Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 was his greatest blunder. The undertaking proved beyond Germany's capacities and, thus, was probably fatal in itself, apart from the fact that it created a two-front war. Hitler's only chance was a quick victory, but he lacked the power to accomplish this. The Soviets were almost certain to win a long war because of their greater resources in manpower, raw materials, and industrial potential.
THE DECISION TO INVADE THE USSR
Given Hitler's basic objective of creating Lebensraum in the east, it was virtually inevitable that he would attack the Soviet Union eventually. But why did he strike in 1941 when Soviet neutrality assured him of peace in the east, as well as important supplies, while he continued his war against Britain? It appears he decided to attack because he believed that the Soviets were too weak to prevent him from realizing his cherished dream. At the same time, he recognized that Britain was no threat to invade the continent in the west.
But Hitler justified his decision on the grounds that he could not trust the Soviets. His concern was not entirely fabricated. Hitler never felt completely secure from a Soviet attack while he was dealing with the Western Powers, and his fears increased in the summer of 1940 when the Soviets seized the Baltic states of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Why the takeover of the Baltic states and Bessarabia should have come as any surprise is difficult to understand. Germany had agreed that they lay within the Soviet sphere of influence. But Northern Bukovina was another matter. The Germans had not conceded this territory to the Soviets. Reports of Soviet troop concentrations in the newly annexed provinces increased the Fuhrer's paranoia regarding a Soviet attack.
Germany's dependence on the Soviet Union for raw materials also worried Hitler, especially because Stalin insisted on payment in the form of armaments. In fact, early in 1940, Hitler had ordered that arms deliveries to the Soviets receive priority over those to the German army. He considered this drastic measure necessary to assure the continued flow of raw materials from the USSR. By the summer of 1940, supplies from the Soviets comprised 22 percent of Germany's total imports.
Finally, Hitler feared that Stalin might enter into an alliance with Britain and, in fact, suspected that Stalin was responsible for the British refusal to make peace after the fall of France. But, while Hitler warned of the danger of a Soviet attack in the future, there is no indication that he considered it imminent. In fact, he may have expressed his concern primarily to justify his own insistence on an invasion.
Despite Hitler's fears, there is no indication that the Soviets planned to attack Germany at any time in 1940 or 1941. It is true that in May 1941 Stalin expressed concern about deteriorating Soviet-German relations and warned of the possibility of the German invasion. He hoped to stave off such action by diplomatic means but feared that war would be inevitable by 1942. At that point, he believed that the Soviets would be strong enough to face Germany and might even have to initiate hostilities. But he clearly based this speculation on fear of German intentions and certainly did not plan to strike without provocation.
Hitler's own thoughts were clearly straying eastward well before the start of the Battle of Britain. As early as July 1940, he ordered OKH to submit plans for a possible campaign against the Soviets. Hitler declared that "to all intents and purposes the war is almost won." But he warned of the need to destroy the Soviet Union, thus depriving the British of their last potential continental ally. In his view, the defeat of the Soviets would also discourage the Americans from entering the war.
Hitler was convinced that such an undertaking would result in an easy victory. Never impressed by Soviet military power, he became thoroughly contemptuous of the Red Army after its dismal performance against Finland. He also believed that the Soviet government was unpopular would collapse with the first few military defeats. As he proclaimed later, "You have only to kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."
Thus, he believed that the time was ripe to translate his geopolitical and racial vision into reality by crushing the Soviets and creating his cherished Lebensraum for the German master race at the expense of the Slavic Untermenschen. Hitler informed his generals that the conflict would not be fought according to the traditional rules of warfare. He saw it as a war of "ideologies and racial differences." This approach manifested itself in the notorious "Commissar Order," which provided for the summary execution of political commissars, the Communist political officers attached to Soviet military units, and other Communist leaders. Red Army soldiers, bypassed by German forces, were not to be treated as prisoners of war but as partisans and were to be shot. In addition, Hitler was willing to see 20 to 30 million Soviet citizens die of starvation to provide food for the Wehrmacht. Although German military leaders insisted that they had opposed such measures and placed the blame solely on Himmler's SS, it is now clear that many of them were very much involved. General Erich Hopner, commander of one of the panzer groups of the invasion, clearly had no qualms when he wrote these words in May 1941:
"The war against the Soviet Union is an essential component of the German people's struggle for existence....This struggle...must therefore be conducted with unprecedented severity. Both the planning and the execution of every battle must be dictated by an iron will to bring about a merciless, total annihilation of the enemy. Particularly no mercy should be shown toward the carriers of the present Russian-Bolshevik system."
MILITARY STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Neither the OKW nor the OKH opposed the invasion. They shared Hitler's view of Soviet weakness and were particularly scornful of the Red Army's showing in the Winter War. After studying the situation, Halder concluded that the Soviets would not be able to resist for more than eight to ten weeks.
Both Hitler and his generals were guilty of two serious errors. They woefully underestimated the obstacles involved in a Russian campaign and the strength of the Soviet armed forces. They also overestimated Germany's own power. The obstacles should have been obvious. The Soviet Union comprised and area greater than North America, and its huge population provided vast resources of manpower. Its infamous winter weather mandated that the Germans would have to win the campaign between May and October. The inadequate Soviet roads and the fact that Soviet railway gauge was wider than that of Western Europe posed staggering logistic problems. The Germans faced the dilemma of converting the rail system to the narrower Western gauge. Germany's shortage of motorized transport would also create difficult supply problems in the vast expanse of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet armed forces had some serious weaknesses, but they also possessed remarkable strength, especially in manpower and quantity of equipment. The Red Army appears to have had the equivalent of 230 to 240 divisions, including 170 infantry divisions, as well as 33 cavalry and 46 armored and motorized brigades. Estimates of Soviet tank strength range from 10,000 to 24,000. Unfortunately, most of them were obsolete, but the Soviets had developed some outstanding new tanks - the heavy KV and the medium T34 - that were superior to the best German models. The T34 was especially formidable. It was fast, armed with a 76-millimeter gun, and well armored. The Soviet air force contained at least 8,000 planes, including 2,000 fighters and 1,800 bombers, but only 800 in each category were modern.
The chief Soviet weakness was in military leadership. This was due largely to Stalin's extensive purge of the officer corps in the late 1930s in an effort to destroy any possibility of army resistance to his rule. Approximately 35,000 officers were either executed or imprisoned, most on trumped-up charges of treason. Those eliminated included three of five marshals, 14 of 16 army commanders, 60 of 67 corps commanders, and 136 of 199 division commanders. No fewer than 75 of the 80-man Supreme Military Council as well as all 11 vice commissars of defense were also liquidated or sent to prison camps. The purge had a devastating impact on the morale of the surviving officers, who obviously feared for their lives. It also required the wholesale promotion of junior officers to fill the vacancies for which many of them were not qualified. Many of the top generals in 1941 were more notable for their political reliability than for their military prowess. Hitler and his generals were quite aware of the deplorable condition of the Soviet officer corps, which was yet another reason why they looked upon the Red Army with contempt.
Among the Soviet officers who were exceptions to the prevailing mediocrity or downright incompetence were Marshal Timoshenko and especially General Georgi Zhukov. Zhukov, the son of a peasant shoemaker in a small village near Moscow, began his military career as an enlisted man during World War I. His bravery twice won him the Order of St. George, Tsarist Russia's highest military decoration. With the coming of the revolution, he joined the Red Army and saw action as a cavalry officer in the civil war. He won Stalin's favor in the following years and became a specialist in armored warfare. Timoshenko had salvaged victory in the Winter War and, with Zhukov's help, had launched a desperately needed modernization of the Red Army that focused on the development of armored divisions. But their efforts encountered strong opposition among the less progressive elements in the Soviet leadership.
General Konstantine Rokossovsky was still another rising star. A victim of Stalin's purge of the officer corps, he only recently had been released after four years in prison. His captors had treated him brutally, breaking several ribs, smashing his toes with a hammer, and kicking out nine of his teeth, for which he later received steel replacements. The son of a Polish father and a Russian mother, he was drafted into the tsarist army during World War I. After joining the Red Army during the Civil War, he rose rapidly in rank before his arrest in 1937. During the struggle to come, he gained renown as Russia's finest tactical commander as well as the begrudging respect of the Germans, who referred to him as "the Dagger."
The Red Army's recent battle experience was not limited to the fiasco in Finland. The Soviets had fought Japanese troops along the disputed border between Manchuria and Soviet East Asian territories in 1938, and shortly before the outbreak of the European war, Zhukov had led a massive tank force to a resounding victory in the Battle of Khalkhin-Gol. This defeat stunned the Japanese, who henceforth did not share the German assumption of Soviet weakness. Khalkhin-Gol may have also played a major role in Japan's decision to direct its future expansion toward Southeast Asia rather than against the USSR.
Stalin exercised supreme authority over the army and insisted that much of it be stationed far forward in the buffer area of Lithuania, eastern Poland, and Bessarabia. This placed the main Soviet army in positions that were dangerously vulnerable to German armored attack. Stalin's decision was due in large part to his fear that the peoples of newly acquired Baltic States and Poland as well as those of the Ukraine might prove unreliable. But it also reflected Red Army doctrine, which insisted that any German invasion would be quickly halted and followed by a major Soviet counteroffensive.
German strength in 1941 was not appreciably greater than it had been during the campaign in the west in 1940. The OKH assembled 145 divisions for the invasion, including 102 infantry, 19 armored, and 14 motorized. Although the number of armored units had almost doubled from May 1940, this was deceptive because the quantity of tanks per division had actually declined by half. Overall tank strength, 2,500, remained the same as in 1940. But experience had shown the need for a higher proportion of infantry, and the panzer regiments now were equipped with Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs. More divisions also provided greater operational flexibility. The Luftwaffe had 2,770 planes, including 1,085 bombers and 920 fighters. Its strength in both categories was actually lower than at the start of the Battle of Britain. This was due largely to losses suffered in the skies over Britain during 1940 as well as the diversion of units to the Mediterranean and the need to defend Germany against RAF bombing attacks.
OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGY
Hitler and the OKH disagreed over objectives. To be sure, both considered the destruction of the Red Army in the shortest possible time as the primary aim. But the OKH believed that German forces should concentrate on the capture of the capital, Moscow, which also was an important industrial center and the hub of the Soviet rail network. Hitler gave priority to the conquest of the Baltic states and Leningrad in the north as well as the Ukraine, with its huge supplies of grain and iron ore, and ultimately the Caucasus oil fields in the south. The Fuhrer was also anxious for German forces to link up with the Finnish army in the Leningrad area. Finland had allowed a small German force to enter its territory as early as September 1940 and agreed to join in the campaign against the Soviets to regain the land lost in the Winter War. The Finns also feared the possibility of another Soviet attack and realized that they could not afford to alienate both Germany and the USSR.
Despite the divergence in views of German leaders, Hitler approved a compromise operational plan on December 18, 1940. It was given the code name Operation Barbarossa, in honor of the medieval German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who drowned while on a crusade in 1190 but, according to German legend, was merely sleeping while awaiting the moment for the restoration of a glorious German empire. The plan provided for participation by three army groups. Army Group North, commanded by Field Marshal von Leeb, was to slash through the Baltic states toward Leningrad. In consisted of two infantry armies of 27 divisions and a panzer group of three armored divisions. Army Group Center, under Field Marshal von Bock, was to penetrate into Soviet-occupied Poland and Belorussia in the direction of Moscow. It was the largest army group with two infantry armies of 42 divisions and two panzer groups of nine armored divisions. Army Group South, led by Field Marshal von Rundstedt, was to drive through the Ukraine. Its strength included three infantry armies of 38 divisions and a panzer group of five armored divisions. Two Rumanian armies and a Hungarian corps were also to take part in the southern invasion.
Army Group Center was to destroy the enemy in Poland and Belorussia and then shift its panzer forces to help Army Group North smash the enemy in the Leningrad area. After accomplishing this objective, the armor would return to the central front to resume the drive on Moscow. The OKH intended to start Operation Barbarossa on May 15, but the coup d'état in Yugoslavia and Hitler's decision to crush that country forced postponement until June 22. Original German plans had called for an invasion of Greece without using forces earmarked for Barbarossa, but the Yugoslav complication necessitated a diversion of strength. Even without the intervention in Yugoslavia, however, it is doubtful that the Russian campaign could have started in May. The spring of 1941 was extremely wet, and the rivers in eastern Poland were at flood stage until early June.
THE SPECTACULAR INVASION BEGINS
Hitler was supremely confident that the invasion would succeed. "When Barbarossa commences," he exclaimed, "the world will hold its breath and make no comment." At first, his optimism seemed justified. When the Germans struck on June 22, they caught Soviet troops totally off guard, even though Soviet agents had warned Stalin of the impending invasion. The Soviets had an outstanding intelligence service, which included Richard Sorge, a German Communist who operated in Japan and had gained the complete trust of both German and Japanese officials in Tokyo. He not only alerted Stalin to the impending attack but even included the date of the invasion. Another Soviet agent in Switzerland, referred to as Lucy (for the city of Lucerne), confirmed the date and added details of the German operational plan. Churchill also sent Stalin personal warnings based on messages intercepted by Ultra and other sources. But the Soviet dictator refused to alert any of his commanders in the forward zone. Stalin apparently believed that Britain had instigated the warnings to stir up trouble between Russia and Germany and wanted to avoid any activity that might provoke the Germans. Although he finally allowed an alert to be sent early on June 22, it came far too late.
Germany also gained complete surprise from the air. The first bombers took off before the start of hostilities, flew at high altitudes to avoid detection, and then swooped down on unsuspecting Soviet air bases just as German troops crossed the border. More devastating air attacks followed. The Soviets lost an estimated 1,200 planes on the first day.
Operation Barbarossa made spectacular early progress. After the first week, the German propaganda ministry announced bombastically: "In seven short days, the Fuhrer's offensive has smashed the Red Army to splinters... The eastern continent lies, like a limp virgin, in the mighty arms of the Germans Mars." Chaos reigned among Soviet forces along much of the frontier. Ill-trained to fight defensively because Soviet military doctrine focused almost totally on offensive warfare, they were stunned by the speed of the German advance and poorly led by many of their officers. Desperate counterattacks resulted in heavy casualties and usually failed. Red Army soldiers fought bravely and often to the death rather than surrender because to be taken prisoner, even in a hopeless situation, was considered treason. Nevertheless, many thousands ultimately had no recourse because of the speed of the German advance. Leeb's Army Group North drove 155 miles through Lithuania and into Latvia in the first five days, spearheaded by a panzer group commanded by General Hopner. Although Hopner had been active in the conspiracy against Hitler before the war, he had demonstrated great skills as a panzer corps commander in both the Polish and Western European campaigns. By July 10, his armor was within 80 miles of Leningrad, but at this point the drive bogged down due to heavily wooded terrain and supply problems.
Bock's Army Group Center also scored massive gains. Two panzer groups, one commanded by General Hermann Hoth on the left and the other by Guderian on the right, carried out two successful encirclements of large Soviet forces. Unlike Hopner, Hoth was a loyal supporter of Hitler, but he, too, had led panzer forces with considerable flair in Poland and Western Europe. Together they closed the first trap near Minsk in the area of the prewar Soviet-Polish border on June 26. They completed the second envelopment near Smolensk, 200 miles to the east, in mid-July. In all, Bock's troops captured 480,000 prisoners, and the Soviets suffered disastrous losses in armor. But as impressive as these victories were, they were less decisive than the Germans thought because many Soviets were able to escape before the pincers closed. Others eluded capture even after that because the panzers were so far ahead of the mass of infantry following on foot that the flanks of the encirclements were weakly held. Still, the Germans had covered 440 miles in 23 days and were only 200 miles from Moscow.
Progress was slower in the south as Rundstedt's forces moved toward Kiev with a panzer group, commanded by General von Kleist, in the vanguard. Although Kleist had worried over the rapid pace of Guderian's dash toward the English Channel in 1940, he had become a convert to armored warfare and had led a panzer group during the conquest of Yugoslavia. But he and Rundstedt encountered fierce Soviet resistance in the Ukraine as well as severe supply problems. Stalin had assumed incorrectly that the primary German attack would come in the south because of Hitler's desire to capture the area's economic resources. Thus, he had concentrated greater Soviet strength in the Ukraine than along the northern and central fronts.
Stalin's early response to the invasion was one of shock. In fact, the "man of steel" lost his nerve and withdrew into solitude for two weeks while the Germans thrust deeper into his country. Without its supreme leader, the regime drifted into confusion. Stalin finally emerged from his isolation on July 3 in a dull, uninspiring voice. Despite his own dereliction of duty, he called for a relentless struggle against the enemy. When Stalin finally shook off the effects of his collapse, he and other Soviet leaders set out to overhaul their command structure. Stalin created the State Defense Committee (GKO), which consisted of five members of the ruling Politburo with Stalin as its chairman. It now assumed overall direction of the war effort. Stalin also established Stavka, the general headquarters of the Soviet supreme command, which was directly subordinate to the GKO. The army general staff came under Stavka's supervision, and its chief of staff, General Boris Shaposhnikov, received a key position in Stavka. Henceforth, Stavka conceived basic strategy, while the general staff developed actual operational plans for the conduct of the war. But, even after this reorganization, Stalin continued to dominate the war effort and contributed to still more military disasters by his stubborn refusal to authorize troop withdrawals from untenable positions. He also persisted in blaming others for his own failures.
It was not until August 5 that the last resistance ended within the Smolensk pocket on the central front. Even before this it had been necessary for Bock's troops to halt their forward progress and establish an advance supply base. Army Group Center had outdistanced its supply line, and most of the infantry was still strung out far behind the armor. Meanwhile, the preinvasion dispute over strategy, which the compromise plan for Operation Barbarossa had temporarily settled, returned in a more virulent form on July 19. Hitler proposed to divert Hoth's panzer group from Army Group Center to help in the drive on Leningrad as the original plan had stipulated. But now he also wanted to shift Guderian's panzer group to the south, where the possibility of another huge encirclement loomed. Brauchitsch and Halder insisted that it would be wiser to keep the armor in the center for a drive on Moscow. Bock and Guderian agreed. They all contended that since Moscow was the decisive objective, the Soviets would commit their greatest strength to its defense. This posed the possibility of destroying much of the Red Army, which was the chief objective of Operation Barbarossa. The quarrel continued while Army Group Center fought off fierce Soviet counterattacks, but on August 20 Hitler ordered Hoth's armor northward and Guderian's to the south.
Critics have long contended that the generals were correct and that Germany may have lost that campaign and the war because of Hitler's refusal to allow an immediate drive on Moscow. But evidence now indicates that German supply problems were so severe that a major attack on the capital was probably not feasible until mid-September.
Hoth's panzers contributed to the encirclement of Leningrad, but Hitler did not intend to storm the city. He planned instead to starve it into submission. The siege began in September, and the suffering of Leningrad's population soon reached epic proportions. Perhaps as many as a million Leningraders worked incessantly to build a crude defensive perimeter around the city, including earthen walls, tank traps, pillboxes, and barbed wire entanglements. Many others volunteered for a paramilitary force, the People's Army. Despite having almost no training and few weapons, they received the grim assignment of plugging gaps in the army's defensive line. Some of them were armed only with containers of boiling water, which they threw at the enemy. Others ignited kerosene in an effort to slow the German advance. They suffered appalling casualties.
Although the Soviets were not able to lift the siege until early 1944, the worst of the ordeal occurred during November, December, and January of 1941-42. Food was in such short supply during this period that over 200,000 people died of starvation and diseases caused by malnutrition. The city depended on supplies that came by train from Moscow to Lake Ladoga and then by boat to the small port of Osinovets. From there, the precious cargoes traveled another 35 miles by rail, a route within easy range of German artillery. But the Germans cut the Moscow-Leningrad railroad on November 9, and the Soviets did not regain control until a month later. Even after restoring the rail link, it was necessary to haul supplies across the frozen lake in trucks, many of which broke through the treacherous ice. Food became so scarce during the worst months of the siege that people resorted to devouring dogs, cats, rats, and melted-down wallpaper glue, as well as a horrible jelly made from sheep intestines. Many persons dropped dead in the streets, and since few had the energy to bury them, they often remained there. As hunger became more and more severe, some resorted to cannibalism, eating the flesh of corpses that they found in the streets or makeshift morgues. Leningraders also suffered horribly from the savage cold of the far northern winter. As stocks of coal and oil vanished, many froze to death.
Meanwhile, Guderian's panzer group took part in the encirclement of massive Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Semyon Budenny near Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine. Kleist's panzer group, which had driven to the southeast of Kiev, hooked north to link up with Guderian's armor, which was thrusting southward. Some have blamed Budenny, whom one observer described as a man "with an immense mustache but a very small brain," for the Soviet disaster. He had become a close associate of Stalin, rising to high rank through favoritism. But despite Budenny's meager qualifications for command, the real culprit in the debacle at Kiev was Stalin, who ordered Budenny not to withdraw his forces from their exposed position. This decision enabled the Germans to capture over 600,000 Russians. Hitler was ecstatic and called the encirclement the "greatest battle in the history of the world." It was certainly a brilliant victory, but it did not assure a triumphant outcome to the campaign.
The Germans did not complete the Kiev operation until September 26. While it was in progress, Hitler decided that the time had come for an attack on Moscow with the greatest possible strength. He restored the panzer groups of Hoth and Guderian to Army Group Center and also shifted Hopner's armor from Army Group North to take part in the offensive. At the same time, Hitler ordered Army Group South to advance toward Kharkov, the Donetz Basin industrial area in the eastern Ukraine, and Rostov, the gateway to the Caucasus oil fields.
Bock launched his drive toward Moscow on September 30. It featured armor thrusts by Hoth on the north, Hopner in the center, and Guderian on the south that quickly produced two new encirclements and the capture of another 600,000 prisoners. Hitler was convinced that the enemy would "never rise again." His optimism appeared well founded. Soviet forces remaining to the west of Moscow were outnumbered and lacking in heavy equipment.
The Soviets had suffered huge losses of war materiel since the start of the invasion. They had managed to offset this to some extent by a drastic effort to increase production between July and October. But as the Germans swept eastward, Soviet leaders had no choice but to dismantle industrial plants and evacuate them to safer locations. These included the region of the Volga River, hundreds of mile east of Moscow as well as much more remote destinations - the Ural Mountains, Western Siberia, and Central Asia. This was a formidable task that required exceptional planning and placed a tremendous strain on the railroad system. In all, the Soviets moved over 1,500 industrial enterprises to the east between July and November. Once they had completed this great evacuation, it was necessary to reassemble the industries as quickly as possible, under often very difficult conditions. Millions of workers had to make the long trek to the east, where they labored as many as 15 hours a day and experienced deplorable living conditions.
German troops also overran many of the Soviet Union's best food-producing regions, especially the Ukraine. As a result, the same areas that provided havens for the uprooted industries had to increase their food production drastically. This often involved the cultivation of crops that had never before grown in these regions. Once again, the results were remarkable.
In the aftermath of the great battles of encirclement, it seemed certain that Moscow would fall to a giant pincers movement. Hoth's panzers were to swing around the northern flank of the capital, while Guderian was to turn the southern flank. Hopner would continue his advance directly on the city. But now complications arose. Rain fell steadily during much of October, and in many places the advance mired in mud until November. Although the Germans were within 40 miles of Moscow at one point, they debated whether it might be wise to go over to the defensive.
THE SOVIETS TURN THE TIDE
There was good reason for caution. The winter was about to start, German forces were depleted, and the supply situation was badly snarled. Yet some German generals believed that an all-out effort might crush the Red Army and feared that breaking off the offensive would result in a World War I-type stalemate. After mush debate, the OKH finally proposed to resume the drive on Moscow, and Hitler agreed. The Germans based this decision, however, on inadequate knowledge of enemy strength. The Soviets had been moving in fresh divisions, including many Siberian units from East Asia. Stalin felt secure in weakening his East Asian forces because of Sorge's reports from Tokyo that Japan would not intervene against Russia but intended to attack the United States. He also appointed Zhukov to take command of the Moscow front. Zhukov had no intention of committing his newly arrived troops to defend against the German offensive. Instead, he hoarded them to the east of the capital and planned to wait until the enemy drive had lost its momentum before unleashing a powerful counterstroke.
In the meantime, the troops that had survived the earlier German offensive had to defend Moscow. Again officials recruited hundreds of thousands of civilians to build three rings of defenses around the city. They also committed units of the People's Army to fill gaps in the line, and as at Leningrad, these poorly-trained and ill-equipped auxiliaries fought bravely and suffered heavy losses. While the desperate struggle unfolded, Stalin delivered stirring speeches in which, instead of resorting to Communist slogans, he appealed directly to the patriotism of the army and the people. He implored them to rally to the defense of Holy Mother Russia, and they responded with grim determination.
Army Group Center launched its final onslaught on November 15, but the drive made limited progress and ground to a halt by the end of November. The weather had deteriorated even before the start of the offensive, with temperatures dropping as low as 35 to 40 degrees below 0 Celsius, and heavy snow fell later in the month. Because of the lack of antifreeze, the Germans kept small fires burning under their tanks when they were not in use to prevent freezing. The men were without winter clothing and had to make do with what they could seize from the Soviets. During this operation, the Wehrmacht lost more soldiers to frostbite than to the Soviets. Dysentery created additional dangers. Many men suffered congelation of the anus while squatting to relieve themselves in temperatures as low as -60 degrees Celsius. The stabbing cold also froze food so solid that butter had to be cut with a saw, and horse meat proved impervious to the ax. If hot soup were not eaten promptly, it became cold in seconds and frozen in minutes.
The stage was set for the Soviet counter-offensive. The Red Army's first initiative came in the south. Timoshenko had replaced Budenny as commander on this front after the Kiev encirclement, and his troops forced Rundstedt to abandon Rostov on November 28. Zhukov launched far heavier attacks against the enemy flanks to the north and south of Moscow on December 5. Halder favored a retreat to a more or less prepared line. But Hitler insisted that the troops must form a number of strong points, called hedgehogs, around advanced supply depots and fight on even if surrounded. After the war, Halder blamed this decision for the heavy losses that the Germans suffered during the winter of 1941-42. But a number of other generals contended that Hitler actually saved the army from what would have been a rout if it had attempted a large scale withdrawal.
The situation was precarious for a long time, and at one point there was a real danger that the Red Army might encircle Army Group Center. The Soviets did cut off some German troops, but they continued to hold out, and the Luftwaffe supplied them by air throughout the winter. Zhukov wanted to concentrate the bulk of the Red Army for an all-out assault on the Moscow front, which he believed might deal Army Group Center a fatal blow. But Stalin insisted that Soviet forces continue to attack on all fronts. This weakened Zhukov's striking power and helped the Germans to hold out. The Red Army also suffered heavy losses. This was inevitable against such a tenacious enemy, but it was also indicative of Zhukov's philosophy of war. He believed in hammering relentlessly at an objective, no matter what the cost in lives.
When the Soviet counteroffensive finally ground to a halt in March 1942, it was clear that the war on the eastern front had become a stalemate for the time being. It was also apparent that the struggle for the Soviet Union would be long and bloody.
Failure in the campaign led to a wholesale shakeup of Germany's military leadership. Rundstedt resigned in protest when Hitler refused to allow an additional withdrawal following the loss of Rostov. Soon afterward, Hitler dismissed both Guderian and Hopner for ordering unauthorized retreats. He lashed out with particular fury against Hopner, whom he stripped of his rank and ousted from the army. Bock gave up his command because of illness, and Leeb resigned early in 1942. An even higher luminary added his name to the roster of fallen generals when Brauchitsch asked to be relieved as commander in chief. His health had deteriorated steadily under the strain of the campaign. Rather than appoint a successor, Hitler took over as commander in chief himself. Halder was the sole survivor in the army's top echelon.
Hitler's assumption of Brauchitsch's duties represented a serious encroachment on army responsibilities. Henceforth, he restricted the OKH to planning operations on the eastern front only and even there frequently intervened in command decisions. Elsewhere, the OKW exercised operational authority and the OKW was, of course, very much under the Fuhrer's control. The success of Hitler's "hold fast" policy before Moscow during the winter of 1941-42 also increased his belief in his own destiny. It set a dangerous precedent. In the future, when confronted by even more serious situations, he repeatedly relied on the same policy, with catastrophic results.
The Wehrmacht's failure to crush the Red Army in 1941 was fatal to Hitler's dream of Lebensraum and ultimately to the existence of the Third Reich. His invincible army had been stopped, its power blunted. It would never again be as formidable as it had been in June 1941. Even if it had been possible for Army Group Center to capture Moscow, there is little likelihood that the Germans would have won the campaign. There is no reason to believe that the Soviets would not have continued to fight on. The crucial mistake was the decision to attack the Soviet Union in the first place. The task was simply beyond Germany's resources.
TREATMENT OF POWs
One of the most hideous aspects of Nazi policy toward Russia was the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. Ironically, many Red Army soldiers, especially minorities, disliked the Soviet regime and went over to the Germans more or less voluntarily. But the SS subjected them to brutal treatment. Many starved, froze to death, or died from other causes. Almost 3.3 million Soviet prisoners perished in Nazi camps or in transit. When the war began to go against the Reich, the Germans changed this barbarous policy and used Soviet prisoners for labor. They even recruited some of them as soldiers, primarily members of minorities who still harbored grievances against the Soviet government. Although the number of such troops eventually reached substantial proportions, they never played an important role in Hitler's war effort. Only 10 percent of Red Army POWs survived the German camps, and sadly most of these were looked upon with suspicion by the Soviets and sent to Siberia where they were worked to death.
The Germans were not alone when it came to barbaric treatment of prisoners. The Soviets responded in kind. While the Red Army High Command did not sanction shooting prisoners, individual units did so spontaneously. It appears that 90 to 95 percent of German prisoners perished in the period 1941-42. In November 1941, Stalin proclaimed that it was necessary to "annihilate all Germans who penetrated as occupiers, down to the last man." By February 1942, however, Red Army leaders urged an end to this policy, and Stalin ordered that henceforth captive German soldiers were to be held as prisoners rather than slain.