“More panzers? From where?”
“Armeegruppe A will be a good start. OKW tells me the situation near Bryansk has stabilized. I have allowed them to move in infantry from Armeegruppe Nord as a temporary holding measure. So I will detach the 48th Panzer Korps and send it along with this new SS division from Himmler.”
“Knobelsdorff? That is a very good start,” said Manstein.
“He has several divisions,” said Hitler, “but OKW insists that only two can be sent. Do you have a recommendation?”
“11th Panzer.” Manstein did not hesitate one moment. These were resources from Armeegruppe Mitte that he had not expected to be available. “Balck would be just the man I need here, and any of the other divisions will do well enough. Send the 9th under Scheller. Those two fought well together in the Don region last winter.”
“Very well,” said Hitler. “I will see that the orders are given immediately, and I have already done one more thing. The 6th Panzer Division has been in Germany for the last two months refitting, but it is now ready for operations. I was going to add it to Armeegruppe Nord, but it would seem the need is greater here at the moment. It is very strong, with all the new Lions and Panthers, and I gave it orders to move here before I left OKW.”
Hitler had come with things in his pockets. His position as Commander of the entire Army meant that he could place these new chips on the table any time he chose, and he would use them to spin the wheel and get his way in the arguments he had been having with Manstein. Model and Heinrici could then be ordered to stand fast, as he wished.
Chapter 24
Manstein was elated—Knobelsdorff, and with two good Panzer Divisions, and now a fresh unit from Germany! Now he had his sword back for the left flank. Counting 1st SS and Himmler’s new division, that would make five mobile divisions at his command there—six with the 22dn Panzer—and Steiner would bring three more after the Lower Don operation. It was nothing like the real history of this battle, where the Germans could barely scrape up the troops to hold the line and the Russians nearly went all the way to the Dnieper before Manstein’s counterattack.
The discussion would go on another two hours that morning, mostly fiddling over timetables, the lines Manstein wanted to assume with Henrici’s troops, and Hitler’s meddling right down to the Division and sometimes even the battalion level. The Führer’s surprise gift would end the arguments over Model’s situation, and there would now be no more talk of any major withdrawals by the 2nd Army. Heinrici would be permitted to adjust his lines as Manstein wanted to allow him to screen Belgorod and help defend Volchansk. The Reichsführer Brigades would be used in conjunction with Leibstandarte as a defensive foil until Knobelsdorff could arrive.
Hitler eventually relented, allowing Manstein freedom to move Paulus and his 6th Army to facilitate his planned counteroffensive with Steiner. It was a compromise that promised to save the front in the south while actually losing all the territory it had been screening and defending, but it promised to stabilize that sector quickly, and with that, to free up the divisions needed to save Kharkov. This was uppermost on Hitler’s mind. Manstein had only won half the battle in this long conference. Time was flying, and now he had to get back to his headquarters at Rostov and win the real battle on the field.
His prospects were darkening by the hour. When the last remnants of the trapped 17th Korps finally retreated towards Millerovo, there was nothing but artillery. It’s rear area posting had enabled it to escape the trap that savaged the rest of the Korps. By the time he reached his headquarters again, he had Grossdeutschland and Totenkopf finally assembled at Millerovo, and Das Reich was about 25 kilometers northeast of Star O’blesk. He had hoped to have all three of those divisions together at Millerovo, but the lack of train transport had forced 2nd SS to move by road, and with that time lost, the Soviets got between the two German groups. So now instead of the scythe like attack he had planned to launch, the best he could do was a pincer operation against the enemy spearhead formations, the mobile corps of Katukov’s 1st Tank Army.
Furthermore, 51st Korps had been slow to withdraw, and though it reached Bolshinka, it was in no shape to turn about and attack north as planned. As an expedient measure, he called General Hollidt at Novorossiysk, and canceled any planned attack along the coast towards Sukhumi. He needed infantry, and Hollidt had four good divisions available, so he ordered him to send three divisions north through Rostov to Voroshilovgrad. His Chief of Staff was told not to send the position update to OKW for 48 hours. Manstein was taking no chance on Hitler intervening again and meddling with his plans. The question now was whether to attack, or wait? How strong was the enemy? Could the three strong mobile divisions he had do the job?
That afternoon he finally gave the order, telephoning General Hausser of the 2nd SS at Star O’blesk and telling him to move. “Meet me at G7,” he finished, “if you can get there.” That was the grid map designation for the village of Kantimirovka, about 85 kilometers northeast of Star O’blesk. Then he got on the radio to Papa Hörnlein and said simply: “Stage One. Move now.”
Operation Unterhöhlen (Undercut) had begun, but it was just a sideshow, intended by Zhukov to do exactly what it had accomplished. It had forced Manstein to move three of his best divisions to the scene, and well away from the main attack he had pushed across the Oskol River. The Germans would find the Russians beginning to fall back even as they mustered for the attack, a game of cat and mouse played by Zhukov on the Don Front.
He had smashed a small segment of the line, creating the appearance of a dangerous threat to Rostov that Manstein simply had to answer. His divisions had halted their advance and started to withdraw, sending out delaying groups to draw in the German attack. In fact, he wanted to make it seem like his troops were taken by surprise and on the run, but he had planned this operation to punch and fade long ago. Mikhail Katukov had become a master of hit and run tactics at Mtsensk against Guderian’s drive for Tula. Now he seemed to simply vanish, taking his 1st Tank Army with him, because Zhukov had no intention of pushing for Rostov, at least not with this offensive. He had bigger fish to fry.
He wanted Kharkov…. And all that lay beyond.
No matter how strong, an offensive dissipates with each successive hour it rolls forward. Even the greatest waves break upon the shoreline and race inland, to eventually slow and fade into the sand. In military parlance, this was known as the Law of Overstretch. As the offensive forces move forward, they create new flanks which must be screened and guarded while the spearheads proceed. This slowly pulled offensive units into defensive roles, weakening the strength of the attack. Units also become scattered and spaced out, some racing ahead, others slower and more cumbersome in the advance.
Manstein knew this well enough, and so his principle strategy on defense was to simply assemble his counterattack force somewhere on the flank of the enemy advance, and then let them push forward into thin air, showing him what they really wanted, and where their terminal objective was. The terrain involved meant nothing, except in key areas like Rostov, or other major communications centers the Army relied upon for its supplies. Otherwise, the whole of the Donbass meant nothing, nor did he see any value in the Donets Basin, aside from the vital rail lines that passed through that sector to cross the Donets and feed his troops.