H112RB-CPY

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US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Common Core H100: History, Theory, Doctrine, Practice H112: Barbarossa to Kursk: The Limits of Blitzkrieg Reading H112RB The German Invasion, 1941 by Jonathan M. House Adolf Hitler had always intended to attack the Soviet Union, both to eliminate any threat to Germany and to fulfill his political goals of defeating “Jewish Bolshevism” while expanding Germany’s population and economy eastward. By 1940, Germany was increasingly dependent on raw materials provided by the Soviets, and in fact Germany was running a serious trade deficit with its eastern neighbor. At the time, Stalin was more than willing to trade raw materials and food for German technology, but the Germans could not expect this relationship to continue indefinitely. Having become accustomed to controlling the economy of both their own nation and their satellites, various German leaders were irritated by their inability to dictate the terms of their trade with the Soviets. They believed they could extract more resources by occupying European Russia, although these plans implied starvation for the local population. 1 Thus for political, economic, and ideological reasons, a German attack on the Soviet Union was almost inevitable. This did not mean, however, that the German dictator had a rigid timetable or master plan for such an attack; throughout his career Hitler followed his instinct to exploit perceived opportunities as those opportunities arose. After the fall of France in June 1940, Hitler and many of his subordinates expected Great Britain to make peace. When London failed to fulfill this expectation, Hitler rapidly concluded that the only thing motivating the British to continue fighting was the prospect, however remote, of the Soviet Union and/or the United States entering the war against Germany. In Hitler’s mind, this was one more reason to strike quickly and eliminate any threat of Soviet intervention. Thus on 31 July 1940, even before the Luftwaffe’s failure in the Battle of Britain, Hitler directed the start of planning for an attack eastward. 2 Based on the Red Army’s dismal performance against Poland and Finland, Hitler and his generals anticipated little trouble in defeating the Soviet foe. Although the Germans may not have been aware of the full extent of the Red Army’s woes, that force was obviously suffering from the effects of a massive purge of its officer corps, compounded in 1939–1941 by frequent changes in organization, doctrine, and equipment. The bulk of its tanks and combat aircraft were poorly maintained, obsolescent vehicles produced in the mid-1930s; few crews were qualified to operate the trickle of more modern equipment produced in the months before the German attack. The Red Army of 1941 was a force caught in the midst of multiple transitions, a force whose very survival in the face of the German onslaught would be a miracle. In contemplating their future opponent, however, the German leaders made two basic errors. First, because they loathed Bolshevism, they assumed that the Soviet regime enjoyed very little support and would crumble at the first setback. Indeed, it was on this basis that most German generals wanted to focus on Moscow, believing that Stalin’s government would not survive the loss of the traditional capital of House, Jonathan M. “The German Invasion, 1941.” Unpublished, 2012, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Department of Military History, US Army Command and General Staff College. Author's permission affirmed. CGSC Copyright Registration #22-189 E H112RB-577

Russia. In making these assumptions, the Germans failed to anticipate both Stalin’s skill in using nationalism to unite his people against the invader and their own failure in alienating Ukrainians, Byelorussians, and other ethnic groups who were initially disposed to reject the Soviet government and aid the attackers. In fact, the German plan to extract large supplies of raw materials and food from the former Soviet territories would obviously discourage the local population from cooperating with the occupiers. The second German intelligence error was to underestimate the mobilization capacity of the Soviet state. The German plan, as will be seen below, assumed that the attackers would destroy the bulk of the Red Army in a short series of encirclement battles near the western borders of the USSR. Although the Wehrmacht achieved victories that exceeded even its own expectations, the Soviets had such vast pools of trained manpower that, by 1 December 1941, Moscow had created 194 new divisions and 84 separate brigades to replace the 100-plus divisions lost in battle. 3 Many of these units were short of equipment and training, but they systematically attrited the invader. Similar prodigies of effort enabled Stalin to relocate more than 1,500 factories beyond the reach of the invaders. German Planning Hitler approved Führer Directive No. 21, Operation B ARBAROSSA , on 18 December 1940. 4 Although German mountain troops (based in Norway) and the Finnish army would attack the Soviet far north, the principal battles would be fought by three army groups, of which two (Army Groups North and Center) would operate north of the vast Pripiat’ Marshes that divided the theater horizontally into two parts. In total, at least 152 German divisions, including 19 panzer and 15 motorized infantry divisions, were massed in the east. The cutting edge of this army was composed of the four panzer groups (later re- designated panzer armies), of which the Fourth was allocated to Field Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb’s Army Group North, the Third and Second to Field Marshal Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center, and the First to Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt’s Army Group South. Rundstedt also controlled a Hungarian corps and 14 brigade-size Romanian divisions. Overall, the Germans had 3,350 tanks, 7,200 artillery pieces, and 2,770 aircraft. The initial invasion force included just over 3,000,000 Germans, plus about 600,000 allied troops. 5 The intent of the B ARBAROSSA plan was to capture or destroy the mass of the Red Army by encirclements within a few hundred kilometers of the border, after which a smaller force would advance to eliminate remaining resistance and occupy most of European Russia. The ultimate objective was stated to be “to screen European against Asiatic Russia along the course of the Volga [River],” pushing any residual Soviet air elements beyond the range where they might bomb German territory. 6 In a 1 December briefing, the OKH (Army General Staff) presented its operations concept to implement this loosely worded strategy. Based on detailed army war games, the army chief of staff, Franz Halder, attempted to convince Hitler that the operational objective of the campaign should be Moscow, the political hub of the Soviet Union; the ultimate goal would be to control the area west of a line running roughly from Archangel to the Volga River. Confident that the Germans could conquer anything they wished, Hitler neither accepted nor rejected these goals. Instead, he placed great emphasis on destroying the Red Army before it could retreat, and then seizing economic targets on the northern and southern flanks such as the agricultural center of the Ukraine and the relatively industrialized areas along the Baltic Sea coast. In addition, both Hitler and the army planners assumed that the German army was so strong that Army Group Center, making the main effort, could be diverted periodically to assist in encirclements on the flanks. 7 Unfortunately, the same supply shortages that helped motivate the German invasion would also hobble the execution of B ARBAROSSA . The vast distances involved in European Russia far exceeded H112RB-578

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anything which the German supply and maintenance system had faced in previous campaigns, and posed a huge drain on the limited German petroleum supply. In November 1940, the army quartermaster general, Major General Edouard Wagner, presented his logistical calculations to General Halder. Wagner estimated that the army had sufficient fuel to advance to a maximum depth of only 500–800 kilometers, with enough food and ammunition for a twenty-day operation. After that, Wagner concluded, the army would have to pause for several weeks for resupply, and would be dependent on the captured Soviet rail network to support a deeper penetration. Yet the entire Soviet Union had only about 82,000 kilometers of railroad, all of it on a wider gauge than that in Germany and Eastern Europe. Thus, Wagner noted, Germany would have to use prisoner and local labor to rebuild the track bed before European-gauge trains could resupply the German Army. 8 In this regard, it is worth noting that the territory west of Moscow, where Halder wished to make the main effort, offered much less opportunity for “living off the land” than Hitler’s preferred objectives in the south. In short, Germany began B ARBAROSSA with a set of strategic goals that were poorly articulated into operational objectives, that were the subject of debate within the high command, and that were in any event beyond the logistical capability of the Wehrmacht . Instead of adjusting their objectives to their capabilities, the Germans pursued a set of divergent goals that might well have been beyond their reach even if they had succeeded in eliminating the Red Army. German Forces Still, the German armed forces seemed ready for this operation. Although the Luftwaffe had suffered a severe check in the Battle of Britain, it remained a formidable tactical air force. The German army appeared to be at the peak of its form, filled with combat veterans who had largely perfected mass maneuver warfare at high tempo. In fact, however, that army had a number of weaknesses. In preparation for B ARBAROSSA , the number of panzer divisions had almost doubled, while simultaneously the oldest, least capable tanks, including all Panzer Is and most Panzer IIs, were withdrawn from first-line units. In addition, the Germans had to take cadres and entire tank battalions from the existing divisions in order to create these new units. Instead of three to four tank battalions per division as in previous campaigns, eleven of the nineteen panzer divisions that attacked in 1941 had only two battalions each. 9 The resulting units probably had a better balance between the combat arms, including a higher proportion of motorized infantry and artillery than the original panzer divisions, but this process disrupted the unit cohesion of those older, more experienced divisions. Moreover, German industrial production was not equal to the new requirements, both because of raw materials shortages and because Hitler the politician was reluctant to impose full economic mobilization on Germany. As a result, German force developers resorted to various expedients to equip new organizations. Entire divisions, such as the 11th Panzer, consisted of captured French trucks and tanks, even though these vehicles were not designed to support the German concept of operations. Shortages of trucks and other vehicles hampered the training of the newer units. The German maintenance system, already challenged by the vast distances of the Soviet Union, found itself further hampered by the variety of foreign-made equipment, much of which came without repair parts or appropriate tools. The Wehrmacht entered the Soviet Union with more than 2,000 different types of vehicles, and began losing those vehicles to mechanical breakdown within the first few days. Despite all these stopgap measures, the Germans were short some 2,700 trucks even before the invasion began. 10 It is also worth remembering that the panzer and motorized units made up less than 20 percent of the German army. The remaining divisions differed little in their equipment from their counterparts of 1918, being essentially foot-mobile with horse-drawn artillery and supply columns. In theory, each division had a limited number of motor vehicles for command, signal, and mobile antitank defense, but given the shortages of such vehicles throughout the army, horses often had to make up the difference. As in the H112RB-580

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