The 1st Panzer Division reached and penetrated the Dudergof height defences 10km south-east of Leningrad. Only one of its battalions remained at over 50% effective strength. By 16.00 hours on 10 September Height 167 – the 140m topmost point of the ridge south-east of the city – had been scaled by the attackers. Daniel Granin, a Soviet volunteer, described how:
‘On the heights above Leningrad we came under air attack which caused heavy casualties. The rest of the soldiers in my unit scattered and I was left alone – without an army. So I boarded a tram car and drove back home, with my machine gun and hand-grenades. As far as I was concerned, and I had no doubts, the German army was going to be in Leningrad in a few hours.’(5)
On the left flank of the XXXXIst Panzer Corps, Eighteenth Army infantry edged their way across the valley. Once the Russian guns and observers were cleared from Height 167, entry into the suburban districts of Slutsk and Pushkin could be attempted. Krasnoye Seloe, south-west of the city, fell on 11 September. Hans Mauermann, an artillery observer moving forward with one of the assaulting infantry divisions, recalled:
‘Our company had in fact stopped a tram car that had driven out of Leningrad, and ordered the passengers to get out. We considered whether or not to hang on to the driver, so they could drive into Leningrad the following day.’(6)
Russian Lieutenant Jewtuchewitsch despaired. Soldiers in his unit had recently arrived from the reserve and were untrained.
‘We march from place to place the whole time. Can one still label them a Regiment? People had only rifles and pathetically few machine guns. No medics! What is that supposed to be? We haven’t any grenades either! In reality that is no military unit, it’s “cannon-fodder”.’
His experience was typical of the many untrained and disintegrating Russian units caught up in the maelstrom of the German advance. ‘Our company has been rubbed out once again,’ he wrote, ‘and we have landed in the rear of the enemy and are being hunted through the wood like animals, trying to get across the German-occupied road to break out and join the others.’ They were separated from their Commissar Jermakow in the trees and had been unable to regain contact. That night Lieutenant Jewtuche-witsch wrote his last diary entry.
‘Shooting and Panzers everywhere. We are now faced with a serious dilemma – what is going to happen? Will I be able to write again tomorrow in this book? If not, would the person who finds this diary pass it with a loving kiss and my last word “Mama!” to: Leningrad, Prospect 25. October, House 114, Flat No 7. To Jewtuchewitsch, Anna Nikolajewna…’
Jewtuchewitsch had said goodbye to his mother barely two months before.
‘With a sad feeling I looked at my poor Mother’s ever-loving face and thought: what a difficult life she has had, what had life ever given to her that was ever any good? Here she sits beside me, my old mother, keeping back her concern, hardly able to keep back the tears. She made the sign of the cross over me.’
After a final sad meal his mother and sisters had accompanied him to the barrack gates before he left. ‘I said a quick goodbye and with a lump in my throat, holding back the tears, I kissed them all.’
German soldiers searching among the bodies decided the small book taken from the dead Soviet lieutenant might be of military significance. It was passed on to company headquarters.(7)
By the fourth day of the all-out German assault on Leningrad it became clear that further progress was not possible without substantial reinforcements. A limit of exploitation was declared on the Peterfog-Pushkin road. Street-fighting was slowing the tempo of the advance and continued for a further five days before it began to abate. The arrival of Soviet General Zhukov, previously dismissed as Chief of Staff by Stalin because of his frank advice on the developing Kiev crisis, energised the defence. Zhukov was well practised in the value of combined operations and ordered the saturation of the enemy with jointly interacting artillery, mortar and air support. This and the depth of the defence lines soaked up the impetus of the Panzer advances. Large numbers of medium and heavy mortars proved as lethal as artillery inside the close ranges over which the battle was fought.
Other factors also diluted the German effort. The bulk of Generaloberst Hoepner’s Panzergruppe 4 was ordered to transfer once again to Army Group Centre and prepare for the assault on Moscow. Likewise, the Finnish advance along the Karelian Isthmus had halted. Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim, the Finnish leader, resolved to reconquer only that land he believed justifiably belonged to Finland. Despite the apparent nadir of Soviet fortunes, he did not wish to be held hostage to any future resurgence. The impact at the front from these developments was dramatic in some sections. Rolf Dahm, forward with an infantry division, recalled:
‘Suddenly there was this stop. We’re not going on further. I naturally thought, “Why not?” Then later the Führer Befehl [Directive] came. Our command probably considered the problem we would have taking over a city of a million inhabitants that would have to be fed throughout the winter. Better to stay in front of it and try and starve the inhabitants into submission.’(8)
German soldiers ensconced on the Dudergof heights were treated to the panoramic sight of the city of Leningrad only 12km away with its golden cupolas and towers bathed in sunlight. Warships could be seen in the port, shelling targets to their rear. It was a tantalising, and at the same time confusing, experience for officers and soldiers alike, unaware of what was impeding the final assault. Realists such as Walter Broschei correctly guessed why:
‘In the middle of September we reached a chain of hills 8km from the Gulf of Finland and 20km south-west of Leningrad town centre. In the distance the city pulsed with life. It was bewildering – trains ran, chimneys smoked and a busy maritime traffic ran on the Neva river. We had 28 soldiers left from 120 normally in the company and had now been gathered into so-called “combat” battalions – unsuitable to attack Leningrad.’(9)
Artillery Forward Observer Hans Mauermann likewise had few illusions about the likely outcome of any further costly attacks. He breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Then suddenly it was – halt, which, actually, was met with some satisfaction. Every day it had been attack, with all its uncertainties and not knowing what might happen. From the perspective of even further hardship this was very much welcome. The emotion swung between a shame we had not pulled it off to thank God we did not have to go in there.’(10)
Generalfeldmarschall von Leeb mounted this spoiling attack despite the order to transfer his Panzer strength back to the Central Front. But it had not succeeded. There was now no alternative to the Führer’s original intent articulated during the euphoric and successful early phase of‘Barbarossa’. Halder had stated on 8 July:
‘It is the Führer’s firm decision to level Moscow and Leningrad, and make them uninhabitable, so as to relieve us of the necessity of having to feed the populations through the winter. The cities will be razed by the Luftwaffe. Panzers must not be used for the purpose.’(11)
Even before von Leeb’s final attempt to ‘bounce’ the city on 6 September, Halder had already declared the previous day our objective has been achieved’. The area, as promulgated by Hitler, ‘will now become a subsidiary theatre of operations’. Von Leeb was denied his victorious entry into the city. He was, in any case, aware of approaching operational limitations which would be to support a main drive against Moscow from mid-September. ‘True, it will be a hard job for the Northern wing,’ explained Halder, responding to von Leeb’s request to retain Reinhardt’s Panzer Corps and VIIIth, ‘but the scheme underlying our directive remains the only possible solution.’(12) Hitler’s aim to encircle the city and reduce it by bombardment and starvation was as consistent as it was calculated.