The main drive was the attack aimed at Orel, which simply overwhelmed the defense, breaking through like a flood tide of Red Army soldiers. Though it moved slowly, the Russian advance was inexorable, and left small islands of resistance behind at both Gorbachov and Metsensk. The former town would have been lost if not for the timely intervention of the new 103rd Panzer Brigade, fresh off the train just before the attack, and with good operational vehicles. It joined elements of 29th Motorized and 4th Panzer Division, and shored up a shoulder of defense that marked the southern end of the German line near the breakthrough.
The Soviets cut the main road at Chern to the south, and then completely surrounded the 267th Infantry Division huddled around Mtsensk. The breakthrough pushed all the way to Bolkov behind the German lines where Von Schweppenburg had his headquarters. Both he, and then Guderian himself, with the entire army command staff, had to leap onto any vehicle they could get running and flee north. Hit by the main weight of the attack, Orel could not be held, and a massive gap opened in the line over a hundred kilometers wide. Soon 18th Panzer Division was another small island surrounded south of Orel, as were the remnants of the 167th Infantry Division.
Tired and cold, Guderian found von Schweppenburg near a small village to assess the situation. “This is much bigger than we may realize,” he said. “I can feel it. Under these circumstances, with Orel overrun in the south, we have two options. We can either hold these small resistance points at Mtsensk, and Tula, keeping the benefit of the shelter the cities offer our troops. But they will end up surrounded—isolated pockets until some relief can be mounted to reach them. The only problem is finding a force we can keep moving to do that, which could take considerable time.”
“And the other option?” asked Von Schweppenburg, now a haggard man after the hard fighting and precipitous retreat he had just made with his headquarters and staff.
“The river bends south from Serpukhov, and we still control that city. We could abandon the ground to the east and pull back behind the natural front of that river. Cover will not be as good for the troops as in Tula, but that was largely held by mobile troops. I don’t think we will want to leave them in a pocket there. If we get them back over this river, then I may be able to build several operational kampfgruppes to form fire brigades.”
“I agree,” said von Schweppenburg. “Can we hold Serpukhov even long enough to get the troops back over that river?”
“Model is there,” said Guderian, and that was enough to satisfy von Schweppenburg that the place would be held. So this was what the Germans decided to do, orders going out that day. 2nd Panzer Army was strung out like a tattered rope, and now Guderian was hoping to loop it back and coil it up behind that river and build up some semblance of a mobile force again.
“I think you are correct that this is bigger than we think,” said von Schweppenburg. “The last reports I had spoke of another big push from the northwest aimed at Smolensk.”
“They are trying to reach the Kirov pocket,” said Guderian. “It was foolish to leave such a large force encircled behind our main thrust at Moscow, and I said as much long ago. That’s where most of the infantry was tied up, but since we pulled all the good divisions out to push for Moscow, that infantry could not reduce the pocket before the really cold weather set in. Now we had better get moving. The Russians are still on our heels, and they could be here any minute.”
The decision reached in that abandoned farmhouse would end up having dramatic repercussions. As news of the great winter counteroffensive reached Berlin, and reports streamed in of the loss of Orel, the abandonment of Tula under Guderian’s plan, and the threats to other key cities like Smolensk and Orsha, Hitler went ballistic. It was not the first tirade he had leveled at Army planners in OKW headquarters, but it was certainly the most severe. He ranted for over an hour, his fist pounding the map table, shaking troop markers from their positions, which he would then reset to a place of his liking. The greater disaster was that he resolved to take personal command of the field armies, and a spate of “Führer’s Directives” began to stream forth from OKW, ordering that no German division would make a withdrawal.
As for Guderian, he was summarily recalled to Berlin, where the last battle he would fight for some time would be with Hitler himself.
“What did you intend by such a stupid and untimely withdrawal? In a few days you hand the enemy back terrain our troops fought for months to acquire!”
“Had I not done so the troops would now be completely isolated. This attack was far stronger than you may realize, and the men were simply worn out.”
“And the Generals,” said Hitler. “It is obvious that you have lost any command of your senses, let along the aggressive spirit necessary for a front line commander to lead his troops. What was the purpose of this withdrawal?”
Guderian decided he could not mince words here, and so he turned to the Führer with one blunt sentence. “To save the 2nd Panzer Armee from annihilation.”
Hitler stared at him, his lower lip quivering as he tried to hold his temper in check. But the shocking candor of Guderian’s words would haunt him for days after.
Chapter 5
“Annihilation? We had only just completed the capture of Serpukhov. Your forces were preparing to mount the final drive to enfilade Moscow from the southeast.”
“That may be what you believed was happening from the vantage point of OKW,” said Guderian, “but I assure you, the reports I sent were frank and straightforward. The army had lost 80 percent of its mobility. The roads were of minimal use in the heavy snows, and off road movement was near impossible—that is for the few units which still had fuel. As for supplies, I came across one platoon of Panzergrenadiers that had been collecting the boots of their fallen comrades, slicing up the leather and boiling it for food! All the living flesh in the horses that had died by the thousands in the freezing temperatures had already been consumed.”
Hitler brushed the lock of dark hair from his forehead, his eyes deep set with dark circles, his face pallid and drawn. Guderian could not fail to notice the slight tremor in his hand. The Führer had seen the dream of victory finally come to him when his panzers swept into Moscow behind the raging flames of the fires set by the traitor Beria and his renegade NKVD. Moscow had finally fallen, and the Nazi flag flew over the Kremlin. Yet all the city was good for was rudimentary shelter in the winter, and the charred remnants of the buildings that had burned were collected to make coals to be distributed to the men on the line. The long desperate struggle had finally given him his objective, but his enemy simply refused to capitulate.
It all had a haunting echo of the fate of Napoleon’s Grand Army. That force could defeat any enemy it faced, save one—General Winter. It sat in Moscow in 1812, and the city had also burned as it had here in 1942. 130 years of European history had passed, but it seemed that nothing had been learned. Half a million men in that Army died in that dreadful winter, and it was a decisive turning point in the wars of Napoleon against his many enemies.
“How?” said Hitler, with the despair obvious on his face. “How could they have found the troops to make such an attack?”