Free Hitler's Commanders by Jr. Samuel W. Mitcham Page B

grew nervous at his own success and suggested that Bock switch to a much shorter envelopment. Bock protested so strongly against this timidity that Hitler let him have his way. Minsk was surrounded on June 29, and the battle ended on July 3. Bock had captured 324,000 men and captured or destroyed 3,332 tanks and 1,809 guns. 8
    Spearheaded by his two panzer groups under Hermann Hoth and Heinz Guderian, Bock’s forces continued to win victory after victory in several major battles of encirclement. In the Smolensk pocket, which was cleared on August 5, he took 310,000 prisoners and captured or destroyed 3,205 tanks and 3,120 guns. At the battle of Roslavl, which ended on August 8, he took 38,000 prisoners and captured or destroyed 250 tanks and 359 guns. The Gomel pocket had yielded 84,000 prisoners, 144 tanks, and 848 guns by August 24. 9 By the last week of August, Bock had advanced more than 500 miles and was only 185 miles from Moscow. He had inflicted more than 750,000 casualties on the Soviets and captured or destroyed some 7,000 tanks and more than 6,000 guns, while Army Group Center had lost fewer than 100,000 men. The road to the Soviet capital was open when, much to von Bock’s disgust and over his protests, Hitler shifted the focus of the war to the north and south, against Leningrad and Kiev. Bock was forced to give up four of his five panzer corps and three infantry corps—giving the Soviets the time they desperately needed to organize the defense of their capital, their most important city.
    It was one of the greatest mistakes of the war.
    Field Marshal von Bock had little choice but to go over to the defensive in early September, while Stalin poured reinforcements into this critical sector. After a series of fierce attacks, he forced Bock to evacuate the Yelnya salient, but otherwise Army Group Center held its line against continually worsening odds. By the end of September, Bock was facing 1.5 million to 2 million men.
    After the fall of Kiev in early September, Hitler considered going into winter quarters, but Bock, Brauchitsch, and Luftwaffe Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, among others, argued against it. Bock still felt that he could capture Moscow, despite the exhaustion of his men, the worn condition of his tanks, and the questionable campaign weather.
    Bock got off to a good start in the double battle of Vyazma-Bryansk, which Carell calls “the most perfect battle of encirclement in military history.” 10 Beginning on September 30, Bock smashed and encircled 81 Soviet divisions in two huge pockets. Although several Russian units succeeded in breaking out before the battle ended on October 17, Bock nevertheless captured 663,000 men and captured or destroyed 1,242 tanks and 5,412 guns. 11 The offensive was halted only by heavy rains, which immobilized the German advance.
    Bock was now only about 70 miles from Moscow, but the first snows had already fallen, and the Russian roads had turned into rivers of mud. Motorized supply columns could make only about five miles per day, and there were more than 2,000 vehicles stuck on the unpaved Moscow Highway alone. Furthermore, OKH was unable to provide the troops with winter clothing. Rundstedt and Leeb, the other two army group commanders in the East, now wanted to go over to the defensive, but Bock stubbornly insisted that the drive be resumed as soon as the ground froze and he could bring up food and ammunition.
    The advance resumed on November 15. Struggling forward without winter clothing in temperatures below zero, with 70 percent of their vehicles inoperative, the German soldiers made a magnificent effort and pushed to within six miles of the Kremlin. Moscow could not be taken, however, and Bock’s stubbornness had placed his entire army group in jeopardy. Exhausted and at the end of a long and tenuous line of communications, the forward German divisions simply could not be supplied. Many units lived on a diet of horse meat for days at a time.
    Stalin