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longer allowed the Ninth Army to maintain its bridgehead at Kalinin. Soviet divisions, perfectly equipped, crossed the frozen Volga without difficulty, and some units were able to make impressive inroads, penetrating far beyond the front lines. Several German divisions were in real danger of being surrounded and destroyed. A Siberian cold had set in: the temperature fell to –30° and –40°C (–22° and –40°F). The wind blew in gusts that almost toppled the men. And even when the skies cleared and a pale sun made the white desert shine with a crystalline brilliance, the beauty of the countryside could not make us forget the cold, which became even more lacerating.
    On December 15, the battalion commanded by Franz-Josef von Kageneck had held, virtually alone, the road to Kalinin against forces ten times larger, and thus allowed almost a whole army to escape being surrounded. In the early morning of December 16, Georg’s reconnaissance battalion, which was under the command of the Sixth Army, was ordered to begin withdrawing to the east bank of the Volga. More unfavorable conditions could not be imagined. The storm was howling. The snow wasalready impressively deep when the men awoke and a terrible, biting wind was raising great spumes of white powder. Drifts blocked the roads. The heavy squadron was struggling: the bad weather was tripling fuel consumption. In the early afternoon, headquarters was informed that the motorized vehicles could not continue farther than twenty-five kilometers without additional fuel. Once again, horses constituted the only reliable mobility in a winter setting. The superior officers were on the brink of despair, but young officers like Georg and Kageneck yielded less to somber reflections. It was a matter of survival. Galvanized by the danger, they often took the initiative.
    On December 18, Georg and his men were supposed to secure a 7.5-square-kilometer zone to allow the infantry’s relatively orderly retreat from the area between the Tma and the Volga, which they had conquered at the end of October. The enemy pressure was strong, but thanks to their mobility, our troops were able to deceive the Soviets and confuse their scouts. The men had to deal not only with heavy fire but also with the cold. The gusts of wind, which were asphyxiating, burned the lungs. The cold was not only bitter, it was deadly: it could kill a man in a few minutes. If it didn’t kill the man whole, it killed his limbs—hands, arms, legs—and the most prominent parts of the face—the ears and the nose. The conditions of the retreat did not allow for the proper burial of the dead. It was impossible to dig graves; instead, the deadwere buried under huge piles of snow. On December 24, the temperature fell to –46°C (–50°F).
    That day, Siberian troops staged a mass attack on the battalion’s cyclist squadron. After inflicting heavy losses among enemy forces that were still poorly equipped, it was possible to stabilize the situation. We had suffered a serious reversal. One thing reassured us: the enemy was losing on average ten to twenty times as many men as we were. But we were now certain that their numbers were immense, and that was their great potential. Beyond that one certitude, how many questions there were! How could the Russian generals let their men be mowed down in such numbers by machine-gun fire? Why didn’t they see that their counteroffensive, although it had resulted in clear successes, made no sense? In our opinion, it was a Pyrrhic victory.
    When Christmas came, the Sixth Infantry was licking its wounds and counting its losses, which had been considerable over the past fortnight. In theory, Georg’s reconnaissance battalion numbered more than a thousand. But on December 27, it was no more than a shadow of its former self. Georg sent his superiors a report explaining that his combat potential had been reduced by 90 percent since June. The cavalry squadron now had only 1 officer, 32 men, and 4