Trams were still running in the streets of Kalinin as the leading elements of the Panzer division rumbled into the city. Furious street-fighting erupted once armed Russian factory workers, still dressed in civilian overalls, realised who they were. Flamethrower Panzers drenched machine gun nests with fiery petroleum while German motorcycle soldiers were pinned down in the streets by Russian roof-top snipers. Seeking to capture the Volga river bridge intact, the lead element of a Panzergrenadier company from Regiment 113 drove at it. Both civilian and Russian military traffic could be seen streaming over the crossing. An intense battle developed for possession of a canal bridge that appeared unexpectedly before the main span. It was smoked off during the fighting by German mortars and the company commander from Regiment 113 suddenly found himself across.
As the smoke cleared, the superstructure of the 250m bridge-span beckoned. A solitary Russian sentry stood with his back towards him on the road. It was one of those bizarre incidents of war that can occur even during the most intense fighting. He was attired in a simple khaki cape and alone, his comrades having long since fled. Unable to bring himself to shoot this unsuspecting and vulnerable individual, the German officer called out: ‘Hey you! Hop it!’ He later recalled the Russian ‘obviously did not understand German, but he turned around and for a few seconds was rooted to the spot, mouth agape’. Suddenly he sped away. The German advance guard, lying around catching their breath on the south side of the bridge, let him go. ‘A race with death’ followed as they hesitatingly broke into a run to reach the other side. Facing them on the northern bank was an artillery piece, a machine gun bunker and infantry positions. ‘We received heavy fire,’ said the company commander, ‘but it was not possible to pause.’ At every running step they winced in anticipation that the bridge might be blown up. It was not. By the evening of 14 October, Kalinin was in German hands.(15)
The Kesselschlachten (pocket battles) at Vyazma and Bryansk were to last 10 days. Fighting raged in woods, villages and over strategic road junctions and around lakeland to finish off the last effective remaining Soviet armies before Moscow. As in earlier encirclement battles at Minsk, Smolensk and Kiev, the initial burden of the fight fell upon the motorised infantry and motorcycle battalions of the Panzer divisions. Schützen Regiment 6 belonging to the 7th Panzer Division was ordered to hold 6km-wide battalion sectors, which was two or three times greater than the norm. This could only be practically achieved by establishing interlinked strongpoints. These covered wide stretches of front with limited or often no depth. Support weapons and artillery would then attempt to dominate the inevitable gaps by fire. Mobile Panzer units were employed in a ‘fire brigade’ capacity as reserves. As 7th Panzer Division commented:
‘Inevitably it happened as it had to! With no centralised control, the Russians massed against our positions and stormed them day and night. The enemy successfully broke through several times at night. Initially with small bitterly fighting sub-units and later with dynamically led complete formations, they got through our positions. In such cases they even penetrated battalion headquarters and artillery positions, where hand-to-hand fighting broke out.’(16)
Feldwebel Karl Fuchs, commanding a Czech 38,T light tank on the edge of the Vyazma pocket, declared, ‘for days now the enemy has tried to break out of our iron encirclement, but their efforts have been in vain’. Ground mist was beginning to complicate the subjugation of a foe using every ruse to break out. Fuch’s Panzer platoon of four tanks was ordered to scout and foil such attempts occurring between infantry strongpoints. After they had destroyed two Russian tanks and beatien off a third, the fog rose from the valley feature they were covering. ‘We really let them have it with every barrel,’ he wrote to his wife, ‘tanks, anti-aircraft guns, trucks and the infantry fired on everything in sight.’ Inevitably a price was paid. The motivation driving the exhausted German soldiers was their perception this was likely to be the final battle of the campaign. Fuchs wrote sadly three days later that ‘my brave, young friend Roland just died of severe wounds’. He reflected with frustration ‘why did he have to give his life now, with the end practically in sight?’(17)
Further sacrifices were required of the 7th Panzer Division. One of the private soldiers in its 7th Infantry Regiment claimed companies could now field only two platoons. These weak units were required to hold sectors 3.5km wide, a battalion task. ‘One attack after the other was broken up by the infantrymen and supporting weapons,’ he said. Forty of his comrades from the ‘Schleevoigt’ Platoon were overrun and killed with their platoon commander at the head, having ‘fought to the last round’. Vyazma became a battle of annihilation, pursued with the pitiless ferocity of men intent on finishing the war here. Leutnant Jäger from the same regiment described the bizarre lengths Russian tank, infantry and even cavalry took to puncture the thin German lines. His men held fire until the last possible moment:
‘The first bursts caused huge losses of people and matériel. Their attack was absolutely unbelievable. Whole columns were on the move with artillery, horse columns and lorries in between coming out of the woods behind Shekulina. Without deviating they came directly at us. What targets they presented our forward artillery observers! The sent salvoes of artillery, without pause, one after the other into the enemy hordes. It caused a practically unbelievable destruction.’
Following the assaults, which continued throughout the night, the German infantrymen lay in their foxholes, virtually out of ammunition. ‘They waited, nerves at breaking point, for whatever was to come next.’(18) Soviet corpses were strewn all around.
The 2nd Panzer Division had converged on Vyazma from the south with Panzergruppe 4. On 10 October the anti-tank guns of the Kampfgruppe ‘Lubbe-Back’ were spread about 150m apart with infantry from Regiment 304 dug in between. They awaited the inevitable attacks from the interior of the pocket. At daybreak Panzers would relieve them. As the sun descended, the landscape was transformed to a dark grey, always a tense time. Panzerjäger H. E. Braun recalled, ‘the woods and shrubs in the foreground appeared to change shape from minute to minute’. Light eventually deteriorated into a misty darkness. ‘Everyone paid sharp attention’ to the scene ahead; ‘they were reliant now on hearing alone.’ Braun said:
‘They could hear the sounds of battle within the pocket. The sky to the west slowly changed to a red hue. Villages must be on fire. Now and then a sharp detonation could be picked out. Tension increased and pulses beat faster.’
Braun shared this acute anticipation. At first indiscernible, and then gradually more clearly, strange noises wafted toward the antitank and infantry positions. At about 22.00 hours the fires in the west had died down. Total darkness reigned and in the blackness the noise in front of the perimeter perceptibly increased. A horse would whinny, wagon wheels creaked and engine noises could be heard. ‘The tension was unbearable,’ said Braun as the first Very lights burst in the night sky.