The potential for catastrophe was not appreciated. Zhukov was relieved as Chief of the Red Army General Staff and down-graded to a reserve front at Leningrad for having the temerity to suggest surrendering Kiev and withdrawing the exposed South-west Front to more defensible positions. Marshal Budenny, who commanded this sector of the front, was given an unambiguous order: not a step backwards, hold and if necessary die’. Dimitrij Wolkogonow, a young Soviet staff officer, assessed the likelihood of anyone questioning such an order:
‘All dictators are similar in certain respects. Victories are explained in terms of genius and of personal merit. But when dictators experience defeat, they attempt to pass the guilt to those executing their orders – the generals, for example.’
Stalin had already relieved about 100 military commanders in 1941, including an array of generals. General Pavlov was removed after the initial catastrophic week on the western frontier and was arrested alongside Klimowskich, the front signals commander, with one other army commander and several other generals. They were executed. Wolkogonow summed up, pointing out that ‘Stalin forced his military commanders to produce successes through such stern measures.’(7)
On 9 September Col-Gen Michael P. Kirponos, commanding Soviet forces around Kiev, was ordered by Marshal Budenny, the front commander, to begin preparing for an ‘orderly phased withdrawal’ to escape the approaching encirclement and prepare to counter-attack. Stalin was familiar with this theatre of operations, having served there in 1918. He took close interest, having determined to fight in its defence. As a precaution he ordered the evacuation of industrial plant eastwards. He further conferred regularly with the Kiev High Command hierarchy, and installed a telegraph machine in the Kremlin for this purpose. Kirponos, Budenny and Nikita Khrushchev, the political commissar commander (and later Soviet premier) constantly raised the issue of withdrawal at these conferences. Alexander M. Wassiliwski, Stalin’s Deputy Chief of the Red Army General Staff, recalled his ruler ‘flying into a rage’ on hearing of the ‘absolute necessity’ to give up Kiev recommended by his commanders. Orders were issued to cancel the withdrawal set in motion. ‘Take all possible and impossible measures,’ he ordered, ‘to defend Kiev.’ Two days later Kirponos appealed again for flexibility, but Stalin was uncompromising. He adamantly declared:
‘Kiev is not to be given up and the bridges are not to be blown without STAVKA authority. Kiev was, is and will be – Soviet. No withdrawal is allowed. Stay and hold, and if necessary die! Out!’
Kirponos, at the other end of the telegraph, responded with a tired resignation. ‘Your orders are clear – out. Farewell.’(8)
Generaloberst Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2 had started south on 23 August on a blisteringly hot summer day. Armoured columns began raising immense clouds of impenetrable dust. The 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions moved with the 10th Motorised Infantry Division, supported directly behind by the 2nd SS Division ‘Das Reich’. They attacked due south. The 3rd Panzer Division was typically subdivided into three mixed Kampfgruppen (battle groups) of Panzers, motorised infantry and artillery with anti-tank units. Primitive sandy road conditions reduced progress to no more than 70km before columns had to be refuelled. After 40km the lead battle group – Kampfgruppe ‘Lewinski’ – passed the first road sign bearing the distinctive Cyrillic characters which indicated they were entering the Soviet Socialist Republic of the Ukraine. General Guderian’s initial response on hearing his army was to move into the Ukraine and then back toward Moscow was, ‘I doubt if the machines will stand it, even if we are unopposed.’(9) Encirclement battles at Minsk and Smolensk had already exacted a considerable toll. His Panzer divisions were on average only at 45% effective strength. Exceptions were the 10th Panzer Division at 83% and the 18th at 57%.(10)
The troops, nevertheless, were in buoyant mood. Roads were firm with few swampy areas and the weather was sunny and clear. It was Sunday, typical ‘cavalry weather’ or in other words ‘Panzer weather’, according to the 3rd Division official historian. After three hours’ driving, a Russian transport column was surprised and caught on the road. The enemy abandoned their Panje-wagons and fled into the sunflower fields. As the Panzer spearhead breasted another rise they came across a huge column of Russian lorries passing left to right. The line of vehicles consisted of artillery batteries, logistic units, engineers, tractors, Panje-wagons and mounted Cossacks riding security supported by two armoured cars. Lead Panzers shot a gap through the column and the spearhead passed on through the stream of milling Russian vehicles.(11)
The drama of the ‘Cannae’ fought at Kiev unfolded on an unprecedented scale, as shown on the representative scale of the pocket indicated by the triangle on the map. Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2 from Army Group Centre pushed southwards, linking up with von Kleist’s Panzergruppe 1 coming up from the south. Five Soviet armies were annihilated, generating hope again in Germany that the war might be won that year. But it was a victory without decisive results, achieved at considerable German cost. The Russians fought on.
On 24 August an advance battle group from the 3rd Panzer Division captured the 700m-long bridge spanning the River Desna at Novgorod Seversk. So rapid was the assault that the Pionier platoon commander was overtaken by the lead Panzer company as he removed high explosive charges from the bridge and tossed them into the water. Having crossed, strong resistance was encountered from units of the Soviet Twenty-first Army. Its commander was becoming increasingly alert to the sinister implications of this powerful Panzer force, driving south-east, well over 200km east of Kiev.
The 2nd SS Division ‘Das Reich’ captured another bridge on the division’s right flank at Makoshim, after a daring assault by its motorcycle infantry reconnaissance battalion. Stuka dive-bomber air support had been frustratingly delayed. As the SS soldiers began to prepare the bridgehead against inevitable Russian counter-attacks, the missing Stukas appeared and howled into the attack, dive-bombing their own troops. Forty Waffen SS soldiers were killed.(12)
Between 25 August and 7 September the 3rd Panzer Division fought a number of heavy battles south of Shostka, advancing only a further 55km south.
Generalfeldmarschall von Bock, the commander of Army Group Centre, monitoring Guderian’s progress from afar, was becoming increasingly frustrated at the imposed redirection of his main armoured thrust away from Moscow. Army Group Centre’s stalled infantry were now enduring intense punishment from Russian counter-attacks directed at the Yelnya salient, where some ground had to be given up. On 30 August he sullenly confided to his diary, ‘the idea of an offensive on my front thus appears to be dead’. He noted the next day, ‘the Panzer group [Guderian] is being attacked on both flanks and is in a difficult situation’. On 2 September Guderian was demanding more forces to support his southern advance, following the loss of the 10th Motorised Infantry Division bridgehead south of the River Desna. ‘Guderian’s description of the situation was so pessimistic,’ declared von Bock, ‘that I had to decide if I should propose to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army [Halder] that the armoured group be pulled back across the Desna.’
Even the Führer felt the tension emanating from this ambitious enterprise. Guderian, he insisted, should be concentrating his forces for the drive south. Generalfeldmarschall Keitel telephoned von Bock twice on 4 September and stated, ‘if the Army Group and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army don’t intervene with orders, the Führer will do it.’ Guderian became so headstrong and irritated at the perceived lack of support from his army commander that von Bock felt, ‘I finally had to ask for his relief.’ On 5 September he admitted, ‘I cannot hide my worries about new difficulties with this outstanding and brave commander.’(13) Tension was not a solely Russian prerogative. On the following day, the weather broke. Torrential summer storms turned the roads into a quagmire. Kriegsmaler Theo Scharf observed, ‘half an hour of deluge would turn the unmade roads in the rich red soil into knee-deep melted chocolate, bogging down every vehicle, except the fully tracked ones.’(14) Movement began to grind to a halt.