Meanwhile, under the terms of the German-Soviet trade agreement
of August 19, 1939, the Soviet government furnished Germany large
quantities of wheat, oil, and minerals, becoming thus, in a sense,
the "arsenal of dictatorship," just as the United States
became the "arsenal of democracy." The Soviet government
also gave loyal diplomatic support to Germany by expelling from
Moscow the envoys of the countries which Germany had overrun and
by recognizing the puppet governments which Germany had set up.
The unexpected rapid collapse of France startled the Soviet leaders
because it left Russia alone on the continent with a powerful
Germany. while the attention of the world was focused on the final
phases of the struggle in the West, the Soviet government moved
quickly to consolidate its position in the east-in the Baltic
states and Rumania.
The Soviet government had not consulted the German government
before making these moves. Hitler was angered particularly by
the Soviet encroachments in Rumania, on which Germany counted
for filling a substantial part of her needs in oil and wheat.
A frankly fascist regime was organized by General Antonescu, which
permitted the Germans to send in troops to "protect"
the Ploesti oil fields in October 1940. Russia was thus blocked
from access to the Balkans. However, at the same time an Italian
blunder opened them to the British.
In October 1940 Mussolini decided to have a little adventure of
his own. Without consulting Berlin and without any provocation,
he declared war on Greece. The Italian army invaded Greece from
Albania, the Italian air force bombarded her cities, and the Italian
navy attacked her shipping. The pro-Axis dictator of Greece, General
Metaxas, was forced to accept British assistance. The Greek army,
however, proved perfectly capable of taking care of itself. Not
only did it succeed in containing the Italian invasion, but in
a difficult winter campaign hurled them back and invaded Albania
in its turn.
The foothold gained by the British in Greece disquieted Hitler.
Raging against the ineptitude of his Italian partner, he ordered
the preparation of operation "Marita," the invasion
of the Balkans, to be undertaken in the spring of 1941. Before
undertaking this operation, Hitler wished to ascertain the attitude
of Russia. On his summons, the Soviet Foreign Commissar Molotov
arrived in Berlin for discussions (November 12-14, 1940).
During the conversations, which were interrupted by a British
air raid sending the Soviet and Nazi dignitaries scurrying for
the safety of an air-raid shelter, Hitler suggested that Russia
join the German-Italian Pact of Steel. but the negotiation over
spoils bugged down. So, on December 18, 1940, Hitler ordered the
preparation of operation "Barbarossa," the invasion
of Russia.
The decision to attack Russia added a reason to secure the right
wing of the German army by sweeping the British out of the Balkans-which
the Germans proceeded to do in April 1941. Having cleaned up the
Balkans wing, they turned to the main business of invading Russia.
At four AM, June 22, 1941, the German Panzers lumbered across
the Soviet border under a protective umbrella of the German Luftwaffe.
At the same hour, the German foreign minister informed the astonished
Soviet ambassador in Berlin that Germany was at war with Russia.
No Soviet provocation preceded the invasion. A few hours later,
speaking over the London radio, Prime Minister Churchill offered
Russia an alliance, and on July 13 Britain and Russia concluded
a mutual assistance pact, which was later transformed into a formal
Anglo-Soviet alliance valid for twenty years.
For three years Russia took on the brunt of German military power
largely alone. In her struggle with Germany Russia enjoyed one
advantage: Japanese neutrality. While Japan remained neutral toward
Russia, Germany's European allies and satellites all hastened
to declare war on her. The German propaganda, which represented
the German-Soviet war as an all-European crusade against communist
Russia, had a certain basis in fact.
A. The Offensive of 1941
The organization of Hitler's vast army could not be completely
concealed, but the Soviet government ignored warnings. It was
completely surprised by the German attack. The German plan was
to annihilate the Soviet Army in a few swift blows and to seize
the great Russian cities: Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev. After that,
the Germans expected, the Soviet government would surrender and
disintegrate. At first, their campaign proceeded "according
to plan"-to use the characteristic phrase of the German war
communiqués.
German armored divisions plunged deep into Russia and encircled
in great pincers movements Soviet army units, leaving them to
later destruction by conventional forces. City after city fell,
millions of Soviet soldiers were captured or killed, and vast
quantities of war supplies were lost. But, despite heavy losses,
the Soviet army retreated in good order. It had many natural advantages
for defense: the vastness of Russia, poor roads, and a climate
characterized by short, hot summers, separated from long, rigorous
winters by periods of thaw in the spring and rains in the fall,
when military operations had to be suspended.
Leningrad, Kiev, Moscow
By September 8, the Germans reached Leningrad in the north and
invested it. Hitler attached great psychological importance to
the capture of the city of Lenin-the "cradle of Bolshevism."
But the siege, marked by great heroism and harrowing suffering
on the part of the defenders, lasted 18 months, and the city was
never taken. In the south Kiev, the "Mother of Russian cities,"
fell to the Germans on October 18. But in the center the Germans
were then still 200 miles from Moscow. At the end of October,
despite the advanced season, they suspended major operations in
the north and south and made an all-out drive to the capital.
By the end of November, after fighting vast tank battles which
dwarfed the battles in the west of the previous year, the Germans
clawed their way to the suburbs of Moscow.
Soviet government bureaus and foreign embassies had already been
evacuated to Kuibyshev, some 500 miles to the east on the Volga.
Looting broke out in the semi-deserted city, which appeared doomed.
But Stalin and his associates were still in the Kremlin, planning
a counter-offensive. Marshal Timoshenko, an old civil war general,
in command of the defenses, was replaced with General George Zhukov,
one of the crop of younger commanders trained in Germany.
On December 6 Zhukov hurled fresh units from Siberia into he battle.
Soviet units all along the front went into an offensive and the
German lines wavered and fell back. Panic developed in German
headquarters, but Hitler assumed operational command and prevented
the retreat from turning into a rout by draconic stand-or-die
orders. The Germans withdrew into "hedgehog" positions-armed
camps bristling with defenses in all directions.
The severe winter took a heavy toll from the Germans, who had
expected to defeat the Russians before winter and were unprepared
for a winter campaign. At the same time they had to contend with
increasing guerrilla activities. If Hitler had come to Russia
as a liberator instead of as a conqueror, he might very well have
rallied much of the Soviet population against their communist
government.
War behind the Lines
However, like Napoleon in 1812, he preferred to rely on military
means alone to defeat Russia. Alfred Rosenberg, a Baltic German
and former Russian subject, who as a student at the University
of Moscow had witnessed the Russian Revolution, was appointed
commissioner of the occupied regions. He instituted harsh and
humiliating policies which alienated the Russian population. Old
churches, monasteries, palaces and the homes of Leo Tolstoy and
Peter Tchaikovsky were systematically and deliberately desecrated.
The Communist Party fought back by maintaining underground organizations
in the occupied regions which directed resistance against the
Germans. To prevent fraternization communist agents committed
deliberate outrages against the Germans, provoking them to brutal
reprisals against the population-taking and shooting of hostages,
burning of villages, deportations to concentration camps, or forced
labor in Germany. As a result of German shortsightedness and Soviet
cleverness, the Russian people rallied to the defense of the "Soviet
fatherland."
B. The Offensive of 1942
In the spring of 1942 the German army reorganized for a new
offensive, whose objective was to complete the conquest of the
Ukraine and to seize the Caucasus region as far as the Volga.
After that the Germans would be able to turn north or south, and
from the east outflank Moscow or the lands of the Near and Middle
East.
Stalingrad
Churning through the dust of southern Russia, the German armored
and motorized units reached Stalingrad on the right (western bank)
of the Volga by August 23. The conventional tactic for the Soviet
army to adopt would have been to retire to the left (eastern)
bank of the Volga and form a defensive line based on the river,
but this would have cut the Soviet supply of oil coming in tankers
across the Caspian Sea and up the Volga. There was also a psychological
factor, in that the city bore the name of Stalin and its fall
would have diminished the prestige of the dictator.
Defeat and Consequences
On his hold-or-die orders the Soviet army, strengthened by the
local population, clung to the city. The battle of Stalingrad-the
Verdun of World War II-got underway. As days, weeks, and months
went by, the battle increased in intensity. At first the Germans
and Russians fought over quarters of the city, then over streets,
and finally in fierce man-to-man combats over individual houses,
floors and rooms.
The city was reduced to a pile of rubble. As winter approached,
the German generals advised retreat, but Hitler, who had already
proclaimed Russia broken and defeated, would not hear of it-not
even when the Soviet army mounted an offensive to the north and
south of Stalingrad, broke through the German lines, and encircled
the German Sixth Army in front of the city-in November 1942.
The inevitable result of Hitler's folly came on February 1, 1943,
when Marshal von Paulus, twenty-four German and satellite generals,
and 91,000 Axis troops (of the original 330,000 trapped by the
Soviet army) surrendered. This catastrophe broke the offensive
power of the German Army. From this time on, the initiative on
the Eastern front was safely in the hands of the Soviet army.#
C. Road to Defeat: 1943
The early days and weeks of 1943 opened-as had 1942-with the
German Army in serious trouble. In the first winter its predicament
had arisen largely out of accident and miscalculation. In 1943
the causes were more serious, and more fundamental.
For over half its length, nearly six hundred miles, the front
had solidified. From the frozen Baltic, around the siege perimeter
at Leningrad, due south to Lake Ilmen, and across the pine forest
of the old Rzhev salient, and then down to Orel, the German front
had hardly altered in twelve months. Permanent emplacements of
logs and earth sheltered the soldiers; reinforced concrete protected
guns whose field of fire traversed enormous mine fields, laid
during spring and summer, while the earth was soft.
In these positions the "garrison" had a comfortable
enough time. Fuel was plentiful, clothing adequate, mail was delivered
regularly. Its situation is comparable to that of the Western
front in World War I between St. Mihiel and the Swiss frontier.
Its bitterest enemies were the terrible cold and the huge bands
of Partisans who roamed the desolate terrain, usually on horseback,
and came out of the freezing night to attack lonely German billets
far behind the lines. The front itself was often quiet for days
at a time. The Germans used it as a rest area for worn-out divisions,
the Russians as a training ground for new ones.
It was to the south, where the three great rivers of the Ukraine
flowed into the Black Sea, that the campaign was being decided.
Here, six months before, the Germans had deployed the flower of
their Army, and here it was now in headlong retreat. it had failed
to force an issue in its prime. How, weakening daily, could it
avoid annihilation?
For Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, as he considered this problem,
there was no comfort. The forces for which he had responsibility
were broken into three separate groups, each too far, and too
preoccupied with its own perils, to render the others mutual support.
With Paulus gone, German strength in south Russia was halved.
To the southeast, still deep in the Caucasus, Army Group A lingered
on, outside the scope of Manstein's direct command and alarmingly
vulnerable to Russian encirclement.
Manstein's own units, in Army Group Don, had taken such a battering
since November as to be hardly recognizable. Corps and divisions
had lost their identity; shot-up Panzers, anti-aircraft and Luftwaffe
remnants, had polarized around a few energetic commanders-Hollidt,
Mieth, Fretter-Pico, who gave their names to Gruppen responsible
for stretches of front up to a hundred miles long.
Nonetheless, the Germans' inferiority was not so great as they,
and the majority of Allied observers, believed it to be at the
time. Many of the factors present the previous winter had recurred-men
and machines had worn themselves down in the exertions of the
summer battles; winter equipment was still inadequate, for mobile
warfare at least; the tenacity and resilience of the Russian soldier
had again been underestimated-and these factors were transient.
As the Germans fell back on their railheads, if and when they
could gain time to breathe, when the temperature moderated, then
they might still expect their situation to improve.
The Russians now definitely had the stronger army-whereas in the
winter of 1941 they had never achieved more than a local numerical
superiority and owed their victory simply to the toughness and
bravery of the Red Army man and his personal ascendancy over the
individual German when the thermometer was 20 below. But equally
the Russians had inherited many of the weaknesses of the previous
period. They had brought two and a half million men into uniform
since the outbreak of war. They had lost over four million trained
soldiers. A ruthless standardization of equipment-two types of
trucks, two tanks, three artillery pieces-had allowed them to
raise production rates in spite of losing two thirds of their
factory space.
But of leaders to handle the new army there was a desperate scarcity.
Some were too cautious, others too headstrong, all compensated
for lack of experience with blind obedience to orders from above.
The result was that tactical flexibility and speed in exploitation
were far below the German standard. Only the artillery, some of
the cavalry, and a very few of the tank brigades truly merited
the "Guards" accolade that was being so liberally dispensed.
The real problem for the Red Army had become one of adaptation:
the change-over from a defensive stance, where its rugged courage
and fortitude had carried the day, to the more complex structure
of an offensive pattern, where the initiative and training of
even the smallest units could be of vital importance.
The Battle of Kursk
Of all the operations in World War II none is so evocative of
1914-18 as the German attack on the Kursk salient, the ill-fated
Fall Zitadelle in high summer of 1943. Rightly acclaimed as the
greatest of all tank battles -at its height there were close to
three thousand tanks on the move at the same time-it was from
first to last a colossal battle of attrition, a slugging match
which swayed to and fro across a narrow belt of territory, seldom
more than fifteen miles deep, in which mines, firepower, and weight
of explosives (rather than mobility and leadership) were the decisive
factors.
There is another feature of the offensive, which broke the Panzer
force and irrevocably handed the strategic initiative to the Russians,
which evokes the Great War, and this is the procrastination and
argument which preceded its launching. The plan can be seen acquiring
a momentum of its own, which ends by sweeping along all its participants,
some protesting, some intoxicated, to a doom whose inevitability
they all came to recognize.
When this great Panzer battle turned out to be a failure for the
Germans, despite the new Panther tank, the generals took to quarreling
among themselves. Some even talked of staging a palace revolution
to do away with Hitler. Even Heinrich Himmler saw that the failure
of the Zitadelle offensive meant that the war was lost. The question
which now exercised him was how to moderate defeat and save his
own skin, and as on two other occasions he sent out secret agents
to put out peace feelers to the Allies. The explosion of the Stauffenberg
bomb was less than a year away.
Devastating Retreat
By the late summer of 1943 the morale of the whole Wehrmacht,
from top to bottom, had suffered permanent change. Its courage
and discipline were unimpaired. But hope was tainted, and humanity,
where vestiges of it remained, was extinguished. August came in
stifling heat; then September, the days crisper but with an evening
fog. The rattle of machine guns, as a few last scores were settled
with the local population, and the thud of demolition charges,
the German Army retreated across European Russia, leaving a trail
of smoke, of abandoned vehicles and loose-covered shallow graves.
At the same time the Western Allies were liquidating another German
pincer reaching out to the lands of the Near and Middle East through
the deserts of North Africa.