Hatred arose among the scenes of unbelievable destruction visited by both sides upon the Russian population. Vera Josefowna Makarenko knew whom to blame:
‘Just consider it for a moment. From over there came foreign people from a land which we believed were our friends. We had read their Goethe and Heine. And now they come and want to destroy us. Can you understand that?’(21)
‘The spires of the city’…
Moscow
The 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions with the 23rd Infantry Division in between were the nearest German units to Moscow on 3 December during the final phase of the assault. There had already been some withdrawals as von Bock straightened his line on the Moscow–Volga canal to secure his northern flank before penetrating the city.
The 7th Panzer Division received the order to pull back from the Moscow side of the Yakhroma bridgehead at 02.15 hours on 29 November. It was a depressing development for the hard-pressed troops fighting on the enemy side, who had, in the words of their commander General Frhr von Funck, expended ‘sweat and blood’. They recognised the underlying negative implication for any future advance on the city. Von Funck described it as ‘an evil flash of lightning illuminating the great turning point of the campaign and, with it, the whole war… From now on one heard the oft-repeated expression “there are insufficient forces” with increasing frequency.’ Forward riflemen were told at about 04.30 hours that the bridgehead had to be evacuated by daylight, which would be in one and a half hours’ time. Heavy weapons and Panzers would have to recross the canal before they could be picked out in the murk. A sharp crack reverberated through the frozen air at 07.30 hours and an ominous black column of smoke rose from the centre of the bridge. It was regarded attentively and wistfully by the soldiers of the 7th Panzer Division. Only the centre part of the bridge span collapsed because there had been insufficient explosive. At 19.00 hours that night the Russians blew the remainder.
The 2nd (Vienna) Panzer Division [inset diagram] was the closest unit to the Kremlin on 2 December 1941. To claim to be in sight of Moscow had the same epic significance to German soldiers as claims of being at Dunkirk or Arnhem had to Allied soldiers. One reconnaissance unit penetrated as far as Khimki – a 15-minute drive from the Kremlin – in the western suburbs of Moscow. This was the high point of Ostheer success during the eastern campaign. It was powerless to achieve more.
Explosives were also unavailable to burrow new defence positions into the west bank. Houses by the canal edge were fortified instead. Both sides appreciated the implications of this latest development. First Shock Army, forming up nearby in preparation for the forthcoming Soviet counter-offensive, had applied unremitting pressure to the bridgehead. Soviet artillery fire began to range in on the newly established German positions. Air attacks increased. On 2 December the 7th Panzer staff ominously reported, ‘Sixteen air attacks today!’(1)
Forty years later, Soviet artillery soldier Pjotr Jakowlewitsch Dobin, observing the canal bridge, reflected on the intensity of the fighting.
‘I fought then to prevent the Germans from crossing the canal. They were actually successful in getting across, but only for a day. For two days there was awful fighting here, on 28 and 29 November 1941, a hideous bloodbath in ice and snow. We then forced them back onto the west bank. I’m still astonished today that I managed to survive it all.’(2)
Many Germans remember the fateful bridge detonation early on the morning of the evacuation. ‘We were missing Unteroffizier Leopold,’ said one witness:
‘He had been sleeping and now made his way back, with long loping strides across the ice covering the canal. The sound of the explosion had been the first thing to wake him up. He was quite literally the last man to come back from “over there”.’
With victory no longer an option, the surge of morale that originally accompanied the capture of this Moscow entry point suddenly dissipated and reaction set in. There was nothing left to transcend the physical discomforts and threat. Fighting continued in driving snowstorms against a build-up of enemy attacks, which had to be opposed with faulty frozen machine guns. There were complaints ‘that urgently required warm winter clothing had still not arrived’, and these ‘became even more pronounced’.(3) Now that Moscow was denied them, survival became the primary concern.
Gefreiter vom Bruch was attacking forward further south of the 7th Panzer Division; he was with Infantry Regiment 4, part of 6th Panzer Division and 7km from the canal. His squad, protecting the forward artillery officer of the battery in support, ‘soon ran out of ammunition.’ Caught on exposed flat ground, the company suffered appalling casualties. On 3 December they occupied the village of Jasikowo but were ejected by a surprise attack at midday by 10–15 Russian tanks which suddenly emerged from the wood. Vom Bruch described the pandemonium as they burst upon them.
‘We were overrun and could only flee. Many ran simply to conserve their naked lives. Equipment and various items fell into Russian hands. Some 20–30 men were missing from the battalion, including the battalion commander and two of the company commanders, who could not be saved.’
That night, with temperatures down to −32°C, their orders of several days, standing remained unchanged – ‘hold the ordered line’.(4)
The 1st Panzer Division had meanwhile advanced 5km east of Bely-Rast, placing it 32km north of Moscow. Below them the bulge created by the 2nd (Vienna) Panzer and 23rd Infantry Divisions was creeping south-eastwards toward the Moscow suburbs. The 2nd SS Division ‘Das Reich’, with its 4th ‘Der Führer’ Regiment, was further south of the Istra–Moscow road and had reached the western outskirts of Lenino, 17km from Moscow. Russian Worker’s Militia volunteers were thrown against them. ‘Moscow was near enough to touch,’ announced Otto Weidinger, one of its commanders.
‘The men of the Regiment were convinced they could count the number of days required to reach Moscow on the fingers of one hand. The spires of the city were visible to the naked eye in the clear cold weather. A forward 100mm battery placed harassing fire on the city.’(5)
Legends abound concerning which German unit penetrated the nearest to Moscow. Its suburbs may well have been reached and were frequently easily observed. To be within visual sight of Moscow during this attack was in German eyes of epic significance, comparable to other ‘glorious’ failures at Dunkirk or (later) Arnhem for the British. Little glory remained to an advance which had deteriorated to one of groping progress. A young SS ‘Deutschland’ Regiment officer wrote, ‘We are approaching our final goal, Moscow, step by step.’ But, as he recounted, there were supply difficulties and weapon malfunctions. ‘The day is coming,’ he said, ‘when the soldiers will not only be at the end of their strength, but companies will have lost their fighting strength due to the loss of numerous wounded, frozen and dead.’ This was no final sally at a crumbling fortress. On the contrary:
‘These fighting half-frozen German front-line troops stand and lie in a pitiless cold which occasionally drops below −45°C. They only wear regulation uniforms with normal leather boots, and are without gloves, overshoes or scarves while exposed to merciless combat and winter conditions.’(6)