On 16 December — with his forward units tantalisingly within sight of the flash of Moscow’s anti-aircraft guns — Hitler finally called a halt. Typhoon was over, but the eastern armies should hold their positions all along the line. More ‘stormy discussions’, ‘mad outbursts’ and ‘dramatic scenes’ followed, as his generals argued for withdrawal to firmer defence lines.10 Three days later — twelve days after Pearl Harbor and eight after suicidally declaring war on the United States — Hitler sacked von Bock as head of Army Group Centre and Brauchitsch as commander-in-chief, and announced that he was taking over High Command himself. After another furious meeting at the ‘Wolf’s Lair’ on 13 January, von Leeb asked to be relieved as well, and was replaced by the more pliable von Küchler. In the south, Runstedt was replaced by Reichenau, who promptly died of a heart attack. Altogether about forty senior officers resigned or were dismissed. From now on, Hitler’s propensity to micromanage military operations would have full rein, with ultimately disastrous results.11

This was the point, most military historians agree, at which the whole war turned, not because it was when Germany started to retreat, but in the sense that from then on she stood no further chance of winning. With three great powers ranged against her, she had simply bitten off more than she could chew. In London, Churchill had no doubt. Nothing, he declared to his War Cabinet on 10 December, could compare to the US in warfare, and the Russian front would ‘break Germany’s heart’. From Leningrad to the Crimea, the Wehrmacht was in ‘a frightful condition: mechanised units frozen, prisoners taken in rags, armies trying to stabilise. . Russian air superiority.’ On the state of the Wehrmacht he exaggerated, but his general point was sound: ‘Germany is busted as far as knocking out Russia is concerned. The tide has turned and the phase which now begins will have gathering results. . There should be no anxiety about the eventual outcome of the war. The finger of God is with us.’12

Tikhvin having been lost again, Fritz Hockenjos’s Radfahrzug was ordered to retreat back behind the Volkhov. On 21 December they left their poverty-stricken billet in Rakhmysha, not before setting fire to barns and slaughtering sheep and chickens for the road. ‘Women’s wailing’, Hockenjos wrote, ‘followed us out of the village.’ Again they pushed their bicycles along choked, snow-covered roads, past broken-down motorised columns and a stream of overladen peasant sleds, cows and goats in tow. The following afternoon they ran into fighting — shouts of ‘oorah’ up ahead, a burning lorry, injured horses standing in the middle of the road, heads drooping. When darkness fell they crept forwards in the shelter of roadside ditches: ‘We came to lots of dead Russians, and then we were through, and ran as fast as we could. When we got to Glad we found the staff of the 2nd Battalion just sitting there, completely oblivious. I could have wept.’ At 3 a.m. they set off again, firing blindly into the woods either side of the road in reply to shots from invisible Russians. With daylight they came under heavy fire while passing a supply column:

Bangs and whistles everywhere. The injured are brought in, coats and boots cut off. Open wounds leak dark blood. And next to all that people stand about, smoking and munching Knäckebrot. Only when there was lots of whizzing in the air did they take cover behind their vehicles or horses for a moment. I couldn’t decide whether this was admirable equanimity or stupid indifference.

They were among the last troops back over the Volkhov at Gruzino, crossing as darkness fell. Behind, the skyline glowed red where villages burned. On Christmas Eve they reached Chudovo, a town on the main Leningrad — Moscow railway line, and settled for the night in an empty-windowed glassworks. ‘We huddle with our cigarettes in front of the great glass ovens’, Hockenjos wrote. ‘In one corner a Christmas tree is being set up; in another some engineers are building tables and benches. Someone is bashfully practising carols on a harmonica. I have my notebook open on my knees and am writing a Christmas letter to Els by the light of the flames. I have never felt further from my love, nor closer to her, than this evening.’ In the distance he could hear the thump of shells, as the Russians ‘threw suitcases’ at the railway station — it was amazing how fast they had brought up their heavy artillery. When he and his men toasted Christ’s birth at midnight, it was with looted armagnac that they had brought with them all the way from the Loire.

11. Sleds and Cocoons