Where the Iron Crosses Grow

What happened next was – and remains – highly controversial, and is known as “the von Sponeck affair.” Having been ordered not to withdraw Himer’s 46. Infanterie-Division, the 53-year-old Graf von Sponeck did something almost unheard of in the Wehrmacht – he severed communications with AOK 11 headquarters in Simferopol and decided to disobey Manstein. At 0830hrs, Himer was ordered to force-march his entire division westward in order to prevent it from being cut off in the Kerch Peninsula. Was Sponeck justified in retreating, or did he panic, as was suggested at his subsequent court martial? While it is true that there were no significant German troops left near Feodosiya, the Romanians had close to 20,000 troops converging on the city, as well as German reinforcements from AOK 11. It had been Sponeck’s decision to pull these troops away from Feodosiya toward Kerch and now he reversed himself, leading to countermarches that exhausted the Romanian troops. Sponeck insisted that the two Romanian brigades launch a counterattack against the Soviet lodgment at Feodosiya on December 30 – without air or artillery support – and they were quickly repulsed. Pervushin’s three rifle divisions then pushed northward, threatening to isolate XXXXII Armeekorps forces in the Kerch Peninsula.

Himer’s division spent December 30–31 marching 75 miles westward in a snowstorm toward Sponeck’s corps headquarters, which was still located at Islam-Terek, 18 miles northwest of Feodosiya. Shortages of fuel caused some vehicles to be abandoned, and the division’s heavy weapons lagged behind. Yet by the time that the vanguards of IR 97 and IR 42 reached the important crossroads town of Vladislavovka on the morning of December 31, they were shocked to find that the Soviet 63rd Mountain Rifle Division had already seized the town and created a roadblock. Himer tried to push both regiments to crash through the Soviet position, but it was far too formidable, and his troops were exhausted and lacking in artillery support. Unable to break through the Soviet roadblock, the 46. Infanterie-Division retreated west cross-country across the flat, snow-covered landscape through a 6-mile-wide gap between the Sea of Azov and the Soviet pincer. The retreat of the 46. Infanterie-Division was a near-run thing, with isolation from the rest of AOK 11 a distinct possibility, but it was no Anabasis (Xenophon’s 4th century BC history of the march of the Ten Thousand through the Persian Empire). Himer’s division abandoned a good deal of material, but personnel losses were light. Between December 24 and December 31, 1941, Infanterie-Regiment 42’s battle strength was reduced from 1,460 to 1,279, a 12 percent loss rate. By the time that his division formed a new defensive line east of Islam-Terek on January 1, 1942, Himer still had over 4,300 of his infantry remaining.⁸

As if the situation was not bad enough for the Axis, on the night of December 31 a 250-man Soviet airborne battalion led by Major Dmitri Ya. Nyashin leapt from 16 TB-3 bombers into the black void north of Vladislavovka. The Soviet paratroopers were obliged to climb out of a hatch onto the bomber’s wing and then slide off, one at a time, which resulted in a very dispersed drop. Nyashin’s paratroopers were scattered in the corridor that the 46. Infanterie-Division was retreating through, and engaged in a number of small skirmishes with the retreating Germans, who were panicked by the sudden appearance of Soviet paratroopers. Darkness concealed the small size of Nyashin’s force, and increased Sponeck’s apprehension about his vulnerable position. Soon thereafter, Nyashin linked up with Pervushin’s ground forces.

By January 1, 1942, XXXXII Armeekorps had established a new line of defense 12 miles from Feodosiya. The lead elements of Gruppe Hitzfeld were arriving, led by Oberstleutnant Otto Hitzfeld with his Infanterie-Regiment 213 of the 73. Infanterie-Division, I./AR 173, Panzerjäger-Abteilung 173, a platoon of four StuG III assault guns from Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 197, and a flak detachment from 3./Flak 14. Manoliu’s 4th Mountain Brigade had also established a stable defense around Stary Krym, although the 236th Rifle Division was pushing against their lines. By this point, Pervushin’s 44th Army had carved out a 7½-mile-deep lodgment from Feodosiya and was probing northward and westward. On New Year’s Day, Soviet infantry and light tanks attacked toward the XXXXII Armeekorps command post at Ismail-Terek, but Panzerjäger-Abteilung 173 had just arrived at the front and succeeded in knocking out 16 T-26 tanks. German historian Paul Carell claimed that in this action, “the armored spearhead of the Soviet Forty-fourth Army had been broken,” but in fact, Pervushin still had at least 18 tanks left and more on the way.⁹