Peter Idone - Red Vengeance

From that day forward, a Tiger was no guarantee of success against Red Vengeance. General Hoth regarded the impact the tank had on the morale of panzer troops as a serious issue and informed Army Group something needed to be done. An officer at A.G. Headquarters (name withheld) lent a sympathetic ear, and a small unit was formed at staff intelligence to gather all reports, recorded sightings, engagements—anything at all that concerned Red Vengeance. It was at this time when Falkenstein entered center stage. Upon his return to duty from medical furlough, the captain had been assigned to the Greyhound Division intelligence staff and filed a report to the A.G. special section, detailing the division’s contact with the fabled T-34, specifically his own experience. He had also drawn up an unsolicited feasibility study that outlined the creation of a small, highly mobile unit to coordinate and assist local forces in any given sector where Red Vengeance was sighted and believed to be operating. Information would be channeled to this unit, which would remain in a constant state of readiness and could be deployed at a moment’s notice. Coordination with the Luftwaffe for transport and a tank killer squadron, when available, was essential to the plan. For months, Red Vengeance had stalked its prey, wreaked havoc, and then disappeared at will. The time had come to pursue the tank actively. There was a morale dividend to be gained when the troops in the field were made aware that steps were being taken to deal directly with the rogue T-34. Due to his personal involvement with the subject, Falkenstein nominated himself as the most logical, in fact the only, candidate to lead the unit. He submitted both the feasibility study and the report to Army Group and forwarded a copy to Fourth Panzer Army headquarters.

General Hoth read the study and took an immediate liking to the idea and to the determined, if presumptuous, author, whose exploits on the Kalmyk Steppe had already preceded him. The general offered whatever resources his army had at its disposal. Falkenstein got his task force, small as it was, with the help of such high-ranking influence. Ironically, Red Vengeance was not to be heard from in the combat zone of Army Group South. Like the phantom it was likened to, the machine had dissipated in the harsh glare of the Ukrainian summer. Until Operation Citadel. Army Detachment Kempf, Fourth Panzer Army, and Ninth Army from Army Group Center converged and then deployed their divisions along the Kursk salient, where they awaited the go ahead. The Russians were dug in deep and strong, several kilometers in depth. It was going to be a hellishly difficult fight, and some at General Staff Headquarters were not entirely convinced that the operation would be a success. Mobilization of German forces took too long to get into place, and delay followed delay. General Guderian begged the Fuehrer to call off the offensive, but it was too late.

June 28, 1943, Red Vengeance had been spotted by several forward observation posts. Slowly, the tank traversed along the eastern horizon, dropping in and out of sight across the rolling plains that lay before the infantry jump-off positions.

Reconnaissance Group Falkenstein received a teletype from Fourth Panzer Army headquarters— Red Vengeance sighted. Recon situation and end it —terse and succinct, like Hoth himself. What happened next was that Falkenstein’s small force became embroiled in the larger conflict against the amassed Soviet armies and not the one tank he was sent to destroy. Other than his life, the captain walked away with several muddled accounts from crewmen who had survived the massive tank battle at Prokhorovka. As this engagement was unprecedented on every scale, there was bound to be confusion. The combined deployment of German and Russian tanks and assault guns exceeded fifteen hundred, all funneled into a narrow valley. The smoke and dust churned up by these clashing armadas transformed the day into the darkness of night. T-34s and KVs rammed head-on into Tigers and Panthers. Tank fired upon tank at point-blank range. By one account, Red Vengeance had been seen repeatedly taking armor-piercing shot; turret and hull were relentlessly hammered, but it neither stopped nor decelerated, even with the damage it should have sustained. Witnesses interviewed afterward could not say with any degree of certainty precisely what they had seen. Few, if any, conclusions could be drawn from these unsubstantiated accounts, and no matter how ruthlessly Falkenstein pressed for details, the panzer crewmen, battle-hardened veterans, were traumatized. The sheer enormity and violence of the tank battle had overwhelmed them. If nothing else, one thing was made resoundingly clear: from that day onward, Red Vengeance was viewed as the forerunner of disaster. Doom.

The last official report was an assessment released by Foreign Armies East:

19/7/43 [Foreign Armies East] does not dispute the fact that the Red Army has fashioned a powerful symbol for its troops to rally around and, for the Wehrmacht, a front-line myth of negative consequences for the morale of troops in the field. As of this date, no information has been made available regarding the unit of origin of the T-34 Red Vengeance, and it is the opinion of this office that the tank in question is not attached to a specific unit but instead is operated by the best-trained and most skillful crewmen the Soviet Tank Armies can provide. Service aboard the vehicle could very well be considered an honor duty, on a rotational basis, bestowed upon those drivers, gunners, and commanders worthy of the task. Personnel from a replacement pool may be called upon for service when combat casualties are sustained. Furthermore, consideration should be given to the probability that the T-34 is not the same vehicle as the one first encountered (9/42). In all likelihood the vehicle is replaced after falling out of service due to mechanical failure and/or battle damage. A different T-34 is substituted and then outfitted with the same recognizable components and details (i.e., netting, barbed wire, Cyrillic legend, etc.), which aid in reinforcing the myth of invincibility.

At the bottom of the page written in red pencil in Falkenstein’s own hand were the words “— absolute rubbish!” The captain perceived Red Vengeance to be more than what it actually was. Of this Voss was sure, but what, exactly, did Falkenstein think it was , he wondered. All the reports, memos, briefings, orders—reams of paperwork that accompanied the almost mundane bureaucratic handling of the war—revealed nothing of Falkenstein’s own personal assessment. The only comment the captain had was that Foreign Armies East’s interpretation belonged in the rubbish bin. Yet in spite of the captain’s omission, everything Voss had read pointed to the conclusion that Red Vengeance was synonymous with impending defeat on a grand scale. First, Stalingrad was followed by the collapse of the Don Front and then the near annihilation of the southern armies. Kursk was the most recent—and the worst setback of all, with the staggering numbers of casualties and volumes of materiel losses with nothing definite or lasting achieved. The optimists called the offensive a draw. Indeed, the Russians were mauled, terribly, but unlimited reserves of men and machines continued to be thrown into the fight. Von Manstein’s armies had been bled white. Now, when the race to the river was in a dead heat, the last hope of establishing a defensive line that would not only hold but also weaken the Red Army to the extent that Stalin would be forced to negotiate a settlement, Red Vengeance appeared. What does this appearance signify? Voss asked himself. Will we make it back in time, regroup, resupply, and hold out for good and not lose another kilometer west of the Dniepr? Is our fate already sealed because of this one ghostly T-34, and what it has come to signify? Has the lot been chosen for us and come up short? Cut off, encircled, entire armies lost? Or does only Falkenstein believe this to be true, and has that cabal of officers and adjutants—Hahn, Beck, Beutel, all of them—fallen under the captain’s influence like some narcotic?