Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began the largest and most costly campaign in military history. Its failure was a key turning point of the Second World War. The operation was planned as a blitzkrieg to win Germany its Lebensraum in the east, and the summer of 1941 is well known for the German army’s unprecedented victories and advances. Yet the German blitzkrieg depended almost entirely upon the motorised panzer groups, particularly those of Army Group Centre. Using previously unpublished archival records, David Stahel presents a new history of Germany’s summer campaign from the perspective of the two largest and most powerful panzer groups on the eastern front. Stahel’s research provides a fundamental reassessment of Germany’s war against the Soviet Union, highlighting the prodigious internal problems of the vital panzer forces and revealing that their demise in the earliest phase of the war undermined the whole German invasion. DAVID STAHEL is an independent researcher based in Berlin. Cambridge Military Histories Edited by HEW STRACHAN, Chichele Professor of the History of War, University of Oxford, and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford GEOFFREY WAWRO, Major General Olinto Mark Barsanti Professor of Military History, and Director, Center for the Study of Military History, University of North Texas The aim of this new series is to publish outstanding works of research on warfare throughout the ages and throughout the world. Books in the series will take a broad approach to military history, examining war in all its military, strategic, political and economic aspects. The series is intended to complement Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare by focusing on the ‘hard’ military history of armies, tactics, strategy and warfare. Books in the series will consist mainly of single-author works – academically vigorous and groundbreaking – which will be accessible to both academics and the interested general reader. Titles in the series include: E. Bruce Reynolds Thailand’s Secret War: OSS, SOE and the Free Thai Under- ground during World War II Robert T. Foley German Strategy and the Path to Verdun:Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916 Elizabeth Greenhalgh Victory through Coalition: Britain and France during the First Wo r l d Wa r John Gooch Mussolini and his Generals: The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922–1940 Alexander Watson Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918 Mustafa Aksakal The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War J. P. Harris Douglas Haig and the First World War Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East David Stahel CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao˜ Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521768474 C David Stahel 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2009 Third Printing 2010 First paperback edition 2010 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Stahel, David, 1975– Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s defeat in the East / by David Stahel. p. cm. – (Cambridge military histories) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-521-76847-4 (hardback) 1. World War, 1939–1945 – Campaigns – Eastern Front. 2. World War, 1939–1945 – Tank warfare. 3. Soviet Union – History – German occupation, 1941–1944. I. Title. II. Series. D764.S795 2009 940.54217 – dc22 2009016993 ISBN 978-0-521-76847-4 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents List of illustrations page vii List of maps ix Acknowledgements xi Glossary of terms xiii Tables of military ranks and army structures xv Introduction 1 Part I Strategic plans and theoretical conceptions for war against the Soviet Union 1 Fighting the bear 33 The evolution of early strategic planning 33 Two ways to skin a bear – the Marcks and Lossberg plans 39 Crisis postponed – from war games to Directive No. 21 54 2 The gathering storm 70 The army deployment directive 70 The dysfunctional order – delusion as operative discourse 84 Barbarossa – the zenith of war 95 3 Barbarossa’s sword – Hitler’s armed forces in 1941 105 Carrying fear before them and expectation behind – Hitler’s panzer arm 105 Standing before the precipice – the infantry and Luftwaffe on the eve of Barbarossa 117 The impossible equation – the logistics and supply of Barbarossa 127 4 The advent of war 139 ‘Welcome to hell on earth’ 139 v vi Contents Part II The military campaign and the July/August crisis of 1941 5 Awakening the bear 153 Indecisive border battles and the surfacing of strategic dissent 153 The Belostok–Minsk pocket – anatomy of a hollow victory 170 Straining the limits – Bock’s race to the rivers 186 6 The perilous advance to the east 209 Forging across the Dvina and Dnepr – the threshold to demise 209 ‘The Russian is a colossus and strong’ (Adolf Hitler) 228 Caught in the hinterlands 245 7 The battle of Smolensk 260 The end of blitzkrieg 260 Crisis rising – the German command at war 273 ‘I am on the brink of despair’ (Franz Halder) 290 8 The attrition of Army Group Centre 306 The killing fields at Yel’nya 306 Sealing the Smolensk pocket and Army Group Centre’s fate 324 Victory at Smolensk? The paradox of a battle 344 9 In search of resurgence 361 The arduous road to renewal 361 ‘Today is the beginning of positional warfare!’ (Fedor von Bock) 380 Embracing world war and apocalypse – Hitler reaches resolution 400 10 Showdown 423 Hitler’s triumph in defeat 423 Conclusion 439 Bibliography 452 Index 474 Illustrations FIGURES 1.1 Hitler rewarding his generals after the Polish campaign, 1939. Ullstein bild – ullstein bild. page 36 2.1 Hitler, Halder and Brauchitsch planning operations in the east. Ullstein bild – SV-Bilderdienst. 80 3.1 Panzer models available for Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941. Rolf-Dieter Muller,¨ ‘Von der Wirtschaftsallianz zum kolonialen Ausbeutungskrieg’, p. 185. 116 5.1 The German advance into the Soviet Union. Militargeschichtliches¨ Forschungsamt, Potsdam. 157 5.2 Soviet roads and the problem of dust. Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-136-0882-12. 168 5.3 German motorised divisions quickly outpaced the slow moving infantry divisions. Militargeschichtliches¨ Forschungsamt, Potsdam. 171 5.4 German infantry marching into the Soviet Union. Ullstein bild – SV-Bilderdienst. 197 5.5 A field conference on 8 July 1941 between Bock, Hoth and Richthofen. Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-265-0048A-03, Photographer: Moosdorf. 205 5.6 Summer downpours slow the speed of the advance. Ullstein bild – SV-Bilderdienst. 207 6.1 Many bridges in the Soviet Union could not support German tanks. Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F016208-0012. 225 6.2 Soviet ambushes were common on the narrow forest roads. Militargeschichtliches¨ Forschungsamt, Potsdam. 245 7.1 A German war cemetery from the early days of the campaign. Militargeschichtliches¨ Forschungsamt, Potsdam. 267 vii viii Illustrations 7.2 Exhausted German infantry after weeks of hard marching. Ullstein bild – SV-Bilderdienst. 272 7.3 Combat readiness of Panzer Group 3 on 21 July 1941. ‘Panzerarmeeoberkommandos Anlagen zum Kriegstagesbuch “Berichte, Besprechungen, Beurteilungen der Lage” Bd.IV 22.7.41 – 31.8.41’ BA-MA RH 21–3/47. Fol. 112 (23 July 1941). 282 7.4 The thin German lines east of Smolensk, July/August 1941. Ullstein bild – SV-Bilderdienst. 294 7.5 Roadside graves mark Army Group Centre’s summer advance. Ullstein bild - ullstein bild. 304 8.1 A 1941 Soviet propaganda poster. Ullstein bild – SV-Bilderdienst. 312 8.2 Combat readiness of Panzer Group 2 on 29 July 1941. ‘KTB Nr.1 Panzergruppe 2 Bd.II vom 22.7.1941 bis 20.8.41’ BA-MA RH 21–2/928. Fols. 78–79 (29 July 1941). 316 8.3 Captured Red Army soldiers. Militargeschichtliches¨ Forschungsamt, Potsdam. 318 8.4 Public hangings were a common feature of Germany’s war of annihilation. Ullstein bild – SV-Bilderdienst. 351 9.1 Positional warfare in the summer of 1941. Militargeschichtliches¨ Forschungsamt, Potsdam. 364 9.2 Halder and Brauchitsch discussing operations for the east. Ullstein bild. 389 9.3 Guderian with his troops in the east. Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-139-1112-17, Photographer: Knobloch, Ludwig. 399 9.4 Combat readiness of Panzer Group 3 on 21 August 1941. ‘Panzerarmeeoberkommandos Anlagen zum Kriegstagesbuch “Berichte, Besprechungen, Beurteilungen der Lage” Bd.IV 22.7.41 – 31.8.41’ BA-MA RH 21–3/47. Fols. 78–79 (21 August 1941). 418 9.5 Combat readiness of Panzer Group 3 on 4 September 1941. Burkhart Muller-Hillebrand,¨ Das Heer 1933–1945, Band III, p. 205. 420 9.6 Combat readiness of Panzer Group 2 on 4 September 1941. Burkhart Muller-Hillebrand,¨ Das Heer 1933–1945, Band III, p. 205. 421 TABLE 1.1 Division of forces in Marcks’ plan. Erhard Moritz (ed.), Fall Barbarossa, p. 126. 43 Maps 1 Dispositions of Army Group Centre 22 June 1941. Glantz, David M., Atlas and Operational Summary The Border Battles 22 June–1 July 1941 page 154 2 Dispositions of Army Group Centre 27 June 1941.