Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (11 page)

Halder
himself bears a significant degree of responsibility for such stifling of independent thought, having dissuaded Marcks from launching the main thrust of his attack into the Soviet Union from the south, emphasising instead the primary importance of Moscow for the victory in the east.
⁴³
This further led to his discounting Marcks's
forecast of an indefinite state of war continuing in the east, on a small scale, even after reaching the final line of advance.
⁴⁴

The
General Staff's exuberant self-confidence towards an eastern campaign, no doubt boosted by the spectacular collapse of France only
weeks before, also reflected long-held prejudices of a racial and cultural kind, which memories of World War I appeared only to confirm.
⁴⁵
Olaf Groehler has suggested that Prussian–German disdain for Russian military power can be traced back two hundred years to Frederick II of Prussia. The more recent set of beliefs were influenced by a so-called ‘Tannenberg myth’, which contrasted a natural German military superiority with barbaric Russian hordes capable of atrocities.
⁴⁶
In addition, Germany's academic experts on the east (
Ostforscher
) were profoundly influenced by entrenched stereotypes, adding a guise of merit to the ingrained anti-Slavic and anti-Bolshevik beliefs.
⁴⁷
The future commander of Panzer Group 3 in Army Group Centre's invasion of the Soviet Union, Colonel-General
Hermann Hoth, described the ‘bestial cruelty’ of the Russians during their 1914 invasion of East Prussia, while his counterpart, Colonel-General
Heinz Guderian, later to command Panzer Group 2, observed after World War I while in Mitau on the Baltic: ‘the Bolsheviks…cavort like beasts’.
⁴⁸

As the inferior ‘foe-image’ supported central precepts of the National Socialist agenda and paralleled prevailing views already widespread within the armed forces, one begins to identify not only the willing acceptance of Nazi ideals, but the generals’ own role in initiating and propagating them. As a case in point, Halder pre-empted even Hitler in strategic planning for a war in the east, which, much more than providing a defence of Germany's eastern border, called for a first strike attack against the Soviet Union. Christian Hartmann in his biographical study of Halder suggested that the Chief of the General Staff's views may have been shaped or at least influenced by his personal experience on Germany's eastern front in World War I. Halder only spent a few months in the east in 1917, but this was shortly before the final Russian political and military collapse.
⁴⁹

In spite of such self-inflicted deception, the audacious liberties taken in the early planning of the eastern campaign cannot simply be passed over as the by-products of blatant ignorance or diehard prejudices
. The General Staff demonstrated a wanton lack of professionalism, ignoring
unfavourable intelligence and failing to consider in depth such critical questions as logistics, climate and the imposing spaces which extended not only the depth of operations but, owing to the expanding funnel of the Soviet land mass, the breadth of the front line.

Among the intelligence reports supplied to Marcks for his operational study there is believed to have been a draft copy of the Military Geography Department's soon-to-be-published study of the Soviet Union. This forwarded the standard arguments in favour of the occupation of the Ukraine,
Moscow and
Leningrad, but went on to suggest that the oil wells of the Caucasus were probably too distant to be included in the German sphere of control. Nevertheless, the report concluded, even if such far-flung regions could be directly administered, it would still not ensure a cessation of Soviet resistance owing to the substantial development of Asian Russia. This region was no longer a backwater of sparsely populated indigenous peoples living as nomads or in isolated settlements. On the contrary, the report presented an impressive picture of modern development. Beyond the Urals and Caspian Sea lived 40 million people with developed agricultural and industrial resources, and the western section had an increasing network of railroad communications. The report concluded that the principal enemies in any attack were space and climate with the vastness of territory being of the utmost importance.
⁵⁰

The German military attaché in Moscow, Lieutenant-General
Ernst Köstring, the foremost German military expert on the Soviet Union, fluent in Russian and stationed in the Soviet capital since 1935,
⁵¹
was undoubtedly another source of authoritative information for Marcks. Although he did contribute to the intelligence-gathering process, his voice, unlike head of the intelligence-gathering ‘Department of Foreign Armies East’ Lieutenant-Colonel Kinzel,
⁵²
was distinctly critical. He believed there was nothing to gain in a proposed war that could not be secured politically, so long as the German Wehrmacht remained strong and undefeated.
⁵³
Militarily, Köstring observed in August 1938, the Red Army, even amidst the worst of Stalin's ‘Great Purge’, retained a formidable fighting capacity.

The Red Army, as a result of the liquidation of large numbers of senior officers, who applied themselves to their task very ably for ten years, advancing theoretical and practical training, has now lost a degree of its operational level ability…The
best commanders are now gone, yet there is
no
indication or proof that the strike power of the
majority
has sunken so low as to no longer constitute a significant factor in the event of a war.
⁵⁴

In early September 1940 Halder recorded a conversation with Köstring, in which the veteran Soviet observer noted improvements within the Red Army, but added that it would still require a further four years before it reached its former level. Köstring also warned of the demands the terrain and conditions would cause the Wehrmacht to which Halder
noted: ‘[M]ovement in the various parts of Russia will present significant difficulties for motorised units.’
⁵⁵
The following month Köstring again emphasised caution in an intelligence report prepared for Foreign Armies East. Here he stressed the defensive qualities of the Red Army which reinforced the appearance of a formidable and serious opponent, although Köstring pointed out that it was still incapable of conducting large-scale mobile warfare. Köstring again highlighted the difficulties of movement in the east. He drew attention to the absence of roads and extremes in weather, which he concluded were the Soviet Union's greatest allies, along with time and space.
⁵⁶
Yet not all of Köstring's urgings can be taken at face value, especially his post-war claim, accepted by some historians,
⁵⁷
but unsupported by available records, professing his prescience of the Soviet industrial developments east of the Urals and emphasising therefore the irrelevance of Moscow as a strategic key to
victory.
⁵⁸

Operating under orders from
Jodl, Lieutenant-Colonel Bernhard von
Lossberg began work on his ‘Operational Study East’ (‘
Operationsstudie Ost
’) on, or shortly after, 29 July and completed it, much later than Marcks, on 15 September. This meant of course, that Lossberg had the benefit of learning from Marcks's ‘Operations Outline East’ which, in addition to the fact that Lossberg was supplied with much the same material from the General Staff, accounts in large measure for their many similarities. Yet the delay between the completion of the two studies allowed Lossberg to incorporate into his planning the rapidly changing political situation unfolding in Eastern Europe, namely in
Romania.
⁵⁹
The imposed resolution to the escalating conflict with
Hungary in the arbitration of Vienna (August 30) secured for Germany the ability to use Romania as a staging ground for the coming war against the Soviet Union, and thus created a strategic option not open to Marcks.
⁶⁰
In essence, however, the Lossberg plan bore many similarities to the Marcks plan so, in order to avoid repetition, I shall focus on those factors which diverged appreciably from Marcks.

Lossberg opened his study with the following outline of objectives:

The aim of a campaign against Soviet Russia is to destroy the mass of the Soviet Army in western Russia, to prevent the withdrawal of battle-worthy elements into the depths of Russia, and then, having cut western Russia off from the seas, to advance to a line which will place the most important part of Russia in our hands and on which it will be easy to form a shield against Asiatic Russia.
⁶¹

Unlike
Marcks, who anticipated a significant Soviet withdrawal to established defensive positions, Lossberg did not think that this was the most likely Soviet reaction in the event of a German invasion. He foresaw three possible scenarios. First, a pre-emptive Soviet attack that he discounted on military grounds, while acknowledging that a degree of risk existed to
Finland and Romania. Second, and most likely in Lossberg's estimation, the Red Army would mount a vigorous defence of its western border to protect Soviet air force bases and because its status as a military power made a retreat, according to Lossberg, doubtful. Third, the Soviets would revert to their 1812 strategy of withdrawal in depth meeting the Germans only where necessary as rearguard actions. This, however, was also viewed as improbable owing to the valuable economic importance of the Ukraine which Lossberg judged could not be abandoned. The Red Army was therefore expected to hold the line in the west of the country on or near the border where, Lossberg concluded, in the event of an early commitment of strong Soviet forces, the Red Army would be defeated and an orderly withdrawal of the bulk of the army would become unmanageable.
⁶²

Lossberg's plan called for three simultaneous thrusts into the Soviet Union, each directed by its own army group and deployed, to the north (two groups), and to the south (one group) of the
Pripet marshes. Of the two northerly army groups, one would attack through the Baltic states, across the Dvina towards
Leningrad, while the second and most
powerful army group, equipped with the bulk of the motorised and panzer divisions, would proceed due east towards
Moscow with encirclement battles centred on
Minsk and
Smolensk. For the southern army group Lossberg envisaged two main areas of concentration, one striking from southern Poland and the other from Romania
along the northern shore of the Black Sea. The goal was to enact a double envelopment of Soviet forces between the Pripet marshes
and the Black Sea, eradicating resistance before attempting a crossing of the Dnepr. The army group would then have to assess the degree of continued Soviet resistance in ascertaining the scope of further operations which, Lossberg suggested, would be the occupation of the eastern Ukraine and a linking-up with elements of the northern army groups.
⁶³

Significantly, Lossberg perceived more clearly than Marcks the tremendous field of operations in which the campaign would have to be fought
⁶⁴
and consequently planned his initial strategic movements with some consideration for the difficulties of logistics and supply in mind. Accordingly, the large central army group heading in the general direction of Moscow was to wheel north at some point (possibly east of the Dvina) and cut off the Soviet forces along the Baltic in a huge pocket. Apart from the military triumph this would represent, Lossberg foresaw the strategic importance of allowing forward supplies, through the Baltic ports, for the continued advance on to Moscow.
⁶⁵

Lossberg also appreciated to a greater extent the scale of the logistical problems confronting operations in the depths of the interior where possible re-supply through Baltic or Black Sea ports would have little influence.
⁶⁶
For this he sought to alleviate the strain on standard resources by emphasising the use of captured broad gauge Soviet trains that he hoped could be acquired in the newly-won regions. Lossberg sought to underline this point by stating that without the use of Soviet railways to facilitate the latter stages of the advance, ‘a transport system based only on roads will be insufficient’.
⁶⁷

In spite of Lossberg's enhanced consideration for the operation of large armies over such great distances, his improvised remedies appear woefully inadequate when, in conclusion, he resolved to select the final
line of advance,
Arckangel'sk –
Gorki –
Volga (to Stalingrad) –
Don (to the Black Sea).
⁶⁸
For the single campaigning season envisaged, such an effort represents optimism that has turned to folly.

Lossberg also identified internal dissent as a reliable source of support for the German effort to conquer the Soviet Union. He believed that the Ukrainian population's traumatic experience under Stalin's enforced drive for collectivisation would lead to German forces being greeted as liberators from communist oppression. Encouragement of a popular pro-German or, at the very least, anti-Soviet sentiment could be fanned by German espionage and extend as far as direct participation in the conflict, with Lossberg foreseeing a use for the population in the sabotage of crucial Soviet railway links. Looking even further ahead, Lossberg anticipated a Ukrainian ‘government’ could be formed, subservient to German wishes and aiding in the occupation of the immense territory.
⁶⁹