Although there is general agreement concerning weather conditions on the Russian front through October 1941, there are many conflicting versions of the severity of temperatures during the weeks and months that followed. For example, Field Marshal von Bock, commander of Army Group Center, recorded in his war diary on 5 November 1941 that the mercury dipped to -29C (-20F) [4] and Albert Seaton reported that around 24 November it was a steady -30C (-22F). [5]

In contrast, Marshal Zhukov, then responsible for defending the approaches to Moscow, stated that during the November general offensive the temperature on the Moscow front remained stable at -7 to -10C (+190 to +14F). [6] In a work specifically refuting German accounts, another Soviet spokesman cites the Meteorological Service records of the minimum temperatures for the Moscow area in late 1941: October, -8.2C (about +17F); November, -17.3C (+1F); December, -28.8C (-20F). [7] There were also many reports of temperatures as low as -40' during that exceptionally cold winter, [8] and at least one report of -53C (-63F). [9]

In terms of casualties, the precise temperatures are virtually meaningless, because a poorly clothed soldier exposed to the elements is susceptible to frostbite even at temperatures warmer than -18 degrees C (0 degrees F). As previously noted, the Allies suffered more frostbite casualties during the fighting around Bolshie Ozerki from late March through early April 1919--when the lowest temperature was only -20C (-4F) and daytime thawing caused wet boots--than they experienced during the coldest periods of that winter.

There had been some snowfall as early as October 1941, [10] and heavy, cumulative snows began about 7 December. Strong winds and blizzards followed, creating massive drifts. [11] The exceptional cold caused the snow to remain unusually powdery and deep long after it had fallen. [12] Marshal Emerenko estimated the winter's lasting snow cover in the region between Moscow and Leningrad at .7 to 1.5 meters (28-59 inches). [13] This snow cover greatly restricted German mobility, [14] but it also hampered the Red Army. One German source frankly states that the fate of the overextended Army Group Center would have been even worse had there been less snow, concluding that the complete collapse [of the German units] was prevented ... especially by the deep snow, which constituted a major obstacle [to the Soviet counteroffensive]." [15]

Discussing the plight of about seven divisions that were cut off in January 1942, a German commander observed that "the deep snows protected the encircled German troops around Demyansk from annihilation. Even the Russian infantry was unable to launch an attack through those snows." [16]

Weather-Related Casualties

Hitler's overconfidence immeasurably compounded the inevitable hardships of a winter campaign in Russia. Expecting victory by autumn, he had intended to withdraw two-thirds of his divisions from Russia and to leave the remainder as an occupation army. Winter clothing, procured on the basis of the occupation force, arrived very late because of the breakdown in transportation. [17]

On 30 November von Bock informed Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, the Chief of Staff of the German Army, that his men still had not received winter coats, although the temperature was -45C (-49F). [18]

Nearly three weeks later the angry General Heinz Guderian, commander of the Second Panzer Army, confronted Hitler with the stark facts that none of the winter clothing had yet arrived in the forward areas and that he had lost twice as many men from frost as from enemy action. That conversation led to the Nazi Party's Christmas drive among German civilians to collect winter clothes and skis, [19] few of which reached the front before February 1942. The freezing German troops were reduced to removing clothes from enemy corpses, [20] improvising straw boots, and taking other emergency measures. [21]

It is no wonder that thousands of Germans froze to death that winter. [22] By the turn of the year they had suffered about 100,000 cases of frostbite, more than 14,000 of which required amputations. [23] By the end of that terrible winter the number of frostbite victims exceeded a quarter of a million, and more than 90 percent were second- and third-degree cases. [24] To these must be added thousands of cases of pneumonia, influenza, and trenchfoot. [25]

The impact of those non-battle casualties was tremendous. Although the Red Army had lost millions in dead, wounded, and captured by December 1941, Russia was able to muster replacements from its vast manpower resources. In contrast, by 26 November German losses of about 375,000 dead, missing, and permanently disabled were virtually irreplaceable. By April 1942 the German deficiency on the Russian front had reached 625,000 men. [26] In the words of a German officer who survived that grueling winter, those casualties meant that "the actual loss of the war in the East merely had been postponed." [27]

The Red Army was far better prepared for winter warfare than were its opponents. For example, Siberian troops who attacked the shivering Germans of the 35th Infantry Division near Moscow on 5 December 1941 wore padded jackets and trousers, fur caps, and felt boots. [28] Nevertheless, the unseasonable cold of early November caught many Russian units by surprise. On 9 November Marshal Kirill Meretskov, then commanding both the Fourth and Seventh Armies, personally checked the condition of the troops who had lost the town of Tikhvin the previous day. He found the troops still in summer uniforms. [29] A week later a German attack on a hill northeast of Rzhev succeeded because the Soviet sentries, who had not yet received winter clothes, were too cold to be alert. [30] However, winter uniforms were available at Russian supply points, and distribution was soon accomplished. [31]

Nevertheless, Soviet troops also suffered weather-related casualties. The diary of a Red Army field surgeon contains the 27 January 1942 notation that "the first frostbite cases have made their appearance. We amputated two feet and will probably amputate many more." [32] The main cause of such losses was the Soviet counteroffensive that began early in December and continued throughout the coldest months of the winter. General Ironside's observations in 1919 about the superiority of the defense over the offense in such weather remained valid. A German officer who witnessed persistent Soviet attacks near Shuvaevo in mid-January 1942, when the temperature reached -40, reported that "the Russians suffered even more [than the Germans] from the cold despite their winter clothing, since they were out in the open." [33]

Logistics and Mobility

The ubiquitous, shaggy, hardy Russian ponies once more proved indispensable for transport in bad weather. Many of the larger horses that the Germans had brought from western Europe died from the cold, but the native breed could survive in the open at almost any temperature if merely sheltered from the wind. [34]

German supply column returning from the front, January 1942

The Germans called those small, patient animals panje horses, a term they also applied to the native carts and sleighs. [35] German accounts were full of praise for those seemingly anachronistic vehicles and horses.

General Rendulic wrote: The light native carts (sleighs), and the small, strong, and undemanding native horses are absolutely indispensable for the trains of infantry units. They are equally indispensable for the supply of motorized troops during the muddy season and in the winter, whenever military operations grind to a halt. Before long, even the German motorized and armored divisions had such trains of horse-drawn vehicles at their disposal. I cannot imagine how the German Army could have fought and lived through four years of war against Russia if it had not made use of these carts, sleighs, and horses. [36]

In the opinion of another German officer, panje sleighs were not only the best means of transport in winter, but in the open fields and on the miserable secondary roads they were the only vehicles that afforded complete oversnow mobility. [37] By early 1942 some panzer divisions employed as many as two thousand panje horses, while hardly any of their motor vehicles remained serviceable. Those panzer units were given the ironic nickname panje divisions. Even the Luftwaffe had to resort to panje transport in Russia. [38]

Naturally, the Russians relied upon the same horse-drawn transport, but they also employed cavalry in combat. A German source even reported a quixotic mounted cavalry attack against a German tank company in January 1942. [39] For security and reconnaissance missions, the Soviets used cavalry units extensively. At times these troops fought dismounted. They also cooperated with armor in major offensive operations. [40]

Russian tanks, especially the T34, KV1, and KV2, were effective even in deep snow because of their wide tracks and good ground clearance. These features gave them a marked advantage over the tanks that the Germans employed during the first winter, tanks which became stuck because of their narrow tracks and limited ground clearance. The Soviets frequently used T34s to break paths through the snow for the infantry. [41]

Another advantage the Russians enjoyed was the number of ski troops. Profiting from the lessons of the Winter War against the Finns, both Soviet military and civilian authorities emphasized skiing during the peacetime winter of 1940-41. Special ski units, trained in Siberia and committed on the Finnish front during the new war, proved almost as skillful as the Finns. [42]

The Soviets employed ski troops in units up to brigade size. [43] In January 1942 a force of three ski battalions was operating behind the German Fourth Army. [44] On the night of 23 November 1941 about three hundred skiers, including female Komsomol students and Party workers, executed a daring raid on 12th Corps headquarters, killing nineteen Germans and wounding twenty-nine. Although their casualties were heavy, 80 percent of the skiers made their way back through the woods. [45]

Other ski units were not always that lucky. A ski brigade of the 39th Guards Army that made a dawn attack on the rear of the 114th Panzer Grenadier Regiment in late March 1942 was virtually annihilated. It failed to surprise the Germans partly because they clearly heard its approach over the snow, for sound travels a great distance in cold weather. [46] (Powdery snow tends to reduce the sound of movement, but that is not true of the heavy crusted snow common by early spring.)

Russian ski units were more successful in combination with other arms. When the Third Panzer Army was retreating west of Moscow in December 1941, a Russian force of ski troops, cavalry, and sleigh-mounted infantry cut off the 6th Panzer Division, which was the rear guard of the LVI Panzer Corps. [47]

Although the mobility of well-trained ski units was a significant asset, not all of the Russian ski troops employed in that first wartime winter were sufficiently experienced to exploit that advantage. General Meretskov noted that he often saw men of the hastily formed Second and Fifty-ninth Shock Armies proceeding on foot, dragging their skis behind them. [48]

The Germans found it even more difficult to muster effective ski troops, which they did not employ in units larger than battalions. [49] Within Army Group Center, accounts of one regiment reveal that it had only ten sets of ski equipment per company in January 1942. [50]

Another regiment could equip only one platoon per unit, barely enough for patrol, messenger, and similar duties. [51] When a corps was finally able to organize one ski battalion in March 1942, the men had to be selected on the basis of their skiing ability. Because many were from support units--with no combat experience--their effectiveness was limited. [52]

Weather-Related Failures of Arms and Machines

It could only have been in total ignorance of the Arkhangelsk campaign more than twenty-two years earlier that the German Army in 1941 could be "surprised" (as General Rendulic expressed it) that because of the extreme cold the mechanisms of rifles and machine guns, and even the breech blocks of artillery, became absolutely rigid. [53]

German vehicles abandoned during the retreat from Moscow, December 1941

The recoil liquid in artillery pieces also froze Stiff, [54] and tempered steel parts cracked. [55] Strikers and striker springs broke like glass. [56]

One can only conjecture the number of tactical defeats such surprises caused. Even General Halder took notice of an encounter near Tikhvin when the temperature was -35C (-31F) and only one of the five German tanks could fire. [57] Sentries in the German 196th Infantry Regiment discovered at the inopportune moment of a Soviet night attack in January 1942 that their machine guns were too frozen to function. [58]

Soviet weapons were designed for winter, and they used appropriate lubricants. The Germans preferred the Soviet submachine gun to the model originally issued to them. [59] During the first winter the Germans had to improvise by lighting fires under their artillery, and by either wiping off all the lubricants from weapons or experimenting with substitutes. Kerosene worked, but it was not durable and thus had to be renewed frequently. [60] Sunflower oil proved quite effective, but it was available only in southern Russia. [61] (By the second winter of the war the Germans had suitable lubricants on hand). [62]

Deep snow greatly reduced the effectiveness of mortar shells, and even of artillery smaller than 150-mm caliber. The best antitank weapon was the gun of a heavy tank, for regular antitank artillery could not be used in deep snow. [63] Mines proved unreliable under heavy snow or ice, especially when there was some thawing, because their pressure fuses would not function when cushioned by deep snow or covered with an ice crust. [64]

As noted, the oversnow capabilities of Soviet tanks were superior to those of the German models employed in 1941. The Germans also encountered constant problems with most of their motor vehicles. At first they tried to start frozen machines by towing, which badly damaged motors and ripped differentials to pieces. It proved necessary to apply heat for up to two hours before moving. [65] During alerts motors were frequently kept running for hours. [66] (Only the panje horse started without a warming up period!)

Weather's Impact on Local Operations and Tactics

Because shelter was essential to survival, villages became the focal points of local battles during the winter of 1941-42, just as they had been in 1918-19. [67] During the Soviet counteroffensive General Rendulic, commander of the 52d Infantry Division, initially tried to conduct an orthodox defense which included holding open terrain. That, however, led to so many frostbite casualties that he had to restrict his lines to populated points and their immediate environs. When the Russians penetrated the gaps between the German-held villages and fanned out laterally to threaten the roads leading to the rear of those villages, the Germans were forced to retreat again. Where the Soviet forces had sufficient ammunition and passable roads, they also attacked the villages. [68] Whenever they failed to capture them during the day, they usually withdrew to the nearest friendly village for the night. [69]

Whenever the Germans were able to take the initiative, they faced the same problem, though aggravated because of their inferior clothing. On 28 December 1941 the 4th Armored Infantry Regiment of the 6th Panzer Division successfully counterattacked Russian units that had broken through the German positions on the Lama River. By evening they closed the gap in their line by making contact with the 23d Infantry Division, and they sheltered that night in nearby villages and farmhouses. The plan for the next day was to surround the enemy and regain the Lama River positions.

Again the 4th Infantry, in an attack coordinated with the division's motorcycle battalion, attained its objectives: by noon the Soviet breakthrough force was encircled.

German troops in retreat, December 1941

The nearby villages had been destroyed, however, and the former positions were buried deep in show. Without shelter, and faced with freezing to death in the nighttime temperature of -30 degrees to -40 degrees, the Germans had to abandon the encirclement and withdraw to a distant village. The Russians then broke through again and eventually forced the entire German front in that area to withdraw. Battlefield success had turned to failure because the Germans were not equipped for the weather and couldn't find local shelter. [70]

Occasionally even a destroyed village offered protection from the cold. The Russians generally tried to surround a German-held village before the garrison could escape and set it on fire. When they failed and the village burned, they usually arrived before the fires had died down, and they could begin at once to dig shelters in the ground thawed by the heat. [71]

Sometimes there was an alternative to shelter in villages, even when the ground was too hard for digging. Conducting defensive operations in open country around the turn of the year, the 6th Panzer Division was sustaining about 800 frostbite casualties a day. It had some five tons of explosives on hand, however, and on 3 January 1942 its engineers blasted enough craters to accommodate all of the combat elements. Covered with lumber and heated with open fires, each crater sheltered three to five men. New frostbite cases immediately fell from eight hundred to four a day. With minefields, antitank obstacles, and paths trampled between and behind the craters, the position held out for ten days and was only abandoned when outflanked. [72] Eventually, in order to free them from dependence on the engineers, the Germans trained both combat and service units to use 100-gram cartridges for blasting shelters. [73]

The Germans soon learned how to prevent wood smoke from revealing their field positions. In contrast to fresh firewood, charcoal burns with little smoke and its manufacture was improvised widely. [74]

Deep snow hampered movement on foot. In one instance a unit of the 52d Infantry Division required nine hours to advance two and one-half miles--unopposed-- through five feet of snow. Consequently, trampling lateral and rearward paths assumed tactical significance. For example, the German commander of Company G, 464th Infantry, realized on 15 January 1942 that his positions would soon become untenable. He therefore detailed a few men with minor wounds to trample a path from the village held by the company towards a nearby forest. During the ensuing Soviet offensive, that path prevented his unit from being trapped by the enemy. [75]

Distinctive lessons which may be drawn from this chapter include:

• Sound travels farther in very cold weather. On the Russian front in World War II the noise of troops advancing over heavy, crusted snow deprived them of the advantage of surprise.
• Horses provided the most reliable transport on the Russian front in winter. The small but acclimatized native horses proved superior to larger breeds accustomed to the milder climate of Western Europe.
• Mines often failed in winter. This was true when the snow was sufficiently deep to cushion the fuse and when alternating melting and freezing created an ice bridge over the detonator.
• Charcoal was better than wood for heating because it created less smoke to reveal troop positions.
• Soviet wide-tracked tanks had better over-snow mobility than the early German models because of their lighter ground pressure.
• Explosives were useful for constructing foxholes and larger shelters in frozen ground.
• Finally, perhaps the most important lesson is simply the folly of ignoring the pertinent lessons. A former Luftwaffe officer, Lt. Gen. H. J. Rieckhoff, concluded a discussion of the problems encountered by the ground components of the German Air Force in winter with the observation that the highest German commanders were slow to profit from Russian examples because of their feeling of superiority, and some refused to learn until they went down in defeat. [76]

  There may be a message for others in that conceit.