The German operational plan thus failed to achieve clarity in how to destroy the Soviet will and ability to fight on: by crushing the main Soviet forces and seizing the capital or by conquering the key military-industrial areas of the country. In order to win, Germany had to capture the oil fields of the Caucasus as quickly as possible but launched its main effort against Moscow, far to the north. Even here, however, compromise and vacillation ruled as, in the final plan, significant forces had been peeled away from the central front and dispersed both to the north and to the south. In trying to do everything at once, German planners had largely assured that none of the three army groups had the means by which to achieve success. Nonetheless, even though it had military forces and economic resources clearly inadequate to accomplish its goals, Hitler once again hurled the Wehrmacht against a powerful opponent in an all-or-nothing gamble on short-term victory. Given the Wehrmacht’s limited quantities of oil and gasoline, along with serious deficiencies in logistic preparation and supply capabilities, Barbarossa was from the outset a dangerous undertaking. Success meant that Germany would have the resources to fight a war of attrition against the Anglo-Saxon powers; failure would convert the temporary risk of a two-front war into strategic disaster. Although Goebbels recorded gleefully the initial frightful Russian losses and predicted, “We will soon have pulled it off,” he also noted, with surprising candor: “We have to pull it off. There’s a somewhat depressed mood among the people…. Each newly opened theater of war causes concern and worry.”15
Despite the enormous quantitative strength of the Soviet defenders, the opening phase of Barbarossa seemed to vindicate German assumptions of a quick destruction of the Red Army. Along the entire front, German infantry and armored forces caught the startled Soviet defenders by surprise and advanced quickly against initially weak and patchy resistance. Intercepts of Soviet radio traffic confirmed the impression of surprise as up and down the line the common question was posed, “What should we do?” In some local areas, Russian troops fought stubbornly to the last man and delayed the German advance for a few hours, but this failed to alter the larger picture: the invaders had completely shattered Soviet border defenses. In the skies above the onrushing German forces, the Luftwaffe launched more than twelve hundred aircraft in an assault on Soviet airfields that destroyed over a thousand enemy planes, most on the ground, on the first day alone. In addition, the Luftwaffe sought to destroy Soviet command and control centers in an effort to turn the Red Army into a disorganized and chaotic mob. The Germans had seized the tactical initiative and now aimed to develop such momentum that the Soviets would be unable to organize an effective resistance, an urgency based on the realization that the campaign would have to be won in the first two weeks.16
In the first few hours, the shattering impact of the German ground and air onslaught destroyed the operational cohesion of the Red Army and paralyzed its ability to react, a calamity intensified by Stalin’s initial unwillingness to order Soviet countermeasures. Fearing that the German attack was a provocation, the Soviet dictator seemed at first not to comprehend the magnitude of the disaster, thinking even that German generals had launched an attack without Hitler’s knowledge. Then, when he did authorize Soviet resistance, he and the Red Army command had difficulty imposing control over the utter chaos at the front and comprehending the speed of the German advance, which confounded all their expectations of initial probing attacks on the border. With communications disrupted and little information about the situation at the front, Stalin moved in a dream world where orders such as the one issued on the evening of 22 June to launch an immediate counteroffensive were passed on by subordinate officers, even though they knew the reality, simply because they feared retribution for refusing to obey. Not for a few days, in fact, would Stalin truly comprehend the magnitude of the looming catastrophe facing the Soviet Union, and, when he finally did, on 27 June, his subsequent actions revealed a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown.17
Nowhere was the magnitude of the initial German triumph more evident than in Belorussia, the sector of Army Group Center, which, under the command of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, had been assigned the main area of operations. Bock was an experienced officer who had led armies in both Poland and Holland, a man in whom Hitler had great confidence. Given the task of penetrating Soviet defenses north and south of the Bialystok salient, advancing eastward along the Minsk-Smolensk axis, then encircling and destroying enemy forces west of the Dnieper River, Bock’s army group contained the bulk of German armor and aircraft. His two mechanized formations, Panzergruppe 2 under General Heinz Guderian and Panzergruppe 3 under General Hermann Hoth, were to strike rapidly to the east on either side of the sector and envelop enemy forces, which would then be destroyed by the infantry armies under Field Marshal Günther von Kluge. Although several major rivers would have to be crossed, this area of rolling land was generally favorable to mobile warfare.18
On the southern sector, the German attackers in Panzergruppe 2 caught the Soviet defenders by surprise, quickly crossed the Bug, bypassed the fortress of Brest-Litovsk (which held out until 12 July), ignored enemy units on their flanks, and advanced rapidly to the east. On the northern wing, Panzergruppe 3 captured three bridges over the Neman intact and, by 24 June, had captured Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Two days later, elements of Guderian’s force took Slutsk, sixty miles south of Minsk, while Hoth’s troops were only eighteen miles to the north of the city. That same day, Guderian, who aimed to thrust farther to the east, received orders to turn the bulk of his forces northward and close the pocket by linking up with Hoth. Although both panzer generals preferred to continue the advance to Smolensk, some two hundred miles to the east, before closing the pincers, they reluctantly obeyed the order, closing the outer ring and seizing Minsk on 28 June. A weak inner ring had also been closed around Bialystok by Kluge’s infantry, although they had trouble keeping pace with the advancing armor. As a result, numerous Red Army soldiers escaped eastward, where their presence as partisans and roaming groups caused continuing difficulties in German rear areas, tying down mobile units, and delaying their advance eastward. They also fed Hitler’s anxiety about deep penetrations and the fear that encircled Soviet forces might simply escape through the overextended panzer forces, a fear not without justification.19