CHAPTER 9
Solstice in the East
The offensive named ‘Barbarossa’ began in the early morning hours, just before daybreak, at 3.15 am. The German Army had begun their march into Russia, on 22 June 1941. Thousands of guns thundered over a 2,500 wide front, from Finland to the Black Sea against the East, on that fateful June night.
At 5.30, a fanfare burst over every German radio channel heralding a broadcast from the Minister for Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. In minutes, not only the German people but the whole world knew about Hitler’s campaign against Russia. Supported by the Air Force, a Blitzkrieg operation was underway, with regiments of tanks which were to eradicate the Red Army that was massed together just behind their borders. The plan rested on speed and surprise, and it appeared to work.
Was Stalin surprised by this German offensive? “Yes”, said Vicitor Suvarov, from the former Red Army General Staff. However, the peaceful impression that Russia had given was the lull before the storm, the storm on Germany. Stalin was about to attack Germany and everything was being prepared. The massing of his army was not for de fence purposes. In his book The Icebreaker, Vicior Suvarov states that “Stalin would have used Hitler’s advancing troops to crush the whole of Europe, if he had chosen another time. Hitler however was too early, by two weeks”.
The following was published in 1989 in the magazine Der Spiegel from an eyewitness:
Hitler’s attack coincided with the deployment of the Red Army. Suvarov’s revelations confirm what was crystal-clear to every German soldier on 22 June 1941, in crossing over Russia’s border. Their units found makeshift airfields, uncountable store-houses, divisions of airborne troops, and gigantic numbers of tanks. Woe betide us, had we waited until the Red Army had fulfilled this operation.
It was certainly no coincidence that over two and a half million Red Army soldiers, together with those from White Russia, were stationed where they were in Ukraine, at the time of Germany’s attack. The Wehrmacht captured enormous amounts of weaponry, even in the first weeks of the war. The hundreds of thousands of Russian prisoners from this powerful army were proof enough to convince every German soldier down to every private, that the ‘Barbarossa’ operation was a preventive measure against an obvious act of aggression aimed at Germany. “Russia was in every measure prepared for a western offensive, at every conceivable moment.” (Quote from General Franz Halder the German Chief of Staff)
Alexander Werth, correspondent from an British newspaper, and in Moscow during the Second World War, wrote in his book Russia at War, that “in his speech from 5 May 1941, Stalin stated that “war with Germany is unavoidable, with the existing international situation. The Red Army can expect a German attack, or take the initiative itself.”
In Hitler’s proclamation of 22 June 1941 he stated,
The responsibility of the largest formation of fighting forces of all times, is not only for the safety of individual lands, but the safety of Europe and we, the German Reich, do not stand alone. Many states, who with certainty do not want to remember their former call to arms of yesterday, are today joining the crusade against Communism.
After Hungary had joined forces with Germany in Yugoslavia, their army also took part in the eastern offensive. Italy also sent divisions to the Russian front, proclaiming their unity with Germany. On 23 June, Slovakia, after taking part in the Polish campaign in 1939, also appeared on the front. Spain’s government declared their sympathy with the Axis powers, allowing the formation of the volunteer division called the ‘Blue Division’, but declining any part in the leadership of that offensive, in comparison with other western powers. Finland, although having conducted a doubtful winter campaign against Soviet invaders in 1939/40, now operated together with German mountain troops in northern Russia. Bulgaria and Rumania were natural brothers-in-arms from the beginning, their relationship with Germany over time having become very close. In 1940 Rumania had to cede both Bessarabian and Bukovinian territories to the Soviet Union, and now they wanted to recover their old rights.
The military worth and reliability of those brothers-in-arms who stood under our command, was varied. Leon Degrelle, a Walloon and East Front fighter, remembered after the war that,
we had very noisy neighbours, the Rumanians, who ensured hellish noise, more than 20,000 lying on our left flank. They shot at everything and nothing, the unending ‘rat-tat-tat’ making the Russians wild and inviting them to retaliate. In one single night, the Rumanians used two whole weeks’ supply of ammunition that the whole sector could and would have used. We lay in the defensive lines, and worthless and senseless counter-reactions were the result, in which we were involved. It was not war anymore but a disturbance of the peace! They did retrieve their Bessarabian territory and conquered Odessa too. They fought their way through to the Crimea and to the Donets basin, making a name for themselves.
Unfortunately, the Rumanians possessed much of the basic characteristics of the Russian, including a very wild nature and we had to suffer for their measures of revenge on the prisoners they took and slaughtered. Nonetheless, the German non-stop march brought them to Smolensk within the first three weeks of the war, then to the outskirts of Kiev and the Leningrad perimeter, giving the Russians a paralysing shock and causing panic and confusion.
There were many Wehrmacht generals who were convinced that, by the second week in July, the war was nearly won, nearly. However, it was not at an end. The American General Staff had already offered their opinion by 23 June 1941, on the situation in the East. “Germany will need between one and three months to conquer Russia”. A week later the opinion of the British General Staff was, “It is possible that this ‘lightning’ war still needs six to eight weeks, before final victory”. The euphoria of the German ‘victors’ infected the population of the annexed Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who had had much to suffer in the recent past. They greeted the Wehrmacht heartily as liberators. Even in ‘old Russia’ the situation was the same in many towns, the people having had more than enough of Communism. Since the October Revolution in 1917, they had suffered expropriation, ethnic cleansing and mass-murder, through deliberate starvation, bitter poverty, robbery of personal freedom, not to mention the suppression of their religion and churches.
The expectations of the local residents from the Germans were fulfilled by the service given in the Smolensk Cathedral in August of 1941, and in churches that had been used as party-archives, warehouses or cinemas. “Former Ukrainian clergy donned their long-hidden robes once more, and blessed the people of all ages streaming into their churches”. (Erich Helmdach, Überfall)