That same day Steiner’s bet paid off when the Wikings seized the railroad bridge over the gorge at Kupersnoye, then the Motorcycle Recon Company of the Nordland Regiment pushed on east, reaching the Volga at 11:00 hours on the 24th of October, just a day before the traditional celebration of the October Revolution. Steiner was very gratified by the news, telling the quartermaster that he was to fish out some special rations from the Korps stockpiles and have them trucked to that recon battalion, along with a commendation and his own personal thanks.
Yet the north remained stubbornly impervious, until the Sturmpioneers he had attached to beef up Das Reich launched a concerted attack on the morning of the 25th. Heavily supported by the two Korps Stug battalions, and 6th Company from the Das Reich Panzer Regiment, their assault carried the into the first of the heavy concrete Mushrooms east of Rynok. Yet the Russians counterattacked immediately, their officers screaming “Red October!” As they led their men in, retaking that bunker on its northern segment. Enemy artillery fire rained down as the Russians sent in their own engineer battalion from 2nd Volga Rifles to shore up that segment of the line. On this day, the anniversary of the Revolution put additional steel into the backbones of every Soviet soldier who was engaged.
But every day ends….
On the morning of the 26th Steiner got a most encouraging report. Manstein had dispatched two long truck columns with ammunition and spare parts from the depot at Chern two days ago. They had gone down through Tormosin, over the bridge there, and the leading column was now arriving at Martinovka.
“Excellent,” he said. “Then I can be a bit less stingy with what we now have on hand. Order the quartermasters to distribute what remains in the depots here. When the divisions top off, then we’ll renew this offensive.”
He wanted to time everything to jump off the morning of the 27th, and so all that day and night, the trucks would be moving. “Division commanders should begin positioning their shock groups at once,” he ordered. “Get hold of General Gille with the Wiking Division. I want him to make his main thrust here, up the dry riverbed of the Yelshanka river. He should position accordingly.”
That was the sector occupied by the Germania Regiment, and that night, the Wiking division shifted all the recon battalion, armored cars, the mobile Panzerjager companies, and the pioneers to that Regiment. In addition, Volkov’s troops came up along the line of the Leopard Gorge, just north of Kupersnoye. They would now man that position, relieving the Nordland regiment so it could begin organizing a second strong kampfgruppe behind Germania.
Hörnlein got the next call, for he had only just cleared the last and easternmost cemetery on yet another winding balka that ran right down through central Volgograd.
“I want you to organize a strong group to push down that balka,” said Steiner.
“But we haven’t taken the Hospital yet,” said Hörnlein. “It’s a sturdy concrete building, and they are fighting us from one ward to another. Then, just when we think we have a section cleared, they come up from the cellar beneath and reoccupy rooms behind our assault teams! I warned you the fighting would get complicated like this.”
“Just break through,” said Steiner. “I’ll get you all the ammunition you need. Drive for the Gorki Theater.”
“Still contemplating a show with the Russian Generals?” said Hörnlein with just an edge of sarcasm. “Very well, but you haven’t seen the ground here. It’s a web of many balkas, with three branches all running north from that channel. We should attack to one side or another—not down the main balka. It still has water in it, and the ice is very thin. If I attack on the north side, I’ll have the damn hospital at my back. Better on the south side.”
“North, south, east or west,” said Steiner. “I want you in that theater as soon as you can get there. We’ll pocket the entire southern half of the city—all of Novo Kirovka.”
“With respect, Herr General, the entire city is already one big pocket. That won’t matter. They will still fight. There’s at least four full Rifle Divisions in that sector, and three or four brigades. That’s the entire 64th Army. Do you think we can reduce such a pocket with two divisions? My attack will also just dig a deeper hole into the city, and I’ll have to defend both flanks as I advance. I tell you we need infantry! You are in too big a hurry here. What is happening west of the Don?”
“Manstein has retaken Surovinko.” There was a brief silence on the telephone.
“Well that is good news,” said Hörnlein at last. “How soon before he reaches Kalach? We’ll need supplies soon.”
“A truck column arrived this morning. That’s what this push is all about.”
“I see… Well general, I would advise you to leave some bread in the pantry, but I will do what I can here to see you don’t waste your ticket to the theater.”
Just before dusk on the 26th, Steiner got yet another unexpected surprise. The Luftwaffe made a big delivery to Gumrak airfield, not with crates of ammunition this time, but with the transports crammed with fresh replacements. He rubbed his hands together, both to chase the cold and express his delight. Then ordered the men onto trucks and began sending them off to the selected points where his division commanders were now concentrating for the attack the following morning.
That night the Brandenburgers sent their entire assault pioneer battalion to Hörnlein, and said they had orders from Steiner to take the hospital the general had complained about. Hörnlein kicked in two companies of Grenadiers and another Panzerpioneer company. The battle there was furious, with demolition squads blowing holes in the walls, the engineers slithering through them like black lizards, the flame thrower teams blasting into a room, literally consuming the oxygen inside before the attack.
Eighty percent of the defenders were slain, but as dawn came, 3rd Machinegun company of the 204th Rifle Division was still in the hospital on the upper floors, down to the last few belts of ammunition, and taking to relying on a handful of grenades to stop the pioneer assault teams. When the Germans would hear the grenades rattling down from above, they would all dive for cover. So the Russians simply started throwing chunks of stone down, or even their empty canteens filled with sand, to achieve a similar effect, until the Germans caught on. The only hitch was that they would never know whether the next clattering sound would be a grenade, a canteen, or merely a rock. Guessing wrong could quickly be fatal.
Sensing something was up near that hospital, the Russians shelled the cemetery again that night, but most of the German squads had already moved forward and down into the last balka which was their jumping off point. The late barrage arced over their heads to fall among the dead. For many, and certainly for unlucky men like Private Heintz Romer, they were grateful to be out of the graveyards, but now they looked ahead to the city, and the battle, that would become a cauldron of misery for all involved.
The following morning the Germans put in one of the strongest and most coordinated attacks of the battle. Their Kampfgruppes were all assembled, tank heavy, with recon elements poised just behind the expected breakthrough point to exploit any successes. A thunderous artillery barrage shook the cold morning air all along the 60 kilometer length of the city, from Rynok in the north to Yelshanka in the south.
The Wikings were the first to jump off, Germania Regiment eager to gain its share of the division laurels. Yet, as if sensing trouble with his very experienced nose, Shumilov had ordered up the 1st Siberian Division from the ferries after they arrived from Beketova, and he sent them to the exact spot the Germans had selected, deploying them along the knotted balka from Maksimovskiy Rail Station to the suburbs of Yelshanka east of the Minina Worker’s Settlement. The pioneers stormed the rail station to eliminate that as an enemy barb behind the attack, and in spite of stubborn resistance, the weight of the full Germania Regiment slowly drove the Siberians back.