This development was crystal clear to those engaged in the pitiless struggle at the front. The German soldier had experienced defeat and a retreat and had survived. ‘It was the first time,’ one veteran noted, ‘that our soldiers remarked on the dark shadows of the coming times.’(15) Friedebald Kruse wrote back from the front on 23 December that‘yesterdays’ news that Brauchitsch had to go and today the Führer has taken on the High Command of the Army affected me’. It was to him an inauspicious development: ‘the first time that faith in the army had been questioned.’ Many soldiers dismissed the news as a ‘palace revolution’ resulting from military failure.(16) Staff officer Bernd Freytag von Lorringhoven, working at Guderian’s headquarters, viewed it from a more sombre perspective.
‘The atmosphere following the defeat practically in front of Moscow was deeply depressing. On the one hand, the war was probably – Ja – virtually lost, and could only be prosecuted beyond with great difficulty. On the other side there developed at that time, a deep bitterness over the measures that Hitler ordered, dismissing these well qualified people.’(17)
‘Having to retreat from Moscow,’ declared another Eastern Front veteran, ‘meant the Russian people and soldiers must realise it is possible to defeat the German Army’.(18) Panzer Major Johann Graf von Kielmansegg agreed. ‘It was the first time in this war,’ he said, ‘that German soldiers had been defeated somewhere en masse.’(19) It produced a measured celebration on the Russian side. Actress Maria Mironowa, living in Moscow recalled, ‘the mood during the New Year festivities was bad, it was not celebrated.’ They drank a little to coming victory ‘but we certainly had no idea it lay so far in the distant future’. There had been too much suffering. ‘The war,’ she said, was like a natural catastrophe and had an impact on us like an earthquake.’ But despite all this, Soviet platoon commander Anatolij Tschernjajew recognised, ‘it was an enormous turn around of events, this feeling that an offensive, a victory and finally even a turning point in this war were again possible.’(20)
The German soldier enjoyed a certain black humour, even in defeat. During the retreat a cynical motto was introduced. It was often preceded by a comic reversing of the helmet or field cap, and the exclamation – frequently when threatened by Soviet encirclement – ‘ Vorwärts Kameraden, wir müssen züruck!’ In short: ‘Advance men, we’ve got to get back!’ One soldier in the 2nd Panzer Division, on hearing the exhortation admitted, ‘in spite of the serious situation, one had to laugh.’(21) This ability to recuperate suddenly and lash out again against the foe was time and time again to stun Allied armies thinking they held the initiative during the final stages of World War 2. ‘That explains the huge trauma and shock,’ Russian platoon commander Anatolij Tschernjajew explained, when six months later the German Army was advancing even further, against Stalingrad!’(22)
The war was far from over yet.
Postscript – ‘Barbarossa’
‘Only rarely did I weep… There is no point weeping, even when confronted with the saddest scenes.’
‘The world will hold its breath,’ announced Adolf Hitler when on 22 June 1941 three million German soldiers and their allies launched a surprise attack across the Russo-German border. Operation ‘Barbarossa’ committed the largest and finest army the German nation had ever fielded. Tempered by success in previous campaigns, the Ostheer had every expectation of victory, yet within four months its fighting power had been irretrievably sapped. Success was degraded to a reckless and rapid advance, driving into an enemy of indeterminate strength, to gain shelter before the onset of a pitiless winter. The final assault on Moscow was more a gamble than a considered operational plan. A number of factors contributed to this eventual débâcle, and these are considered in turn.
Surprise was the paramount feature of this initial campaign of the Russian war. Both populations were stunned at the precipitate nature of the attack. Most German soldiers were informed about the impending assault a mere 24 hours before their relatives at home. The Russian population was at first dismayed, then indignant at this blatant disregard of a Non-Aggression Pact that had promised so much two years before, with a fanfare of political rhetoric. War occasioned mutual surprise. Unlike earlier adversaries, who logically surrendered if outmanoeuvred and encircled, Russian armies fought on to the death. ‘Don’t die without leaving a dead German behind you,’ exhorted hopelessly surrounded Russian soldiers at Brest-Litovsk in June.
Soviet planners, checkmated by their strategic compromise between an offensive and defensive stance on the German border, were stunned by the Blitzkrieg pace of advance forced on their confused armies. They were outwitted at each strategic development by massive encirclements unprecedented in military history, first by the sudden change of direction south into the Ukraine away from Moscow, and then by the timing of Operation ‘Taifun ‘. This was unexpectedly launched at the capital well into the autumn, despite the impending winter. The German General Staff likewise underestimated the extent of the ‘Russian Colossus’. A potential Russian strength of 200 divisions had to be reassessed at 360 within two months of the invasion.(1) ‘Kick in the door and the whole rotten edifice would come crashing down’ was the loose ideological underpinning of the plan to prosecute the campaign approved by Adolf Hitler.
Despite the maligned and shabby workers’ paradise’ portrayed in jeering German newsreels, cinema audiences in the Reich were soon to see film of the massive Dnieper dams and shipyards at Nikolaev on the Black Sea, contrary to the primitive society claimed. German soldiers further experienced a technological shock on encountering hitherto unknown heavy tank types. There was no reliable anti-tank defence against these, other than static, high-velocity anti-aircraft guns hurriedly employed in the ground role. Soviet Katyusha M13 multi-barrelled rocket launchers also had an unprecedented and devastating effectiveness, and on German morale, again demonstrating this opponent was unlike all others that had preceded it.
Surprise impacted in other ways. As well read as the German Army was on the historic invasions of Russia by Charles XII of Sweden in 1707 and Napoleon in 1812, they were still mentally unconditioned for the vastness and extremes of climate in Russia. The fan-shaped German advance widened to 2,800km within four months and was over 1,000km deep. To maintain a conventional continuous front would require 280 divisions. But only 127 divisions participated in the original invasion. Partisan warfare across this wide expanse and in such depth had never been experienced before. German soldiers were unprepared for the physical extent of the undertaking. Phrases used to describe the phenomenon in Feldpost letters reflect this perception of inadequacy. Unit fighting contributions were likened to a drop of water on a hot stove’ or to ‘a stone cast into the sea’.
Operation ‘Barbarossa became the longest campaign in the war. Blitzkrieg or ‘lightning war’ had until then offered speedy conclusions to operations. This one was anticipated to last eight to ten weeks. At the six-week (or successful French Armistice of 1940 point) German forces were still battling to close the Smolensk pocket. It also coincided with the period of the heaviest casualties during the war. The final surprise was in not winning. No German Army had been defeated en masse since the beginning of the war. Zhukov’s counter-stroke in front of Moscow may have been primitive in its delivery but it brought the Ostheer to its knees. This should perhaps not have been totally unexpected. Defeat had already been insidiously inflicted in a cumulative manner by the bloody Pyrrhic pocket-battle victories up until September.