North of the 2nd SS Division ‘Das Reich’, Unteroffizier Gustav Schrodek with Panzer Regiment 15 reflected in his diary: ‘the capital Moscow is our attack objective – will we reach it?’ He was a Panzer commander advancing with the 11th Panzer Division and was stalled by enemy action a few kilometres beyond the village of Krjukowa. ‘I saw a signpost,’ he said, ‘which read “MOSKWA 18,5 km”. His Panzer was abruptly reversed by its alert driver, just as a 76mm shell from a hidden T-34 whooshed by the turret.
‘But to our right another vehicle in the company was knocked out by a direct hit to the turret. I saw the commander and driver clamber out while I traversed my turret to take aim, but he had already disappeared. Only later did I realise the Panzer commander lost his legs and the driver’s hand had stuck, tearing flesh on the frozen track. Our ranks are thinning. Every day we lose a couple.’
Burying the dead in the frozen ground was hardly achievable with picks and shovels. ‘We could only create a shallow ditch using hand-grenades,’ he remarked. Temperatures had dropped to −35°C, and they were unable to advance further. Moscow was merely one hour’s drive by Panzer, but with no accompanying infantry, they had to leaguer up in the snow and wait. They felt isolated, virtually abandoned.(7)
The closest finger niggling at the Russian defences on the outskirts of the city was the 2nd (Vienna) Panzer Division. Its antitank battalion was becoming increasingly dismayed at the ineffectiveness of its 37mm guns against the increasing numbers of Soviet T-34s its battle groups were encountering as they advanced south-eastwards along the Solnechnogorsk–Moscow road. A lucky shot striking the machine gun aperture of a T-34 from only 10m during an attack at Turicina had set one tank ablaze. It suicidally carried on to crush its 37mm assailant. At Strelino four English ‘Matilda’ tanks were despatched by Panzer Regiment 3. They had all been recently manufactured and had ‘September 1941’ stamped on their engine plates – an indication of Allied resolve and urgency to stem the Axis advance. On 28 November American tank types were knocked out. As the Kampfgruppe ‘Decker’ rolled into Oserezkoje on 1 December soldiers remarked on the appearance of Moscow Omnibus line stops. A combat group of Panzers, infantry, artillery and engineers commanded by Oberst Rodt of the 304th Regiment occupied the three villages of Krassnaya Polyana, Putschki and Katjuschki on 30 November. Another battalion (the IInd) from the same regiment under Major Reichmann secured Gorki, nearby. A small salient had been driven into the area of Sixteenth Soviet Army, 17km from the outskirts of Moscow and only 27km from the Kremlin.(8)
They had been preceded, unknown to themselves, the previous day by motorcycle patrols from Panzer Pionier Battalion 62. Temperatures had now risen slightly to 0°C, which produced light wet snow and patchy fog. Utilising these conditions, General Hoepner commanding Panzergruppe 4 detached these motorcyclists from 2nd Panzer Division and ordered them forward to raid the railway station at Lobnya and conduct a fighting reconnaissance south of it. In one of those bizarre episodes of war, as the Russians fell back from Solnechnogorsk and the 2nd Panzer Division pushed its battle groups south-eastwards in search of an unopposed route into Moscow, the motorcycle raid found it. Hunched behind their BMWs and machine-gun-mounted sidecars, the force thrust forward, encountering no opposition until it reached Khimki, a small river port in the north-west suburbs of Moscow. They were within 8km of the city and 20km of the Kremlin, only a short drive away, a distance that could be covered in minutes. Panic ensued among the startled local inhabitants. ‘The Germans are in Khimki!’ was the cry. The motorcycle detachment, having had no substantial contact with Soviet troops, feeling vulnerable at the depth of their incursion and seeing the obvious agitation they had caused, turned back. They needed to report this unopposed thoroughfare. Support would not be at hand if they drove into resistance and, feeling over-extended, they retraced their route. Incredibly the unit drove back through the German lines without a shot being fired.(9)
Not surprisingly a flurry of activity resulted on the Russian side. Soviet General Konstantin Rokossovsky, whose Sixteenth Army was located just west of Moscow, received an unwelcome reminder of Stalin’s resolve. He said:
‘Comrade Stalin called me during the night. The situation was pretty difficult and our units had already fallen back in a number of areas. We knew that the Commander-in-Chief would give us such a dressing down we would feel sick. So I picked up the receiver with the special line with some trepidation. He asked me one question “Are you aware, comrade Rokossovsky, that the enemy has occupied Krassnaya Polyana, and do you realise that if Krassnaya Polyana is occupied it means that the Germans can bombard any part of the city of Moscow?”’(10)
Rokossovsky could only agree. Counter-attack orders were issued. Sixteenth Army had already been forced to pull back from Solnechnogorsk, ‘giving rise to a serious situation,’ as General Zhukov later explained. Units were moved into the area from the Supreme Headquarters Reserve. The Russian line was bending in an arc commensurate with German pressure, but did not buckle. Zhukov in early December was beginning to detect ‘from the nature of the military operations and from the attacks of the enemy forces that the offensive was grinding to a standstill and that the Germans had neither the manpower nor the arms to continue their drive’. Michael Milstein, an officer on Zhukov’s staff, recalled, ‘we were able to capture German staff documents in front of Moscow and all these indicated that Soviet reserves appeared to be exhausted, and there would be no more available.’(11)
The Russian Supreme Command inserted forces sufficient only to hold the line while they amassed forces for a counter-offensive immediately behind the front. Soviet tank driver Benjamin Iwantjer remarked on the extent of the casualties they had already suffered. ‘Standing before those who have already died in this war leaves us remaining alive with a sense of almost unbearable guilt,’ he admitted.(12) General Zhukov, however, had no compunction in exacting whatever price was necessary to create the necessary conditions for his planned counter-stroke. The Soviet West Front continued to be reinforced with two newly formed armies – the First Shock and Tenth Armies – as well as a number of other units combined into a third, named Twentieth Army. Still the Germans suspected nothing.
Zhukov was a master of military deception. He applied measures similar to those he had conducted as commander of the First Mongolian Army Group in 1939 after the Japanese invasion of Mongolia. The formation successfully encircled and destroyed a Japanese force in a surprise assault on the River Khalkhin Gol. Although Zhukov’s force had been 644km from the nearest railhead he clandestinely organised massive deliveries of matériel, assembling a huge tank force which subsequently overwhelmed the Japanese in a totally unexpected attack. These same deception measures were reenacted on the Moscow front to give the impression that the Russians were intent on defence rather than offence. Soviet artillery observer Pawel Ossipow, preparing for the attack, recalled:
‘We had to dig ditches at temperatures of −30°C with the ground frozen hard to a depth of 60–70cm. There were only picks, crow bars and shovels available to do the job. The work was done mostly at night because we would have been seen by day. It took about two days before we were dug in. On 1 December we occupied the fire positions. A few days later the warm clothing was brought up, fur jackets, gloves, mittens, padded trousers and felt boots. It was already much better after that, because we had to sleep in the snow next to the guns, on top of the ammunition boxes. It was uncomfortable but we did not freeze and we remained combat-effective.’