The need to fight encirclements to annihilation had not happened before in this war. It broke the tempo of Blitzkrieg. An ominous portent of the future had been the vicious battle for the citadel at Brest-Litovsk in the first days of the campaign. This action on the border cost the division that fought it more casualties in one week than it lost during the entire operation in France, lasting longer than the western campaign in its entirety. Encirclement battles at Minsk and Smolensk consecutively tied down more than 50% of the offensive potential of Army Group Centre. In the west, creative General Staff planning had split and outmanoeuvred the allied armies, which capitulated. The Russians doggedly fought on, whatever the cost. Inspired manoeuvre alone would not suffice to win battles on the new Eastern Front. The savaged opponent had first to be finished off, a time-consuming and costly affair. German ‘fast’ motorised or Panzer divisions were not configured for this development and were unpractised in defence. They were badly mauled penning their fanatical opponents, waiting for the arrival of the infantry who were to administer the coup de grâce. Infantry will’ became as important as Panzer skill’ in pursuing battles of attrition. Infantry operations required willpower, less appropriate arguably to Panzer formations required to excel in manoeuvre warfare, not the static defensive battles they were involuntarily obliged to fight. Throughout the ‘Barbarossa’ offensive phase, often described as Blitzkrieg, one is struck by the quantity of soldiers’ accounts that describe costly defensive actions, not fast-moving meeting engagements.
Operation ‘Barbarossa was unlike previous campaigns because the Wehrmacht made war on the Russian civilian population. Fighting in the west had, of course, not been prosecuted in a vacuum. Civilian centres had been bombed, such as Rotterdam, and Warsaw and other towns and cities were fought over. But there was a vicious ideological thread within the new campaign that saw operations being actively prosecuted against civilians by certain elements within the armies. During the invasion the Reich population read about developments in their newspapers, listened to the radio or watched Wochenschau newsreels. The Russian population was in the fighting. This was to have an impact upon the moral component of the fighting power of both sides. German infantryman Robert Rupp confessed to his wife:
‘Only rarely did I weep. Crying is no way out when you are standing amid these events. When I am back again with you and able to unwind in tranquillity, then we will need to cry a lot and you will be able to understand your husband. Here, there is no point weeping, even when confronted with the saddest scenes… a feeling of human pathos and guilt is gradually awakened in everyone. A deep shame develops. Sometimes I am ashamed even to have been loved.’(2)
Whereas the moral seepage occasioned by cruelties was to have a corrosive impact on German motivation and fighting power, it increased the will of the Russian soldier to resist at all costs.
A central theme of this book has been the recognition of the extent to which German fighting power had been degraded by the Pyrrhic victories of summer encirclement battles. September 1941, according to this hypothesis, represents the key watershed of the ‘Barbarossa campaign, rather than the collapse of the Army Group Centre front in the face of the Russian counter-offensive before Moscow in December. ‘General Winter’ was not responsible. Rather the ferocity and doggedness of Russian resistance, despite the hideous human cost, was instrumental in reducing the three components of German ‘fighting power’ to an almost terminal state.
Fighting power according to modern British military doctrine can be crudely broken down into three inter-related aspects: the physical, moral and conceptual. The physical part is concerned with the manpower and resources to execute the mission. The ‘moral’ is the ‘hearts’ aspect, requiring willpower and determination to enact it, while the conceptual aspect is the ‘minds’ or intellectual input. This is the plan or strategy required to achieve the objective. By the end of September the Ostheer, while inflicting three to four million casualties on the enemy, had suffered half a million in so doing itself. This loss represented 30 division equivalents, and a like strength of officers and NCOs to man 37 from 117 divisions. These totals were greater than the sum strength (26 divisions) of Army Group North at the outset of the campaign. Leadership losses, representing probably one-third of the total, were key. Both these and soldier casualties came from the ‘teeth or fighting elements of divisions. They were the cream, the veterans forged in battle. As training times varied from six to 18 months, they were irreplaceable. A typical infantry division was 64% ‘teeth compared with its non-combatant ‘tail’. Panzer division combat elements represented just under half its nevertheless essential ‘specialised’ and logistic ‘tail’, made up of technical experts. Overall, the losses constituted half the fighting element of divisions. Motorised vehicle and Panzer states were in no less parlous a state at the end of September. In general only half were still operating, and much of the remainder were good for only another 200km, barely sufficient to reach Moscow.
Inextricably linked to this equation was a logistic ‘trip-wire impediment. This invisible motor transport shuttle line stretching 500km beyond the Reich frontier meant a rail network had to be quickly established beyond to bring fighting divisions up to their full logistic combat supplements. With half the lorry fleet out of action and no capability quickly to reconfigure Russian railway gauges, an intangible logistic hurdle was created stymieing any further strategic advances on Moscow. Adverse weather – first mud and then sub-arctic temperatures – ensued, preventing practical and sustainable logistic support. An irretrievable breakdown of the Ostheers logistic ability to support an offensive was the result. Wheeled and rail transport was unable to cope.
The physical’ component of fighting power was directly linked to the conceptual’, in that losses rendered the Blitzkrieg mode of war fighting inoperable. Leadership losses by the end of September burned out the nucleus of the veteran capability practically to execute fast-moving and joint operations beyond the breakthrough achieved at the beginning of October. A paucity of reserves robbed the Ostheer of its Auftragstaktik flexibility, reliant upon initiative. It was emasculated by the inability to pass on risks to higher formations, who traditionally influenced the outcome of battle by deciding when reserves should be committed at the right place and moment to win. Lack of reserves necessitated a centralisation of the fewer available assets. Less risk-taking denied tactical flexibility. No one could salvage the daring commander who over-committed himself. It preceded the greater control that Adolf Hitler was later to impose on assuming the mantle of Commander-in-Chief in December. Likewise, the breakdown of ‘teeth to tail’ ratios robbed divisions of their combined arms synergy. Close co-ordination between Panzers, infantry, air and artillery was dependent upon the ‘specialists’ who made it work. Once these technical tradesmen and Panzer and Luftwaffe crews were employed as infantry, current and future professional expertise was squandered, and with it the implicit war-winning superiority of German combat structures. The conclusion of the battle of Kiev at the end of September coincided, therefore, with two watersheds on the Eastern Front. Firstly, it was the point at which German experience began to lose its edge, relative to Russian learning capacity. Secondly, the impetus conferred on German formations by surprise was lost. With Leningrad encircled and Kiev taken, both sides could see that Moscow would be the next objective.