Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

Because of these German strategic ideas, no geographical objectives were given primary priority in the German plans. Secondary priority was given, at Hitler’s insistence, to the capture of Leningrad in the north and to the capture of Kiev and the Caucasus to the south. These geographical objectives were set in order to link up with the Finns and cut the Murmansk railway in the north, and to capture, or at least cut off from Russian armies, the Soviet oil centers in the south. The capture of Moscow was, by Hitler’s direct orders, given only tertiary priority in the German strategic plans.

The German generals disagreed with Hitler’s geographic conceptions, and insisted that Moscow be made the chief geographic goal of the German advance because it was the vital railroad center of European Russia; it was also an important industrial center, and contained the heart and brain of the whole Soviet autocracy. Its capture would, according to the generals, cripple Russia’s ability to shift troops and supplies north and south and would thus make it possible to isolate, for easier conquest, the Leningrad or the Kiev fronts. Moreover, its capture would paralyze the overcentralized system of Soviet tyranny, and strike such a blow to Bolshevik prestige that it would probably be unable to survive.

In the first three months of the campaign of 1941 and for all of the campaign of 1942, Hitler resisted the pressure from his generals and insisted that the maximum German effort should be devoted to the two areas originally set in the north and the south. Only in September 1941, when it was too late for a successful assault on Moscow, did Hitler recognize that his own geographic objectives could not be achieved, with the result that he fell back on his generals’ advice for an attack on Moscow. This dispersal and shifting of geographic objectives, combined with German inability to destroy the Soviet armies completely, brought Germany to the point which Hitler had always insisted must be avoided above all else: a two-front war of attrition by a Germany which was nowhere near total economic mobilization.

German authorities estimated that Russia had over 200 divisions (of which 30 to 35 were in the Far East), with 8,000 aircraft of diverse quality, and 15,000 tanks, mostly light or obsolescent. On the European front they expected to encounter 125 infantry, 25 cavalry, 25 motorized, and at least 5 armored divisions. Against these Russian forces, Hitler planned to hurl 141 German and 33 satellite (Finnish, Romanian, Italian, Hungarian, Slovak, and Croat) divisions. The German forces included 19 (half-size) armored divisions with 3,200 tanks, 14 motorized divisions, and 3 air fleets with 2,000 planes. These forces were organized into three army groups (northern, central, and southern) aiming in the general direction of Leningrad (500 miles away), Moscow (750 miles), and the lower Volga (Stalingrad, 800 miles away). Each army group consisted of infantry and panzer armies placed alternately across the front, in order to operate the double-clawed pincer movements we have mentioned. The whole German front, from north to south, had seven infantry armies and four panzer armies organized in this alternating fashion, with two infantry armies forming each end of the line, and the satellite forces on the extreme flanks (Finns to the north, the others to the south).

The Soviet Union was warned of the impending Nazi attack from Washington and London, as well as by its own spies, and had the exact date of the assault almost as soon as it was set in Berlin. An anti-Nazi German in Berlin gave a copy of Hitler’s secret directive for Operation Barbarossa to the American commercial attaché within three weeks of its formulation; this was sent to the Kremlin by Secretary of State Hull early in March 1941. All these helpful moves were received with ill grace by the Soviet leaders, and those who offered them were treated as troublemakers. Moscow made no effort to escape the Nazi pincers by withdrawing its forces from their exposed frontier positions, but continued to hope that its abject economic collaboration with Hitler would lead him to cancel the attack orders, in recognition of the fact that he could obtain more, in an economic sense, from collaborating in peace than from conquest in war. This hope was futile, because Hitler had such a gigantic disrespect for Russia’s fighting powers that he expected a complete German victory in about six weeks. So convinced was Hitler on this point that he flatly rejected, in June, again in July, and once again in August, suggestions from the chief of the Great General Staff that any preparations be made for fighting in winter. For this refusal Germany was to suffer bitterly.

Hitler’s estimates about the weakness of the Soviet armies and the brevity of the approaching campaign were generally shared by military men throughout the world. In the United States, Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall believed that Germany would be victorious in six weeks.

The Nazi armies sprang forward at dawn on Sunday, June 22, 1941. At the end of five days two envelopments had been closed and on the following day a third was completed. In these pockets there were such large Russian forces that the perimeters could not be closed completely, and broken Russian units escaped through the German lines. Nevertheless, from these pockets were taken 289,874 prisoners, 2,585 tanks, and 1,149 cannon. By July 25th several more encirclements had been completed on the central front (yielding 185,487 more prisoners with 2,030 tanks and 1,918 guns).

At this point a crisis arose in the German High Command. All the great successes we have mentioned were on the central front, while the northern and southern fronts, which Hitler wanted emphasized, were advancing much more slowly. This resulted from the fact that Hitler’s generals did not share the Führer’s strategic ideas, and had disposed the German forces so that, in effect, they overruled his directives and gave preponderance to their own goal, the capture of Moscow. For this reason they had given two of their four panzer armies to Field Marshal Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center, and one to each of the other army groups. Since the Russians had massed their strength in the south, German Army Group South, under Gerd von Rundstedt, had only 800 tanks, while his Soviet opponent, Marshal S. M. Budenny had 2,000.

The brilliant success of the German Army Group Center led the German General Staff and Hitler to change their minds, but in opposite directions. The weakness of the Soviet defense persuaded Bock to adopt a plan, advanced by Guderian, that Army Group Center abandon further efforts at pincers encirclements and send its armored units on a straight all-out drive to Moscow, one hundred miles away. About the same time, Hitler decided to strengthen the advance of Army Groups North and South, by directing the efforts of the two panzer armies of Army Group Center away from their own front and onto the fronts of the two flanking army groups. This would have left Army Group Center with infantry forces only, thus slowing its advance and restricting its operations to tactical mopping-up activities, but it would have increased the ability of the flanking army groups to close pincer envelopments by giving each of them the use of two panzer armies. By Directive No. 33, on July 19th, Hitler issued orders for this change. Although the generals resisted and stalled in carrying out these instructions, the advance on Moscow was broken.

General Franz Halder wrote in his diary on July 26th: “The Führer’s analysis, which at many points is unjustly critical of the Field Command, indicates a complete break with the strategy of large operational conceptions. You cannot beat the Russians with operational successes, he argues, because they simply do not know when they are defeated. On that account it will be necessary to destroy them bit by bit, in small encircling actions of a purely tactical character.” Against these ideas of Hitler’s his generals argued for weeks, in vain. On August 21st, Hitler issued Directive No. 34. It began: “The proposals of the Army High Command for the continuance of the operations in the east, dated August 18, do not conform to my intentions. . . . The principal object is not the capture of Moscow.” In place of this, it set the following objectives: to seize the Crimea and the Dombas coal mines, to cut off the Caucasian oil supplies, to isolate Leningrad, and to make direct contact with the Finns.