‘But when nothing of use comes from the attack then that is something to think about. I have no clue or opinion why it should be so, but, despite all this, what a real shame. A pity! The end effect was that on 3 December we went back to the start point during the night. In some places there were merely remnants from previously strong companies.’(7)
Front letters covered a myriad concerns, primarily discomfort, survival and an emotional reaching of hands back home. Most accepted the abrupt reversal with resignation. But the fire of June 1941 had gone. The retreat has taken a lot out of us,’ wrote a Gefreiter with the 262nd Infantry Division, with constantly overstretched nerves, sometimes I do not want to go on.’ He longed for a little peace at Christmas and particularly my post!’ But he would fight on. ‘My dearest,’ he continued, some very hard days lie behind us, but now we have overcome all that.’ Realising his letter was unlikely to arrive home until the New Year, he concluded on an optimistic note. ‘The political situation nevertheless is now crystal clear,’ he wrote, ‘it can only result in victory!’ Whatever the blind faith, the Soviet offensive had come as a brutal surprise. Soldiers were irritated that the ‘higher-ups’ could have got them into such a mess. Oberleutnant Karl Moltner, a Panzer corps staff officer, stated indignantly in a postwar interview:
‘We were in no way equipped for such a winter with temperatures of −36°C. There was not even any winter clothing at this time. I can truly say we only had our so-called “summer” coats and, whoever might be lucky, a motorcyclist’s greatcoat.’(8)
There was now a parting of ways. The moral component would never be restored to its original state of June 1941. One fought for survival or the Führer, occasionally together, but never with the same idealistic purpose with which the campaign had begun. As the retreat gathered momentum only one objective preoccupied the German soldier – to live.
The German Army in retreat
The potential for the complete destruction of German divisions was unprecedented in this war and the deep Soviet penetrations of Army Group Centre’s flanks either side of Moscow threatened to achieve just that. Leutnant Georg Richter, having departed Putschki, 30km from Moscow, on 6 December, recorded two days later, until now, the retreat is proceeding to plan.’ It was easier for vehicle-borne troops. On the road moving west with Panzergruppe 4 there was constant danger from their northern flank that Russian spearheads would break through in the direction of Klin. Temperatures varied between −6°C and −15°C, with fog and snowfalls. Petrol shortages necessitated frequent halts. Richter observed ‘a seemingly endless column of vehicles stretching before him’ on 13 December when they came across lines of blackened German vehicles, burned out during a recent Russian break-through. From the edge of the wood, Richter was suddenly aware of a sinister ‘Urra! Urra!’ sound.
‘Brown figures poured out of the woods and a stream of German soldiers, drivers and vehicle crews came back towards me along the road. At first I did not know what I ought to do, I couldn’t grasp it. One couldn’t hold back the fleeing men who had been gripped by panic and shock. Most of them had not even held onto their rifles. There were also probably Russian tanks. I saw one had already driven across the road and on to the other side.’
Some of his own men were crawling back along the roadside ditch. ‘One of them, the oldest man in our battery, was shot and killed, it was a sorry affair.’ Richter gathered about 10 men together and tried to fight back, but the German armoured cars escorting the convoy ‘did not show their brave side’. They merely ‘blazed away from where they were,’ according to Richter, ‘at the edge of the wood, where there were no more Russians’. The group fell back to a neighbouring village. Nothing could be done. After darkness fell it was suddenly illuminated by the flash of an exploding ammunition lorry, which had been smouldering for hours. ‘We could not rescue our vehicles,’ said Richter, at least 25 others were littered about, criss-cross around the road.’
The following day the route was reported as fought clear. Passing the ambush site they noticed food and other items scattered about the road. ‘Anything usable had been taken by the Russians,’ Richter observed, or snatched up by our own Landser passing by.’ The march continued over subsequent days. Abandoned vehicles were burned where they stopped. ‘It was such a shame,’ Richter commented. ‘One often saw how the crew would gather together the essentials and then set off on foot.’ He was especially depressed, as an artillery officer, by the abandonment and destruction of guns. Superhuman effort had been expended to get them this far. ‘In front of Petrowskoje is a sea of vehicles,’ he wrote on 16 December. They had driven out of the town and parked in columns. At first there were 10 rows, then 15 and so on, with the 5th Panzer Division, the 1st Panzer Division, 2nd Panzer Division, 14th Infantry Division and everything else all in between.’
Ar attacks became increasingly persistent as the march continued. ‘Single and very daring Ratas grazed the treetops and then turned and dived on us, this time with twinkling machine guns blazing at us.’ Everyone sought cover until the infantry mustered courage to fire back with machine guns. ‘One stood with his legs apart, his companion placed the machine gun on his shoulder and “rattattatt”a Rata is shot down,’ said Richter. Traffic jams built up around vehicles which broke down either because of the cold or lack of petrol. They were burned. ‘Why has the column stopped?’ Richter would ask. ‘It was always the same, one went forward to investigate and found, after walking past a kilometre of vehicles, the driver asleep in his cab.’(1)
Opinion concerning the retreat varied with individual experience. Horst Orlov, a Panzer company commander who had been close enough to Moscow to see its towers ‘lit by the sun’, was emphatic about the disciplined nature of the retreat. He declared during a postwar interview:
‘I can only say that in my area of responsibility, where I was committed, the retreat was conducted in an orderly manner. There were naturally losses in matériel and also personnel, but to speak of a flight would be overstating it.’
Leutnant Adolf Stamm with the Flak artillery recalled ‘awful days in front of Moscow, suffering in temperatures below −35°C and sometimes even −40°C.’ But he remembered the retreat was generally under control.
‘On 6 December, it was already St Nicholas’s Day, we received the order to clear our positions and conduct the retreat using available resources. The withdrawal was not a flight or a panic-stricken rush. Rather, positions were vacated platoon by platoon from village to village. What was particularly difficult to master was to get the vehicles started and then move back through the deep snow’(2)
There was total unfamiliarity with the tactical handling of a withdrawal. The German Army had never practised it in the prewar period and until now had never experienced the need to execute it. Scenes observed by Leutnant Richter, retreating with Panzergruppe 4, were repeated along Panzergruppe 3’s route. ‘Discipline is beginning to let up,’ the latter observed in a later operations report.