Hitler swept back the hair that had fallen onto his brow, slowly composing himself. “A pity Halder lost his nerve,” he said slowly. “This Operation Merkur was one of his old favorites. All the plans are there. You need only find them and sweep the cobwebs off of them. So get busy, gentlemen. I will order Raeder and Goring to arrange support.”
Everything was give and take with the Army, and if he wanted to reinstate these grand plans, it was clear that something else had to be abandoned, and it would have to be something on the Russian Front. Later that same day, his eyes pouring over lists of troops and divisions, Hitler rescinded his stand fast order to General Walter Model, and told him to begin extricating his 2nd Panzer Armee, including the 47th Panzer Korps, and the 12th Infantry Korps, from the pocket they were in near Voronezh. The wergild he would pay for those troops would be that hard won city.
Advised by Keitel that his plan would need several fast motorized divisions, and perhaps one or two good panzer divisions, he took the 10th Motorized Division from reserve behind Volgograd, and then selected the elite Brandenburg Motorized Division. There were already mountain troops still holding in Northern Syria, and he recalled the 1st Mountain Division under Kubler to join them. He also added a Jaeger Division from the 49th Geiberg’s Korps in the Caucasus, and the SS Prinz Eugen Mountain Division. Convinced that he needed an experienced and aggressive Panzer Leader, he decided to give Heinz Guderian one last call to glory, this time far from the debilitating snows of Russia. Surprised at the offer, Guderian accepted. The following order of battle was the overall force structure for Plan Orient, now renamed Operation Phoenix.
GERMAN ARMY – OPERATION PHOENIX – 7 JAN 43
General Heinz Guderian
14th Panzer Korps — General Hans Hube (Irak Force)
3rd Panzer Division
4th Panzer Division
10th Motorized Infantry Division
Brandenburg Motorized Infantry Division – 5 Brigades
49th Geibergs Korps — General Ludwig Kubler (Syria Force)
1st Mountain Division
6th Mountain Division
SS Prinz Eugen Mountain Division
104th Jaeger Division (Arriving from Serbia 1 FEB 43)
12th Infantry Korps – General Walther Gräßner
(To be made available pending outcome of initial operations)
31st Infantry Division
34th Infantry Division
45th Infantry Division
GERMAN ARMY – OPERATION MERKUR – 28 JAN 43
7th FleigerKorps – General Kurt Student
1st Fallshirmjager Division (Three regiments)
2nd Fallshirmjager Division (Two regiments)
22nd Luftland Air Mobile Division. (Theater Reserve)
5th Mountain Division (Held in reserve for Operation Merkur)
On Cyprus:
78 Sturm Division
(Assigned to Syrian Front and replaced by 746th Inf Reg)
After making these selections, General Model was reassigned to help oversee preparation for the Leningrad operation as soon as weather permitted in Russia. Since that was to be the major thrust this year, Hitler saw no reason why he should not prune the ranks of armies assigned to the central front, particularly forces facing off the Russians at Moscow, and southeast through Orel to Voronezh. He gave orders re-directing new panzer allocations so they would go directly to the 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions to bring them up to strength, and pulling “Der Mensch,” General Hans Hube, out of France was the perfect choice for the new commander of the 14th Panzer Korps.
Keitel recommended that Hube’s old 16th Panzer Division, still in France, should go to General Günther Angern. There it would stand in reserve for possible deployment to North Africa, and this development would literally breathe new life into General Angern. In the old history, he had killed himself in February of 1943, at a place then call ‘Stalingrad’…. But that would never happen, nor would his new division be destroyed there and be resurrected as the 116th later in the war. As for Model’s 12th Infantry Korps, it would be sent to Greece first for much needed rest, and to receive new recruits. Then it would be placed in general reserve to support all these operations.
The Führer was quite satisfied when he completed his reassignments, buoyant in spite of the row he had with Halder. Now he saw General Zeitzler as the perfect replacement for Halder, a breath of fresh wind for OKW, and he had every confidence that his new directives would be the undoing of all British aspirations in Egypt and the Middle East. He gave the order that Operation Phoenix would begin no later than January 7th, to be followed in three weeks by Operation Merkur.
The war was about to spin off in an entire new direction.
Part III
The Halfback
“Victory requires payment in advance.”
Chapter 7
When Kesselring got the order to send all his air mobile and mountain troops to Toulon he was incensed. Two regiments of Kubler’s 1st Mountain Division were holding the southern extreme of his line outside Batna, not only guarding that vital pass, but also covering the left of his two Panzer divisions in the center. In the north, the entire line was presently being held by the tough, veteran troops of 7th Flieger Korps, including the 22nd Luftland Division. He met with General von Arnim to give him the bad news, still distraught over the development.
“What?” Von Arnim was astonished. “How in the world am I supposed to hold this front without those troops?”
“They are sending us the 15th Infantry Division from Toulon as a replacement.” Kesselring pulled off his gloves, leaning over the map table, seeing von Arnim shake his head in amazement.
“Well why don’t they just use those troops for their purposes and leave well enough alone here? This will cause a major dislocation of forces. It will be impossible to hold our current positions under these circumstances.”
“For some reason, they want Student’s entire Korps!” Kesselring had not been informed of the full scope of what Hitler was now planning, but his orders had come directly from OKW, and with emphasis that the full force of a Führerbefehl was behind the directive. What about the 327th Infantry?” he asked.
“They had the worst of it at Algiers,” said von Arnim. “I moved them back to Constantine to refit and rest.”
“Well we will have to use them.”
“This is madness! We’ll be lucky if we can even hold any line west of Constantine now. We may even have to retreat all the way back into Tunisia!”
“So be it,” said Kesselring. “I agree that the present line cannot be held, but now you must fight a very stubborn rear guard action while we rebuild our defenses further east.”
“With what? I’ll need both Panzer Divisions together to have any chance at all of slowing one of their armies down. Who do I pick, Montgomery or Patton? They’ve been building up for the last two months, and Montgomery is wound up like a spring on the northern coast. An attack is imminent. Patton has been probing aggressively for the last two weeks.”