October 1941. The Germans reach Rzhev,
130 miles from Moscow. The battles fought here are
some of the bloodiest of the war. They come to be known
as "The Rzhev Meat-Grinder". Originally produced
for Russian television in 2011, this is the story
of Russia’s Great Patriotic War and the Red Army’s long road
from defeat to victory. The Red Army was pulling back
across the Volga. Suddenly, enormous explosions
ripped through the city behind them. The ammunition and fuel dumps
in Rzhev were being blown up to prevent them falling into
the enemy’s hands. Everywhere there was confusion. The roads were crowded
with retreating soldiers. No one knew where it would end. It seemed the whole front was collapsing. It was October 1941. The Germans
had launched Operation Typhoon – the Battle for Moscow. The German army was in Rzhev
just hours behind the Soviets. An investigation into the conduct
of Soviet commanders at Rzhev cleared them of wrongdoing. There had been no way to get
the ammunition out. The Luftwaffe had already destroyed
all transport connections to the city. The Red Army ammunition dumps were at Rzhev because the city lay
at the heart of the rail network. Both sides depended on ammunition,
food and fuel by the trainload. It made Rzhev a valuable prize. Red Army units retreating from Rzhev
were reorganised into the Kalinin Front. Their new commander was Colonel
General Ivan Stepanovich Konev. Konev was the son of Russian peasants, and became a conscript
of the Tsarist army in 1916. By 1941, he’d risen to senior command
and been put in charge of a Front – the Soviet equivalent of an army group. However his forces became encircled
in the opening phase of Operation Typhoon. Konev’s conduct was investigated
by the State Defense Committee, led by Molotov and Voroshilov. Konev’s predecessor, General Pavlov, had been shot following
a similar investigation. But Konev was saved
by Zhukov’s intervention. Zhukov knew any general could have
a bad day. And shooting competent officers, with the enemy at the gates of the capital,
was counter-productive. That winter, outside Moscow, the Red Army
launched a massive counterattack. The German 9th Army was forced to retreat
from Kalinin back to Rzhev. Hitler’s response was to sack Army Group
Centre’s commander, Fedor Von Bock. He was given just a few hours to brief
his successor, Field Marshal von Kluge. Von Bock painted a bleak picture. He warned von Kluge that he believed
the enemy was preparing a powerful strike against both flanks of Army Group Centre. Gunther Von Kluge had been promoted
Field Marshal the previous year, following his success
in the Battle of France. He came from a Prussian family
with a long tradition of military service. In 1944 he would take his own life
following the failure of the army plot to assassinate Hitler. Von Bock’s warning proved accurate. As Zhukov attacked from the east,
Konev’s 39th Army broke through
the German lines west of Rzhev, threatening Army Group
Centre’s supply lines. The Soviet 29th Army followed through
the breach, threatening Rzhev itself. The Germans clung on desperately.
Heinrich Haape, a medic in the German 6th
Infantry Division, described the chaos: “We got reinforcements from construction
companies and rear area units. Many didn’t know anything
about handling weapons. They were cannon fodder
thrown into the battle. While we changed positions after firing, the newcomers always shot
from the same spot. One burst from a Russian
machine gun was all it took. In 12 hours, from 130 new men,
just 26 were left.” Konev’s counterattack encircled
the German 23rd Corps near Olenino. But Zhukov’s advance became bogged
down in fighting around Yukhnov. Only Belov’s Cavalry Corps
broke through to Vyazma. Because of the almost total
destruction of Red Army tank units in the first weeks of the war,
by late 1941, the Soviets were forced to look elsewhere
for fast-moving offensive units. They turned to their cavalry. The cavalry
was used to exploit breakthroughs and attack enemy lines of communication. Each cavalry corps included one tank
brigade, anti-tank guns, and mortars. The cavalry were in effect mobile infantry.
Horses got them there, but then the men dismounted to fight,
and the horses were led to the rear. Mounted cavalry charges were
for the newsreels. Later in the war, the Red Army
created Cavalry-Mechanised groups, containing cavalry, tanks, self-propelled
guns and rocket artillery. These formations were powerful
and highly mobile. On 16th January,
General Strauss asked to be relieved as commander of the German 9th Army.
His replacement was Walter Model. Model now turned the tables on the Soviets. First he broke through
to the isolated 23rd Corps. Then he cut-off the Soviet 29th Army. Konev launched ferocious counterattacks
in a bid to rescue his trapped units. But Model successfully parried
one blow after another. The Soviets failed to break through. Konev ordered the encircled men
to save themselves. On 17th February, a small airborne force was parachuted in
to guide the troops back through the lines. 5,200 men of the 29th Army
made it back... 14,000 did not. The Soviet plan to cut
the Smolensk-Vyazma highway, thereby cutting off German Army Group
Centre, had ended in a bloody failure. The losses were extraordinary,
but casualty claims remain controversial. The Soviets admitted to a staggering
341,000 casualties on the Kalinin Front. The Western Front suffered
an additional 105,000 casualties, while German Army Group Centre sustained
an estimated 150,000 casualties. Summer, 1942. The drone of a light aircraft
could be heard over the forest, and the occasional crack of a rifle.
Field Marshal Von Kluge was indulging in his new hobby —
fox hunting… from the air. It was a dangerous sport. Partisans and stranded Red Army
soldiers hid in the forest. Model had recently been wounded
by a lucky shot. After the winter fighting, many Soviet units
were cut off behind the German front line. The front here had become a confusing
patchwork of pockets and salients. The largest salient projected into
the forests around the town of Zhirkovsky. It contained parts of the Soviet 39th
Army and 11th Cavalry Corps. They were supplied along a narrow
corridor through enemy lines. Artillery officer Mikhail Lukinov
described conditions: “We were few and no one was in good shape.
All the horses had died. The sick and wounded were evacuated
on foot. And we envied them”. The Stavka was not willing to give up
any of its hard-won ground, no matter how exposed it left the troops.
And now disaster loomed. On 2nd July, the Germans
launched Operation Seydlitz. Within three days, they had closed
the corridor at the village of Pushkari. It meant the encirclement of the 39th Army,
11th Cavalry Corps, and also parts of the 41st and 22nd Armies. Attempts to break out lasted
for several days. Poliakov, a signals officer from a Guards
Rifle Division described the atmosphere: “At Headquarters there was
a sense of calm foreboding. You could sense people thinking —
we’ve done all we can. Now duty demands we go to the very end.” But while his troops fought bravely on, 39th Army Commander General
Maslennikov was evacuated by air. His injured deputy, General Ivan Bogdanov,
was also flown out, but died of his wounds. In all 18,000 soldiers escaped the trap.
More than 60,000 did not. Operation Seydlitz gave
the Rzhev bulge its definitive shape. At its tip the city of Rzhev,
and the junction of two rail arteries: one running east-west
from Moscow to Velikiye Luki; the other running north-south
from Torzhok to Vyzama. German control of Rzhev prevented
the Soviets moving men and supplies between the two flanks. But if Rzhev fell, the Red Army would be able to launch
powerful offensives on both flanks. They would trap and destroy
German forces in the salient. What’s more, the German lines here were
only 150 kilometers from the Soviet capital. It was imperative that Soviet forces drive
the enemy as far from Moscow as possible. In July 1942, the Wehrmacht launched
a new offensive in southern Russia to capture the Caucasus oil fields. The Red Army retreated towards
Rostov and Stalingrad. Stalin issued his famous Order Number 227 –
“Not a step back!” At the Rzhev salient, the fighting
had settled into a routine of bombardments and small-scale raids. For the Eastern Front,
this was what passed for a quiet patch. But it was the calm before the storm.
The Soviets were preparing something big. B-4 guns, dubbed “Stalin’s Sledgehammers”,
had arrived at the front. The B-4 was a Soviet 203
millimetre heavy howitzer. It was a fearsome weapon, used for smashing
enemy fortifications and strongpoints. B-4 batteries were under the direct
command of the Stavka strategic reserve. This meant that wherever they showed up,
something big was being planned. The explosion of a 100-kilogram B-4 shell
would instantly catch the Germans’ attention. So to keep the presence
of the heavy guns secret, gunners carried out their ranging fire
with light howitzers. The results were
then recalculated for the B-4s. But that wasn’t all
the Soviets were hiding. The new M-30 rocket launcher was about
to make its operational debut. M-30s were similar to the famous Katyusha
truck-mounted rocket launchers. But this version carried a heavier 300
millimetre rocket with a bulbous warhead, which meant the launcher had to be
installed directly into the ground. Each M-30 could be loaded with four,
or later eight rockets. It was a crude but devastating weapon,
nicknamed "Pounding Ivan" by the troops. Each rocket had a range of 2.8 kilometres.
Later in the war, an M-31 rocket was developed
with a range of more than 4 kilometres. It was fired from a car-mounted launcher
known as “Andryusha”. The frontline was quiet
when Leonid Sandalov, Chief of Staff of the 20th Army,
went to visit: “On a clear day, you could see
German guards changing shifts, smoke drifting from their dug-outs, and soldiers bailing out flooded
trenches with buckets.” “In the evenings you could hear
them playing their harmonicas”. These routines were carefully observed
by Red Army staff officers, disguised as common soldiers. This sector, near the Derzha River, had been chosen by the Stavka High Command
for an ambitious operation. The orders from the Stavka were to seize
control of the cities of Rzhev and Zubtsov, and then advance to fortify
the lines of the Volga and Vazuza rivers. The attack was to be made
by two armies of the Kalinin Front, and two armies of the Western Front.
It would commence on the 28th July 1942. But the Germans were preparing
their own offensive. The Germans planned
to attack at Sukhinichski, where there was a bulge in the front. Operation Whirlwind would be
the classic German pincer move: two blows from north and south
to encircle Soviet troops in the bulge. Summer rainstorms turned roads into swamps. The Western Front’s attack
had to be delayed. But Konev’s Kalinin Front went
ahead without them on 30th July. Its troops had been given
two days to capture Rzhev. General Khlebnikov,
the Kalinin Front’s artillery commander, reported the effect of his guns: “Two of the forward positions of the
enemy’s main defensive line were destroyed. The forces occupying them were
almost completely wiped out.” But Model used
the German 6th Infantry Division to plug any gaps that appeared in the line. Battles raged for days
over villages and landmarks. To the north of Rzhev, Polunino village and
Hill 200 were the focus of bitter fighting. A battalion commander from the 6th Infantry
Division tried to describe the experience: “Our trenches are under constant fire
from guns, rockets and mortars.” “It’s hard to imagine
the sheer number of guns. The indescribable sound of the rockets. The wounded drag themselves to the rear.
They say it’s all bad in the front line. “The Russians destroy our guns
and level our positions”. But still the Soviet infantry
failed to break through. Soviet infantry tactics
weren’t helping. In 1942, Red Army doctrine stated that infantry
should be drawn up in two echelons. For a division, this meant two regiments
in the first echelon, and one behind. Their battalions and companies
were arranged in the same way. It allowed a division to move quickly
to exploit a successful attack. It also meant that in a rifle division, only 8 out of 27 companies
were in the front line. Attacks were weakened,
and units in the rear were exposed to shells and bombs long
before they even engaged the enemy. In the bloody fighting around Rzhev, the
Red Army would learn many painful lessons. 4th August 1942. The dawn silence was about
to be broken by a deafening cannonade. Stalin’s Sledgehammers
had joined the battle. Then the Katyushas joined in. Five days late, Zhukov’s Western Front
had joined the battle. As Zhukov’s troops advanced,
they liberated their first Russian village. At Pogoreloye Gorodishe, they learned first-hand
about the brutality of Nazi occupation. Jews had been murdered,
Russians starved or transported to the Reich
as slave labour. From a population of 3,076,
only 905 remained. In two days of slow and costly advances, the 20th Army reached
the Vazuza and Gzhat rivers. Now it had to storm across them,
take Sitchevka, and so cut the vital
Vyzama-Rzhev rail-line. Model hurriedly redeployed the five
divisions, three of them armoured, that had been earmarked
for Operation Whirlwind. The attacking Red Army
units were decimated. Zhukov was forced onto the defensive. He turned his attention to the village
of Karmanovo on his left flank. It was a virtual fortress,
protected by the Yauza river in front, and impenetrable swamps on both flanks. For the Soviet infantry, it meant
more costly, frontal assaults. On 21st August,
the Kalinin Front finally took Polunino and advanced to the outskirts of Rzhev. The Western Front managed
to outflank Karmanovo, and finally took the on the 23rd August. Model demanded that von Kluge
release three more divisons to help shore up Ninth Army’s position.
He got them. With these reinforcements, and his skilful
handling of the tactical situation, Model was able to fight
the Soviet offensive to a standstill. Red Army gains had fallen far
short of expectations. Stalin now telephoned Zhukov at Western
Front Headquarters. He told him: “You must report to the Stavka
as soon as possible. Think carefully about
who will take over from you there”. Stalin was sending Zhukov south, to oversee a new crisis unfolding
near the city of Stalingrad. Zhukov named Ivan Konev as his successor
at Western Front Headquarters. Konev immediately ordered a new strategy. There would be no more attempts
to cut the railway at Sitchevka. Instead Konev would
concentrate all his resources on driving the Germans out of Rzhev. New attacks were launched in late August. Konev seemed on the brink of victory. But once more Model received
reinforcements in the nick of time. They included the elite Grossdeutschland
motorised infantry division. This unit exemplified
the superior equipment, tactics and training still possessed
by the German army. In October, the Soviets were forced
to abandon their offensive. The Rzhev sector began to quieten down. That summer, Model’s Ninth Army
had lost 60,000 men. Soviet casualties were 314,000 men —
more than five times as many. Red Army soldiers called it
"the Rzhev meat-grinder". Alexander Bodnar was in the middle of it: “We’d never attacked in the summer
before that. And we didn’t know how
to attack the Summer German. I was a kilometer behind the front, and suddenly I saw a field covered
with our dead. Young boys with guard badges,
wearing brand new uniforms… “The German machine gunner
was just mowing them down. We were still learning how to fight from
the Germans, right up until Stalingrad. “ “But after Stalingrad, we had nothing
to learn. We knew everything”. The Russian poet, Alexander Trifonovich
Tvardovski, gave a voice to the dead. “I was killed near Rzhev.
In a nameless bog, In fifth company,
On the Left flank, In a cruel air raid. I did not hear the explosions
And did not see the flash. Down to an abyss from a cliff
No start, no end. And in this whole world
Til the end of its days, Neither patches nor badges
From my tunic you’ll find”. November 1942.
At a Red Army Air Force base near Moscow, aircrew rushed to inspect
a brand new arrival. This sleek new twin-engined
bomber was the Tupolev TU-2. The TU-2 was a high-speed bomber
with a crew of four. It was armed with two 20 millimetre cannon,
three defensive machineguns, and could carry more than 3 tons of bombs. The designer Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev worked for the Aviation Design Bureau
known as OKB-29. They were based at 24 Radio Street, Moscow, where they were closely supervised
by the NKVD secret police. Most Soviet wartime designers and engineers
worked under similar supervision by the authorities — some whilst
under actual arrest. The Germans still held Rzhev
and the crucial rail hub. It made it difficult to resupply
the Kalinin Front for a fresh assault. So the Stavka allocated it more transport
aircraft, to get supplies in by air. It was all part of the build up to a new
offensive, codenamed Operation Mars. In November 1942,
the Red Army planned to encircle German forces
at Stalingrad in Operation Uranus. Mars would be a simultaneous
hammer blow at Rzhev, that would prevent the Wehrmacht
sending reinforcements south. Zhukov, who had been in the south
acting as the Stavka’s representative on the Stalingrad Front, would return north
to command Operation Mars personally. The offensive would be carried out
by Konev’s Western Front, and the Kalinin Front, now commanded
by General Maksim Purkayev. Zhukov would oversee them both. The Red Army would attack
with 660,000 men and 2,000 tanks. It was clear that Zhukov hoped
for a significant breakthrough. On the first day of the Operation,
a harsh wind blew from the Southwest, bringing heavy grey clouds.
Wet snow fell from the sky. Visibility was down to twenty yards. Zhukov and Konev had placed great
emphasis on close air support. But nothing could fly in this weather. There was no question
of postponing the attack. On the west side of the Rzhev salient, one Soviet mechanised corps broke through
the positions of a Luftwaffe Field Division, while Katukov’s 3rd Mechanised Corps
advanced along the Luchesy Valley. Model and von Kluge committed
all their forces to the battle. Supreme High Command reserves were now on
route to Army Group Centre from Smolensk. From the east of the salient, Soviet tanks and cavalry briefly
cut the railway line to Rzhev. But with the help of an armoured train,
the Germans threw them back. The Red Army sent wave
after wave into the attack. But the German defences were well-organised and held by well-armed, experienced troops.
Soviet losses were enormous. But the German High Command
foresaw disaster. If defences around Beliy crumbled, the whole
salient could be cut off and destroyed. The fighting in the Luchesy Valley
would prove critical. Here the Germans finally managed
to contain the Soviet advance. Far to the South,
Field Marshal von Manstein was preparing an offensive to rescue
German forces trapped at Stalingrad. It was codenamed Operation Winter Storm.
But there were serious concerns that it lacked the strength
to break through to Stalingrad. When von Manstein asked for more divisions, he was told no — the strategic reserve
had already been committed at Rzhev. As Operation Mars continued, German infantry fought a bloody
struggle in freezing conditions, for a handful of vital highways
and railway lines. Elite German units who fought
here would remember these months as the worst of the entire war. Katukov’s 3rd mechanised corps
was just 2 kilometres short of cutting the highway to Rzhev.
He was down from 270 tanks to just 70. But Operation Mars could go no further. By 20th December,
the offensive had ground to a halt. The Red Army was still outmatched
by the Wehrmacht. Although in some arenas, such as sniping,
the Soviets were highly proficient, they still lacked crucial capabilities. Many lives were still being
wasted in repeated, frontal attacks on German strongpoints. Their tanks and infantry still hadn’t
learnt to work together effectively. The Red Army often lacked good
intelligence on enemy forces. One captured Soviet officer
told the Germans he had been shocked
when their reserves arrived. A German intelligence report
picked up this point: “The enemy wasn’t counting
on these troops appearing. No German reserve forces are marked
on any of the Soviet maps we’ve recovered”. Soviet statistics put casualties
for Operation Mars at 216,000. They may have been much higher.
German 9th Army casualties were 53,000. Von Kluge, Commander of Army Group Centre, was awarded the Oak Leaf Cluster
to his Knight’s Cross. But in secret, the Field Marshal was
already plotting against Hitler. In July 1944, von Kluge was in France
commanding the Western Front when von Stauffenberg
tried to blow up the Fuehrer at his headquarters in East Prussia. When it became clear the plot had failed,
von Kluge took a cyanide pill. He was succeeded by his
former subordinate, Walter Model – who would also later commit suicide
to avoid Soviet war crimes charges. There were no medals
for the Red Army commanders. Konev was relieved of command.
But he was soon back in favour. He later led the 1st Ukrainian Front
into Germany and Berlin. The Commander of the Kalinin Front,
Maksim Purkayev, was reassigned to the Far East,
where he remained for the rest of the war. Operation Mars was a bloody
defeat for the Red Army, and it was a personal failure for
Marshal Zhukov. For these reasons, the events were largely ignored
by Soviet historians, and are hardly known in the west. But despite the enormous casualties,
the offensive did achieve something. Army Group Center’s reserves
had been pinned down at Rzhev. It meant they had not been
available to assist von Manstein’s rescue operation at Stalingrad. General Model’s 9th Army
had suffered heavy casualties too. These were experienced officers and men
that Germany would struggle to replace. In January 1943,
Velikiye Luki was liberated, a town 250 kilometres west of Rzhev. The loss of this important transport hub
hampered German supply, and put the Rzhev salient in
an even more precarious situation. On 26th January 1943, von Kluge requested permission
to withdraw from the Rzhev salient. Five days later Paulus
surrendered at Stalingrad. Hitler, suddenly anxious
to avoid another encirclement, Hitler gave von Kluge
permission to retreat. Ninth Army would be vulnerable
as it withdrew from the salient. So its staff had begun planning the retreat even before Hitler’s authorisation
came through. The result was codenamed Buffalo, a massive operation to move 365,000 men to new prepared positions
100 kilometres to the rear. As the Germans prepared to withdraw, they launched a large-scale
anti-partisan operation. They rounded-up Red Army stragglers,
and many innocent civilians too. All faced swift and summary punishment. A corporal from
the 4th Panzer Division described how such operations were conducted: “Our patrol arrested an old man and a
6-year-old boy carrying potatoes and salt. They claimed they were going fishing, but they were obviously
delivering food to the partisans. We didn’t detain them for too long.
We sent them on their way – to Paradise”. In the East, such crimes
had become commonplace. Now as the Germans retreated, Model gave orders to deport
all males of working age, confiscate all food supplies,
poison wells, and burn villages. For these actions he would be declared
a war criminal by the USSR. The German retreat began on 1st March 1943. Engineers waited to blow the Volga
bridge after the last unit had crossed. Hitler had demanded to hear
the explosion for himself. It was carried by telephone line
back to Fuehrer Headquarters. Across No Man’s Land, a Russian
medic noticed something was up: “A strange silence filled the air. Not a sound, neither
from the German side, nor ours. Slowly, our men left their trenches — more and more of those
daredevils with every minute. Then I heard a cry: "Fritz has run away!’” The German withdrawal
was conducted in stages. In their wake they left
land-mines and booby-traps. Model’s "scorched earth"
policy spared nothing. When the Red Army liberated Vyazma,
they found total devastation. Every building had been
demolished or gutted, every telegraph pole had been cut down,
every railway point smashed. Even oil drums
had been riddled with bullets. German soldiers spoke of having
left Rzhev undefeated. But the reality was that they were
retreating to avoid a second Stalingrad. The Battles of Rzhev saw
some of the most ferocious, futile blood-letting of the entire war. Red Army casualties
were estimated at 1.2 million. The only recompense was that the Germans
too had suffered appallingly. On 3rd April 1943, Model was awarded
the Swords to his Knight’s Cross. He was also told to prepare his Ninth Army
for a new offensive: Operation Citadel. The General had no illusions about
the prospects for this new offensive. His forces, although nominally large, contained many units worn-down
and exhausted by the long winter fighting. Now they were to be thrown into the
white heat… of the Battle of Kursk…
