In December 1941 and January 1942, Hitler removed thirty-five of his generals, among them von Brauchitsch, commander of all land forces, von Rundstedt, and Guderian. A number of SS divisions were sent to the eastern front.
At the beginning of the Soviet counteroffensive, Stalin hoped that it would develop into a victorious general offensive on all fronts. But his hopes were soon deceived.
LOST BATTLES AND LOST LIVES
The Battle of Moscow brought the total liberation of three provinces (ob- lasts)—those of Moscow, Tula, and Ryazan—while those of Leningrad, Kalinin, Smolensk, Orel, Kursk, Kharkov, and Stalingrad were partially cleared. Heroic resistance continued at Sevastopol.
Despite heavy German losses at Moscow (almost fifty divisions), the German high command managed to reorganize its forces in a brief period and immediately began preparations for a new offensive.
The Soviet high command had overestimated the capacities of its own forces and had launched incautious offensives in different directions, with the result that by April 1942 its strength had run out. All the painstakingly accumulated reserves were expended. Stalin did not appraise the new strategic situation correctly. In his orders to the military councils of the various fronts, he said it would be possible to drive the Germans westward without stopping and force them to exhaust their reserves before the spring of 1942, "in this way assuring the total destruction of Hitler's armies in 1942." This assessment drew no objections from the Stavka or the General Staff, but Stalin's predictions proved unfounded.32
One of the first defeats of the Red Army in 1942 was its attempt to break the blockade of Leningrad. The armies on the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts were to pierce the German lines from opposite directions and link up after making a breakthrough. The attempt was doomed from the start—because of delays in the concentration of a sufficient number of troops, inadequate training, and shortages of supplies and material. At the request of Me- retskov, commander of the Volkhov Front, who realized that his troops were not prepared for the offensive, the Stavka (Stalin and Vassilevsky) authorized a postponement, but only for a short time, when in Meretskov's words, "at a minimum... fifteen to twenty more days were needed."33 German intelligence detected the preparations for the offensive and determined fairly accurately where the blow would fall, so that the German high command was prepared to repel the attack. According to Meretskov, the forces of the Volkhov Front, which had been given orders to advance, had been severely weakened in previous combat and had not been properly reinforced, certain divisions having only two-thirds or half of their regular strength. Artillery, mortars, and automatic weapons were also lacking. The Second Shock Army, for example, had the troops of a regular army corps.
"The only reserves the front had," Meretskov reports, "were two very weak cavalry divisions and four ski battalions. The front did not even have a second line of defense. We did not have the means to build on an initial successful attack so as to expand in the enemy's rear and deal him a final blow."34 The front commander was gambling on the promise from General Headquarters that reserves would be sent as soon as the army crossed the Volkhov.
The offensive was begun several times, but each time it foundered. The Second Shock Army found its progress slowed by the forests and marshes on the right bank of the Volkhov and was unable to reach its objective,
Lyuban. The troops from the Leningrad Front were also unable to fulfill their mission of breaking the German encirclement from the inside. These exhausting battles, which went on for four months, led to the needless loss of tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers, achieving nothing. During these operations the Stavka repeatedly made unconsidered decisions, abolishing the Volkhov Front at one moment and restoring it again at the next. As a result of the incompetence and poor leadership of the Stavka, in demanding the continuation of this senseless offensive, and of M. S. Khozin, the commander of the Leningrad Front, the Second Shock Army was literally driven into a trap. Not until the middle of June did the Soviet side manage, after fierce fighting, to break a hole in the German encirclement through which a few units and individual officers and soldiers of the Second Shock Army were able to escape.
The Northwestern Front also suffered heavy losses. Not only were the Soviets unable to smash the German troops they had encircled in the Demyansk region; in the end they were defeated in their attempt to stop the Germans from breaking through the Soviet encirclement to relieve the German Sixteenth Army in the Demyansk salient and reunite it with the main German forces in that area.
But the situation in the German-held Rzhevsk—Vyazma salient was even worse. Here a trap was laid for the Soviet forces. They were allowed to break through the German defenses only to have the trap sprung and find themselves encircled. They were forced to fight their way back, with terrible losses. Entire Soviet divisions and corps perished.
The calculations of the Soviet high command were in error—they assumed it was possible to remain on the defensive and simultaneously go on the offensive in several directions. This defective approach had been proposed by the General Staff and approved by Stalin in March 1942.
The Soviet command made several attempts to retake the Crimea by amphibious landings at Theodosia and Eupatoria. Each time they were repelled with heavy losses, in spite of Soviet superiority in troop strength (2 to 1) and equipment (1.5 to 1). These defeats were due to the incompetence of the local commanders, Lieutenant General Kozlov and Lev Mekhlis, the Stavka representative. The enemy's strength and intentions were not discovered in time; thus the German offensive against Kerch, on May 8, 1942, was a disaster for the Soviets, whose troops beat a disorderly retreat across the Kerch straits to the Taman peninsula. According to Soviet sources, 176,000 were killed.35 According to German figures, 150,000 Soviet troops were captured, along with great quantities of equipment.36 Kozlov and Mekhlis were merely given a slap on the wrist, in the form of a demotion.
Stalin and his generals did not have a clear understanding of their army's capabilities. They made an adventurist decision to launch an offensive in the Kharkov region, with troops of the Southwestern and Southern fronts. Their objective was to destroy the German army in the southern sector of the Soviet—German front. The General Staff had some objections to the plan of operations, which involved heavy risks, because the Germans outnumbered the Soviets on both flanks, threatening to encircle them. Stalin, however, ordered the General Staff not to interfere, and he approved the plan submitted by Timoshenko, commander of the Southwestern Direction.37
The offensive started on May 12, with Timoshenko commanding the Southwestern Front and Malinovsky the Southern. The Soviets had the advantage in terms of men, tanks, and aircraft. The Germans had superiority in artillery.
At first the Soviet forces made a successful breakthrough toward Bar- venkovo, but by May 17 it was obvious that the offensive of the Southwestern Front had to be stopped immediately, so that troops could be shifted to the Kramatorsk region to stop the threat from German forces that had broken through the defenses of the Southern front. Stalin decided to continue the offensive regardless.38
During the evening of May 18 Khrushchev, who was a member of the Southwestern Front's Military Council, reported to the head of the General Staff, Vassilevsky, that the situation had worsened in the Barvenkovo bulge and that Stalin had refused the request of the Southwestern Front that the offensive be broken off. He asked Vassilevsky to present the Southwestern Front's request again to Stalin. Vassilevsky says he advised Khrushchev to speak with Stalin directly.39 According to Khrushchev, Vassilevsky, fearing Stalin's rage, refused to intercede. Stalin refused even to discuss the subject with Khrushchev. He had Malenkov pass on the message that the operation must proceed.40 Zhukov gives a different version of these events. According to him, on May 18 Khrushchev still himself favored continuing the campaign.41