Today’s objectives

 

  1. Probe: what explains the Soviets’ great intelligence failure
  2. Consider: how ideology affects the way states fight
    (and how their enemies respond)
  3. Analyze: whether Germany could have captured Moscow

What is this?

 

 

Operation Barbarossa, 22 June 1941
Assumptions

  1. Quick victory is possible
  2. After 1941:
    Victory still possible in long war


 

 

Into the dark

Early German successes

Balance of power Force employment Geography Information Chance
numbers doctrine distance surprise weather
replacement of losses strategy terrain intelligence timing
industry/production training climate analysis luck
logistics officer quality roads communication
natural resources technology fortifications

Germans lose momentum

Balance of power Force employment Geography Information Chance
numbers doctrine distance surprise weather
replacement of losses strategy terrain intelligence timing
industry/production training climate analysis luck
logistics officer quality roads communication
natural resources technology fortifications

Biggest. War. Ever.

World War II in Europe

Country Casualties
USSR 28 million
Germany 9 million
Poland 5.8 million
France 550,000
Italy 454,000
UK 450,000
USA 214,000

Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front)

  1. 93% of European casualties in WWII
  2. 80% of German casualties in WWII
  3. 18 of 25 costliest battles of all time
  4. almost every concentration camp, Jewish ghetto


 

 

 

Hard won

Sizing Up the Titans

Order of Battle, June 1941

Germany

  1. Numbers
    1. 3.8-4.9M troops
    2. 3,500-4,617 tanks
    3. 2,500-4,873 aircraft
    4. 600,000 vehicles
  2. Force structure (157 divisions)
    1. 12 armored divisions
    2. 6 airborne divisions
    3. 12 mechanized divisions
    4. 7 cavalry divisions
    5. 120 infantry divisions
    6. org. into 3 Army Groups:
      • North (\(\to\) Leningrad)
      • Center (\(\to\) Moscow)
      • South (\(\to\) Ukraine)

Soviet Union

  1. Numbers
    1. 2.9-3.4M troops
    2. 13,981-15,000 tanks
    3. 7,758-9,000 aircraft
    4. 272,600 vehicles
  2. Force structure (174 divisions)
    1. 40 armored divisions
    2. 12 airborne divisions
    3. 18 mechanized divisions
    4. 7 cavalry divisions
    5. 97 infantry divisions
    6. organized into 5 Fronts
      • North (Murmansk)
      • Northwest (Leningrad)
      • West (Belarus)
      • Southwest (Ukraine)
      • South (Ukraine)

Command & control

  1. Germany
    1. commanding officers well trained
    2. mission-oriented command system (Auftragstaktik)
    3. operational experience
    4. decentralized C2
  2. Soviet Union
    1. Stalin’s officer purges
    2. unstable command structure
    3. lack of command experience
    4. limited freedom of action on battlefield
    5. centralized C2


 

 

 

Lonely at the top

 

 

Military doctrine

  1. Offensive
    1. combined-arms offensive
    2. “deep battle” concept
    3. mismatch between doctrine & capability
  2. Defensive
    1. political constraints on defensive planning, doctrine
    2. further complications due to border expansion
    3. Stalin Line \(\to\) Molotov Line


 

 

Deep battle

 

 

Ideology:
total war against “Judeo-Bolshevism”

 

Hitler to Reichstag, 30 January 1939:

If international finance Jewry should succeed once more in plunging the peoples into a world war, then the consequences will not be the Bolshevization of the world, and therewith the victory of Jewry, but the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.


 

 

Dead serious

 

German directives to troops

  1. Commissar Order
    1. ‘one cannot count on the enemy acting in accordance with principles of humanity or international law’
  2. Severity Order
    1. ‘severe but just revenge on subhuman Jewry’
  3. Guidelines to German Troops
    1. ‘ruthless and radical measures against Bolsheviks, agitators, guerrillas, saboteurs, Jews’
  4. Hunger Plan
    1. feed Germany by starving USSR
    2. ‘extinction of industry, good part of population in deficit regions’


 

 

 

 

Following orders

 

Information

  1. Many signals
    1. largest foreign intelligence network on planet
    2. warnings on impending attack from Soviet agents, British intelligence, German defectors \(\to\)
  2. Signals missed
    1. Soviet forces not on alert
    2. aircraft not dispersed or camouflaged
    3. supply dumps in vulnerable forward positions
    4. defensive fortifications in midst of re-location

Discussion
- Why did Stalin ignore warnings of buildup?


 

 

 

Ramzay/Cassandra

Biggest. Operation. Ever.

 

 

Operation Barbarossa

  1. From ocean to sea
    1. attack over broad front
      (750 miles)
    2. fan out to Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan Line (1800 miles)
    3. territory: 2,000,000 mi\(^2\)   (territory of France \(\times\) 10)
  2. Debate over objectives
    1. destruction of Red Army \(\checkmark\)
    2. seize Moscow
    3. seize Ukraine


 

Campaign plan

Plan Barbarossa Meets Reality

Germans attack

First 60 Days

Germany advances

 

 

 

 

Soviet responses

  1. Organizational
    1. establishment of High Command (Stavka)
    2. re-organization of ground forces
    3. creation of NKVD ‘Special Sections’ to improve discipline
  2. Industrial
    1. evacuation of 1,500 industrial plants to Asia


 

A giant awakens

Stavka

 

 

 

 

German challenges

  1. Logistics
    1. frontline units outrunning supplies
    2. underdeveloped road infrastructure
  2. Behind-the-line attacks
    1. regular ambushed by partisans, regular Soviet troops
    2. few incentives for Soviets to surrender


 

Not yet victorious

Not yet defeated

 

 

Fight or fight
in which scenario would you be least likely to surrender to the enemy, and why?

  1. Scenario 1
    1. Geneva Conventions honored in enemy’s POW camps
  2. Scenario 2
    1. Geneva Conventions do not apply in enemy’s POW camps
  3. Scenario 3
    1. Geneva Conventions do not apply in enemy’s POW camps
    2. at home: ‘surrender \(=\) treason’


 

 

 

Your choice

 

 

Problems of Germans’ own making

  1. Conditions in POW camps
    1. high mortality
    2. no food, medical care
    3. human experiments
  2. SS Einsatzgruppen
    1. mass killings of civilians (esp. Jews) behind German lines
  3. Reprisals for partisan attacks
    1. thousands of villages burned to ground
    2. public executions

 

\(\to\) strong incentives against civilians’ cooperation & Soviet soldiers’ surrender


 

POW camp

Einsatzgruppe

Advance on Moscow

But Germany still advances

 

 

 

More German challenges

  1. Mobility
    1. forests, swamps, wooded steppe
    2. limited roads
    3. heavy rains in fall
    4. snow & frost in November
    5. no winter clothing
    6. no antifreeze
  2. Soviet defenses
    1. civilians help dig fortifications
    2. reserves arrive from Siberia
    3. Zhukov takes over defense of city, launches major counter-offensive


 

Rasputitsa

All hands on deck

Moscow counter-offensive

Moscow counter-offensive, wide view

 

 

 

Costs of Barbarossa

  1. Killed, wounded, captured
    1. Germany: 790,000 - 803,000
    2. USSR: 3,500,000 - 5,000,000
    3. 4:1 - 6:1 loss-exchange ratio
  2. but…
    1. Red Army not destroyed
    2. Moscow not seized
    3. long war not avoided


 

 

 

So close, yet so far

 

Discussion: Could the Germans have taken Moscow? 

 

Scenarios

  1. Launch offensive in May, assuming:
    1. no Greece invasion by Italy
    2. rainy spring would not slow advance
  2. Not divert Panzer groups from AG Center in August, assuming:
    1. Hitler’s orders would be countermanded
    2. no Soviet reserves
    3. supply difficulties can be overcome
    4. autumn rains would not slow advance

 

How realistic are these scenarios?

NEXT MEETING

 

USSR at War: Stalingrad to Berlin (Th, Oct. 26)

  • was Hitler’s “southern strategy” fatally flawed?
  • was Germany’s defeat at Stalingrad avoidable?
  • what are Stalingrad’s lessons for urban warfare?