Chapter 37
October - December 1941
Eastern Front
As winter settled in, it was clear that the USSR would not fall before the end of 1941, and a grueling winter campaign lay ahead. For Erwin Rommel, around Leningrad, it was time to take stock about how to take out this annoying pocket. He had taken the Pulkovo heights, which gave him good artillery positions over the city, and had secured a small corridor on Lake Ladoga. Rommel knew he couldn’t send his Panzers into the city, but he was first determined in enlarging the German corridor to Lake Ladoga by crossing the Volkhov river with the Finnish positions along the Svir as an objective. He could then tighten the noose on Leningrad without worrying about his flank.
This plan was met with conflicting opinions. Von Leeb wished to reduce the Oranienburg pocket while also moving towards Karelia, something Hitler rejected, instead wishing to rush to Tikhvin. However, Rommel knew that this would not be the worst idea. His Panzers could very well cross the Volkhov and then dash along Lake Ladoga instead of reaching far out towards Tikhvin like Hitler wished. For Rommel, the offensive towards Tikhvin would mean a long siege of Leningrad, something he very much was against. So, putting rivalries aside, he made common cause with Von Leeb, telling Hitler that his Panzers could then bridge the Volkhov and prevent the Soviets from counter-attacking there. After some backs and forths, in which Rommel personally went to Rastenburg to discuss with the Fuhrer, Hitler gave his assent to the Von Leeb plan [1].
On October 8th, 1941, Rommel launched his offensive towards Lake Ladoga, along the Volkhov but never crossing it. In the meantime, Von Leeb and Von Kuchler started to reduce the Oranienburg pocket after a Luftwaffe bombing which helped soften up the defences. Along the Volkhov, Rommel made good progress thanks to his Panzers, and Volkhov fell on October 15th, after a short cavalcade. In the meantime, the 126th Infantry established a bridgehead around Panevo, threatening a push towards the east. This meant that the pressure was alleviated on Rommel, who pushed through and reached the shore of Lake Ladoga on October 19th. Ever daring, the “Baltic Fox” immediately bridged the river and ran to the Sias river by October 23rd.
However, with supply problems and issues in the drive towards Moscow, the front became secondary for Berlin. The link with the Karelian Army was not established, but with logistics strained, it would not be possible to reach them unless the Finns attacked themselves. But, in a storm of bad news of the Wehrmacht, Army Group North became suddenly right back at the center of attention as Oranienburg fell on November 3rd, though Soviet forces would resist in the area well into 1942.
It was at this moment where the Soviets struck. Wishing to keep the link over the iced Lake Ladoga to Leningrad, Ivan Fedyuninsky and the Soviet 54th Army struck, aiming to clear the bridgeheads along the Volkhov. The bridgehead of the 126th Infantry at Panevo was particularly hard hit, and its forces were forced back across the river on November 7th. However, Rommel’s forces held on as the Panzers reaped a toll on the Soviet forces, which lacked the heavy KVs which would’ve been needed to clear the area. Holding the flank, to the south, was a unique unit. The 250th Infantry protected the town of Kolchanovo, along the Sias, thus securing Rommel’s southern edge. Fedyuninsky saw this unit as less experienced and easy to break, as they were comprised entirely of Spanish Nationalists. This would allow him to break on the rear of Rommel’s forces.
The Blue Division came under assault from the Soviet forces, who had armoured support on top of strong artillery presence. Despite this hell launched upon them, it was not the easy victory Fedyuninsky expected. The Blue Division lost ground, but at no point did it give its positions on the left bank of the Sias. The Spanish held for three days until finally, salvation would come from an unexpected place.
Rommel had been approached by Mannerheim for a “joint offensive on Leningrad”. Surprised by this offer of help, Rommel and Von Leeb accepted the Finnish help, which would allow to blunt the Soviet offensive. On November 16th, Finnish forces advanced from Pasha and bridged the Reka Pasha, extending an arm to Rommel’s forces, which took to the offensive and seized Syasstroy. With the fall of this city, and the prospect of losing all of Lake Ladoga, the Soviets abandoned the Spanish…who went on the offensive! Limited in scope due to the dense woods, the Spanish offensive was ineffective in terms of territorial gains, but it distracted the Soviets long enough for them to come too late to stop the Germans and Finns from linking up for the first time at Volosovo. At the same time, Finnish forces had advanced towards Vaskala and Repino, albeit at the cost of moderate casualties. It must be said that the Soviets did not expect an advance from there! The month of December was spent with the Soviets trying and failing to dislodge the Germans from the banks of Lake Ladoga, without success. In the end, Fedyuninsky stopped his attacks, and waited for the new year to relaunch his forces, in the last days of the battle of Leningrad.
Further south, things had turned sour in Army Group Center. Hitler, furious after the loss of Smolensk, had ordered to trap the forces there in a “Kessel” during the offensive on Moscow. With Army Group Center receiving all the attention of the Luftwaffe, the Soviet forces were in for a rude awakening on September 30th. Hell seemed to have rained down on them as the Luftwaffe bombed the ruins of the city to dust, with Reinhardt’s tanks slowly moving in a pincer.
Stalin once again refused to let go of the city for which so many Soviet soldiers had fallen. Once again, many lives which could have been saved were used in a fruitless attempt to hold a city that was doomed to fall. Despite the heroic resistance of the Soviet defenders, they were encircled on October 6th, and slowly destroyed. Luckily, Reinhardt and Hoepner’s tanks could not go much further. Despite this beautiful success, the weather turned sour and mud came in. German tanks were slowed down, allowing for Soviet forces to regroup and counter-attack. At Suetovo, Soviet T-34s ambushed a column of Panzers on the road to Vyazma, catching the German column completely off-guard and almost annihilating it. Even the new Panzer IVs had trouble in dispatching this new threat, and the German advance stalled.
To the south, Guderian’s redeployed units struck towards Bryansk, attacking in two prongs. Here, while resistance was less adamant, it was more organized. Andrei Yeremenko, the front commander, opted for a defence in depth, which allowed lower casualties on the Soviet side. Bryansk was eventually encircled and taken, but it was at the cost of comparatively low casualties to Smolensk, to the north. The fall of both cities led Stalin to reinstate Zhukov as commander in chief of the Western Front, merging the Western and Reserve fronts to defend Moscow.
Zhukov organized a defence line centered around the Vyazma-Kaluga axis. To the north, where resistance was meager, with more difficult terrain, German forces advanced deep into Soviet territory. Bely and Nelidovo fell, but the Wehrmacht, constrained by logistics and in the face of stiffening resistance, had to stop at Bobrovka, short of the Volga, as to the south, things had gone sour.
The Wehrmacht made contact with the defence line at Vyazma, immediately stopping the advance. At Kirov, Rokossovsky’s 16th Army fought tooth and nail to delay the German advance towards Kaluga, inflicting extremely heavy casualties to the Germans in the process. Though the Soviet general had to let go of the city, it had its effect. German troops had been worn down, only at a third or half their strength, and stopped even short of Kaluga.
They waited a month there, for the mud to finally freeze over, and resumed operations on November 15th. German Panzers pushed towards Kaluga with vigour, taking Babynino on November 23rd and Korekozevo the next day. However, Zhukov had had time to reinforce the city and drag reserves there. With Vyazma holding and little threat of a breakthrough towards Rzhev, the Soviets doggedly held on. The Germans reached the Oka and Urga rivers, securing the south bank, before trying to break through to the city center. Believing the key to the road to Moscow was there, Hitler ordered support for a breakthrough in the area. A bridgehead was established in early December, but vigorous counter-attacks by Golubev’s 43rd Army and a diversionary counter-attack by Pavel Belov’s 1st Guards Cavalry Corps at Odoev, to the south, forced the Germans to withdraw from Kaluga’s north bank on December 9th. The last to withdraw were the Frenchmen of the 638th Infantry Regiment, which would soon be folded into the SS Division
Charlemagne.
The day of the fall of Kaluga, the Soviets counter-attacked. With the Germans defeated, Stalin thought that it was possible to throw them all the way back to Smolensk, or even Belarus! In fact, due to the small gains, the Germans had consolidated most of their gains, which led to the Soviets hitting a brick wall. Despite this, the Soviet forces, better equipped for winter warfare, did break out in several places. Added to this, the Luftwaffe faced extreme difficulties due to the cold and logistical nightmares in the back of the front, added to partisan attacks in Belarus and Ukraine. Soviet troops liberated Kaluga’s southern bank and Vyazma, but failed to reach their initial objectives, which were Bryansk and Smolensk [2].
Despite what could be considered as a defensive victory considering the Soviet forces’ decisive attacks, Hitler was still furious, and dismissed Guderian, Hoepner and Strauss, taking personal control of the Wehrmacht. This one, by 1942, had fallen back to the Bely-Izhdeshkovo-Zaitseva Gora-Sukhinitshi-Bolkhov line. Something that displeased both Hitler and Stalin!
To the south, things were more difficult for the German Army. After losing he head of the 11th Army, General Von Schobert (replaced by Von Manstein), Army Group South attacked southwards from Kiev and over the Dniepr, with Romanian forces having just been replenished after the Siege of Odessa joining in. Strong Soviet defences hampered Axis progression in Ukraine, which only really collapsed because of the pressure exerted by German Panzers to the north. But the Luftwaffe, too preoccupied with Typhoon, could not be everywhere. It was now the skies of Ukraine which now saw dogged fights between the planes of the black cross and those of the red star.
Because of the lessened air support, progress was difficult. The Romanian 3rd Army only reached the entrance to Crimea on October 12th, with Melitopol only falling on the 18th, far behind schedule. Axis forces quickly rushed into the Crimean Peninsula, but, delayed, faced severe resistance from the Soviet forces which had consolidated their positions. Simferopol only fell on November 1st, with Sevastopol itself being encircled on November 9th.
More to the north, German forces fought with difficulty. Both the Romanians and SS troops of the Leibstandarte struggled against the Soviet forces, with Berdiansk only falling on October 21st, trapping a meager 50,000 Soviet troops, far from the expected 150,000 or more that OKH was predicting. Even further north, German forces were also hampered in what was thought to be a victory march into Kharkov. Suffering against Kirponos’ troops, many of whom veterans of Kiev, the city only fell on November 1st. The assault was so brutal for the Germans that the offensive stopped almost immediately afterwards, with Germany needing to call up the I Hungarian Corps, until then in reserve, to take place on the front and hold the southern flank of Kharkov, at Izyum, along the Donets river.
German forces painfully approached the Donets, but were unable to advance further. German forces were kept in check at Kramatorsk, Pokrovsk, Bogoyavlenka and Yalta, far from the objectives of Rostov and Luhansk, let alone the Mius River. In fact, the Germans would try to advance towards Mariupol, but even after a successful assault of the city on November 26th, a vast counter-attack from Soviet forces retook the city on December 4th.
Army Group South had failed its objectives, and the defeat at Mariupol was a particularly stinging one. Von Rundstedt, commander of Army Group South, was relieved of command and replaced by Von Reichenau. In the meantime, on the Soviet side, Stalin was beginning to note the successes of the generals of Army Group South: Bagramian, Kirponos and Malinovsky...
There was still continued fighting in and around Crimea, where German and Romanian forces continued the siege of Sevastopol, which was finally assaulted on December 16th, with disappointing results. While the Axis forces did manage to seize several positions south of the Belbek river, they were unable to hold them as the Soviets staged an amphibious landing on the Kerch peninsula to draw forces east. Frontove and Kholmivka did remain in Axis hands, held by the Romanian 1st Mountain Division and the German 72nd Infantry Division, but the final assault on Sevastopol would need to be held later, in the Spring, when conditions were more favourable and losses had been replenished [3].
For all intents and purposes, Operation Barbarossa was over.
[1] Change from OTL where the German plan was less ambitious because there was no aim to actually take Leningrad. Here, with Rommel's aggressiveness, there is more of a goal to reduce the Oranienburg pocket and be more aggressive towards the city, which is already reduced in terms of the number of defenders.
[2] Because the Germans did not cavalcade all the way to Kalinin and the outskirts of Moscow their logistics are not as awful as they were OTL, meaning the Soviets do not regain as much ground as in the December counter-offensive, though they still push beyond the OTL line.
[3] Situation slightly more favorable than OTL in Crimea due to the reduced number of defenders, but the situation in Ukraine is much worse than OTL as the Luftwaffe can't support operations everywhere. After AG Center, it is AG South's turn to suffer and suffer a setback at Mariupol.
