‘The beards on our faces make us all look like U-Boat crews and our hands are encrusted with filth. When was the last time we washed our clothes or had a bath? It seems to have been months. Joints are commonly stiff from lying in holes all day long. One can hardly feel one’s feet because of the cold! But you can feel the tormenting lice. And where are our dear friends, all those that had marched and fought with us?’
Where indeed? The regiment had lost 50 officers and 1,673 NCOs and men – two-thirds of its officers and over half its men – since the beginning of the campaign. Overall, 98th Infantry Division had lost 5,881 men, one-third of its total strength but more than half of its actual fighting men.(3)
The consequence of massively costly victories was all-apparent at front level. Operation ‘Taifun’ alone had cost the army groups 114,865 casualties. This represented a further 6.8 division equivalents completely removed from the order of battle. The significance can be measured against the fact there was only one division left available for the Army Group Centre reserve. Officer casualties in October were 3,606, enough to man seven division equivalents; the 22,973 NCOs who perished or were wounded amounted to the same comparable ratio.(4)
The physical impact of these losses seriously eroded fighting power at the front. An assessment of a typical German infantry division structure(5) reveals that from an average strength of 16,860 men about 64% – some 10,840 – could be classified as ‘fighters’. The remaining 36% was the logistic support ‘tail’ that sustained the ‘teeth’ or combat elements forward. This provides the explanation for the small numbers of soldiers infantry companies were actually committing to battle. Morale and instinctive self-preservation continued, remarkably, to hold these much reduced bands of men together. An Oberfeldwebel in a 260th Division infantry regiment remarked, ‘we have 49 dead and 91 wounded in the company’ which would have had a theoretical combat strength of 176 men. Only 36 men who had started the campaign would still be serving in its ranks. Despite this he claimed ‘our heads are always held high, even when the going is rough’. They had penetrated to within 80km south of Moscow and still believed ‘eventually we will definitely destroy the Russians’.(6)
Panzer regiments were even worse off. Prior to the second phase of ‘Taifun’ they had been assessed as being at 35% of their normal strength. This meant an overall average of 50–70 Panzers per division, normally 180–200 strong (with about 350 armoured vehicles altogether).(7) Helmut von Harnack, serving with a Panzer regiment, wrote at the end of October:
‘The last few months have not passed without leaving their mark on the old veteran crews, many of whom have already been knocked out once within their Panzers.’
He was an officer and amazed at the ‘zest for life’ displayed by his 19-year-old crews, commenting on ‘the flush of victory in their eyes’.(8) But it was a truism that the highest losses were among units who had fought the most successful actions, and they were losing their best men. Second Panzer Army had been reduced from 248 tanks on 16 October to 38 by 23 November. Panzergruppe 3 likewise dropped from 259 to 77 over the same period.(9) These losses at the ‘teeth’ end of Panzer divisions were more significant than the infantry because just under half of the 13,000–14,000 armoured troops deployed were actually ‘fighters’. Most casualties would be forward, far exceeding losses among considerable specialist and logistic units forming the ‘tail’ to the rear.
Artillery Leutnant Hubert Becker graphically illustrated this gap between front and rear, describing a return journey from leave.
‘On the rare leaves, departing Berlin the train was absolutely full of soldiers with field packs, in clean uniforms, deloused, going back to the front. All were sad at parting and fully packed. The compartments were so full you could hardly move. But in spite of that we were in good spirits and cracking jokes.
‘And the trip took three days, four days, five days… to the East.
‘The further the train travelled eastward the more space there was inside. By the time we got to our former eastern territories the train would be half empty. When we got to the end of the line, 40km behind the front, the compartment would be empty. You’d get off completely alone and you’d ask: “Well – who’s fighting this war?”’(10)
The offensive fighting power of the infantry and Panzer divisions in the attack was, in reality, reduced to the level of heavy raiding battle groups. The combat ‘teeth’ ratio to logistic and specialist ‘tail’ structures of both infantry and Panzer divisions was breaking down. The development could not necessarily be remedied by drafting ‘specialists’ forward to join the fighting troops. Results when this was attempted were generally catastrophic. General von Mellenthin, a Russian front veteran, remarked after the war that there ‘is a difference between “infantry minded” officers on the one hand and “armour minded” officers on the other’. This applied also to soldiers. ‘Either capability acting alone,’ he said, ‘has a value significantly less than 50% of their combined effectiveness.’(11) General Balck, referring to combat attrition in front of Moscow, said, ‘we wound up with valuable tank crews fighting in black uniforms in the snow as infantrymen – and being totally wasted.’(12) A tank soldier with the 20th Panzer Division admitted:
‘The shortage of tanks was a worrying thing for the Panzer crews. The division formed a so-called “tank-crew” battalion from the men in the regiment who no longer had tanks or wheeled vehicles, or were unable to be transported in any other way. It had four companies with no heavy weapons. Many of the 21st [Panzer Regiment] crews hanging on hopes of a long rest and recuperation on an exercise area [in Germany] and being re-equipped with a bigger tank than the Panzer III soon had them buried.’
Tank crews performed as best they could fighting as infantry, but, as their division history commented, ‘they lacked the training basis required to fulfil their task’. By the beginning of January 1942 only 18 soldiers from one company had survived from the 160 men that had formed up in the middle of November. They quickly realised that ‘employment as infantry required totally different needs from those of Panzer combat’. Living and digging foxholes in ice and snow was not comparable to crewing a Panzer. 70% of the losses were from frostbite.(13) General Balck conceded:
‘Casualties in the tanks themselves were almost always quite light. However, once the tank crew had to abandon their tank, we often had to employ them immediately as infantry. And at this point we took unheard-of losses among the tank crews because they had no infantry skills.’
Combing the rear area was not a solution because, Balck explained, ‘the division organisation must be maintained, because it is the basis for the training and the feeding and the command and control of the unit.’(14) Luftwaffe personnel from Flak, signals and other grand units were employed as infantry as the crisis worsened. Even pilots whose aircraft were out of action and highly trained specialists were put into the line on the orders of Generalleutnant Baron von Richthofen, the commander of VIIIth Fliegerkorps. A diary entry revealed his total ignorance of the implications of his directive. ‘People will enjoy the opportunity to have a go again at the enemy,’ he said, ‘from 150m with a rifle.’(15) Many infantry veterans would not have relished the prospect, never mind totally untrained Luftwaffe ground crews.