accustomed to this pattern, used to call it ‘weather for Russians’. Soviet troops were convinced that they had a distinct advantage in winter warfare, whether through frost or mud. Their comparatively low rates of frostbite and trench foot were attributed to the traditional Russian army use of rough linen foot bandages instead of socks. Weather forecasts had foretold a ‘strange winter’. After the hard cold of January, ‘heavy rain and wet snow’ were predicted. An order went out: ‘Leather boots must be mended.’
The Red Army had improved in so many ways — its heavy weaponry, the professionalism of its planning, the camouflage and control of operations which had frequently caught the Germans off balance — yet some weaknesses remained. The worst was the chaotic lack of discipline, which seems astonishing in a totalitarian state. Part of the problem came from the terrible attrition among young officers.
It was a hard school indeed for seventeen- and eighteen-year-old junior lieutenants in the infantry. ‘At that time,’ wrote the novelist and war correspondent Konstantin Simonov, ‘young people were becoming adult in a year, a month or even in the course of one battle.’ Many, of course, never survived that first battle. Determined to prove themselves worthy of commanding veterans, some of whom were old enough to be their fathers, they showed reckless courage and suffered for it.
Indiscipline came also from the dehumanized way in which Red Army soldiers were treated by their own authorities. And, of course, the strengths and weaknesses of the complex national character played its part too. ‘The Russian infantryman,’ as one writer put it, ‘is hardy, undemanding, careless and a convinced fatalist… It is these characteristics which make him incomparable.’ An ordinary soldier in a rifle division provided a summary in his diary of the changing moods of his comrades. ‘First state: soldier with no chiefs around. He is a grumbler. He threatens and shows off. He is keen to pocket something or grab someone in a stupid argument. One can see from this irritability that the soldier’s life is hard for him. Second state: soldier in the presence of chiefs: submissive and inarticulate. Readily agrees with what he is told. Easily believes promises. Blossoms when praised and is eager to admire the strictness of officers whom he makes fun of behind their backs. Third state: working together or in battle: here he is a hero. He won’t leave his comrade in danger. He dies quietly, as if it is still part of his work.’
Tank troops in the Red Army were in particularly good heart. Having been as demoralized as Soviet aviation in the early part of the war, they were starting to enjoy heroic status. Vasily Grossman, another novelist and war correspondent, now found ‘tankists’ almost as fascinating as he had found snipers at Stalingrad. He described them admiringly as ‘cavalrymen, artillerymen and mechanics all rolled in one’. But the greatest strength of the Red Army was the burning idea that they were finally within striking distance of the Reich. The violators of the Soviet Motherland were about to discover the true meaning of the proverb, ‘You will harvest what you have sown.’
The basic concept of the campaign had been decided in outline by the end of October 1944. The
Stalin also decided to shake up the key commands. If this resulted in jealousies and ‘disconcertedness’, then he was far from displeased. The main change was to replace Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, the commander-in- chief of the 1st Belorussian Front, the main group of armies on the axis of advance to Berlin. Rokossovsky, a tall, elegant and good-looking cavalryman, presented a striking contrast to most Russian commanders, many of whom were squat, thick-necked and shaven-headed. He was also different in another way. Born Konstanty Rokosowski, he was half-Polish, the grandson and great-grandson of Polish cavalry officers. This made him dangerous in the eyes of Stalin. Stalin’s hatred of the country had started during the Soviet-Polish war of 1920, when he had been partly blamed for the disastrous defeat of the Red Army attacking Warsaw.
Rokossovsky was outraged when he heard that he was to be transferred to command the 2nd Belorussian Front army group to attack East Prussia. Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the stocky and immensely tough commander who directed the defence of Moscow in December 1941, was to take his place. ‘Why this disgrace?’ Rokossovsky demanded. ‘Why am I being moved from the main axis to one of secondary importance?’ Rokossovsky suspected that Zhukov, whom he had considered a friend, had undermined him, but in fact Stalin did not want a Pole to enjoy the glory of taking Berlin. It was natural that Rokossovsky should be suspicious. He had been arrested during the purge of the Red Army in 1937. The beatings from Beria’s henchmen demanding confessions of treason were enough to make even the most balanced person slightly paranoid. And Rokossovsky knew that Lavrenty Beria, the head of the NKVD secret police, and Viktor Abakumov, the chief of SMERSH counter-intelligence, watched him closely. Stalin had left Rokossovsky in no doubt that the 1937 accusations still hung over him. He had simply been released conditionally. Any blunder as a commander would put him straight back into NKVD custody. ‘I know very well what Beria is capable of,’ Rokossovsky said to Zhukov during the changeover. ‘I have been in his prisons.’ It would take Soviet generals eight years to get their revenge on Beria.
The forces of the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front lining up against the German front line along the Vistula were not simply superior, they were overwhelming. To Zhukov’s south, Marshal Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front would attack due west towards Breslau. Its main thrust would be launched from the Sandomierz bridgehead, the largest salient of all on the west bank of the Vistula. Unlike Zhukov, however, Konev intended to use his two tank armies to smash the enemy line on the very first day.
Konev, according to Beria’s son, had ‘wicked little eyes, a shaven head that looked like a pumpkin, and an expression full of self-conceit’. He was probably Stalin’s favourite general and one of the very few senior commanders whom even Stalin admired for his ruthlessness. Stalin had promoted him to marshal of the Soviet Union after his crushing of the Korsun pocket, south of Kiev, just under a year before. It had been one of the most pitiless engagements in a very cruel war. Konev ordered his aircraft to drop incendiaries on the small town of Shanderovka to force the Germans sheltering there out into the blizzard. As they struggled to break out of the encirclement on 17 February 1944, Konev sprang his trap. His tank crews charged straight for the column, firing machine guns and running men down to crush them under their tracks. As the Germans scattered, trying to flee through the heavy snow, Konev’s three divisions of cavalry set off in pursuit. The Cossacks cut them down mercilessly with their sabres, apparently hacking even at arms raised in surrender. Some 20,000 Germans died that day.
On 12 January, the Vistula offensive began at 5 a.m. Moscow time, when Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front attacked out of the Sandomierz bridgehead. The snow was quite heavy and visibility almost nil. After
Soviet tank crews had painted slogans on their turrets: ‘Forward into the fascist lair!’ and ‘Revenge and death to the German occupiers!’ They faced little resistance as their T-34 and heavy Stalin tanks moved forward at 2 p.m. Their hulls coated in frost were well camouflaged for the snowy landscape ahead, even if all was brown in the middle distance from shell-churned mud.
Along with Breslau, the main objectives of General Rybalko’s 3rd Guards Tank Army and General Lelyushenko’s 4th Guards Tank Army were the industrial regions of Silesia. When Stalin had briefed Konev in Moscow, he had pointed at the map and circled the area with his finger. He mouthed a single word: ‘Gold’. No further comment was needed. Konev knew that Stalin wanted the factories and mines to be taken intact.
On the morning after Konev’s attack from the Sandomierz bridgehead, the assault on East Prussia began with General Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Belorussian Front. On the following day, 14 January, Rokossovsky’s forces attacked East Prussia from the River Narew bridgeheads. Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front went into action on its two bridgeheads on the Vistula at Magnuszew and Pulawy. A thin layer of snow covered the ground and dense mist lasted until noon. At 8.30 a.m., Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front opened up with twenty-five minutes of ‘rolling fire’.
