Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (10 page)

The conference on 31 July formalised the effort to prepare operational studies for war against the Soviet Union and can thus be identified as a watershed in Hitler's strategy for waging the war. Significantly, the reception of this momentous news by Hitler's most senior commanders was without protest or dispute, and stands in sharp contrast to the impassioned disputes arising from the timing and operational plans for the western campaign.
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In particular, Halder noted only the day before that maintenance of good relations with Russia would be preferable to the alternative of confronting a two-front war.
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This draws attention to the twisted logic adopted by Hitler and accepted by his generals, that in order to deny Britain her final hope of Soviet involvement in the war, an invasion of that country was necessary. Ideological precepts were clearly a guiding force in the army's conceptualisation of war with the Soviet Union and this would become more and more evident as the planning stages progressed. Some thought was given to the long-term challenge a rearmed and modern Soviet army would pose to German hegemony in Europe, but these concerns were by no means at the forefront of strategic planning or decision making in the summer of 1940.
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Indeed, Soviet prospects for offensive action in Europe posed concern only for Romania and Finland, but certainly were not believed to include any aggressive intentions towards the
Reich.
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Two ways to skin a bear – the Marcks and Lossberg plans

The Chief of Staff of the 18th Army, Major-General
Erich Marcks, had already been working on contingency plans for war with the Soviet Union
since receiving orders from Halder in early July. On 29 July he arrived at the Army High Command headquarters in Fontainebleau to be briefed again by Halder on the increasing scope of the operations now being anticipated in the east.
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A long-time acquaintance of Halder and a man of high standing within the General Staff,
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Marcks was then charged with preparing an operational study that would become a principal cornerstone in the theoretical foundation of the final Barbarossa
³³
plan.

Completed in the first week of August, Marcks's plan, entitled ‘Operations Outline East’ (
Operationsentwurf Ost
), envisaged two main thrusts, one to the north and one to the south of the
Pripet marshes. The stronger of these two pincers was to be stationed in the north striking from East Prussia and
Poland as Marcks, at Halder's urging,
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determined
Moscow to be the decisive key to ‘eliminating the coherence of the Russian state’ (
seine Eroberung zerreißt den Zusammenhang des russischen Reiches
).
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To achieve this he directed the powerful northern army group to take the most direct approach to the Soviet capital, using one of the best road systems in the country, which proceeded via
Minsk and
Smolensk through the ‘Orsha Corridor’ between the Dvina and Dnepr Rivers. A secondary force would break off from the main group to strike north and seize
Leningrad via
Pskov.

In the second theatre of operations south of the Pripet marshes, the objective was to prevent a Soviet advance into
Romania, vital for Germany's supply of oil, by advancing on Kiev
and the middle
Dnepr. From this point future operations would be worked out in close co-operation with the northern army group and could vary between an advance due east towards the industrial city of
Kharkov or north-east towards a direct link up with formations in the north.

The elimination of the bulk of the Red Army in the western districts would enable a rapid advance into the distant hinterland thereby safeguarding Germany from the perceived danger of strategic bombing raids. The ultimate objective was to reach a line extending from
Rostov in the South, to
Gorki east of Moscow and up as far as
Arckangel'sk on the White Sea. Such an advance, it was believed, would lead to the collapse of organised Soviet resistance and the denial of resources necessary for the further conduct of major operations. The Soviet Asiatic regions were not believed to be greatly developed and were consequently judged incapable of sustaining large-scale Soviet resistance.
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The campaign was to embody four distinct phases of operation through which Marcks hoped to achieve final victory. The first involved pushing back the vanguard of the Red Army to their older fortified lines of defence calculated to be roughly 400 kilometres from the German starting positions. This first stage was thought to require approximately three weeks and included the optimistic observation that if the German armoured units were able to penetrate the Soviet lines fast enough, an effective withdrawal of large-scale formations might be prevented and the outcome of the campaign decided in this first phase.

Failing that, a second phase would be necessary requiring the breakthrough and encirclement of the Soviet defensive positions extending to a distance of between 100 and 200 kilometres. Marcks stressed the importance of achieving a clean penetration of these lines or, he warned, there existed the danger of scattered Soviet units carrying on resistance and needing to be eliminated one at a time. For this stage of the operations Marcks anticipated that two to four weeks would be required.

The third phase was predicated on the success of the second. Its objective called for the simultaneous advance on, and capture of, Moscow
,
Leningrad and the eastern Ukraine, a distance of 400 kilometres further east. Yet the timing of the operation depended on the condition of the army's motor-vehicles and the extent to which German gauge railway tracks could be laid for re-supply.
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There was also a question surrounding the condition of Red Army forces. If they were assessed to be still capable of offering resistance a further pause might be necessary in order to overhaul engines and carry out maintenance. The length of time allocated to this phase was between three and six weeks.

The fourth and final stage was the occupation of the Soviet Union up to the Don, middle Volga and upper
Dvina. This was not thought to
involve any serious opposition and was even termed a ‘railway advance’, requiring between three and four weeks.
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Marcks believed the Soviet strategic response would suffer from a fundamental dilemma. On the one hand, they might wish to adopt a similar strategy to that used in 1812 and fall back into the depths of their country, but being unable in a modern war to abandon lines of supply and sources of production, Marcks concluded they would be forced to hold a defensive position in the western part of the country. The line Plozk–Beresina – the Pripet marshes – Zbrutsch–Pruth was thought most likely for this purpose by Marcks, but he also suggested a retreat as far as the
Dnepr, with delaying actions being fought to slow the German advance and cover the Soviet withdrawal. In Marcks's opinion, the only exception to this defensive response was a possible Soviet offensive into
Romania to cut off German oil supplies. He also held the Soviet air force and navy (he specifically made reference to the submarine arm) in high regard, expecting them to adopt an offensive posture, contributing to the blockade of Germany and launching strong air attacks on the Romanian oil fields.

The Red Army's strength was estimated to be 151 infantry divisions, 32 cavalry divisions and 38 motorised brigades. Of these Marcks believed 55 infantry divisions, 9 cavalry divisions and 10 motorised brigades were tied down on the borders of
Finland,
Turkey and
Japan. The conclusion Marcks reached therefore was that only 96 infantry divisions, 23 cavalry divisions and 28 motorised brigades were available for operations against Germany. It is also significant that from Marcks's information no appreciable increase in the total number of Soviet units was thought possible before the spring of 1941.

German strength for the invasion of the Soviet Union, by the spring of 1941 was aimed at being 147 divisions (110 infantry and mountain divisions, 24 Panzer divisions, 12 motorised divisions and one cavalry division), a total which did not include occupation forces in Scandinavia or western Europe. In the conduct of operations the emphasis was on speed and surprise to penetrate Soviet lines and envelop their major formations before they could reach lines of prepared or natural defences. Marcks also planned to hold back a large part of his total force in a central reserve to compensate for the expanding funnel shape of the theatre into which the German armies were to advance. The allocation of forces is shown in Table 1.
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Table 1.1 
Division of forces in Marcks’ plan.

Source:
Erhard Moritz (ed.),
Fall Barbarossa
, p. 126.

The campaign to defeat the Soviet Union was estimated by Marcks to require between nine and 17 weeks, but interestingly he refused to rule out an indefinite state of war continuing in the distant east on a much smaller scale.
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In the weeks following Marcks's submission of his operational study he continued to reflect on the possible outcome of a war with the Soviet Union. Putting his thoughts to paper, he named his new study ‘Evaluation of Situation Red’ (
Beurteilung der Lage Rot
) which envisaged an outcome considerably different from that which he described in his initial analysis. His preliminary focus was on the larger geopolitical ramifications of a war with the Soviet Union, but he also addressed new considerations in his strategic analysis for a campaign in the east. To begin with he foresaw with certainty an enemy coalition between
Britain and the
Soviet Union, that would be joined shortly by the
United States who, Marcks noted, were already involved economically. This would see the Axis placed in the grip of a powerful blockade, while having to defend on all sides. With this, the Allies would have achieved their precondition for offensive operations from both the east and in the west with an Anglo-American landing in Europe. The Soviets would just have to ensure their survival against the initial German blow to take advantage of the collective power and subsequent counter-attacks that would eventually be unleashed against Germany. These, Marcks thought, could arise towards the end of 1941, but were more likely in 1942. Such a scenario, therefore, placed great emphasis on defeating the Soviet Union quickly in order to eliminate a dangerous enemy and ensure Germany's economic survival. Marcks still held to his earlier belief that, once the most prosperous areas in the Soviet Union were occupied, Soviet resistance would crumble and ‘Situation Red’ would not materialise, but in order to occupy the European districts of the Soviet Union further study was needed to assess the
prospects of success. Marcks now concluded that the Soviet command would probably react systematically to the German invasion by constructing numerous defensive lines, rather than relying wholly on a stand along the Dnepr–Dvina line (as his earlier study assumed). Such a conclusion calls into question his whole timetable of advance as presented in the earlier draft.
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Marcks received responses to his ‘Evaluation of Situation Red’ from Lieutenant-General von Tippelskirch, Senior Quartermaster IV, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Eberhard Kinzel, head of the Department of Foreign Armies East (
Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost
). Neither foresaw events with such potential foreboding as Marcks did, and consequently their respective answers concentrated less on dealing with the dire implications of ‘Situation Red’ than assuring Marcks how and why this would not come about. Significantly, there is no evidence to suggest Marcks's follow-up study ever reached Halder and, therefore, its veiled warnings had no impact on future planning.

While enlightening in its own right, Marcks's ‘Evaluation of Situation Red’ also reveals a great deal about the intellectual process employed in planning the eastern campaign from the earliest stages. The unquestioning assumptions of Marcks's ‘Operations Outline East’ that, as will be seen with subsequent army studies, made no assessment of the
ability
of the Wehrmacht to achieve victory in a single campaign, proved symptomatic of the responses he received to the ‘Evaluation of Situation Red’. Such blind supposition of success – among the very body charged with establishing the operational parameters and feasibility of the campaign – is strong evidence of the ‘closed circle’ of discussion and debate that was fostered within the army General Staff. It also hints ominously at the vast and unseen implications of an invasion of the Soviet Union.
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