Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (71 page)

Although the motorised formations of the army were being progressively gutted on the eastern front, the German High Command was steadfastly absorbed by the strategic question of where to resume offensive operations.
Hitler had resigned himself to a pause in operations while the final resistance in the Smolensk pocket was extinguished, and the necessary refitting of the panzer divisions was undertaken. This gave him time to consider his options and reflect on the weight of opinion arrayed against him. Hitler still retained his preference for Leningrad and a strike to the south over that of Moscow, but in his momentary self-doubt he wanted some form of substantiation to validate his instinctive tendency. It was also somewhat characteristic of Hitler to procrastinate over important decisions, especially when his own inner conviction was rattled. In this momentary inertia on Hitler's part,
Halder saw his advantage and hoped to wrestle back the strategic initiative from Hitler's interference. Yet for all Hitler's indecision, he was not a man who could be bent to anyone else's will, something Halder consistently failed to grasp, as did many other generals later in the war. If it was ever possible to change
Hitler's mind on an issue, he would have to be tenderly cajoled and convinced in ways that sometime ignored conventional rationale, and appealed instead to Hitler's selective world-view. Confrontation was just as likely to produce the opposite effect and spark one of his thunderous tantrums.

While Hitler struggled with his flagging resolution on how to proceed, his search for conviction led him to
Bock's headquarters on 4 August to hear first hand the view of his battlefield commanders – a perspective he trusted far more than the self-serving clique at OKH. Ordered to attend,
Hoth and
Guderian flew into
Borisov to join Bock who was already hosting a visit by
Heusinger – no doubt the eyes and ears of the OKH and probably with a mandate to ensure uniformity throughout the army command, which may well have been a prudent measure given that there was some evidence to suggest Guderian had favourably considered the southward strike.
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In addition, Brauchitsch had also expressed his hope that the two panzer commanders would ‘influence Hitler to release the panzer reserves’.
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Hitler arrived by plane with his usual entourage, which included
Keitel,
Jodl and
Schmundt. The proceedings opened with Hitler warmly congratulating Bock on his ‘unprecedented successes’.
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Then Hitler proceeded to question each of the generals separately in another room so as to gauge their opinions individually, without each man knowing what the others had said.
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If Hitler was looking for support within the ranks of the army he would not find it on this day, and the generals all toed Halder's line on the paramount importance of
Moscow. For his part Keitel was disgusted, seeing this as an obvious sham orchestrated by the OKH. Writing before his execution at Nuremberg, Keitel recalled bitterly:

All three of them [Bock, Hoth and Guderian] were aware of the War Office's [OKH's] plan of attack and saw it as their panacea; any weakening of Army Group Centre would jeopardise this plan, a plan which had electrified them all…The War Office, Army Group Centre and the tank commanders had managed to put up a united front against their Führer.

It was this resistance that Keitel then blamed for ultimately having ‘shipwrecked Hitler's great strategic master plan’.
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Certainly in Bock's and Hoth's case and perhaps Guderian's too, the willingness of the generals
to argue for Moscow reflected not only the desires of the OKH, but also a strong degree of personal conviction. The only senior commander in Army Group Centre to have openly endorsed the diversion of panzers to the south was
Kluge;
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however, his command had been recently made redundant by the disbandment of 4th Panzer Army. As a Field Marshal, Kluge was the second-highest ranking officer in Army Group Centre and would be reinstated as an army commander. Even if the OKW had not expressly requested his attendance, Kluge had been involved in the campaign at the most senior level from the very beginning and would shortly resume his involvement, raising the question of whether there was a more devious agenda on the part of the OKH. Even if no active measures were taken to exclude him, one wonders whether there was not a passive bias against him, and whether his attendance would have been sought or even ordered had he expressed an enthusiastic devotion towards the Moscow alternative. In any case, there was no sympathetic ear for Hitler's preferred plans at
Borisov.

By all accounts Hitler was still unsure how to proceed at the end of the meeting and declared that no final decision had yet been made as to future strategy. He did, however, set out the three alternatives in order of current priority. First came
Leningrad, second the Donets region south of
Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine, and last Moscow. Yet this was not as discouraging for the army commanders as it might first appear. Leningrad, Hitler contended, was expected to be reached by
Leeb's forces without further aid by 20 August. This, he continued, left ‘all the strength of the Luftwaffe currently deployed there as well as strong elements of Leeb's command to be placed at the disposal of Army Group Centre’. As for the southern operation, Hitler also made reference to the recent favourable development of
Army Group South's position and that the battle strength of enemy forces there ‘was no longer highly valued’.
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After the discussion of strategy, Hoth and Guderian were keen to seize their chance and issue a direct plea to Hitler for the urgent release of new panzers and the shipment of replacement tank engines from Germany. Guderian, in particular, couched his request in absolute terms, pointing optimistically to the prospect of renewed operations over distant reaches of the Soviet Union with a full 70 per cent of his forces fit for battle by
15 August.
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The consequences, however, of not heeding his replacement requirements were correspondingly dire. On this point Guderian was blunt and to the point.

[T]he striking power of the decisive shock weapons [by which he had cited panzers and aircraft] would decline. The fighting would then depend more on the infantry and progress would be sluggish and bloody. Rapid, comprehensive victories would then no longer be possible and as a result of this the progress of the war would be decisively and negatively influenced.
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Hoth too stressed the urgency of replacement engines
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and emphasised that newly produced tanks were also necessary to replace total losses.
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Hoth, however, was more cautious than Guderian in giving a date for the completion of his refitting process, suggesting it would be between 18 and 20
August.
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Hitler listened patiently to these requests and the diarist for Guderian's second panzer group (who also appears to have been in attendance) noted that, ‘[t]he Führer was visibly moved’.
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Hitler immediately authorised the release of one month's supply of engine production for the front, which equated to 400 engines,
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and a pitiful 35 newly produced tanks.
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Beyond this Hitler would not go. He claimed that the two remaining panzer divisions in Germany (
2nd and
5th Panzer Divisions which had undergone repairs following the Balkan campaign) as well as the bulk of new production, were needed in the homeland to forestall any British landings.
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Later it was acknowledged that, even if these
measures did not compensate for the wear and tear of the panzer divisions, ‘at least it gave the troops something of the feeling that they were not forgotten.’
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Guderian, on the other hand, protested that his panzer group alone would require 300 engines
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and claims to have described the offer as ‘totally inadequate’,
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but Hitler remained
unmoved. Soviet losses, the dictator asserted, were approaching those of Imperial Russia in World War I and this after just six weeks.
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To Hitler's mind he had already been quite generous and, in any case, the success of operations rested mainly on adopting the correct strategic approach, not haggling over a few tanks or spare
parts.

At the conclusion of the conference
Heusinger dutifully gave a detailed report to
Halder who was gratified to note that Hitler had released the panzer engines, but added that this had already been undertaken by the OKH without Hitler's knowledge. The subject of Moscow was, however, cause for renewed frustration. Halder had hoped that the much celebrated field commanders, on the verge of another victory at Smolensk, and with all the warrior's élan that appealed so much to Hitler, would sweep aside Hitler's lingering reservations. The news that Moscow was still in third place behind
Leningrad and the Ukraine was a bitter pill for Halder, who was equally frustrated at Hitler's continued procrastination in coming to a final decision. That evening, with the backing of
Brauchitsch, Halder vented his frustration to Heusinger and
Paulus. He insisted that the army groups needed clear-cut tasks and lamented the absence of political direction in establishing clear objectives for the campaign. Halder suggested that, if his objective was to defeat the enemy decisively, it should be left to the army with full access to resources and no interference from above. ‘This’, Halder assured his audience, ‘would end in this year at Moscow and leave the gaining of more ground [in the Ukraine] to the development of the situation.’
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With the high hopes of the OKH wallowing in an atmosphere of gloom, Brauchitsch departed for the Wolf's Lair the next day (5 August) to press
Hitler for more clarity on strategic questions. The meeting revealed that Hitler was also becoming concerned by the danger that the front was settling down to static warfare, like in 1914. He expressed the need to get
them moving again but, given the state of the army and the Luftwaffe, Hitler made it clear that it could not all be undertaken at the same time. He therefore proposed three areas where renewed operations were possible.
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Commenting in his diary after the return of Brauchitsch
, Halder reviewed each of the three alternatives. The first was for a north-eastward thrust by Hoth towards the
Valdai Hills, which Hitler characterised as flank support for Leeb's right wing, but Halder dismissively rejected this as superfluous. Instead Halder took heart from the fact that occupying the Valdai Hills would provide a favourable jumping-off point for Hoth's drive east to the Volga.

The second alternative raised by Hitler was for the clearing of the southern wing of Bock's army group, if possible with the capture of
Korosten, followed by an advance towards Moscow
. At this Halder rejoiced. ‘This idea is a salvation’, he proclaimed. Yet Halder was also mindful of the danger inherent in such a move. Korosten was a distant march to the south pulling forces away from the centre and endangering the prospects of a drive east. ‘Let's wait and see’, was his conclusive comment.

The third alternative concerned the operations within Army Group South and did not unduly impinge on Bock's forces, leaving Halder pleasantly relieved. It seemed the sum of Hitler's deliberations was largely positive and Halder hailed the ‘cheering progress’ these had made. According to the Army Chief of Staff, Hitler had been surreptitiously coaxed away from his obsession with tactical manoeuvre towards the OKH's operational objectives
. ‘That is for the moment a relief’, Halder exclaimed, although he recognised that they fell well short of the clear operational objectives still being awaited.
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Indeed, writing to his wife on 5 August, Halder's ongoing frustration was clear:

I am not the kind of person to accuse someone. However it is often extremely annoying when one must fight the authoritative people for the clear and simple lines denoting the big and deciding questions. One would not believe how big the predilection is for discussing minor questions, that every day waste hours and hours, only to evade the big decisions until the last
minute.
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Overall, the two days of high-level meetings in early August produced little in terms of tangible results, but highlight the German command's obsession with strategic questions, while largely ignoring the diminishing
ability of their forces to conduct such operations. Even the panzer commanders appeared singularly concerned with the serviceability of their tanks without any hint of concern for the myriad of problems which had stalled operations and forced such a long and costly struggle around Smolensk. There was no discussion of the failing logistical system, no acknowledgement of the heavy casualties in men and combined arms, and no accounting for the faltering strength of the Luftwaffe. On
the other side, there was no admission that the Red Army was proving an incredibly resilient opponent, who was seemingly able to patch up the front faster than the Germans could break it down, and at the same time launch repeated offensives on multiple fronts. There could be no denying, as the German leadership was keen to point out,
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that the Soviets had serious problems of their own, some far worse than the Germans, but the standard of success was entirely different. The Red Army had only to endure as a significant fighting force, while the Germans had to win the war and win it decisively – there was no contingency for anything else.