WWII Notes 7: Germany Moves East

World Wars – HamerApril 18, 2011

Reasons for War with the Soviet Union

Fall 1940 – Sea Lion had not worked so Hitler focused on one of his primary objectives – a crusade against USSR

Reasons for War in the East

• Lebensraum would move East – Ukraine looked appealing

• Hitler saw an inevitable confrontation between civilization (National Socialists) and Judeo Bolshevism

Why Now (Fall 1940)? PART 1

• Hitler increasingly inpatient• Worried about his health– What if he died before his life work was

completed?• Hitler felt that Great Britain, while not

defeated, was eliminated as a power on the continent

Why Now (Fall 1940)? Part 2

• Felt Soviet Union was vulnerable right then– Effect of Red Army Purges of 1937-

1938– Germany doubted the quality of this

army• Assumed its morale was destroyed

by purges and Winter War• Hitler said about the Red Army:

“You only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down”

Operation Barbarossa

Early Plans for Barbarossa

• German General Halder (mastermind of campaigns in Poland and W. Europe) estimated that the Soviets would only be able to resist a German invasion for 8-10 weeks

• End of July 1940 – decision made to invade the Soviet Union in Spring 1941

Hitler issues specific orders:December 18, 1940

• Final objectives were not specific geographic points (cities), but the key objective was the destruction of the Red Army in Western Russia

• Convinced it would happen in about 2 months

German Army Moving East PART 1• 3 army groups assembled

for operation– Army Group North

would go through the Baltic States with a general objective of Leningrad

– Army Group Center would focus on the Moscow area

– Army Group South would aim through the Ukraine to Kiev

German Army Moving East PART 2

• 145 divisions:– 102 infantry divisions– 19 armored divisions– 14 motorized infantry divisions– 2500 tanks– 2700 planes– over 1 million troops were moved from western

Europe– 10,000 horses

German Army Moving East PART 3

• May 15, 1941 was set for original invasion date– Spring rains would have ended– Turf would be firm enough to support the

Blitzkrieg

Italy Messes Up• October 1940 Mussolini invaded

Greece even though Hitler pleaded with him not to– Fiasco from the beginning– Greeks defeated Italians and followed

them in retreat into Albania– So unstable that Hitler had to send in

troops to stabilize• April 1941 Germany invaded

Greece and Yugoslavia• Had to postpone Barbarossa until

late June

New date for invasion: June 22, 1941

• Earlier invasion date wouldn’t have worked anyway because the weather was even more important– Spring 1941 unusually wet – rivers in Poland

flooded until early June– Tanks couldn’t have made it earlier anyway

• New date was 129 years to the day from Napoleon’s attack on Russia in 1812 . . . and that went so well . . .

Stalin Not Paranoid Enough (for once)

• As Germans began to mass troops along their frontier (in Poland), Soviets possessed best spy system in the world– Stalin had been receiving intelligence from Japan,

Churchill in England, US, letting USSR know that Germany was planning to invade

– But Stalin refused to heed these• Did not alert his commanders on the borders,

who started to notice German activity

Ideological Conflict

• Germans also began preparations to indoctrinate their troops for the campaign against the Red Army– This was not like other battles– German Army was told this was a war without

rules – ideological conflict to the end.– Decree issued by Hitler in late May letting high

command know to prepare troops for this sort of war

• Orders said there were four groups to watch out for:

• “This struggle demands ruthless and energetic measures against Bolshevik agitators, guerillas, saboteurs, Jews, and a complete elimination of every active or passive resistance”

War Against the Soviet Union Begins

Barbarossa Begins – June 22, 1941 PART 1

• After daybreak June 22, 1941, the last train delivering materials to the Germans crossed from Soviet territory. German troops watched it cross and then launched Barbarossa– Caught the Russians totally by surprise

Barbarossa Begins – June 22, 1941 PART 2

• Since the Russian frontier was far West, it bought Stalin time, but those divisions were crushed by Blitzkrieg attacks.

• Tens of thousands of casualties, hundreds of thousands of prisoners, and 1200 aircraft destroyed on the ground in the first 24 hours.

Russian supplies captured by German Army

Initial German Successes• Army Group north moved

150 miles within 5 days and was close to Leningrad by July 10th

• Army Group Center captured 500,000 Russian prisoners – only 200 miles from Moscow within 3 weeks• Army Group South had more resistance, but still was moving forward

• German General Halder said that ‘the Russians lost the war in the first 2 weeks’

Initial German Problems PART 1• Center and North had outdistanced supplies• Were encountering mechanical problems and

problems with the roads• Blitzkrieg was working and Russians had their

butts kicked, but the Russians didn’t grasp that they were actually defeated…– Russians were inflicting casualties on the Germans as

well• Russian units separated from the main command

made their own decisions about attacking the Germans, which was confusing for the Germans!

Initial German Problems PART 2• Russians chose fighting over

surrender to save themselves from falling into German hands

• Reasons for this:– Moving along with (advancing

behind) the German troops were special SS groups called Einsatzgruppen

– Stalin declared that if a soldier broke ranks and retreated, it would be considered desertion and they would be immediately shot

Member of an Einsatzgruppe prepares to shoot a Ukrainian Jew kneeling on the edge of a mass grave filled with corpses

Initial German Problems PART 3• Panzer leaders were super enthusiastic about

massive movement• But infantry officers who followed the Panzers and

cleaned up the resistance were not as excited– While the Russians were being pushed back and being

slaughtered, the German infantry were still fighting - this was “real” combat as opposed to fighting in France

• Russian stragglers left behind the rapidly advancing German lines sniped and plagued the German lines

Initial German Problems PART 4• Soviet military technology was

lacking, but even this primitive fighting was scary

• New weapon for the Russians: T-34 Tank that Germans didn’t realize the Russians had and Russia had many of them– More than a match for any German

tank – it was the most technologically advanced tank of the time• German HQ thought things were going so well

because of tremendous gains, but there were signs of real problems to come

Strategy Debate Mid-July –One Month into Campaign

Which Way to Go?

• Hitler said to divert Panzer groups from Center to North group for a drive on Leningrad– More should be diverted from Center to go to

South group as well• Other German commanders did NOT want to

do this because they wanted to concentrate in the Center for drive on Moscow

• Panzers halt for this from mid-July until August 20th – they went the way Hitler wanted

Theories: Could the Germans Have Taken Moscow? PART 1

• Wasted a month of good weather• German supply problems– Troops had outrun supply lines– Roads were impassable– Train system was unreliable– Harassment of supply lines by guerillas

Theories: Could the Germans Have Taken Moscow? PART 2

• German manpower was stretched to their absolute limit – they were at the end of reserves and had not instituted a draft yet

• Russians did have reserves and were moving them to the West– SO Hitler said focusing on Moscow would

definitely outrun supplies and allow for encirclement by Russian reserves. Therefore Hitler wanted to keep the broad front

Theories: Could the Germans Have Taken Moscow? PART 3

• The debate itself was symptomatic of the biggest problem – Barbarossa had failed in its original objective: to destroy the Red Army in Western Russia

• Germans had attempted too much and were still 200 miles from Moscow

Continuing the Offensive

September 1941

Siege of Leningrad

• Leningrad was put under siege– 200,000 citizens of

Leningrad would die from starvation and exposure

– Kiev also fell to encirclement September 26

• 600,000 more Russians would be captured Finns to attack Soviet Union from

the north. Germans to attack from the west.

Siege of Leningrad

Germans Attack Moscow• September 30 – Army Group

Center moved on Moscow– Panic in Moscow– 600,000 Russian POW’s– Rumors that the government was

moving from Moscow to the East

Women and Older Men from Moscow dig 100

Miles of Anti-Tank Trenches around

the City

“We Will Defend Moscow”

Those Amazing Soviets• 1500 Russian industrial

factories were dismantled (by the Russians), put on trains, and moved East along with 1 million workers to build new industrial cities beyond the Urals and away from the Germans.

Halt of Barbarossa PART 1

• Heavy rains in October stopped offensive until November

• When the weather grew cold Germans could move towards Moscow again

• November 15th – offensive began again

Halt of Barbarossa PART 2

• Germans out of supplies – those they had were inadequate for the cold– Cotton and denim uniforms with no winter clothing

and no overcoats• Tanks were breaking down– No antifreeze available– Had to light fires under the tanks to heat them

• Late November temperatures reached -10 F– An open can of rations would freeze within 30

seconds

Russians Fight Back PART 1• Russians were planning

both defense of Moscow and major counter-offensive– Georgi Zhukov was

placed in charge of defense of Moscow

– Moved reinforcements from the far-East (Siberia) and they arrived East of Moscow – Germans did not know about this

Russians Fight Back PART 2

• December 5, 1941, Zhukov launched a massive counterattack North and South of Moscow– Halted German offensive and threatened to turn it

into a disaster– Counteroffensive stalled in January and February

• Germans launched a new offensive in Spring 1942 – war in the Soviet Union was not over

Barbarossa Failed

• Blitzkrieg phase was over– Germany was now in for the long conflict Hitler

had hoped to avoid– Red Army was not destroyed nor was Moscow

captured