Disaster at Stalingrad Page 5

  His Anglophobia was so pronounced that he had ignored British suggestions after Pearl Harbor to black out American coastal cities and run merchant shipping in more easily protected convoys. The result had been a staggering loss of 2,000,000 tons of shipping in the months after Pearl Harbor.

  Now the British were trying to organize the first major British-American naval effort of the war, the escort of a large convoy to Russia to be provided in part by an American battleship and heavy cruisers. King had finally agreed to this against his every Anglophobic instinct, and he knew no good would come of placing American ships under the Royal Navy’s command.

  He especially did not like the British First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, who had the reputation of being something of a back-seat driver. It did not help when Pound remarked to King in May that ‘These Russian convoys are becoming a regular millstone round our necks.’22 That attitude was already causing friction with the commander of the Home Fleet, Admiral Sir John ‘Jack’ Tovey. Unlike King, Pound’s staff found their boss easy to work with, despite his habit of dozing off at meetings. He was suffering from a degenerative hip condition which robbed him of sleep. Infinitely more serious was the brain tumour that the Royal Navy’s examining physician did not report.

  So King gritted his teeth as the USS Washington, one of the Navy’s two new North Carolina Class battleships, sailed as flagship of Task Force 39 (TF.39) along with the heavy cruisers Wichita and Tuscaloosa, the aircraft carrier Wasp, and four destroyers, in support of the Arctic convoys to Russia. The Washington was one of the most formidable battleships in the world at 36,000 tons and armed with nine 16-inch guns. It would join Tovey’s force of the battleship Duke of York (38,000 tons and ten 14-inch guns), heavy cruisers Cumberland, London, and Norfolk, light cruiser Nigeria, aircraft carrier Victorious, and five destroyers.

  Trondheim, Norway, 25 April 1942

  The reason that King had to force himself to send TF.39 and its heavy ships to escort the Russia-bound convoys lay under camouflage nets in the fjord at Trondheim. These ships were what Admiral Raeder would have called a fleet in being, that ever-present threat that forced the British to keep a strong home fleet.

  The menace anchored at Trondheim was the 43,000-ton battleship Tirpitz, sister ship to the lost Bismarck, and armed with nine 15-inch guns. Laid down in 1936 and commissioned in February 1941, it was the first battleship with a welded hull and armour. With it were the heavy cruisers Hipper, Lützow and Admiral Scheer, each with six 11-inch guns. A half-dozen destroyers balanced out this force. Combined with some of Admiral Dönitz’s submarines and attack aircraft from Goring’s Luftwaffe, these ships loomed as a constant threat to any convoy that dared make the long voyage to Russia.

  As soon as Tirpitz had been sent to Trondheim in January, Churchill had made clear the import of its presence. He demanded:

  the destruction or even crippling of this huge ship… The entire naval situation throughout the world would be altered… The whole strategy of the war turns at this period on this ship which is holding four times the number of British capital ships paralysed, to say nothing of the two new American battleships retained in the Atlantic. I regard this matter as of the highest urgency.23

  Another German task force anchored even farther north at the port of Narvik. The twin battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau (nine 11-inch guns) and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen (eight 8-inch guns), and four destroyers. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were battleships in everything — tonnage and armour — but their guns. Production problems led to the postponement of their fitting out with 15-inch guns. These ships had been stationed in France, but the Royal Air Force (RAF) had too great an interest in bombing them. At the same time Hitler wanted them stationed in Norway to prevent any Allied landings. In a bold dash codenamed Operation Cerberus they had slipped through the English Channel unharmed.24 The British codebreakers at Bletchley Park were still struggling to overcome the latest security upgrade of Enigma and so were unable to warn the Royal Navy of the German plan.

  Originally Raeder wanted the two battlecruisers refitted with 15-inch guns, but Hitler would not approve the resources required. Instead of a stay in German yards then, they were sent to Narvik in Norway, to join Destroyer Flotilla 8 and U-boat Flotilla 11, to complicate British efforts to escort convoys to Russia.25 The crews were none too happy about that. France had been the cushiest posting in the entire Wehrmacht, with good food, pleasant weather and friendly French women. In Narvik they were discovering what the crews of the capital ships and submarines at Trondheim already knew. The food was awful, the weather foul and the Norwegian women hated them.

  Prague, Headquarters of the Reich Protector, 25 April 1942

  Reinhard Heydrich savoured the man’s death. After all, it was Raeder who had driven him out of a promising career in the Navy over a trifling affair with a woman in 1931. That strait-laced prig had drummed him out of the Navy for dumping one woman for another. That was just what was wrong with the old Germany, too many ideas whose time had passed. Heydrich had given himself to the new Germany that swept away the past and organized itself around the shining ideal of the Volk, the master race, whose advantage was the only real morality.

  He paused only long enough in feeding his hatred to consider that he actually owed the late Grossadmiral Raeder a thank you. If he had not been set adrift from the Navy, he would never have found the brilliant calling that was truly his. He was Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, the choicest bits of the old Czechoslovakia. They called him the Blond Beast for the way he had crushed resistance in the protectorate and vastly increased war production. He fed the Czechs on plentiful carrots so their factories would continue to produce the torrent of high-quality weapons the Reich needed in its death struggle with the Bolshevik monster. When that task was completed, he had plans to ‘Germanize the Czech vermin’, but only after a rigorous racial classification of the population. He insisted that ‘making this Czech garbage into Germans must give way to methods based on racist thought’. That meant that up to two-thirds of the Czechs would eventually be deported to Russia or exterminated.26

  This assignment had been a reward for his excellent organizational work as the chief of the Sicherheitsdienst or Security Service of the SS. He had become the right-hand man of the head of the SS himself, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, to whom he was personally devoted for their shared vision, and was rewarded with the highest SS rank of Obergruppenführer. It was he, after all who had forged the documents that had fooled Stalin into believing his officer corps was plotting against him and caused him to murder 35,000 of them. It was he of whom the Führer himself had stated that, had he a son, it would be someone like Heydrich. Perhaps it was that Hitler saw the same ruthlessness in Heydrich that he found in himself, and for both of them this focused on the Jews. It was Heydrich who had organized the concentration camps and began the first large-scale killing of Jews, beginning with the invasion of Poland and the Soviet Union where his Einsatzgruppen killed by the hundreds of thousands. When that proved too slow, he had headed up a conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee in January 1942 to plan the organized extermination of all eleven million of Europe’s Jews.

  He had more than enough malice left over never to overlook the opportunity to injure the Navy, repeatedly backing Himmler and Goring, in their power-play attacks. So no one was more surprised than Heydrich when he received a call from Admiral Karl Dönitz, Raeder’s successor, asking him to lunch. He was even more surprised at the naval honour guard that awaited him at Navy headquarters and the appearance of Dönitz himself as his car drove up. As their hands fell from their mutual salutes, Dönitz reached out to shake Heydrich’s hand. He was shocked to feel how soft and moist it was. He almost recoiled but mastered himself to grip it strongly. At lunch they were joined by a number of officers, all of whom had been Heydrich’s friends before his dismissal from the Navy.

  It was clear that Dönitz was courting him. The man positively purred. Heydrich had nothing against
him; Dönitz had had no part in the court of inquiry or taken a stand against him. In fact, Dönitz was a good Nazi Party man, an officer in Hitler’s favour not only for his savaging of Allied shipping but for his political enthusiasm. He was that combination almost all his other flag officers were not — efficient and National Socialist.

  After coffee the rest of the officers excused themselves. Brandy was poured, and Dönitz got to the point — slowly.

  Herr Obergruppenführer, it was the Navy’s loss that you were denied further service. But you have still been of great service. The Czech factories that you have taken in hand are providing vital components to the Navy. You can say that every Allied ship that slips under the water has been given a helping hand by you.

  Heydrich’s cold face did not betray his annoyance. He thought that if he had known they were filling Navy orders, he would have put a stop to it. Just another way to torment Raeder. He was a man who enjoyed eating his revenge cold. But that dish was about empty. Raeder was dead, so what was the point? Perhaps there was advantage here. Dönitz was clearly there cap in hand.

  ‘It is time to let bygones be bygones. The Navy needs your help; said Dönitz. Ah, there it is, thought Heydrich. His blue eyes narrowed, and the faintest flicker of a smile broke his face.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Second Wannsee Conference

  Headquarters, 1st Reserve Army, Moscow Region, 5 May 1942

  The army staff learned quickly that their new acting commanding officer had more than just a sharp tongue. He was known to grab a man by the collar and shake him till his teeth rattled. Vasili Chuikov was a man to be reckoned with as he transformed this collection of reservists and cadre into a fighting formation. They would be needed soon, he knew, in the fighting that would erupt in the spring and flame all summer.

  Chuikov dashed from his headquarters shouting for his driver. ‘Come on, Grinev, we’re going for the jugular!’ He had decided to relieve one of his division commanders, and the drama would rebound through the whole army as an object lesson in what Chuikov demanded from his subordinates. Grinev was waiting and leapt to the door of his Lend-Lease jeep for the boss. In seconds they were splattering mud on anyone close to the road. Time getting around was to be kept to a minimum, and Grinev was only too happy to comply as he shot down the road. He loved this American vehicle, so sturdy and reliable, and had become expert in manoeuvring down what the Russians shamelessly called roads.

  Chuikov had not noticed that this time Grinev was drunk as the jeep gathered alarming speed. ‘Grinev, don’t drive so fast; Chuikov shouted. The jeep just kept going faster until it came to a bend in the road. Grinev lost control, and the jeep overturned. Chuikov awoke in hospital. The doctor told him he had injured his spine and that he had to stay on his back. He would write, ‘For a few days I lay on a special bed, strapped down by the shoulders and legs, being given traction treatment. However, healthy and hardy by nature, I was on my feet again in a week, though I walked with a stick.’1

  The Crimean Front, 8 May 1942

  Sappers and infantry of the Bavarian 132nd Infantry Division climbed silently into their assault boats on the beach east of Feodosiya on the southern flank of the Kerch Peninsula. It was the late evening of 7 May. They silently paddled down the coast in the dark until the German artillery exploded with a stunning barrage against the Soviet defenders of Kerch. Only then did the Bavarians turn on their motors whose noise was masked by the thunder of the guns. They entered the great water-filled antitank ditch that ran along the front right down to the sea. The Soviet infantry in their fighting holes did not have a chance as the Germans leapt from their boats, gunning them down.

  Führer Directive 41 had set the opening act of the drive to the south as the destruction of the Soviet front on the Kerch Peninsula and the capture of the great naval base and fortress at Sevastopol. Manstein’s 11th Army pried open the Soviet defences and collapsed their defence. After that it was a rout. At a cost of only 7,500 casualties, Manstein had destroyed three Soviet armies and taken 170,000 prisoners. Hitler was more than pleased. This most talented general had cleared the southern flank for his drive to the Caucasus. Now he could concentrate on reducing the great naval fortress of Sevastopol.2

  Kharkov, 8 May 1942

  Walther von Seydlitz arrived in the city with the memory of the last kiss from his wife as he left her in Konigsberg after a few days of hurried leave. The commander of Army Group South, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, eagerly welcomed the hero of the Demyansk Pocket to his command. The strong LI Corps of six divisions was his reward. Two of them were Austrian, one of which was the 44th Infantry Division, successor to the lineage and traditions of the famous Hoch- und Deutschmeister Regiment of the old Imperial Austrian Army.3 He would serve under General der Panzertruppen Friedrich Paulus who had been in command of the 6th Army since January.

  Paulus greeted him cordially; he had been complimented by Hitler with the assignment of an officer of Seydlitz’s reputation and favour. Seydlitz, on the other hand, was uneasy. Paulus’s reputation in the Army was that of a plodder, a colourless General Staff officer, a protégé of the Chief of the Army General Staff, Franz Halder. He had been selected by Hitler for command because of his compliant diligence. Seydlitz would have been even more uneasy had he read the man’s efficiency report from his staff tour:

  A typical officer of the old school. Tall, and in outward appearance particularly well-groomed. Modest, perhaps, too modest, amiable, and with extremely courteous manners and a good comrade, anxious not to offend anyone. Exceptionally talented and interested in military matters, and a meticulous desk worker, with a passion for war games and formulating plans on the map-board or sand-table. At this, he displays considerable talent, considering every decision at length and with careful deliberation before giving the appropriate orders.4

  Paulus apparently had turned inside out the famous dictum of Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke that a staff officer should appear less than he was, in other words hide his light under a bushel. With Paulus what you saw was what you got. ‘The quintessential staff officer had become a major field commander, a position to which he was strongly suited by education and intelligence but not, perhaps by temperament.’5

  Paulus had had little command experience before taking over 6th Army. He had seen action in 1914 but then spent the rest of the war as a staff officer. He had commanded a company in the Reichswehr and a battalion briefly, but his life became that of the staff. He served as chief of staff to a motorized corps in 1938 under Guderian, who described him as ‘brilliantly clever, conscientious, hard working, original and talented’, but already had doubts about his ‘decisiveness, toughness and lack of command experience’6 Bock might have echoed these observations because in the crisis of a major Soviet attack, he felt Paulus had been far too slow in counterattacking.

  Then there was the gossip that Paulus was too much under the influence of his sharp-tongued chief of staff, Colonel Arthur Schmidt. That could be a problem, Seydlitz reflected. He too had a sharp tongue and was not afraid to use it. Tilting at windmills was a family tradition.

  Before Seydlitz could join his command he took the opportunity to tour Kharkov. The city had fallen so quickly that its factories had been captured intact. The Germans had converted the huge tractor plant into a tank repair and refurbishment facility, not only to mend German equipment but to put captured Soviet tanks, specifically the T-34 and KV-1, in condition. He spent a whole day as the guest of the plant director on a special tour. He was amazed to see the factory yard filled with Soviet tanks freshly painted in German colours and marked with the German black cross outlined in white.7

  Barvenkovo Salient, 12 May 1942

  Working on the premise that it was not enough to strike while the iron was hot, but that one had to strike first to make the iron hot, Hitler determined to clean up a very dangerous salient in Army Group South’s front. That was the Barvenkovo Salient just south of the great industrial city of Kharkov. Sixth Army would atta
ck from the north while 1st Panzer and 17th Armies would strike from the south pinching off the salient. The attack was scheduled for 18 May. The Soviets beat them to the punch.

  Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko brought to Stalin the plan to strike out of the salient and encircle the enemy’s 6th Army with two fronts. He struck on 12 May, pressing 6th Army back as Paulus committed reserve after reserve. But the Germans were much more adept. In a masterful turnabout Bock counterattacked with 1st Panzer Army snapping off the spearhead Soviet armies. Bock’s troops eventually linked up with Seydlitz’s Hoch- und Deutschmeister Division. Timoshenko was not done, though. The trapped armies turned about and threw themselves at the blocking German divisions. A German division commander described what came next:

  The Russian columns struck the German lines in the light of thousands of white flares. Orders were bellowed by officers as commissars fired up the battalions. The Red Army soldier stormed forward with arms linked. Their hoarse shouts of ‘Urrah’ resounded terribly through the night.

  The first waves fell. Then the earth-brown columns turned away to the north.

  But there too they ran into the barricades manned by the mountain infantry. They now reeled back and charged into the German front without regard to losses. They slew and stabbed everything in their path, advanced another few hundred metres and then collapsed in the flanking German machine-gun fire. Those who were not dead staggered, crawled or stumbled back to the ravines of the Bereka.8