Winter, page 49
‘They weren’t there long,’ said a captain from the panzer regiment showing a perverse pride in his weaponry. ‘The Russki tanks pushed them out right away.’ He touched his nose. It was frostbitten. He must find the doctor immediately the conference ended. He hoped he wouldn’t lose it the way some of the frostbitten soldiers had lost toes, fingers and noses. There was something not suitably heroic about going home with a nose missing due to frostbite.
‘This is Moscow,’ said Weizsäcker. ‘They’ll fight harder for Moscow. We all know that.’
They heard the sentry shuffle to attention in the snow outside, and then there was a flash of light as the door opened and the general appeared, like a demon king in a children’s pantomime.
The officers came to attention and saluted. They were all a little afraid of General Alexander Horner. He was tall and slim, an intimidating figure with a tight-skinned skull-like face, and a sabre scarred cheek. The sort of Prussian officer they used to see depicted in political cartoons in the time when such cartoons were permitted.
The general had been off somewhere in his half-track vehicle. God knows where he went on these jaunts, he took no one with him, and asking his driver was useless. Young Winkel was the son of one of the general’s first war comrades, and treated everything the general did as a military secret.
‘Good morning, gentlemen. Have we received the situation reports yet?’ He took off his helmet and fastidiously knocked snow from the shoulders of his greatcoat.
‘The radio is kaputt, Herr General!’ The frightened young boy who was crouched in the far corner looked up at him as if terrified of being blamed.
‘Have you tried other crystals?’ Horner had to shout: the wind was louder now, screaming like a thousand banshees, and there was the steady thump of the generator, too. The light was inadequate but there was enough to see the maps, the throbbing generator and the cables linking it to the lights and radio. And enough light to see the splashes and stains along the wall where animals had been tethered, and the dirt floor that probably stank when it wasn’t so cold. It was hard to believe that humans lived in such squalor alongside their animals, but there was a rough wooden rack on the wall, bunks in which six Russian peasants had slept.
‘I’ve tried most of them, Herr General.’
Horner glanced down at the blank message pad. Only the date had been filled in there. December 6 1941. Not much chance now of fulfilling that toast – Christmas Day in Moscow – that that fool Weizsäcker had proposed back in June, when the German armies moved forward. ‘Keep trying.’
‘Yes, Herr General.’
General Alex Horner turned back to the other officers who were standing round the table. They were all bundled up into every stitch of clothing they possessed. Some of them had also found, bought, or stolen civilian clothes – scarves, knitted gloves and sweaters. What a sight they were, more like a rabble of refugees than German officers. Horner looked at the map and continued to stare at it for a long, long time. He closed his eyes. He was becoming hypnotized by the map, obsessed with it. He’d seen the same thing happen in the first war, commanders just staring at maps, frozen as a driver or pilot freezes at the controls, incapable of thinking a rational thought or giving a sensible command. He pushed the map aside angrily. Without proper reports from his headquarters, and contact with the front-line positions, the map was useless.
‘Do you have despatch riders who know the HQs, Colonel?’
‘Yes, Herr General.’ Of course he did – he wasn’t a complete blockhead.
‘We’ll pull back as far as the river.’
‘Everyone, Herr General?’
‘No, not everyone. A rearguard will remain. One of your rifle regiments should be enough.’
‘Yes, Herr General.’ Colonel Weizsäcker was too inexperienced. He’d thought that they’d be marching into the Kremlin by now, the way – as a captain – Weizsäcker had led his company into Paris, smiling at the pretty girls and keeping an eye open for a suitable restaurant to eat in that evening. Well, this one wasn’t like that.
Horner went to the window and found a narrow gap in the boards through which to squint. The artillery fire continued all the time, and the flickering light of it made the dark-grey sky lighten along the horizon. Yesterday the thermometer had gone down to thirty-two degrees below zero, but today was even colder. It was damned dark; he looked at his watch hardly able to believe that it was eleven o’clock in the morning. The whole landscape was grey with snow. It wasn’t like the snow he’d known as a child in East Prussia, or like the snow he’d pushed down Pauli Winter’s neck at Lichterfelde on the day when they went up a class and received their bayonets. This wasn’t the sort of snow he’d galloped Pola through at Bernau near Berlin. This snow was grey: ask any of the thousands of German soldiers who were out there frozen to death under that stuff. Ask the pinched, blue-faced sentry standing here at the farmhouse door with his feet wrapped up in huge bundles of straw in the hope that his toes wouldn’t come off with his boots. Ask any of the shivering men who were still in their summer uniforms, because winter uniforms were in short supply, or the luckier ones nearer the supply depots, who were now discovering that the German-issue winter clothing was never intended for these arctic temperatures.
He came back to the table and tried to see the map with a fresh eye. Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch had suffered a heart attack and had requested that he be relieved. Well it wasn’t difficult to see why. The armies round Moscow were in a damned perilous position, and German soldiers were simply not trained or equipped for fighting, or even existing, in these conditions.
‘Supply troops first, Herr General?’
‘No,’ said Horner. He paused as the reciprocating engine of the generator missed a beat or two and the bulb went dull yellow and then orange and red before going out completely. For a moment it was dark, the interior lit only by slatted beams of light that came through the boarded window. Then the engine picked up and the light brightened. Horner said, ‘We must assume we’ll have to fight our way through.’
‘Fight to our rear, Herr General?’
‘Look for yourself,’ he said tonelessly. ‘No radio messages from the second panzer regiment or from the engineers. Then the rifle-regiment headquarters also goes silent. What do you make of it? Look for yourself, Colonel.’ It all made sense. He’d felt the front tightening over the last few days. All patrols and reconaissance units had been repulsed with unusual promptness: he should have guessed what was coming, and might have done so, except that Fourth Army intelligence kept insisting that the Red Army had nothing left to fight with. Nothing!
‘Damn these radios,’ said Colonel Weizsäcker. He was puzzled. Had the Russians used some secret weapon to render the radio useless, or was it this terrible weather.
‘Don’t you understand?’ said Horner. ‘Look, man. Look!’ He lifted his arm and slowly brought it down upon the map so that all the silent positions were covered. They were silent because all the units, including the headquarters troops were on the move. The alternative explanation for their silence was too terrible to contemplate.
‘My God!’ said the colonel. The other officers said nothing. They were youngsters, except for a couple of old men from the Reserve. Perhaps they didn’t fully understand what it meant. But Weizsäcker understood: he’d been in France in 1940. That’s what Guderian had done to the French.
To eliminate any possibility of a misunderstanding, Horner said, ‘The Russians have launched an attack and sliced right through our front.’
‘In this weather? It’s not possible.’
‘They’re probably using sledges: sledge-borne infantry, sledge-mounted artillery and ski troops reinforcing Cossack divisions.’ Weizsäcker made no response. ‘Making for the river,’ said Horner. He had no evidence to support this assertion, but he knew it was right.
‘Jesus Christ! Begging the general’s pardon.’
‘The Almighty is fully occupied right now,’ said Horner grimly. ‘We must save what we can, and try and reform along the riverbank here.’ He shouldn’t have used the word ‘try’. He must be positive, assertive and confident. ‘Reform along here, fight and die holding the line.’
Colonel Weizsäcker glanced at his general, surprised by this dramatic prose style. ‘The bridges are here …and here,’ said the colonel, pointing to another section of the river.
Horner nodded. ‘Yes, we’ll send the Feldgendarmerie to the bridges.’ He paused. He had no military police. He was exhausted. He’d forgotten for a moment that he wasn’t with von Kleindorf at Divisional Headquarters, he was with these idiots at the headquarters of his ‘battle group’. On paper it comprised a rifle regiment, a panzer regiment plus engineers, some signals troops and an artillery battalion. In fact it was a collection of military oddments suffering fatigue, shock, frostbite, frozen diesel oil and cracked engines, and it was scattered over too large a front, with its radios giving frequent trouble. ‘Organize a company of infantry to block the bridges. No one will cross either bridge. No one, whatever his rank, his injuries or his written or oral authority. No one. They will shoot anyone who comes within one hundred metres of the ridge this side of the riverbank. Get on to that immediately. Send someone reliable.’ He paused. ‘Make it two companies. Some bloody fools might be desperate enough to try the ice floes.’
‘I have just the right man, Herr General.’
Horner turned back to the staff. ‘Infantry first, of course. If there are not enough half-track vehicles serviceable, the rest must go on foot. The tanks will keep to the roads, such as they are. Keep visual contact. Von Kleindorf will probably start pulling back, too, as soon as they realize what is happening. Tell the commanders that movement on the northeast might be our own people. Although in this damned weather God knows how close you have to get to see anything properly.’ He looked at his watch. ‘The infantry must start at 1300 hours.’ He looked at the colonel. ‘You’re in command, Weizsäcker.’
‘And the general?’ Colonel Weizsäcker wet his lips.
‘I’ll take my chance to the north,’ said Horner.
‘As the general chooses,’ said Weizsäcker, ‘but surely that will lead you straight into the centre of the Red advance.’ He was nervous, thought Horner. He didn’t want to take the battle group back to the river line. He didn’t want to take anyone anywhere. Was that because he had no confidence in Horner’s plan, because he didn’t believe Horner’s diagnosis, or because he was shit-scared.
Horner looked at the battle-group commander trying to decide. Should he relieve him? It was a terrible thing to do to an officer. Weizsäcker’s military career would end there and then. And which of the others would do better? He looked at the faces: eager young men with amazing reserves of energy and enthusiasm. But now they were bewildered. Not demoralized yet, but bewildered. None of them had ever faced this sort of war, or even dreamed what it might be like. Neither had Horner. No one had, except the Russians. ‘I don’t think so, Colonel. If I was the Red commander I’d leave my centre weak and put everything on the flank, to break right through to the river. He doesn’t want to push our centre back or try to capture Divisional HQ. By now von Kleindorf should have begun to pull back. And that means he’ll bring Divisional HQ through the crossroads where we lost all those tank destroyers that would be so useful now. There is no other way for him to go.’
‘Except cross country,’ said the Colonel.
‘I hope to God he doesn’t try that with HQ transport,’ said Horner. ‘You’ll hold to this side of the river, Colonel Weizsäcker. When I find Divisional HQ, their communications will enable me to re-form and reinforce you. Whether I succeed or not makes no difference to your task. Is that clear?’ He looked at the colonel and then at the rest of them. ‘No man of this division will retire across that river, under the penalty of death.’
‘Heil Hitler!’ said Weizsäcker nervously. He raised his arm in the Nazi style salute, but no one responded.
Was the man mad? Horner gave one of his rare smiles. ‘Yes, Heil Hitler, Colonel Weizsäcker. And may God be with you.’
‘Just discussing strategy’
It was the enterprising Obergefreiter Winkel who found the place for General Horner’s next Divisional Headquarters. Winkel had joined the army expecting to be able to use the expertise with horses that he’d learned in his father’s riding stables. But, typically, the army had sent him to a panzer division, and he spent all his time driving General Horner’s half-track command car.
The place he found was a very large country house. It was easy to visualize how magnificent it must have been in Tsarist times, but it had been abandoned by the owners during the revolution, and since then become progressively more derelict. Recently artillery fire had razed most of the main buildings. But Winkel had discovered the cellars: huge, rambling and relatively dry, they provided somewhere for the whole staff to disappear. The only problem was disguising the telltale footmarks from the Red Army’s reconnaissance aircraft that buzzed over whenever there was a break in the weather.
Miracle upon miracle, the engineers had demolished an underground wall and discovered a wine cellar. The false wall must have been erected at the rear end of the wine cellar back in 1917, to hide the finest vintages from the advancing Reds.
It was Christmas, and the abstemious General Horner had given orders that the wine be distributed to all units for consumption in small amounts. Not that large amounts made much difference in this sort of weather. A drunk had only to raise his head above ground level, and be exposed to the subarctic winds, to become stone sober.
‘Happy Christmas, von Kleindorf.’
‘A Happy Christmas, Herr General.’ The two men were sitting in a long, narrow, cobwebbed cellar on two delicate little chairs that someone had found in the barn. Between them was a table upon which von Kleindorf had arranged a dozen of the most amazing vintage wines. Some of them had spoiled, but the sound ones were magnificent.
‘I’m giving you the division: it is a good present.’ It was an odd way to transfer command, sitting in a cellar drinking wine. But von Kleindorf was the only one he revealed himself to, and, beyond sometimes using first names, he didn’t unbend very much with von Kleindorf. This was one of the penalties of command.
‘Indeed it is, Herr General.’ Although he looked much older, General Horner was only forty-two years old. If eventually he got a promotion to go with his corps command he’d be one of the army’s success stories.
‘And Colonel Weizsäcker comes with it,’ Horner told von Kleindorf. ‘All in all, he did reasonably well when the attack started. But I’m glad we didn’t have to leave him too long holding the river line. If men had started crossing the river, the whole division would have disintegrated. You realize that, von Kleindorf?’
‘Yes, Herr General.’
‘And in any case, in our present state, you can ill afford a detached battle group.’
‘No, Herr General.’
‘First rifle regiment is overworked,’ said Horner. He rummaged through the array of bottles, studying the wonderful labels and the venerable vintages. Choosing one, he drew the cork and sampled it.
‘Because they are fully motorized,’ said von Kleindorf. ‘It’s inevitable.’
‘Don’t wear them right down,’ said Horner. ‘You’ll need them, and the combat engineers, more than ever now.’ He tasted the wine and looked at his second in command. He would, of course, prefer to take him to Corps HQ but he must be given a chance at his first general command. Getting a division was the most coveted step in an officer’s career.
‘There is all the paper,’ von Kleindorf reminded him dutifully. ‘Some of it you perhaps would like to look at before you go.’ He’d brought it back from his visit to Army HQ. It was stacked in the grey painted steel boxes to which the German army consigned its treasured paperwork. Special orders, supplementary orders, revisions to standing orders, intelligence summaries, all the waste-paper with which the rear echelons fought their war. Almost all of it had been written before the Red Army launched its momentous counter-attack on December 6 and had become irrelevant except to the men who lived on paperwork.
‘I will of course recommend that you continue to command the division but it will not be in my gift.’ Horner put his booted feet up on the table. He did this with some difficulty, getting first one foot there, and then – with agonizing slowness, and awkwardness – the second.
‘I will be content to work with whoever the army sends.’
‘I know that, von Kleindorf, and I appreciate your loyalty to me and to the division. What else did you hear at Corps HQ?’ Horner asked. ‘Apart from von Bock’s taking over the Fourth Army.’
‘General Hoepner has been dismissed, stripped of his rank and forbidden to wear army uniform again.’
‘Hoepner got closer to Moscow than anyone did,’ said Horner. He tipped back on the little chair. Von Kleindorf thought he was going to overbalance but he recovered.
‘And Guderian has been cashiered.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Horner. ‘This is the end of the army as we knew it, von Kleindorf. Eventually, we’ll fight our way into Moscow, and beat the Russians, because our soldiers never let us down. But the army will never be the same again; we have lost too much. And the Russians have got our measure. They know the terrain and they are prepared for the weather. We might sit here for weeks, even months, before we break into the city.’ He wiped his nose. He had a cold; he was surrounded by a desolation of snow and ice. His wife, Chrisi, kept writing to ask if he was safe. There was a patent medicine that he would dearly love to have right now – in Berlin he’d found it unfailingly effective against these runny noses – but could he seriously write and tell her he had a headcold.
‘I have never congratulated you on getting the corps, Herr General.’
‘Save your congratulations until we see how long I last,’ said Horner. He drew the cork from a famous Burgundy and tasted it. It had gone sour or corked or something. He spat it on the floor and selected another.
