Operation Barbarossa

[Elucid]

First the Fuehrer Order that laid the foundations for Barbarossa. Preparations for Barbarossa started with this directive in December 1940.

The Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht

Fuehrer's Headquarters
18.12.40

Directive No. 21
Case Barbarossa

The German Armed Forces must be prepared, even before the conclusion of the war against England,to crush Soviet Russia in a rapid campaign("Operation Barbarossa").

The Army will have to employ all available formations to this end, with the reservation that occupied territories must be insured against surprise attacks.

The Luftwaffe will have to make available for this Eastern campaign supporting forces of such strength that the Army will be able to bring land operations to a speedy conclusion and that eastern Germany will be as little damaged as possible by enemy air attack. This build-up of a focal point in the East will be limited only by the need to protect from air attack the whole combat and arsenal area which we control, and to ensure that attacks on England, and especially upon her imports, are not allowed to lapse.

The main efforts of the Navy will continue to be directed against England even during the Eastern campaign.

In certain circumstances I shall issue orders for the deployment against Soviet Russia eight weeks before the operation is timed to begin.

Preparations which require more time than this will be put in hand now, in so far as this has not already been done, and will be concluded by 15th May 1941.

It is of decisive importance that our intention to attack should not be known.

The preparations of the High Commands will be made on the following basis:

I.General Intention

The bulk of the Russian Army stationed in western Russia will be destroyed by daring operations led by deeply penetrating armored spearheads. Russian forces still capable of giving battle will be prevented from withdrawing into the depths of Russia.

The enemy will then be energetically pursued and a line will be reached from which the Russian Air Force can no longer attack German territory. The final objective of the operation is to erect a barrier against Asiatic Russia on the general line Volga-Archangel.

The last surviving industrial area of Russia in the Urals can then, if necessary, be eliminated by the Luftwaffe.

In the course of these operations the Russian Baltic Fleet will quickly lose its bases and will then no longer be capable of action.

The effective operation of the Russian Air Forces to be prevented from the beginning of the attack by powerful blows.

II.Probable Allies and their Tasks

1. On the flanks of our operations we can count on the active support of Romania and Finland in the war against Soviet Russia.

The High Command of the Armed Forces will decide and lay down in due time the manner in which the forces of these two countries will be brought under German command.

2. It will be the task of Romania to support the attack of the German southern flank, at least at the outset, with its best troops; to hold down the enemy where German forces are not engaged; and to provide auxiliary services in the rear areas.

3.Finland will cover the advance of the Northern Group of German forces moving from Norway (detachments of (Group XXI) and will operate in conjunction with them. Finland will also be responsible for eliminating Hango.

4. It is possible that Swedish railways and roads may be available for the movement of the German Northern Group, by the beginning of the operation at the latest.

III.Conduct of Operations

A. Army (in accordance with plans submitted to me)!

In the theater of operations, which is divided by the Pripet Marshes into a Southern and a Northern sector, the main weight of attack will be delivered in the Northern area. Two Army Groups will be employed here.

The more southerly of these two Army Groups (in the center of the whole front) will have the task of advancing with powerful armored and motorized formations from the area about and north of Warsaw, and routing the enemy forces in White Russia. This will make it possible for strong mobile forces to advance northwards and, in conjunction with the Northern Army Group operating out of East Prussia in the general direction of Leningrad, to destroy the enemy forces operating in the Baltic area. Only after the fulfilment of this first essential task, which must include the occupation of Leningrad and Kronstadt, will the attack be continued with the intention of occupying Moscow, an important center of communications and of the armaments industry.

Only a surprisingly rapid collapse of Russian resistance could justify the simultaneous pursuit of both objectives.

The most important task of Group XXI, even during these eastern operations, remains the protection of Norway.Any forces available after carrying out this task will be employed in the North (Mountain Corps), at first to protect the Petsamo area and its iron ore mines and the Arctic highway, then to advance with Finnish forces against the Murmansk railway and thus prevent the passage of supplies to Murmansk by land.

The question whether an operation of this kind can be carried out with stronger German forces (two or three divisions) from the Rovaniemi area and south of it will depend on the willingness of Sweden to make its railways available for troop transport.

It will be the duty of the main body of the Finnish Army, in conjunction with the advance of the German North flank, to hold down the strongest possible Russian forces by an attack to the West, or on both sides of Lake Ladoga, and to occupy Hango.

The Army Group operating South of the Pripet Marshes will also seek, in a concentric operation with strong forces on either flank, to destroy all Russian forces west of the Dnieper in the Ukraine. The main attack will be carried out from the Lublin area in the general direction of Kiev, while forces in Romania will carry out a wide enclosing movement across the lower Pruth. It will be the task of the Romanian Army to hold down Russian forces in the intervening area.

When the battles north and south of the Pripet Marshes are ended the pursuit of the enemy will have the following aims:

In the South the early capture of the Donets Basin, important for war industry.

In the North a quick advance to Moscow. The capture of this city would represent a decisive political and economic success and would also bring about the capture of the most important railway junctions.

B.Luftwaffe

It will be the duty of the Luftwaffe to paralyze and eliminate the effectiveness of the Russian Air Force as far as possible. lt will also support the main operations of the Army, i.e. those of the central Army Group and of the vital flank of the Southern Army Group. Russian railways will either be destroyed or, in accordance with operational requirements, captured at their most important points (river crossings) by the bold employment of parachute and airborne troops.

In order that we may concentrate all our strength against the enemy Air Force and for the immediate support of land operations, the Russian armaments industry will not be attacked during the main operations. Such attacks will be made only after the conclusion of mobile warfare, and they will be concentrated first on the Urals area.

C.Navy

It will be the duty of the Navy during the attack on Soviet Russia to protect our own coasts and to prevent the breakout of enemy naval units from the Baltic. As the Russian Baltic fleet will, with the capture of Leningrad, lose its last base and will then be in a hopeless position, major naval action will be avoided until this occurs.

After the elimination of the Russian fleet the duty of the Navy will be to protect the entire maritime traffic in the Baltic and the transport of supplies by sea to the Northern flank (clearing of minefields!).

IV. All steps taken by Commanders-in-Chief on the basis of this directive must be phrased on the unambiguous assumption that they are precautionary measures undertaken in case Russia should alter its present attitude towards us. The number of officers employed on preliminary preparations will be kept as small as possible and further staffs will be designated as late as possible and only to the extent required for the duties of each individual. Otherwise there is a danger that premature knowledge of our preparations, whose execution cannot yet be timed with any certainty, might entail the gravest political and military disadvantages.

V. I await submission of the plans of Commanders-in-Chief on the basis of this directive.

The preparations made by all branches of the Armed Forces, together with timetables, are to be reported to me through the High Command of the Armed Forces.

Signed:
ADOLF HITLER

 

[Elucid]

The preparations and build-up for Operation Barbarossa were carried out with the greatest secrecy. Even on 21 June 1941, a day before the launch of invasion, there was still confusion among the troops as they assembled along the entirety of the Soviet frontier. The following Fuehrer Order read to the troops that evening cleared the confusion.

“Soldiers of the Eastern Front! Weighed down for many months by grave anxieties, compelled to keep silent. I can at last speak openly to you, my soldiers. About 160 Russian divisions are lined up along our frontier. For weeks this frontier has been violated continually - not only the frontier of Germany but also that in the far north and in Rumania.”

The men hear of Russian patrols penetrating into Reich territory and being driven back only after prolonged exchanges of fire. And they hear the conclusion: “At this moment, soldiers of the Eastern Front, a build-up is in progress which has no equal in world history, either in extant or number. Allied with Finnish divisions, our comrades are standing side by side with the victor of Narvik on the Artic Sea in the North….

“You are standing on the Eastern Front. In Rumania, on the banks of the Prut, on the Danube, down to the shores of the Black Sea, German and Rumanian troops are standing side by side, united under Head of State Antonescu. If this greatest front in world history is now going into action, then it does so not only in order to create the necessary conditions for the final conclusion of this great war, or to protect the countries threatened at this moment, but in order to save the whole of European civilization and culture.

“German soldiers! You are about to join battle, a hard and crucial battle. The destiny of Europe, the future of the German Reich, the existence of our nation, now lie in your hands alone.

“May the Almighty help us all in this struggle.”

 

[Elucid]

The German offensive front was divided into three sectors – North, Centre, South.

Army Group North, under Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb, was to advance with two Armies and one Panzer Group from East Prussia across the Memel. Its objective was the annihilation of the Soviet forces in the Baltic and the capture of Leningrad. The armoured spearhead of von Leeb’s forces was Forth Panzer Group under Colonel General Hoepner. First Air Fleet was attached to this Army Group.

Army Group Centre was commanded by Field Marshal von Bock. Its area of operations extended from Romintener Heide to south of Brest-Litovsk – a line of 250 miles. This was the strongest of the three Army Groups, and comprised two Armies as well as Second Panzer Group, under Colonel General Guderian, and Third Panzer Group, under Colonel General Hoth. Second Air Fleet, with numerous Stuka wings, lent additional striking power to this tremendous armoured force. The objective of Army Group Centre was the annihilation of the strong Soviet forces, with their many armoured and motorized units, in the triangle Brest-Vilna-Smolensk. Once Smolensk had been taken by the mobile forces in a bold armoire thrust the decision would be made whether to wheel to the north or drive on towards Moscow.

In the southern sector, between the Pripet Marshes and the Carpathians, Army Group South, under Field Marshal von Rundstedt, with its three Armies and one Panzer Group, was to engage and destroy Russian forces in Galicia and the Western Ukraine on the near side of the Dnieper, secure the Dnieper crossings, and finally take Kiev. Complete air cover was to be provided by Fourth Air Fleet. The Rumanians and the German Eleventh Army, who came under Rundstedt’s sphere of command, were to stand by as reinforcements.

In the north Germany’s other ally, Finland, was to stand by, ready for attack, until 11th July, the date for German thrust against Leningrad.

This grouping of the German offensive line-up clearly shows its concentration of strength at Army Group Centre. In spite of unfavourable terrain, with river-courses and swamps, this sector was equipped with two Panzer Groups in order to bring about a rapid decision to the campaign.

Soviet intelligence evidently failed to spot this disposition, for the focus of the Soviet defensive system was in the south, opposite Rundstedt’s Army Group. There Stalin had concentrated 64 divisions and 14 armoured brigades, while on the Central Front he had only 45 divisions and 15 armoured brigades and on the northern front 30 divisions and 8 armoured brigades.

Hitler’s plan of attack followed the recipe which had proved successful in the West, when to the complete surprise of the French, he had broken rapidly through the unfavourable Ardennes terrain, piercing the Maginot Line, which was weak there and thus bringing the campaign to a rapid conclusion. Hitler intended to apply the same plan to the Soviet Union: he would attack with all available forces in an unexpected place, tear open the enemy front, break through, utterly defeat the enemy, and seize his vital centers – Moscow, Leningrad, and Rostov – still carried by the momentum of the first great sweep. The second wave then to advance to the line he had mapped out for himself – the line from Astrakhan to Archangel. That was Operation Barbarossa on paper.

 

[TheNoob]

Holy cow.
This is some good read for me!
e.e Wonder if theres more? if so.
VOIOAIVOIAOIVAOIO

 

[Koovie]

Holy cow.
This is some good read for me!
e.e Wonder if theres more? if so.
VOIOAIVOIAOIVAOIO

You might want to watch this documentary, its about the Eastern Front

 

[Elucid]

Holy cow.
This is some good read for me!
e.e Wonder if theres more? if so.
VOIOAIVOIAOIVAOIO

Its only the start. Dont forget to thank the posts.

Action : Frontier Battles

Army Group North

Forth Panzer Group comprised two mobile corps, General von Manstein’s LVI Panzer Corps and General Reinhardth’s XLI Panzer Corps. First task of this Panzer Group was to reach the Daugava river swiftly enough to capture its bridges intact so that a dangerous delay in the drive towards Leningrad could be avoided. But these bridges lay 220 miles behind the frontier. LVI Panzer Corps was to make for the important centre of Daugavpils and XLI Panzer Corps had Jekabpils as its target.

8th Panzer Division spearheaded the LVI Panzer Corps drive to Daugavpils and captured the town and its bridges by surprise on 26th June. On the other hand XLI Panzer Corps meet Soviet tanks on its way to Jekabpils.

On 24th June, at 1330 hours, Reinhardt arrived at the command post of 1st Panzer division with the news that 6th Panzer Division had encountered very strong enemy armour on its way to the Daugava, at a point east of Raseiniai on the Dubysa, and was involved in heavy fighting. Over 100 super-heavy Soviet tanks had come from the east to meet XLI Panzer Corps, and had clashed first of all with 6th Panzer division. 1st Panzer division therefore moved to relieve the 6th. Laboriously the tanks struggled forward along soft sandy or marshy tracks. The day was full of minor skirmishes, and the next morning began with an alarm. A Soviet tank attack with super-heavy armoured giants had overrun the 2nd Battalion, 113 Rifle Regiment. Neither the infantry’s anti-tank guns, nor those of the Panzerjagers (tank killers), nor the guns of the German tanks, were able to pierce the plating of these heavy enemy monsters. German artillery had to depress their barrels into the horizontal, and eventually halted the enemy attack by direct fire from open positions. Only because of their greater speed and their more skillful handling were the German tanks able to stand up to their heavy Soviet opponents. By using every trick in the book, especially good fire discipline and efficient radio communication, the tank companies succeeded in throwing the enemy back two miles.

The Soviet tanks which made this astonishing appearance were the as yet unknown types of the Klim Voroshilov series, the KV-1 and the KV-2, of 43 and 52 tons respectively.

For several days a critical battle raged on the Dubysa between the German XLI Panzer Corps and the Soviet III Armoured Corps, which had thrown into battle 400 tanks, most of them super-heavy ones. Colonel-General Fedor Kuznetsov was employing his crack armoured units, including the 1st and 2nd Armoured Divisions.

The battle was decided in the early morning of 26th June. The Russians attacked. German artillery had taken up positions on high ground among the tank regiments and was firing point-blank at the Russian tanks. The German regiments than mounted a counter-attack. At 0838 hours the 1st Panzer regiment linked up with advanced units of 6th Panzer Division, trapping their enemy. The Soviet III Armoured Corps was smashed.

These two German Panzer divisions, together with 36th Motorized Infantry Division and 269th Infantry Division, between them destroyed the bulk of the Soviet armoured forces in the Baltic countries. Two hundred Soviet tanks were wrecked. Twenty-nine super-heavy KV-1 and KV-2 monsters were left gutted on the battlefield. The road to Jekabpils, on the Daugava, was now free also for XLI Panzer Corps.

 

[Elucid]

 

[Elucid]

Infantry armies on the flanks:

As Eighteenth Army advanced through the Baltic states, it scored its first great victory at Liepaga. The defence of the town was magnificently organized. The individual Soviet soldier was well trained and fought with fanatical bravery. The Russian troops regarded it as perfectly natural that they should be sacrificed in order to enable the higher command to gain time, or to provide the prerequisite for regroupings or break-outs. The ruthless sacrifice of detachments in order to save larger units was first reveled at Liepaga as a basic part of Soviet military thinking. Its application caused heavy losses to the German attackers.

The attack had begun on 25th June and at last on 29th June the naval fortress was conquered.

61st Infantry Division crossed the crossed the Dvina on 30 June and captured Riga against minimal resistance a day later.

By now surrounded on three sides by Forth Panzer Group and the Eighteenth Army, Soviet Eighth Army was threatened with destruction. Eighteenth Army made an attempt to encircle the Soviet 8th Army but the Soviets largely escaped.

The Sixteenth Army tried to stay close to Hoepner (Forth Panzer Group), cover von Leeb’s eastern flank, and maintain contact with Army Group Centre. Within two days its 121st Infantry Division reached the fortress city of Kaunas, Lithuanian capital. The Sixteenth Army then maintained the pursuit through two weeks of heat and dust interrupted by an occasional day of rain.

However a major concern of Army Group North was the boundary with von Bock. Busch (16th Army) dedicated an entire corps to maintaining contact with the Ninth Army. This became more difficult when the Ninth veered south to the Bialystok pocket. As the two Army Groups diverged toward individual objectives the gap widened and became more dangerous. By 4 July Halder (Head of General Staff) noted threatening Soviet movements to Velikie Luki, “between Hoth and Hoepner.”

 

[Elucid]

On 24 June von Leeb enthusiastically wrote in his diary that von Manstein’s Dunaburg (Daugavpils) bridgehead represented “A stake into the heart of the enemy.”

But what use is a victory if it is not exploited? The wide Daugava had been crossed and the vital railway centre between Vilna and Leningrad was in German hands. The 8th Panzer Division and 3rd Motorzied Infantry Division were on the far bank of the river. What must be done next? Was Manstein to push on? Was he to take advantage of the enemy’s hopeless confusion and assume that he was unable to put in the field any superior or well-led forces against the phantom-like German tank thrust? Or should he adopt the textbook solution, the safety-first solution, and halt until the infantry came up? That was the question-the question which would decide the fate of Leningrad.

One would have thought that Hitler would have chosen the bold alternative. Indeed, on closer scrutiny, there was no real choice. The next move had to follow logically from the entire plan of campaign. And this campaign in the East was based on boldness and gamble. Hitler proposed to crush by rapid assault a gigantic empire which, to his certain knowledge, had over 200 combat-ready divisions in its western part alone. And behind these division? Beyond the Urals was unknown territory about which only vague reports was available-reports of gigantic industrial plants, enormous armaments industries, and inexhaustible human reserves. Hence this military gamble could be concluded successfully, if at all, only if the oak was felled by lightning. And that lightning had to be swift, powerful, surprise blows straight at the political and military heart of the Soviet empire. The enemy must not be allowed to collect himself or to deploy his strength. The very first days of this war had provided a lesson and a warning: wherever the enemy command was paralyzed by surprise, victory was certain; wherever it was given time to resist, its troops would fight like the devil.

This realization and whole logic of the Operation Barbarossa therefore demanded that the bold advance should be maintained. Manstein realized this clearly. The enemy must not be given the opportunity to bring up his reserves against identified and stationary German spearheads. If he was allowed to do so, then-but only then-would the open flanks of numerically small armoured units deep in enemy territory be exposed to mortal danger. So long as the push was kept up Kuznetsov would have to throw into battle whatever he had to hand.

Of course, it was risky to have Manstein’s corps operating alone north of the Daugava while Reinhardt’s XLI Panzer Corps and the entire left wing of Colonel-General Busch’s Sixteenth Army were still over sixty miles farther back-but without risks this campaign could not be waged at all, let alone won.

However the German High Command failed to understand the logic of its own strategy. Hitler suddenly became jittery-afraid of his own courage. It became clear that the man who based his plans so largely on boldness, recklessness, and luck was in practice the first to point an anxious finger at the exposed flanks on the situation map. He lacked confidence in the military skill of his generals. Against Hitler the German High Command could not win its point. Thus it was that Manstein received the orders: “Halt. Daugavpils bridgehead will be defended. Arrival of Sixteenth Army’s left wing will be awaited.”

The argument that supply considerations and enemy attacks made this halt unavoidable, is ofcourse, quiet correct in terms of a conservative general-staff assessment of the situation-but if that were to be made the yardstick, then surely Manstein should not have crossed the Daugava at all, nor, two weeks later, Guderian the Dnieper. No, Hitler’s halt sprang from anxiety and even more from uncertainty weather he should first strike at Leningrad or at Moscow. It was this indecision that had halted Manstein. And this halt was Leningrad’s first salvation. Like the rumbling of distant thunder the commanders in the field became aware of a crisis between Fuehrer and High Command, of the issue of Moscow versus Leningrad, of the crisis from which the great mistakes were to spring later, those mistakes which, one by one, were nails in the coffin of the German armies in the East.

For six days Manstein’s Panzer Corps was made to stand still. For three days it was a long way in front of the Army Group. What was bound to happen happened. Kuznetsov scraped together what reserves he could lay hands on. From the Pskov area. From Moscow. From Minsk. He flung everything he had against Manstein’s advanced positions. At long last, on 2nd July, when the green light was given for the resumption of the thrust, with Leningrad as the distant objective, valuable time had been lost. Time which the Soviet High Command had used to steady its panicking divisions and to prepare the defense of the Stalin Line, the old and often well built defenses along the former Russian-Estonian frontier, between Lake Peipus and Sebezh. The second round began.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

Ah brilliant,u have the osprey book..nice.Same here.

 

[Elucid]

Army Group Centre

On the opening day, 22 June, The Ninth Army and Third Panzer Group attacked at 0305 hrs in co-ordination with Army Group North, while Forth Army and Second Panzer Group moved out at 0315 hrs, as did von Rundstedt to their south. As the mission and enemy situation dictated certain units enjoyed massive artillery preparatory fire while other did without.

In some places along the river Bug, Guderian’s men captured bridges intact by ruse; elsewhere they used assault boats, covered by Sturmgeschutz (assault gun) fire, to force their way across. Hoth’s men faced a “dry” front but would encounter three rivers within a little over 40 miles of the frontier.

As Hoth’s armor continued its advance on the few decent roads available it split the boundary between the Soviet North West and West fronts.

No sooner did the Germans cross the border then they hit sandy terrain that multiplied their fuel consumption. They also learned quickly that the Soviets fought better in the woods then they did.

After a swift break-through the armoured and motorized divisions of Hoth’s and Guderian’s Panzer Groups on the wings of the Army Group advanced rapidly according to plan, right through the startled and badly led armies of the Russian Western Front, and got into position for their large-scale pincer movement. It was here on the Central Front that the decisive action of the entire campaign had been scheduled from the outset: it was to be prepared by some 1600 tanks and to be finally consummated-in collaboration with Forth Panzer Group then still operating in the area of Army Group North-by the capture of Moscow. The plan seemed to work. The Panzer divisions were once more giving a demonstration of Blitzkrieg-as in the old days, as in Poland and in the West. At least, that was how things looked from where the armoured spearheads stood. The infantry here as on the northern sector, had a somewhat different experience. The fortress of Brest-Litovsk was a typical example.

On 22nd June, 45th Infantry Division did not suspect that I would suffer such heavy losses in this ancient frontier fortress. On 30th June the operation report of the Division recorded the conclusion of the operation and the capture of the fortress. German losses totaled 482 killed, including 40 officers, and over 1000 wounded, of whom many died subsequently. The magnitude of the losses can be judged by the fact that the total German losses on the entire Eastern Front up to 30th June amounted to 8886 killed. The citadel of Brest therefore accounted for over 5 percent of all fatal casualties.

By 28th June the campaign on the Central Front had reached a decisive phase. The first major success was beginning to show in out-line: the 17th Panzer Division, the spearhead of the units of Second Panzer Group wheeling toward Minsk from the south, had reached the city. In the north Colonel-General Hoth with his Third Panzer Group had formed the northern enveloping arc and, with General Stumpff’s 20th Panzer Division, had penetrated into Minsk and 26th June. Hoth’s and Guderian’s Groups were therefore linking up. This meant that the huge pincers which the Forth and Ninth Armies had formed round the Bialystok bend had now closed. The pocket, in which 4 Soviet Armies were caught, with 23 divisions and 6 independent brigades between Bialystok-Novogrodek and Minsk, was being sealed up. Four Armies-half a million men. The first gigantic battle of annihilation on the Eastern Front was unrolling.

For some time the Panzer and Motorized units were tied down in prison guard duties as they kept the big pocket around the Russian armies closed. The commanders could not move their Panzer divisions forward because the Infantry Divisions of Forth and Ninth Armies had still not arrived to finish off the encircled Russians. True, they were hastening to the scene, in forced marches along terrible roads, covered in sweat and dust.

As infantry arrived to finish off the Soviets in the huge pocket, the Panzer divisions moved forward towards their next big objective-Smolensk. First Berezina had to be crossed, which was done easily by 3rd July as annihilation of four Soviet armies in the Minsk pocket had left the road open for Germans on the central front.

On the same day-3rd July 1941, the twelfth day of the German campaign in the East-Colonel General Halder, Chief of the German General Staff, wrote in his diary:

“Generally speaking the enemy can now be regarded as written off in the Bialystok bend, with the exception of quite insignificant remnants. Along the front of Army Group North 12 to 15 enemy divisions can likewise be considered to have been completely wiped out. In front of Army Group South the enemy has also been battered by ceaseless heavy blows and is now largely smashed. Generally speaking, it is therefore already possible to say that the task of smashing the Soviet armies in front of the Western Dvina and Dnieper has been accomplished. It would probably be no exaggeration to say that the campaign against Russia has been won within the first fortnight. Naturally this does not mean that it has been concluded. The vastness of the country and the stubborn resistance offered us in every possible way will keep our forces busy for many more weeks.”

It is worth noting that these words were written not by Hitler but by the coolly calculating Chief of General Staff, Halder. He too was impressed by the headlong German advance and the breathtaking losses of the Red Army. To an officer thinking in Central European terms they were bound to spell the complete collapse of the enemy.

And, in fairness, what Field-Marshal von Bock, C-in-C Army Group Centre, wrote in his Order of the Day on 8th July was enough to go to anyone’s head:

“The double battle of Bialystok and Minsk is over. The Army Group was engaged against four Russian Armies in the strength of about 32 infantry divisions, 8 armoured divisions, 6 motorized or mechanized brigades, and 3 cavalry divisions. Of these, 22 infantry divisions, 7 armoured divisions, 6 motorized or mechanized brigades, and 3 cavalry divisions were smashed.
Even the formations which succeeded in evading encirclement have been weakened in their fighting strength. The enemy’s casualties are exceedingly high. Counting of prisoners and booty up to yesterday has yielded the following totals: 287,704 prisoners, including several divisional and corps commanders; 2585 tanks captured or destroyed, including some super-heavy types; 1449 guns and 242 aircraft captured. To this must be added large quantities of small arms, ammunition, and vehicles of all kinds, as well as numerous stores of foodstuffs and fuel. We must now exploit the victory.”

How it possibly not be exploited?

But Stalin and his marshals saw matters differently. To them 300,000 men did not mean the earth. Russia was 46 times as big as the German Reich in its 1938 frontiers. The Soviet Union had 190,000,000 inhabitants. Some 16,000,000 men of military age could be mobilized. A huge armaments industry had been build up behind the Urals. Ten million soldiers could be called to the colours without difficulty even after the loss of Western Russia-provided the Soviets were given a little time.

Time was what the Soviet Command was fighting for in July 1941. “Gain time! Stop the eastward rush of the German tanks! Build up a line of defense whatever the cost!” That, in effect, was the order which Marshal Timoshenko, the defense minister, gave to his deputy on the central front.

 

[Elucid]

 

[ExtraOdinary]

Too big a subject to make a general statement on..where to start..

Lets start with the Molotov Ribbentrop pact

 

[Elucid]

Army Group South

On 22nd June Field Marshal von Rundstedt launched his offensive on his left wing with the Seventeenth and Sixth Armies, which stood to the north of the Carpathians. Further to the south the Eleventh Army and the Rumanian Army were still standing by, both in order to deceive the Russians and to protect the Rumanian oil. The offensive in the Black Sea area was not to start till 1st July.

On the northern wing of Army Group South, at Reichenau’s Sixth Army, on the Bug, good progess was made on the first day of the campaign.

On the southern wing of the Army Group, where the frontier was formed by the river San, the division of General von Stulpnagel’s Seventeenth Army found things more difficult.

In contrast to northern and central fronts, the Soviet alarm system in the south functioned with surprising speed and precision. Only the most forward pickets were taken by surprise.

Field-Marshal von Rundstedt and the commander of his First Panzer Group, Colonel-General von Kleist, had drawn the most difficult position of the campaign. The Russian southern front, protecting the Ukrainian grain areas, had been organized in particular strength and with great care. Colonel-General Kirponos, who commanded the Soviet Army Group South-west Front, had deployed his four Armies in two groups in considerable depth. Well camouflaged lines of pillboxes, heavy field-artillery positions, and cunning obstacles turned the first German leap across the frontier into a costly operation.

The divisions of Seventeenth Army had to nibble their way through the lines of pillboxes before Lvov and Przemysl. Sixth Army crossed the Styr in the face of stubborn opposition. When von Kleist’s Panzer Group had succeeded in breaking through east of Lvov and his tanks were about to mount their Blitzkrieg offensive, Kirponos instantly blocked the development of large-scale operations and the encirclement of Soviet forces. With armoured units rapidly brought up he launched strong counter-attacks and struck heavily at the spearheads of the advancing German divisions.

Major-General Hube, OC 16th Panzer Division, described the developments during the first few days of the campaign in the south as “slow but sure progress.” But “slow and sure” was not provided for by Operation Barbarossa. Kirponos’s forces in Galicia and the Western Ukraine were likewise to have been defeated speedily by means of crushing battles of encirclement.

On the Rumanian-Russian frontier, where the Eleventh Army under Colonel-General Ritter von Schobert stood, nothing much happened on 22nd June. There was no artillery bombardment and no assault was launched. Apart from slight patrol activity across the river Prut, which formed the frontier here, and a few Russian air raids, things were fairly peaceful. Hitler’s timetable purposely envisaged a delay on this sector; the Soviet forces here were to be driven, at the beginning of July, into a pocket that was being formed in the north.

Day after day passed. The delays on the northern wing of the Army Group in the area of the Sixth and Seventeenth Armies meant that Schobet’s divisions had to wait also. At last, on 1st July, the green light was given. The three corps of the Eleventh Army, LIV, XXX and XI, crossed the Prut.

The offensive of Eleventh Army was gaining momentum. Its direction was towards the north-east, towards the Dniester. But things did not go according to schedule; Schobert was not able to drive a retreating enemy into a trap, but had to content himself with slowly pushing back a strongly resisting enemy.

After ten days of very fierce fighting Rundstedt’s armoured divisions had penetrated 60 miles into enemy territory. They were involved with superior forces, compelled to beat back counter-attacks from all sides, and defend themselves from the right and the left, from the front and the rear. A strong enemy was offering stubborn but elastic resistance. Colonel-General Kirponos succeeded in evading the planned German encirclement north of the Dniester and in taking his troops back, still in an unbroken front, to the strongly fortified Stalin Line to both sides of Mogilev. Rundstedt had therefore not succeeded in achieving the planned large-scale break-through. The time-table of Army Group South had been upset. Could the delay be made up?

 

[third eye]

What did this disastrous operation lead to ? To a military mind it would be relevant to glean the Do's & Dont's hence an assessment.

Operation Barbarossa: Assessment

Barbarossa had achieved some starteling successes. Panzer arimies had spaerheaded ememse encircling maneuvers that had killed or taken over 6 million Red Army soldiers. Great quantities of military equipment had been destroyed or captured. An emense swath of European Russia was in German hands. Even so, it had failed in its principal objective. It did not destroy the Soviet Union.

The Red Army had not been destroyed and Russian war industries continued to produce. As a result. The Wehrmacht by the beginning of 1942 had been seriously weakened. It was the failure of Barbarossa to destroy the Red Army in a swift, Summer campaign that doomed NAZI Germany. Htler's strategy was to destroy his opponents piecemeal before they were prepared and before an effective coalition could organize.

The Soviets by defearing Barbarossa accomplished three critical goals.

Buying time

First, more than anything they bought time. This allowed them to move critical war industries and begin to set up for expanded production. It also allowed Lend Lease supplies from America to arrive. Once the Wehrmacht was bogged down in Russia, the Western Allies (principally the United States, Brirain, and Canada) had the time to build an effective military that could enter the European continent and attack NAZI Germany from the west.

Mauling the Wehrmacht

Second, they succeeded in badly mauling the Wehrmacht. Wehrmact losses in Russia were staggering. Huge quantities of equipment were lot or wornout in the process of Barv=barossa. The emese distances combined with the lack of roads and the weather chewed up trucks, tanks, and mechanized equipment. The Red Army offensive before Moscow resulted in huge losses of both men and equipment. These were losses that the Germans could not begin to replace and meant that the 1942 Summer offensive would have to be far more limited than Barbarossa.

Leaning modern tactics

Third it helped the Red Army begin to learn how to fight the NAZIs. This is an often poorly addressed topic in assessments of World War II. Many accounts stress the superiority of the German equipment. This was a factor, but an even more important factor was the superiority of the Wehrmacht tactical doctrine--Blitzkrieg. Even after Blitzkrieg was show cased in Poland (1939), the Allies (British and French) took no significant steps to change their tactical doctrine to confront the Germans. France fell (1940) bedofe changes could be made.

The British even after Dunkirk had not fully learned the needed lessons which were reflected in both Greece and the Western Desert (1941 and early 1942). Rommel with a smaller German force was able to defeat a larger and better equipped British force. The American Army at Kasserine (January 1943) showed that it had not learned needed battlefiekd tactics. The Red Army had still not fully learned the lessons of modern war. Red Army offensives in 1942 resulted in staggering losses which made possible the German drive to the Volga and Caucusses. Here Stalin's interference and an officer corps depleted by the pre-War purges were key factors.