ON 24th August, at 0440 hours, the Combat Group Krumpen launched its attack against Spartakovka, Stalingrad's most northerly industrial suburb, with tanks, grenadiers, artillery, engineers, and mortars, preceded by Stukas.
But the enemy they encountered was neither confused nor irresolute.
On the contrary: the tanks and grenadiers were met by a tremendous fireworks. The suburb was heavily fortified, and every building barricaded. A dominating hill, known to the troops as "the big mushroom," was studded with pillboxes, machine-gun nests, and mortar emplacements. Rifle battalions and workers' militia from the Stalingrad factories, as well as units of the Soviet Sixty-second Army, were manning the defenses. The Soviet defenders fought stubbornly for every inch of ground. The order which pinned them to their positions had said clearly: "Not a step back!"
The two men who saw that this order was ruthlessly implemented were Colonel-General Andrey Ivanovich Yeremenko, Commander-in-Chief Stalingrad and South-east Front, and his Political Commissar and Member of the Military Council, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev.
It was then, at Stalingrad, that the officers of the 16th Panzer Division heard this name for the first time from Soviet prisoners.
With the forces available, Spartakovka could clearly not be taken.
The Soviet positions were impregnable.
The determination displayed by the Soviets in holding their positions was further illustrated by the fact that they launched an attack against the northern flank of Hübe's "hedgehog" in order to relieve the pressure on Spartakovka. The Combat Groups Dörnemann and von Arenstorff were hard pressed to resist the increasingly vigorous Soviet attacks.
Brand-new T-34s, some of them still without paint and without gun-sights, attacked time and again.
They were driven off the assembly line at the Dzerzhinskiy Tractor Works straight on to the battlefield, frequently crewed by factory workers. Some of these T-34s penetrated as far as the battle headquarters of 64th Panzer Grenadier Regiment and had to be knocked out at close quarters.
The only successful surprise coup was that by the engineers, artillery men, and Panzer Jägers of the Combat Group Strehlke in taking the landing-stage of the big railway ferry on the Volga and thereby cutting the connection from Kazakhstan via the Volga to Stalingrad and Moscow.
Strehlke's men dug in among the vineyards on the Volga bank.
Large walnut-trees and Spanish chestnuts concealed their guns which they had brought into position against river traffic and against attempted landings from the far bank.
But in spite of all their successes the position of 16th Panzer Division was highly precarious.
The Soviets were holding the approaches to the northern part of the city, and simultaneously, with fresh forces brought up from the Voronezh area, put pressure on the "hedgehog" formed by the division. Everything depended on securing the German corridor across the neck of land, and the 16th were therefore anxiously awaiting the arrival of 3rd Motorized Infantry Division.
The advanced units of that division had left the Don bridgeheads side by side with 16th Panzer Division on 23rd August and moved off towards the east. At noon, however, their ways had parted.
Whereas the 16th had continued towards the northern part of Stalingrad, Major-General Schlömer's regiments had fanned out towards the north in order to take up covering positions along the Tartar Ditch in the Kuzmichi area.
The general was moving ahead with the point battalion. Through his binoculars he could see the alluring sight of Soviet goods trains being feverishly unloaded at Kilometre 564, west of Kuzmichi.
He gave the order; "Attack!"
The motor-cyclists and armored fighting vehicles of Panzer Battalion 103 raced off. Gunners of Army Flak Battalion 312 sent over a few well-placed shells.
The Russian columns dispersed.
The goods wagons contained a lot of valuable equipment from America.
These had been shipped across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, through the Persian Gulf, across the Caspian Sea, and up the Volga as far as Stalingrad, and thence by railway to the front, to the halt at Kilometre 564.
Now these supplies were being gratefully passed around by Schlömer's 3rd Motorized Infantry Division—magnificent brand-new Ford lorries, crawler tractors, jeeps, workshop equipment, mines, supplies for engineering troops, flame throwers, bakeries, blankets, camouflage, clothing, American rifles and pistols, several staff cars, cable-laying equipment, switchboards, radio sets, explosives, grenades and, most valuable of all, enough cases of American Lucky Strike cigarettes for a month.
The tanks of the advanced battalion had continued on their way when suddenly five T-34s appeared, evidently in order to recapture the precious gifts from the USA.
Their 7.62-cm. shells quite literally dropped into the pea soup which was just being dished up for the division's operations section.
The general and the chief of operations dropped their mess-tins and took cover. Fortunately two tanks of the point battalion had got stuck near the goods train with damaged tracks. They knocked out two of the T-34s and saved the situation. The remainder turned tail.
While Schlömer's formations were still following behind 16th Panzer Division more disaster loomed up;
a Soviet Rifle Division, the 35th, reinforced with tanks, was driving down the neck of land from the north in forced marches. Its aim— as revealed by the papers found on a captured courier—was to seal off the German bridgeheads over the Don and keep open the neck of land for the substantial forces which were to follow.
The Soviet 35th Division moved southward into the rear of the German 3rd Motorized Infantry Division; it over-ran the rearward sections of the two foremost divisions of von Wietersheim's Panzer Corps, forced its way between the bridgehead formed by the German VIII Infantry Corps and the German forces along the Tartar Ditch, and thereby prevented the German infantry, which was just then moving across the Don into the corridor, from closing up on the forces ahead of them.
As a result, the rearward communications of the two German lead divisions were cut off, and those divisions had to depend upon themselves.
True, the 3rd Motorized Infantry Division and the 16th Panzer Division succeeded in linking up, but these two divisions now had to form a "hedgehog" 18 miles wide, extending from the Volga to the Tartar Ditch, in order to stand up to the Soviet attacks from all sides. Supplies had to be brought up by the Luftwaffe, or else escorted through the Soviet lines by strong Panzer convoys.
This unsatisfactory and critical situation persisted until 30th August.
Then, at long last, the infantry formations of LI Corps under General of Artillery von Seydlitz moved up with two divisions on the right flank. The 60th Motorized Infantry Division likewise succeeded in insinuating itself into the corridor front after heavy fighting.
As a result, by the end of August, the neck of land between Don and Volga was sealed off to the north. The prerequisites had been created for a frontal attack on Stalingrad, and the outflanking drive by Hoth's Panzer Army from the south was now covered against any surprises from the northern flank.
General von Seydlitz-Kurzbach had been wearing the Oak Leaves to the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross since the spring of 1942. It was then that this outstanding commander of the Mecklenburg 12th Infantry Division had punched and gnawed his way through to the Demyansk pocket with his Corps group and freed Count Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt's six divisions from a deadly Soviet stranglehold.
That was why Hitler was again placing great hopes for the battle of Stalingrad on the personal bravery and tactical skill of this general, born in Hamburg-Eppendorf and bearing the name of an illustrious Prussian military family.
At the end of August Seydlitz launched his frontal attack against the centre of Stalingrad with two divisions striking across the neck of land from the middle of Sixth Army. His first objective was Gumrak, the airport of Stalingrad.
The infantry had a difficult time.
The Soviet Sixty-second Army had established a strong and deep defensive belt along the steep valley of the Rossoshka river. These defenses formed part of Stalingrad's inner belt of fortifications, which circled the city at a distance of 20 to 30 miles. Until 2nd September Seydlitz was halted in front of this barrier. Then, suddenly, on 3rd September the Soviets withdrew, Seydlitz followed up, pierced the last Russian positions before the city, and on 7th September was east of Gumrak, only five miles from the edge of Stalingrad. What had happened?
What had induced the Russians to give up their inner and last belt of defenses around Stalingrad and to surrender the approaches to the city?
Had their troops suddenly caved in? Was the command no longer in control? Those were exciting possibilities.
There can be no doubt that this particular development in the battle of Stalingrad was of vital importance for the further course of operations. The events in this sector have not yet received adequate attention in German publications about Stalingrad—but the battle for the Volga metropolis certainly hung in the balance during these forty-eight hours of 2nd and 3rd September.
The fate of the city appeared to be sealed.
Marshal Chuykov, then still a lieutenant-general and Deputy Commander-in-Chief Sixty-fourth Army, casts some light in his memoirs on the mystery of the sudden collapse of Russian opposition in the strong inner belt of fortifications along the Rossoshka stream.
The solution is to be found in the actions and decisions of the two outstanding contestants in this mobile battle of Stalingrad—Hoth and Yeremenko.
Yeremenko, the bold and dashing, yet also strategically gifted Commander-in-Chief of the "Stalingrad Front" has revealed some interesting details of this great battle in his writings.
Chuykov's memoirs fill in many gaps and cast additional light on various aspects.
Colonel-General Hoth, Commander-in-Chief of the Fourth Panzer Army, then living in Goslar and still alive, where, before the war, he had served with the Goslar Rifle Regiment, just as Guderian and Rommel, has made available his personal notes about the planning and execution of the offensive which brought about the collapse of the Soviet front.
At the end of July, Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army had wheeled away from the general direction of attack against the Caucasus and had been re-directed from the south through the Kalmyk steppe against the Volga bend south of Stalingrad. Its thrust was intended to relieve Paulus's Sixth Army, which even then was being hard pressed in the Don bend.
But once again the German High Command had contented itself with a half-measure.
Hoth was approaching with only half his strength: one of his two Panzer Corps, the XL, had had to be left behind on the Caucasus front. His effective strength, in consequence, consisted only of Kempf s XLVIII Panzer Corps, with one Panzer and one motorized division, as well as von Schwedler's IV Corps, with three infantry divisions. Later, Hoth also received the 24th Panzer Division. The Rumanian VI Corps under Lieutenant-General Dragalina with four infantry divisions was subordinated to Hoth to protect his flank.
The Soviets instantly realized that Hoth's attack spelled the chief danger to Stalingrad. After all, his tanks were already across the Don, whereas Paulus's Sixth Army was still being pinned down west of the river by the Soviet defenders. If Hoth, coming from the Kalmyk steppe, were to succeed in gaining the Volga bend with the commanding high ground of Krasnoarmeysk and Beketovka, Stalingrad's doom would be sealed and the Volga would be severed as the main supply artery for American deliveries through the Persian Gulf.
On 19th August Hoth reached the southernmost line of defense of the Soviet Sixty-fourth Army, and at the first attempt achieved a penetration at Abganerovo.
Kempf's Panzer Corps pushed through with 24th and 14th Panzer Divisions as well as with 29th Motorized Infantry Division, followed on the left by Schwedler's infantrymen.
Twenty-four hours later Hoth's tanks and grenadiers were attacking the high ground of Tundutovo, the southern cornerstone of Stalingrad's inner ring of defenses. Colonel-General Yeremenko had concentrated all his available forces in this favorable and vital position. Armored units of the Soviet First Tank Army, regiments of the Soviet Sixty-fourth Army, militia, and workers' formations were holding the line of hills with their wire obstacles, blockhouses, and earthworks established in deep echelon. Krasnoarmeysk in the Volga bend was only 9 miles away.
The companies of 24th Panzer Division attacked again and again, swept forward by their experienced commanders and combat-group leaders. But success continued to be denied to them.
Colonel Riebel, commanding 24th Panzer Regiment, and for many years Guderian's ADC, was killed in action.
Colonel von Lengerke, commanding 21st Panzer Grenadier Regiment, was mortally wounded in an attack against the railway to Krasnoarmeysk.
Battalion commanders, company commanders, and the old and experienced NCOs were killed in the infernal defensive fire of the Soviets.
At that stage Hoth called a halt. He was a cool strategist, not a gambler. He realized that his attacking strength was inadequate.
At his battle headquarters at Plotovitoye, Hoth sat bent over his maps. His chief of staff, Colonel Fangohr, was entering the latest situation reports.
Only two hours before, Hoth had visited General Kempf at his Corps Headquarters and had driven with him to General Ritter von Hauenschild to hear about the situation at 24th Panzer Division. He had also called on Major-General Heim at the railway station of Tinguta. In a balka, one of those typical deep ravines of Southern Russia, Heim had explained the difficult situation in which 14th Panzer Division found itself. Here, too, further advance seemed impossible.
"We've got to tackle this thing differently, Fangohr," Hoth was thinking aloud.
"We are merely bleeding ourselves white in front of these damned hills: that's no ground for armor.
We must regroup and mount our attack somewhere else, somewhere a long way from here. Now, listen carefully. . . ."
The colonel-general was developing his idea.
Fangohr was busily drawing on his map, checking reconnaissance reports and measuring distances.
"That should be possible," he would mumble to himself now and again. But he was not entirely happy about Hoth's plan, mainly because time would again be lost with regrouping. Besides, a lot of fuel would be needed for all this driving around. And fuel was very short. And ultimately those "damned hills" in front of Krasnoarmeysk and Beketovka would have to be tackled one way or another, for they dominated the entire southern part of the city and its approaches. Exactly the same arguments against regrouping were advanced also by General Kempf. But in the end both Fangohr and Kempf let themselves be persuaded by their commander-in-chief.
Hoth rang up Army Group.
He had a half-hour conversation with Weichs. Weichs agreed and promised to come round in person to discuss the operational problems, and especially fuel supplies.
Everything sprang into action: orderlies raced off with orders; telephone wires buzzed ceaselessly. The entire headquarters personnel were moving in top gear. A regrouping operation was being carried out.
Unnoticed by the enemy, Hoth pulled out his Panzer and motorized formations from the front during the night and replaced them by infantry of the Saxon 94th Division.
In a bold move, rather like a castling in chess, he moved his mobile formations past the rear of IV Corps in the course of two nights and reassembled them 30 miles behind the front in the Abganerovo area to form them into a broad wedge of attack.
On 29th August this armada struck northward at the flank of the Soviet Sixty-fourth Army, to the complete surprise of the enemy.
Instead of fighting his way frontally towards the Volga bend, across the heavily fortified hills of Beketovka and Krasnoarmeysk, which were studded with tanks and artillery, Hoth intended to bypass these positions and enemy forces hard to the west of Stalingrad, in order then to wheel round and attack the entire high ground south of the town with an outflanking attack which would simultaneously trap the left wing of the Soviet Sixty-fourth Army.
The operation started astonishingly well.
Jointly with the assault infantry of IV Corps the fast formations on 30th August burst through Stalingrad's inner belt of fortifications at Gavrilovka and over-ran the rearward Soviet artillery positions.
By the evening of 31st August Hauenschild with his 24th Panzer Division had reached the Stalingrad-Karpovka railway-line—an unexpected penetration 20 miles deep.
The entire picture, as a result, was changed.
A great opportunity was offering itself. The prize was no longer merely the capture of the high ground of Beketovka and Krasnoarmeysk, but the encirclement of the two Soviet Armies west of Stalingrad, the Sixty-second and Sixty-fourth.
This prize was suddenly within arm's reach, provided only Sixth Army could now drive southward with its fast formations, towards Hoth's units, in order to close the trap.
Hoth's bold operation had created an opportunity for annihilating the two enemy Armies covering Stalingrad.
Army Group headquarters instantly realized this opportunity. In an order to General Paulus, transmitted by radio at noon on 30th August, it was stated:
In view of the fact that Fourth Panzer Army gained a bridgehead at Gavrilovka at 1000 hours to-day, everything now depends on Sixth Army concentrating the strongest possible forces, in spite of its exceedingly tense defensive situation ... on its launching an attack in a general southerly direction ... in order to destroy the enemy forces west of Stalingrad in co-operation with Fourth Panzer Army. This decision requires the ruthless denuding of secondary fronts.
When Army Group, moreover, received information on 31st August of the deep penetration made by 24th Panzer Division west of Voroponovo, Weichs sent another order to Paulus on 1st September, couched in considerable detail and no doubt intended as a reminder.
Under Figure 1 it said: "The decisive success scored by Fourth Panzer Army on 31.8 offers an opportunity for inflicting a decisive defeat on the enemy south and west of the Stalingrad-Voroponovo-Gumrak line. It is important that a link-up should be established quickly between the two Armies, to be followed by a penetration Into the city centre."
The Fourth Panzer Army reacted swiftly.
On the same day, 1st September, General Kempf led the 14th Panzer Division and the 29th Motorized Infantry Division in the direction of Pitomnik, having quite ruthlessly denuded the sectors hitherto held by 24th Panzer Division.
But the Sixth Army did not come.
General Paulus found himself unable just then to release his fast forces for a drive to the south, in view of the strong Soviet attacks being made against his northern front. He considered it impossible to hold the northern barrier successfully with his Panzer lagers and a few tanks and assault guns, even if supported by ground-attack aircraft of VIII Air Corps, while hiving off an armored group to be formed from the five Panzer battalions of XIV Panzer Corps for a drive to the south.
He was afraid that, if he did so, his northern front would collapse.
Perhaps he was right.
Perhaps any other decision would have been a gamble. In any event, a great opportunity was missed.
Twenty-four hours later, in the morning of 2nd September, operational reconnaissance by 24th Panzer Division established that there was no enemy left in front of the German lines.
The Russians had pulled out of the southern defensive position, just as on the same day they had abandoned a defensive position facing Seydlitz's Corps in the western sector. What had induced the Russians to take this surprising step?
General Chuykov, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Sixty-fourth Army, had realized the dangerous situation which had arisen as a result of Hoth's advance. He gave the alarm to Colonel-General Yeremenko. Yeremenko not only saw the danger, but also acted in a flash, in complete contrast to the former ponderous way in which the Soviet Commands used to react to such situations.
Yeremenko took the difficult and dangerous decision—but the only correct one—of abandoning the well-prepared inner belt of defenses. He sacrificed strong-points, wire obstacles, anti-tank barriers, and infantry trenches in order to save his divisions from the threatening encirclement, and retreated with his two Armies to a new, improvised defensive line close by the edge of the city.
This operation showed once more how consistently the Soviets were implementing the new tactics adopted by the Soviet High Command early in the summer. In no circumstances again were major formations to allow themselves to be encircled.
For the sake of this new principle they were prepared to risk the loss of the city of Stalingrad.
In the afternoon of 2nd September General Paulus decided after all to dispatch fast units of his XIV Panzer Corps to the south, and on 3rd September the infantrymen of Seydlitz's Corps linked up with Hoth's armored spearheads. Thus the pocket envisaged by Army Group on 30th August was, in fact, formed and closed, but no enemy was trapped inside it.
The maneuver had been accomplished forty-eight hours too late.
This delay was to cost Stalingrad.
But as yet nobody suspected this.
Army Group thereupon issued orders to Paulus and Hoth to exploit the situation and to penetrate into the city as fast as possible.
A grenadier company moves towards the front in the Don bend. The company chief (Kompanie-Chef), usually an Oberleutnant or Hauptmann, was provided with a riding horse. A full strength-first line 1940 German Infantry company had 180 men on its ration strength. On 15 October 1942 Infanterie-Regimenter were redesignated Grenadier-Regimenter and individual Schutzen were redesignated Grenadiere. This was an effort to improve the morale of infantrymen as in the old Imperial Army grenadier units were considered elite. Only a small portion of a division's service and support units are seen in the background.
German Pioneers reconnoitering for a bridge crossing site come across a KV-1 which has sunk while crossing one of the Don's smaller streams.
Landser of 267. Infanterie-Regiment of 94. Infanterie-Division use a deserted Russian farmstead as a command post not far from the Volga. The Landser adopted the Russian name for log cabins, Isba. From here soldiers watched Luftwaffe bombing raids on Stalingrad and could see the black smoke from the factories rise thousands of meters into the warm southern Russian sky.
An officer, probably a Kompaniechef (company chief) and two NCOs stand on a road leading down to the Volga river on 24 August. All three are armed with the 9mm MP-40 submachine gun. The officer has a Stg.24 stick hand grenade pushed through his enlisted man's belt. Officer's Leibriemen (belt) Officer's had a rectangular open-faced buckle and the belt itself was reddish brown; enlisted men's were black. The NCO to the right is an Unteroffizier (corporal)while the one in the center wears his rank shoulder straps upside-down as a means of camouflage.
A Gefreiter (private first class) from 94. Infanterie-Division takes a much needed respite and pauses for some apple juice refreshment. The late August heat was oppressive, demonstrated by the open collar of his wool uniform, but soon the weather would change as the autumn rains took a grip along the banks of the Volga. Rear service troops were issued only one 30round Patronentasche 11 (cartridge pouch) rather than two as Frontsoldat. He wears a Gasplane (anti-gas sheet) in a dark bluish green rubberized fabric pouch on his gas mask carrier's strap.
Small German unit approaches the first empty isbas to the west of Rynok. During the night Soviet troops coming from the north would begin to infiltrate into built-up areas such as these (some wearing German uniforms)causing German supply units nightmares with their sniping and kidnap teams.
Panzergreandiere of Hube's 16. Panzer Division arrive on the banks of the Volga. A MaschinengewehrschOtze (machine gunner) carries his 7.92mm MG-34 over his shoulder and his ErsatzstOcketasche 34 (replacement parts pouch) on his right front belt. He is also armed with a Stg.24 stick hand grenade. Machine gunners were known simply as an Abzug (trigger), as in triggerman.
German MG-34 team set up near a Soviet tank in the north of Stalingrad during the first days of the German attack.
An 8.8cm Flak 18 antiaircraft gun of The 37th Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the 9th Anti-Aircraft Division announced its first evening on the banks of the Volga by shelling a railway ferry and a gunboat and sinking a steamer. Over the next few days they continued firing on boats while Soviet artillery counter-battery-fired on them. The Landser knew the 8.8cm as the "Acht-Acht"-Eight-eight. Note the field gray metal ammunition cases in the foreground. Unpainted wicker containers of the same size and shape were introduced later.
A Landser, the "proprietor," of the "Savoy Hotel" had posted a sign announcing that the "Wolga Bar" offers a teatime dance at 5. Such (fruppen- and halbgruppenunterstande (group and halfgroup living bunkers) were called Kleine Hauser (small houses) by the Landser. They were essential to survive the ceaseless artillery and later the below freezing weather.
An officer is speaking on the telephone next to his Sd.Kfz.251/6 Ausf. B Befehlswagen (command vehicle) of 16 Panzer Division in the Kuzmichi area of Stalingrad. By the 24 August the 16. PanzerDivision's position was perilous because the Soviets were holding the approaches to the northern part of the city and bringing reinforced by troops funneled in from Voronezh to the north.
These troops have taken a defended gully on the approaches to Stalingrad. A knocked out T-34 is seen on the lip and a limbered 10.5cm leFH.18 light field howitzer passes on its way forward. This was the standard divisional field piece and not the 8.8cm FlaK as is often portrayed in movies, novels, and memoirs.