Becker’s comrades with the 23rd Division were ejected from the Lama position and had to retreat 50km to west of Rzhev. Panzer Hauptmann Schroeder with the 7th Panzer Division recalled operating alongside them once again with the whole front slipping’. They were described as ‘decimated but unbroken’. Feeling guilty with the realisation that the Panzers increased his chances of survival well beyond that of the hapless infantry, he said:
‘I tried to support the infantry with my pair of Panzers but there was nothing more I could do. These brave men ran about with threadbare summer coats, no gloves and defective boots. They simply could not hold open ground in these freezing temperatures. Nearly all of them were afflicted by various grades of frostbite.’(7)
During the latter part of December both sides sought to reinforce their battered forces. Hitler ordered the despatch of 17 fresh divisions to the Eastern Front from other parts of German-occupied Europe.(8) They would take considerable time to arrive. Meanwhile Stalin saw the opportunity to apply an even more ambitious counter-stroke, encouraged at the success of the initial phase of the offensive. Phase two opened during the first two weeks of January and included another attempt to raise the siege of Leningrad, combined with an offensive by the south and southwest fronts. Amphibious landings were mounted by the Caucasus Front in the Crimea. In the Central sector the Kalinin, West and Bryansk Fronts attempted a double envelopment from Rzhev in the north and Sukhinichi from the south to close on the main Moscow highway at Vyazma. Hitler was obliged to order a withdrawal to a line approximating to the original ‘Taifun’ start point the previous October. Many German units were surrounded during the withdrawal, but the move shortened the front, which freed units for counter-attacks able to seal the worst gaps torn in the front line. Another Soviet attack swept in from the north in a wide arc that sought to capture German-held Smolensk. Although the German strongpoint belt was penetrated in several areas, it soon became apparent the Soviet second stage objectives had been over-ambitious. The Russians had insufficient strength and resources to achieve a decisive victory as the drive was dispersed over too many objectives. German armies were not only spared decisive encirclement, they began to isolate over-extended Soviet thrusts which were mopped up later when reinforcements arrived. Second Shock Army under General A. A. Vlasov penetrated the rear of the German Eighteenth Army but became isolated in forest and marsh with its supply lines cut. Eventually its nine divisions and several brigades capitulated in June 1942. The Soviet Thirty-third Army with an integrated mobile cavalry group was cut off near Vyazma, as also the Twenty-ninth Army near Rzhev. This strategic spread of forces, weak in artillery and short of ammunition, enabled the ragged but still lethal forces remaining with Army Group Centre to bite back savagely. By the end of February, Stalin’s great offensive had run its course. German armies, partly reinforced by fresh divisions, re-established a continuous front in the centre. The line, tortuous in shape, reflected the limits of Russian offensive and opposing German defensive endurance.
Frozen flesh
The stamina of the Ostheer was tested to breaking point, an experience many would have difficulty coming to terms with mentally in later life. ‘Our division was in reality decimated in Russia,’ declared a distressed Walter Neustifter, perhaps up to 80% of its strength.’
‘My comrades – [a heavy weapons] company was 220 men strong with mortars, heavy mortars, heavy machine guns and two light infantry [heavy-calibre] guns. It must have been during an attack when we had two infantry guns in support. They received a direct artillery strike and the complete crew was wiped out – totally. Ten men were cut down. This didn’t just happen once [visibly upset], it must have happened a hundred times until there was nothing left.’(1)
Killing the enemy engendered a spectrum of emotions unique and peculiar to each man. German soldier Benno Zeiser, newly arrived at the shifting front, described his feelings:
‘I got the leading man in my sights and clenched the bucking machine gun hard. If anybody got a dose of my stuff he was not going to get up again. You actually had the feeling you could hear the bullets go plonk into a man’s body, yet you didn’t really feel you were killing, or destroying human lives. On the contrary, you got a regular kick sometimes out of that sensation of the sploshing impact of the bullet. I must say I had always thought killing was much more difficult.’(2)
The majority of soldiers suppressed their feelings automatically, adjusting to whatever was required of them. Artillery observer Helmut Pabst, fighting near Rzhev at the end of January, saw that counter-attacks have all failed’. Night after night the infantry had gone into the attack despite enduring days in the open. They knew full well,’ he said, ‘the effort was hopeless.’ One night a platoon of Pioniers, an officer and 42 men, mounted an attack. The officer came back ashen-faced with 15 men.’ Eleven had been killed, and nine seriously and seven lightly wounded. Six days later the same officer, shot through the arm, fought his way out of Russian encirclement with only two of his original 15 men. Pabst bleakly observed, no more prisoners are being taken in the front line.’(3)
The health of the soldiers deteriorated to an alarming degree. An assessment by the senior medical officer with 167th Infantry Division highlighted concerns at the beginning of January 1942.
‘Something like 80% of the fighting troops are undergoing medical treatment especially for stomach and bowel, catarrh, frostbite, skin diseases and fever. The level of health and overall condition is extremely bad, lowering the body’s resistance in coping with illness and wounds. Death is often resulting from slight wounds with blood loss. Total physical and psychological collapse threatens not only the NCOs and men but the majority of officers as well.’(4)
The front was held by such men. Conditions in the fighting line itself were almost untenable. Gefreiter Rehfeldt recalled:
‘The lice drove us practically insane. Our underwear was black with them, crawling not only inside our clothes but even onto our coats outside. This revolting feeling accompanied by itching could drive the most composed people to distraction. We have already scratched ourselves bloody – and the whole body, especially legs, looks scabby and lacerated. Frost injuries have developed into deep septic and bloody holes on both legs… When we have to go out to relieve a sentry post, I have to stagger along 40 minutes before the others… In the evenings, following the relief, I get in half an hour after them, wheezing from the pain… Taking off boots is only achievable at the second attempt accompanied with unbelievable effort and pain. Life is a total misery.’
Two weeks later Rehfeldt complained he had been three days without rations and‘practically everyone has the shits on an empty stomach’. They felt as‘weak and miserable as dogs,’ and above all there was ‘the unbelievable cold!’ His frostbitten feet were becoming more swollen and septic with the passing of each day. ‘Nothing heals in this cold,’ he despairingly wrote.(5)