. This was a thing that rarely happened in World War II. In mobs of several hundreds, shelled even by their own artillery and their own rocket launchers, they ran… towards the only open spot, only to find detachments of panzergrenadiers in their way to whom they surrendered.21
As the panzers sliced through the collapsing Soviet forces, 11th Army was completing its wheel nort
hwestward to cut the supply lines of Don Front and pushing its 65th and 24th Armies back towards the Don, joining the broken 5th Tank Army and 21st Army of Southwest Front.22
Kalach, 10 November 1942
By the next morning there was a massive traffic jam as the Soviet armies were feeding into the single bridge over the Don at Kalach, desperate to escape the Germans. German artillery and the Luftwaffe followed the horde, killing large numbers and sowing more panic. They were packed so tight that every shell and bomb found a target. NKVD troops trying to control the roads to the bridge were shot down as men rushed to cross. All this time the bridge received the unrelenting attention of the Luftwaffe’s dive-bomber squadrons. Between their attacks, the Me 109s would make strafing runs, their bullets stitching a bloody trail through the crowds packing the bridge, exploding supply trucks, until no one could get through. But the mobs heaved and pushed their way over the dead, pushing burning vehicles over the side to crash through the ice in the Don with a loud crack and hiss as they sank. The end to escape came when finally a well-aimed bomb dropped a span. Still the crowds pushed forward spilling the men in front over the broken edge of the bridge to splatter on the ice below.
Along the banks thousands of men attempted to cross the ice. Hundreds fell through, but many more found ways across where the ice had frozen thickly enough to carry their weight. To the north more thousands followed the bank itself to find the bridge at Akimovka, where the German XI Corps had streamed across in the other direction in the same sort of panic flight.
But for the four armies packed into the approaches to Kalach, there was no escape. Over the next few days, the Germans would count over 200,000 prisoners.
Disaster at Stalingrad Page 30
