Encyclopedia
Operation Barbarossa was the codename for
Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during
World War II that commenced on June 22, 1941. The operation was named after
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of the
Holy Roman Empire. It is not to be confused with the whole war on the Eastern Front. Operation Barbarossa lasted from June 1941 to December 1941, the Eastern Front lasted from June 1941 to May 1945 when the Soviets took Berlin.
The original goal was the rapid conquest of the European part of the Soviet Union and Ukraine, west of a line connecting the cities of
Arkhangelsk and
Astrakhan, often referred to as the AA line . The failure of Operation Barbarossa arguably resulted in the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany, and was a turning point for the fortunes of
Adolf Hitler's
Third Reich. Most significantly of all, Operation Barbarossa opened up the Eastern Front, which ultimately became the biggest theatre of war in human history, with some of the largest and most brutal battles, deadliest atrocities, terrible loss of life, and miserable conditions for Soviets and Germans alike.
German intentions
Ostensibly, the Germans feared that the
Red Army was preparing to attack them, and their own assault was thus presented as a preemptive war. Readers of Hitler's
Mein Kampf is the signature work of Adolf Hitler [i], combining elements of autobiography [i] with ...
should, however, have expected an invasion of the
Soviet Union. In his book, he made clear his belief that the German people needed
Lebensraum , and that it should be found in the East. It was the stated
policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Russian and other Slavic populations, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate the land with Germanic peoples. The entire
urban population was to be exterminated by
starvation, thus creating an
agricultural surplus to feed
Germany and allowing their replacement by a German
upper class. The German nazi-ideologist
Alfred Rosenberg, who himself believed Slavs were
Aryan, while preparing to implement these general ideas, suggested that conquered Soviet territory should be administered in the following
Reichskommissariates:
Nazi policy aimed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political entity in accordance with the geopolitical
Lebensraum idea for the benefit of future "
Aryan" generations in the centuries to come.
The Führer anticipated additional benefits:
- When the Soviet Union was defeated, the labor shortage in the German industry could be ended by the demobilization of many soldiers.
- Ukraine would be a reliable source of cheap food.
- Having the Soviet Union as a source of cheap slave labour would vastly improve Germany's geostrategic position.
- Defeat of the Soviet Union would further isolate the British Empire
- The German War Machine desperately needed access to oil and only a push to the Soviet Baku Oilfields could achieve this objective.
The
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had been signed shortly before the German and Soviet invasion of
Poland in 1939. It was ostensibly a non-aggression pact in which secret protocols outlined an agreement between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union on the division of the border states between them. The pact surprised the world because of their mutual hostility and their opposed ideologies. As a result of this pact, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had reasonably strong diplomatic relations and were important trading partners. The Soviet Union supplied oil and raw materials to Germany, while Germany provided technology to the Soviet Union. Despite the pact, both sides remained strongly suspicious of each other's intentions, and as both sides began bumping up against each other in Eastern Europe it appeared that conflict was inevitable.
Hitler had long wanted to conquer western Russia in order to exploit its
untermensch Slavic population. So he had signed the pact simply for short-term convenience. In addition to the territorial ambitions of both Hitler and Stalin, the contrasting ideologies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union made an eventual conflict between them likely.
Stalin's reputation contributed both to the Nazis' justification of their assault and to their faith in success. During the late 1930s, Stalin had killed and imprisoned millions of people during the Great Purge, including large numbers of competent and experienced military officers and strategists, effectively leaving the
Red Army weakened and leaderless. The Nazis often emphasized the brutality of the Soviet regime when targeting the Slavs with their
propaganda.
Operation Barbarossa was largely the brainchild of Hitler himself. Some members of his military and diplomatic staff advised finishing off Great Britain before undertaking a second
front against the Soviet Union, but for the most part his
General Staff agreed that an invasion would be necessary at some point. Hitler considered himself a political and military genius, and indeed at this point in the war he had achieved a series of lightning victories in the face of what appeared to be insurmountable odds, often against the advice of Germany's military leadership. His brashness and willingness to take risks, combined with the discipline of his troops, had won him first the Rhineland, Austria and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia with hardly a struggle, then
Poland,
Denmark and
Norway with only slightly more trouble. Then he had brought about the rapid collapse of France by slashing through
Luxembourg north of the
Maginot Line, pocketing large numbers of Allied troops, and then south to the Swiss border. The northern pocket collapsed and its troops fell back on
Dunkirk. The British were driven off French soil, but Britain itself remained secure because of its
naval superiority and aerial parity. Unable to force Britain's capitulation - though vacillating toward an invasion - lacking sufficient naval assets and a strategic bomber force, Hitler was impatient to get on with his long-desired invasion of the east. He was convinced that Britain would sue for peace once the Soviet Union was knocked out of the war.
- We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down
— Adolf Hitler
Hitler was overconfident due to his rapid success in Western Europe, as well as the Red Army's ineptitude in the
Winter War against Finland 1939-40. He expected victory in a few months and did not prepare for a war lasting into the winter; his troops lacked adequate clothing.
German preparations
In preparation for the attack, Hitler moved 3.2 million men to the Soviet border, launched many
aerial surveillance missions over Soviet territory, and stockpiled vast amounts of material in the East. Yet the Soviets were still taken by surprise. This has mostly to do with
Stalin's unshakeable belief that the Third Reich was unlikely to attack only two years after signing the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. He also was convinced the Nazis would probably finish their war with Britain before opening a new front. Despite repeated warnings from his intelligence services, Stalin refused to give them credence, fearing the reports to be British misinformation designed to spark a war between the Nazis and the USSR. The German government also aided in this deception. They told Stalin that the troops were being moved to bring them out of range of British bombers. They also explained that they were trying to trick the British into thinking they were planning to attack the Soviet Union, while in fact the troops and supplies were being stockpiled for an invasion of Britain. As a result, Stalin's preparations against a possible German invasion in 1941 were half-hearted. One should note, though, that
communist spy Dr.
Richard Sorge gave Stalin the exact German launch date; Swedish
cryptanalysts led by Arne Beurling also knew the date beforehand.
The Germans set up deception operations, from April 1941, to add substance to their claims that Britain was the real target: Operations
Haifisch and
Harpune. These simulated preparations in Norway, the Channel coast and Britain, together with the tales about troop concentrations mentioned above. There were supporting activities such as ship concentrations, reconnaissance flights and training exercises. Invasion plans were developed and some details were allowed to leak.
Germany had trouble devising a strategy that would ensure a successful invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler, the
OKW and the various high commands were in disagreement about a comprehensive plan and what the main objectives should be. OKW desired a straight-line thrust to Moscow, but Hitler wanted to take resource-rich Ukraine and the Baltics before turning to Moscow. The resulting squabble disrupted logistical planning for the invasion, delaying it for more than a month after the originally planned date of May.
The strategy Hitler and his generals ultimately agreed upon involved three separate army groups assigned to capture specific regions and large cities of the Soviet Union. The main German thrusts were conducted along historical invasion routes. Army Group North was assigned to march through the Baltics, into northern Russia, and either take or destroy the city of
Leningrad . Army Group Center would advance to
Smolensk, and ultimately
Moscow, marching through what is now
Belarus and the west-central regions of Russia proper. Army Group South was to strike the heavily populated and agricultural heartland of
Ukraine, taking
Kiev, before continuing eastward over the steppes of southern Russia all the way to the
Volga and the oil-rich
Caucasus.
Soviet preparations
In the 1940s, the
Soviet Union was by no means a weak country. Rapid Soviet industrialization in the 1930s had resulted in industrial output second only to that of the United States, and equal to that of Nazi Germany. Production of military equipment grew steadily, and in the pre-war years the economy became progressively more oriented toward military production. In the early 1930s, a very modern operational doctrine for the Red Army was developed and promulgated in the 1936 field regulations.
Development of the armed forces of the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1941 | January 1, 1939 | June 22, 1941 | 1941/1939 % |
|---|
| Divisions calculated | 131.5 | 316.5 | 240.7 |
| Personnel | 2,485,000 | 5,774,000 | 232.4 |
| Guns and mortars | 55,800 | 117,600 | 210.7 |
| Tanks | 21,100 | 25,700 | 121.8 |
| Aircraft | 7,700 | 18,700 | 242.8 |
In 1941, the Soviet armed forces in the western districts were outnumbered by their German counterparts. The overall size of the Soviet armed forces in early July 1941, though, amounted to a little more than 5 million men, which was more than the German land forces deployed for Barbarossa. Moreover, on
mobilisation the Red Army gained steadily in strength, and it could also deploy a greater share of that strength on this front than the Germans. While the strength of both sides varied, in general it is accurate to say that the 1941 campaign was fought on terms of approximate numerical parity.
In some key weapons systems, however, the Soviet numerical advantage was considerable. In tanks, for example, the Red Army had a large superiority. The Red Army possessed about 24,000 tanks overall, of which about 12,782 were in the five Western Military Districts . The German Wehrmacht had about 5,200 tanks overall, of which 3,350 were committed to the invasion. This yields a balance of immediately-available tanks of approximately 4:1 in the Red Army's favor. The most advanced Soviet tank, the
T-34, was the most modern in the world; the
BT-8 was the fastest. The number of
artillery pieces and aircraft was also heavily in the Soviets' favor, and the
A-19 field gun was arguably the best in the world. The most advanced Soviet tank models were not available in large numbers early in the war, modern tanks only accounted for 5% of the total Soviet tank park. However, in the first half of 1941, 100% of tanks and 87% of combat aircraft produced by the Soviet industry were modern design. But the Axis had a greater amount of
small arms.
The Soviet numerical advantage was also more than offset by the greatly superior average quality of German planes along with the much superior training and readiness of German forces. The Soviet officer corps and high command had been decimated by Stalin's Great Purge , during which almost one-third of experienced
Red Army officers and almost all of its generals were
executed or shipped to
Siberia, replaced with officers deemed more "politically reliable." Three of the five pre-war
Marshals and about two-thirds of the Corps and Division commanders were shot. This often left younger, less well-trained officers in their places; for example, in 1941, seventy-five percent of Red Army officers had held their posts for less than one year. The average Soviet
Corps commander was 12 years younger than the average German
Division commander. These officers tended to be very reluctant to take the initiative and often lacked the training necessary for their jobs.
Most Soviet units were on a peacetime footing, explaining why
aviation units had their aircraft parked in closely-bunched neat rows, rather than dispersed, making easy targets for German ground-attack aircraft in the first days of the conflict. The
Red air force was forbidden to shoot down German
reconnaissance aircraft despite hundreds of pre-war flights into USSR airspace. The Soviet fighter force was equipped with large numbers of obsolescent aircraft, such as the
I-15 biplane and the
I-16, and only a few of the newer MiG and
LaGG fighters. Few aircraft had
radios and those that were available were unencrypted and did not work reliably; air combat tactics were primitive.
The
Red Army was dispersed and unprepared, and units were often separated and without transportation to concentrate prior to combat. Although the Red Army had numerous, well-designed artillery pieces, many of the guns had no ammunition. Artillery units often lacked transportation to move their guns. Tank units were large and well-equipped, but lacked training and logistical support. Maintenance standards were very poor. Units were sent into combat with no arrangements for refuelling, ammunition resupply, or personnel replacement. Often, after a single engagement, units were destroyed or rendered ineffective. The Army was in the midst of reorganizing the armor units into large Tank Corps, adding to the disorganization.
As a result, although on paper the Red Army in 1941 seemed at least the equal of the German army, the reality in the field was far different; incompetent officers, as well as partial lack of equipment, insufficient motorised logistical support, and poor training placed the Red Army at a severe disadvantage. For example, throughout the campaign, the Red Army lost about six tanks for every German tank lost.
Counterarguments to this interpretation are available in the book
Icebreaker, by former
GRU defector
Viktor Suvorov. This book argues that Soviet ground forces were extremely well organized, and were mobilizing
en masse all along the German-Soviet border for a Soviet invasion of Europe slated for Sunday July 6, 1941. The German
Barbarossa, he claims, actually was a pre-emptive strike that capitalized on the massive Soviet troop concentrations immediately on Germany's borders. Suvorov argues therefore that Soviet troop concentrations on Germany's borders were offensive in nature, not defensive as usually described. His interpretation has been thoroughly rejected by various respected historians, in particular David Glantz, and has not found serious support among Western academic historians. However, in Eastern Europe and in Russia, the debate over the nature of the German-Soviet conflict goes on. A serious study by Russian military historian Mikhail Meltyukhov supports the claim that Soviet forces were concentrating in order to attack Germany. However, he rejects the statement that the German invasion was a pre-emptive strike: Meltyukhov believes both sides were preparing for the assault but neither believed in the possibility of an attack by the other side.
Soviet propaganda in pre-war years, of course, invariably stated that the Red Army was very strong and could easily defeat any aggressor.
Having fielded officers who were certain to tell him only what he wanted to hear, together with having an ill-founded confidence in the non-aggression pact, Stalin was led to believe that the position of the Soviet Union in early 1941 was much stronger than it actually was. In the spring of 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services made regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack. Stalin's belief in his officers and military strength was so strong that he and his general staff, although acknowledging the possibility of an attack in general and making significant preparations, decided not to run the risk of provoking Hitler. Consequently, the Soviet border troops were not put on full alert and even forbidden to fire back without permission when attacked — though a partial alert was implemented on April 10 — they were simply not ready when the German attack came. This may be the source of the argument cited above by Viktor Suvorov. Stalin also refused to fully mobilise the army.
Nevertheless, enormous Soviet forces were massed behind the western border in case the Germans did attack. However, these forces were very vulnerable due to changes in the
tactical doctrine of the Red Army. In 1938 it had adopted, on the instigation of General Pavlov, a standard linear defence tactic on a line with other nations.
Infantry divisions, reinforced by an organic tank component, would be dug in to form heavily fortified zones. Then came the shock of the
Fall of France. The French Army, considered the second strongest in the world , was defeated in a mere six weeks. Soviet analysis of events, based on incomplete information, concluded that the collapse of the French was caused by a reliance on linear defence and a lack of armoured reserves. The Soviets decided not to repeat these mistakes. Instead of digging in for linear defence, the infantry divisions would henceforth be concentrated in large mobile formations. All tanks would also be concentrated into 31 gigantic mechanised corps, each planned to be larger than a German Panzer Army . Should the Germans attack, their armoured spearheads would be cut off and wiped out by the mechanised corps. These would then cooperate with the infantry armies to drive back the German infantry, vulnerable in its approach march. The Soviet left wing, in Ukraine, was to be enormously reinforced to be able to execute a strategic envelopment: after destroying German Army Group South it would swing north through Poland in the back of Army Groups Centre and North. Then the complete annihilation of the encircled German Army would be inevitable, followed by the triumphant liberation of Europe.
Strength of the opposing forces on the Soviet Western border. June 22 1941Officially accepted numbers are given in general-corporal G. Krivosheev's study "Russia and the USSR in the XXth Century. Military losses" ..
| Germany and Allies | Soviet Army | Ratio |
|---|
| Divisions | 181 | 167 | 1.08:1 |
| Personnel | 5.5 mil | 2.9 mil | 1.90 : 1 |
| Guns and mortars | 47,200 | 32,900 | 1.43 : 1 |
| Tanks | 4,300 | 14,200 | 0.30 : 1 |
| Aircraft | 5,000 | 9,200 | 0.54 : 1 |
Mikhail Meltyukhov, a Russian historian, gives different numbers in his study:
| Germany and Allies | Red Army | Ratio |
|---|
| Divisions | 166 | 190 | 0.87 : 1 |
| Personnel | 4,306,800 | 3,289,851 | 1.3 : 1 |
| Guns and mortars | 42,601 | 59,787 | 0.7 : 1 |
| Tanks | 4,171 | 15,687 | 0.27 : 1 |
| Aircraft | 4,846 | 10,743 | 0.45 : 1 |
Source: Mikhail Meltyukhov “Stalin's Missed Chance” table 47,
The attack of June 22
At 4:45 am on June 22, 1941, the
Axis attacked. It is difficult to precisely pinpoint the strength of the opposing sides in this initial phase, as most German figures include reserves slated for the East but not yet committed, as well as several other issues of comparability between the two sides' figures. A reasonable estimate is however that roughly 2.6 million German soldiers went into action on 22 June, and that they were facing a roughly similar number of Soviet troops in the border Military Districts. The contribution of the German allies would generally only begin to make itself felt somewhat further into the campaign. The surprise was complete:
Stavka, alarmed by reports that German units approached the border in battle deployment, had at 00:30 AM ordered to warn the border troops that war was imminent, but not a single unit was alerted in time.
The shock of impact stemmed less from the timing of the attack however than from the sheer number of Axis troops who struck into Soviet territory all at once. Aside from the roughly 3.2 million German land forces engaged in or earmarked for the Eastern campaign, some hundreds of thousands of Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian and Italian troops eventually accompanied the German forces, while
Finland made a major contribution in the North. The Soviet forces directly facing them were reinforced on such a scale that their strength had grown from roughly 2.6 million men on 22 June to more than 4 million by year's end, despite having had to make good more than 4.5 million casualties of all types.
At first, the speed of the German attack made all of the Soviet defensive plans useless. Lack of radios and other communications equipment caused a great deal of Soviet orders to be out-of-date.
Further complicating the Soviet position, on 22 June the anti-Soviet June Uprising in
Lithuania began, and on the next day an independent Lithuania was proclaimed. An estimated 30,000 Lithuanian rebels engaged Soviet forces, joined by ethnic Lithuanians from the Red Army. As the Germans reached further North, armed resistance against Soviets broke out in Estonia as well.
Later events
While initially successful, the Germans ultimately ran out of time — by the time they
reached the outskirts of Moscow in early December, the Russian winter had set in. It is often argued that the fatal decision of the operation was the postponement from the original date of May 15 because Hitler wanted to intervene against an anti-German coup in
Yugoslavia and Greek advances against
Mussolini's Italy in
Albania. This cut five weeks off the already short Russian summer. However, this was just one of the reasons for the postponement — the other was the late spring of 1941 in Russia, compounded by particularly rainy weather during June 1941 which made a number of roads in western parts of the Soviet Union impassable to heavy vehicles. During the campaign, Hitler ordered the main thrust toward Moscow to be diverted southward in order to help the southern army group capture
Ukraine. This move delayed the assault on the Soviet capital, although it also helped to secure Army Group Center's southern flank. By the time they turned their sights on Moscow, the fierce resistance of the Red Army, assisted by the mud following the autumn rains and eventually the winter snowfall, ground their advance to a halt.
In addition, resistance by the Soviets, who proclaimed a
Great Patriotic War in defence of the motherland, was much fiercer than German command had expected. The border fortress of
Brest, Belarus illustrates that tenacity: attacked on the very first day of the German invasion, the fortress was expected to be captured by surprise within hours, but held out for four days . German
logistics also became a major problem, as supply lines became very long and vulnerable to
Soviet partisan attacks in the rear. The Soviets carried out a
scorched earth policy on any land they were forced to abandon, in order to deny the Germans the use of food, fuel, and buildings.
Despite these setbacks, the Germans continued to advance, often destroying or surrounding whole armies of Soviet troops and forcing them into surrender. The battle for
Kiev was especially brutal. In mid-October, Army Group South seized control of Kiev, and took more than 650,000 Soviet prisoners. Kiev was later awarded the title
Hero City for its heroic defence.
Army Group North, which was to conquer the
Baltic countries and eventually
Leningrad, advanced as far as the southern outskirts of Leningrad by August 1941. There, fierce Soviet resistance stopped it. Since capturing the city seemed too costly, German command decided to starve the city to death by a blockade, starting the
Siege of Leningrad. The city held out, despite several attempts by the Germans to break through its defenses, unrelenting air and artillery attacks, and severe shortage of food and fuel, until the Germans were driven back again from the city's approaches in early 1944. Leningrad was the first Soviet city to receive the title Hero City.
In addition to the main attacks of Barbarossa, German forces occupied Finnish Petsamo in order to secure important nickel mines. They also launched the beginning of a series of attacks against Murmansk on June 28 1941. That assault was known as
Operation Silberfuchs.
Causes of initial Soviet defeats
The overall reason that the Soviet Army was so badly defeated in 1941 was a German surprise attack for which they were ill-prepared.
The German armed forces were, in 1941, the most experienced and well-trained in the world. They had a doctrine of mobility and annihilation, excellent communications and the confidence that comes from repeated low-cost victories. The Soviet armed forces, in contrast, lacked leadership, training, and readiness. Much of their planning assumed that no war would take place before 1942; thus the German attack came at a time when new organizations and promising, but untested, weapons were just beginning to trickle into operational units. Also, a large part of the Soviet Army in Europe was concentrated along the new western Soviet border in former Polish territory, which lacked significant defences, so it was overrun and destroyed in the first weeks of war. Initially, many Soviet units were also hampered by
Timoshenko and
Zhukov's prewar orders of non-engaging and "non-responding to provocations", followed by the first reaction "stand-and-fight-then-counterattack" order from Moscow , a lack of experienced officers, and bureaucratic inertia.
The initial tactical errors of the Soviets in the first few weeks of the German offensive proved catastrophic. Initially, the Red Army was fooled by a complete overestimation of its own capabilities. The Mechanised Corps, far from wiping out the German Panzer Divisions, were ambushed and were themselves destroyed after
Luftwaffe dive bombers inflicted heavy losses. Soviet tanks, poorly maintained and driven by inexperienced drivers, also suffered from an appalling breakdown rate. A lack of spare parts and trucks ensured a logistical collapse. The decision not to dig in the infantry divisions proved disastrous. Without tanks and lacking sufficient motorisation, Soviet troops were incapable of waging mobile maneuver warfare against the Germans.
Then Stalin issued orders to his troops not to retreat or surrender, resulting in a return to static linear positions which the German tanks still easily breached, again quickly cutting supply lines and surrounding whole Soviet armies. Only later did Stalin allow his troops to retreat to the rear wherever possible and regroup to mount a defence in depth or to counterattack. More than 2.4 million Soviet troops had been taken prisoner by December 1941, when German and Soviet forces fought in the suburbs of Moscow.
Despite the German failure to achieve Barbarossa's initial goals, the huge Soviet losses caused a shift in Soviet propaganda. Whereas in pre-war years the government had stated that the Soviet army was very strong, by autumn it took the line that the Soviet army had been weak, that there had not been enough time to prepare for war, and that the German attack had come as a surprise, etc.
An alternative explanation is given by
Viktor Suvorov in his book
Icebreaker, where Suvorov depicts the war as being intentionally facilitated by Stalin. This claim is strongly disputed and is generally considered by Western historians to be without factual basis. Nevertheless, Russian historian Boris Sokolov exploring the pre-war Soviet planning has also concluded that after the German invasion on June 22, 1941, the counterblows were undertaken by the Red Army within the framework of the planned offensive operations, and the subsequent defensive operations of the Red Army, in the view of the absence of pre-war defensive plans, were improvised. Hence the initial gigantic defeats.
Outcome
The climax of Operation Barbarossa came when Army Group Centre, already short on supplies because of the October mud, was ordered to advance on Moscow; forward units came within sight of the spires of
the Kremlin in early December 1941. This was as close as they would ever get, for Stalin's troops, well supplied and reinforced by
fresh divisions from Siberia, defended Moscow ferociously in the
Battle of Moscow, and drove the Germans back as the winter advanced. Not surprisingly, the bulk of the counter-offensive was directed at Army Group Center, which was closest to Moscow. Moscow later also received the distinction of
Hero City.
With no shelter, few supplies, inadequate winter clothing, chronic food shortages, and nowhere to go, German troops had no choice but to wait out the winter in the frozen wasteland. The Germans managed to avoid being routed by Soviet counterattacks but suffered heavy casualties from battle and from exposure.
At the time, the seizure of Moscow was considered the key to victory for Germany. Historians currently debate whether or not loss of the Soviet capital would have caused the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Operation Barbarossa failed to achieve that goal. In December 1941, war was declared against the
United States. Within six months, the strategic position of Germany had become desperate, since German military industries were unprepared for a long war.
The outcome of Operation Barbarossa was at least as detrimental to the Soviets as it was to the Germans, however. Although the Germans had failed to take Moscow outright, they held huge areas of the western Soviet Union, including the entire regions of what are now Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic states, plus parts of Russia proper west of Moscow. The Germans held up to 500,000 sq.mi. of territory with over 75 million people at the end of 1941, and would go on to seize another 250,000 sq. mi. before being forced to retreat after military defeats such as Stalingrad and Kursk. In all the occupied areas, anti-German partisan activity rapidly escalated, and so did brutal German reprisals. The Germans also held on as stubbornly as possible in the face of Soviet counterattacks, resulting in huge casualties on each side in many battles.
The war on the Eastern Front went on for four bloody years. The death toll may never be established with any degree of certainty. Estimates of Soviet military deaths alone vary from roughly 8.5 million to as much as 15 million. Soviet civilian deaths remain under contention, though roughly 20 million is a frequently cited figure. German military deaths are also not clarified to a large extent. The highest and most recent estimate concluded that about 4.3 million Germans and a further 900,000 Axis forces lost their lives either in combat or in Soviet captivity.
Stalin deported to labour camps German POWs and Soviet soldiers who had been captured by Germans. Ethnic groups were also deported
en masse to the east and to concentration camps. Examples include: in September 1941, 439,000
Volga Germans were deported mainly to Kazakstan as their
autonomous republic was abolished by
Stalin's decree; in May 1944, 182,000
Crimean Tatars were deported from the Crimea to Uzbekistan; and the complete deportation of Chechens and Ingushs to Kazakstan took place in 1944 .
Causes of the failure of Operation Barbarossa
The main causes of German failure were the underestimated capabilities of the Soviet Union and the fierce resistance of the Soviet Army. Also, German war planners failed to create coherent, mutually supporting phased goals, and relied on hugely inadequate logistical schemes.
The grave situation in which the beleaguered German army found itself towards the end of 1941 was due to the increasing strength of the Red Army, compounded by a number of factors which in the short run severely restricted the effectiveness of the German forces. Chief among these were their overstretched deployment, a serious transport crisis affecting supply and movement, extreme weather and the eroded strength of most divisions. The infantry deficit that appeared by 1 September 1941 was never made good. For the rest of the war in the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht would be short of infantry and support services.
Parallels have been drawn with
Napoleon's invasion of Russia.
Underestimated Soviet potential
The Germans had grossly underestimated the mobilisation potential of the
Red Army: its primary mobilisation size was about twice as large as they had expected. By early August, new armies had taken the place of the destroyed ones. This fact alone implied the failure of Operation Barbarossa, for the Germans now had to limit their operations for a month to bring up new supplies, leaving only six weeks to complete the battle before the start of the mud season, an impossible task. On the other hand, the Red Army proved capable of replacing its huge losses in a timely fashion, and was not destroyed as a coherent force. When the divisions consisting of conscripts trained before the war were destroyed, they were replaced by new ones, on average about half a million men being drafted each month for the duration of the war. It was this Soviet ability to mobilise vast forces within a short time and on a continual basis which allowed the Soviet Union to survive the critical first six months of the war, and the grave underestimation of this capacity which rendered German planning unrealistic.
In addition, data collected by Soviet intelligence excluded the possibility of a war with Japan, which allowed the Soviets to transfer forces from the Far East to the European theatre.
And even if the Germans had fulfilled the original plan—reached the
Arkhangelsk–
Volga line—it probably would not have ended the war. The Soviet Union still had vast reserves in the eastern part of the country and managed to move its war industry to the Urals,
Central Asia, and
Siberia, so the war could have continued for a long time.
Faults of logistical planning
The objectives of Operation Barbarossa were quite unrealistic from the very beginning. The start of the war, in the dry summer, was the most favorable for the Germans, as they took the Soviets by surprise and destroyed a large part of the Soviet army in the first weeks. When favorable weather conditions gave way to the harsh conditions of the fall and winter and the Soviet Army recovered, the German offensive began to falter. The German army could not be sufficiently supplied for prolonged combat; indeed there was simply not enough fuel available to let the whole of the army reach its intended objectives.
This was well understood by the German supply units even before the operation, but their warnings were disregarded. The entire German plan was based on the premise that within five weeks the German troops would have attained full strategic freedom due to a complete collapse of the Red Army. Only then would it have been possible to divert necessary logistic support to the fuel requirements of the few mobile units needed to occupy the defeated state.
German infantry and tanks stormed 300 miles ahead in the first week, but their supply lines struggled to keep up. Russian railroads could at first not be used due to a difference in railway gauges, until a sufficient supply of trains was seized. The railroad tracks and convoys of slow-moving vehicles were also favorite targets of
Soviet partisans, although partisan activity was still low in 1941. Lack of supplies significantly slowed down the
blitzkrieg is a popular name for an offensive operational-level [i] military doctrine [i]...
.
The German logistical planning also seriously overestimated the condition of the Soviet transportion network. The road and railway network of former Eastern Poland was well known, but beyond that information was limited. Roads that looked impressive on maps turned out to be just mere dust roads or were only in the planning stages.
Weather
Probably no other factor has been as misunderstood as the effect of the weather on the German invasion. Weather is a neutral factor in warfare. The side that is best prepared to use weather conditions will gain the advantage; the side that ignores it will suffer accordingly. The underestimated strength of the Soviet Army brought about the peril of unfavourable weather.
An American military study has concluded that : Hitler's plans also miscarried
before the onset of severe winter weather; he was so confident of a lightning victory that he did not prepare for even the possibility of winter warfare in the Soviet Union. Yet his eastern army suffered more than 734,000 casualties during the first five months of the invasion, and on 27 November 1941, General Eduard Wagner, the Quartermaster General of the German Army, reported that "We are at the end of our resources in both personnel and materiel. We are about to be confronted with the dangers of deep winter."
The German forces were not prepared to deal with harsh weather and the poor road network of the USSR. In autumn, the terrain slowed the Wehrmacht’s progress. Few roads were paved. The ground in the USSR was either a very loose sand in the summer, a sticky muck in the autumn, or heavy snow during the winter. The German tanks had narrow treads that gave little traction and poor flotation in mud. In contrast, the new generation of Soviet tanks such as the
T-34 and
KV were far more mobile. The 600,000 large western European horses the Germans used for supply and artillery movement did not cope well with this weather. The small ponies used by the Red Army were much better adapted to this climate and could even scrape the icy ground with their hooves to dig up the weed beneath.
German troops were mostly unprepared for the harsh weather changes in autumn and winter 1941. Equipment had been prepared for such winter conditions, but the ability to move it up front over the severely overstrained transport network did not exist. Consequently, the troops were not equipped with adequate cold-weather gear, and some soldiers had to pack newspapers into their jackets to stay warm while temperatures dropped to record levels of at least -30 °C. To operate furnaces and heaters, the Germans also burned precious fuel that was difficult to re-supply. Soviet soldiers often had warm, quilted uniforms, felt-lined boots, and fur hats.
Some German weapons also malfunctioned in the cold. Lubricating oils were unsuitable for extreme cold weather, with the result that engines malfunctioned and automatic weapons would not fire. To load shells into a tank’s main gun, frozen grease had to be chipped off with a knife. Soviet units faced less severe problems due to their experience with cold weather. Aircraft were supplied with insulating blankets to keep their engines warm while parked. Lighter-weight oil was used.
Gasoline, which powered all German tanks and most of their trucks, was subject to freezing in the harsh winters. Most Soviet trucks and pre-war tanks also used gasoline, but
diesel fuel used in the new-generation of Soviet tanks did not freeze in winter.
A common myth is that the combination of deep mud, followed by snow, stopped all military movement in the harsh Russian winter. In fact, military operations were slowed by these factors, but much more so on the German side than on the Soviet side. The Soviet December 1941 counteroffensive advanced up to 100 miles in some sectors, demonstrating that mobile warfare was still possible under winter conditions.
When the severe winter began, Hitler became fearful of a repeat of Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow, and quickly ordered the German forces to hold their ground defiantly wherever possible in the face of Soviet counterattacks. This became known as the "stand or die" order. This prevented the Germans from being routed, but resulted in heavy casualties from battle and the cold.
See also
- Eastern Front
- Continuation War, the war at Finnish front
- Operation Silberfuchs, the attack on the Soviet Arctic.
- Molotov Line, main Soviet defence line at the start of Operation Barbarossa.
- Operation Nördlich, German attack against Leningrad.
- Operation Blaufuchs, German-Finnish general operational plans.
- Operation Lachsfang, the German-Finnish attack against the Murmansk-Soroka railway line.
- Jänisjärvi Offensive, Finnish strike against Russians in Ladoga Karelia, in July 10 1941.
- Captured Tanks and Armoured cars for German use in Russian Front
- Captured German equipment in Soviet use in Eastern front
References
Footnotes
Further reading
External links
- and on a US Army website
- - Covers the invasion of Russia including Operation Barbarossa
- - Detailed analysis of the operation by author Bevin Alexander.
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