Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (13 page)

Paulus recorded the results of his war game in two stages, the first being eight days after the start of operations and the second after twenty days. In the first period of analysis the most revealing observation concerns the movements of Army Group Centre which, Paulus stated, faced the problem of how to achieve its assigned task: ‘[B]old thrusts by columns of armoured formations will be made deep into enemy territory and the withdrawal of major enemy forces into the depths of Russia will be prevented.’
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The two panzer groups designated to the army group soon found themselves overstretched, meeting strong opposition on both inner and outer flanks as they simultaneously tried to prevent the withdrawal of retreating armies while also meeting concentrated counter-attacks from forces not previously engaged. Third Panzer Army was attacked so heavily that it was compelled to stop and form a front, while also recalling its advanced units which were pushing further eastward. The conclusion reached by the Blue (German) commander was that the Red (Soviet) army aimed to counter-attack and destroy the leading Blue armies. The significance of this is clear. The forward elements of the Blue forces
represented the cutting edge of the operational knife upon which German ‘blitzkrieg’ theory depended. Blunt the knife and the opportunity for rapid penetration of the enemy front is lost, eliminating the mobility of the army and leaving the marching infantry with a predicament not unlike that faced by Napoleon's slow-moving
Grande Armée
.

In response, Paulus thought infantry corps should be attached to the panzer groups in order to assist in the initial attack and thereby free the motorised infantry to advance as quickly as possible. The infantry would then march in the wake of the column providing support where possible. Although such an initiative represented an improvement, and could aid the advance in the opening days of the campaign, it was nevertheless a temporary solution which failed to resolve the problem properly, as the inevitable gap quickly developed between man and machine.

The second period of assessment Paulus undertook focuses on events after twenty days of action which he described as ‘severe fighting’. The line reached and the timetable of the advance, he stated, were proceeding in accordance with those planned. Yet Paulus's positive appraisal did not disguise the fact that major objectives of the campaign were still far from being fulfilled. In his assessment of the Soviet forces Paulus noted that as a result of its ‘stubborn resistance’
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the Red Army had suffered heavy casualties but had managed its withdrawal to the line Dnepr–Upper Dvina, establishing there a new continuous front.
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This was a fundamental failing of the Blue forces. The outline for the campaign included among the army's tasks the instruction: ‘Having made the initial break-through, to strive with every possible means to isolate and destroy in detail Russian formations before the enemy [is] able to form a new, corporate front.’
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Other factors influencing the overall outlook included observation of road and railway traffic indicating the transfer of new forces from the Caucasus and the Far East that, in addition to large-scale army replacements and the formation of new units, was estimated to stiffen Soviet resistance considerably. Furthermore, the Blue Commanders doubted that the Soviets would remain on their current defensive line, electing instead to trade space for time and fight only delaying actions in a general withdrawal to Moscow.

On the German side, the condition of the Blue army necessitated a rest period of approximately three weeks for concentration and reorganisation of forces, reconditioning the panzer and motorised units and, most importantly, the establishment of frontal supply bases. For Paulus,
the need to resume the advance as quickly as possible was clear, yet the tasks allotted to each of the three army groups, along with their current distribution of forces, soon gave rise to a new debate.

Army Group South's long front dispersed its armies over a wide area, hampering its efforts to produce a concentrated force capable of isolating Kiev. The group commander therefore asked for the temporary use of armoured units from Army Group Centre as well as the release of some reinforcements from the Army General Reserve. The same plea was made by the commander of Army Group North who needed to advance his right wing in order to provide essential flank support for the renewed drive of Army Group Centre. The commander of Army Group Centre recognised the importance of both operations but argued that the seizure of Moscow, as the principal objective, required the central panzer groups to be at their maximum possible strength and, as a result, Army Groups North and South would have to make do with their existing forces.
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The discussion highlights a fundamental dilemma facing German commanders in the east – how to balance the ratio of force to space. As the advance continued, the front expanded substantially in depth and width resulting in an ever increasing dispersal of manpower that was exacerbated by casualties and logistical constraints. This ultimately forced a general weakening of the front which soon stalled the simultaneous advance of the army groups and forced choices to be made regarding priorities. In Paulus's war game the choice was clear;
Moscow would be the objective towards which all army groups would work.

The lesson for Paulus seemed obvious; the Wehrmacht did not enjoy a substantial quantitative superiority and could not raise reinforcements on anything like the scale of the Soviet Union.
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Given the geographic dimensions of the theatre, the size of the German deployment and the critical time factor, the effectiveness of the Wehrmacht's mobile units was of paramount importance in determining the outcome of German fortunes in the east.

Orders for the second phase of the campaign placed the highest priority on the capture of Moscow
with operations to begin not later than forty days into the war.
Leningrad in the north and the Donets Basin in the south were clearly designated as secondary objectives, with Army Groups North and South providing flank support for the main thrust.
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Here the account provided by Paulus ends, but he does offer an insightful discussion of the overall exercise. This opens with the frank admission that the ‘general conclusion’ was that ‘the German forces were barely sufficient for the purpose’.
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This worrying assessment implies grave consequences given that Paulus's mandate limited the exercise purely to questions of military strategy
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and that his war game offered no analysis of the logistical difficulties or the distinctively harsh conditions of climate and poor infrastructure prevalent in the east. Paulus then commented on the woefully inadequate size of the Army General Reserve which contained just 11 divisions for a front stretching 1,200 miles with poor means of lateral transportation. He declared that it was generally accepted that the whole reserve would have to be committed as early as the second phase and that, as a result, the armies would have to be self-sufficient, creating reserves from within their own front-line units.
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The line of final advance ‘
Volga to
Archangel’ was dismissed by Paulus as ‘far beyond anything that the German forces available could hope to achieve’. He then added, ‘but it is a typical example of the megalomaniac extravagance of National Socialist political thinking’.
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If that is indeed the case, such a statement speaks for itself about the degree of National Socialist thinking within the armed forces, given that both Marcks and Lossberg, with the subsequent approval of higher command, suggested this line as their final objective.

It seems clear that the outcome of the war game demanded, at the very least, a reassessment of the plans for war against the Soviet Union. The mock battles had proved a far more sobering encounter for the Wehrmacht than was suggested by the conquering tone of the earlier operational studies. The many troubling questions and subjects of concern presented by the war game raise an essential question: in what new direction would Paulus take the planning of Barbarossa given the unpromising events he himself had witnessed? In order to answer this, one must consider the character of the man who throughout his career (and especially in his role as commander of the 6th
Army at
Stalingrad, 1942–43)
displayed a methodical devotion to duty and distinguished himself as an unquestioning supporter of Nazism, unaccustomed to conflict with his superiors or bold independent action.
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General
Erwin Jaenecke, a personal friend of Paulus and subordinate in the 6th Army, wrote: ‘In spite of his intelligence, Colonel-General Paulus was far too pliable to cope with Hitler. I am convinced that this is the real and deeper cause of his failure.’
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Given this assessment it is perhaps not surprising that Paulus took no action to persuade Halder or any others in the High Command of the results emerging from the war game. Indeed nothing at all was done to reflect what Paulus claims to have learned. Paulus had stated that the exercise's primary objective was to gather information and suggestions for the ‘first strategic concentration [of troops] and [their] approach march’.
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Seen in this light, Paulus may have deluded himself into thinking that such a far-ranging critique of the whole operation was uncalled for. Instead, Paulus preferred to trust in the general air of confidence fostered within the High Command rather than risk rocking the boat with pessimistic objections. This shameful inaction further demonstrates the depths to which senior officers within the General Staff had sunk, and the associated loss of professionalism. It also suggests that Paulus was a convert to the megalomaniac extravagances of National Socialist political thinking that he so readily attributed to
others.

On 5 December 1940
Hitler met again with
Halder and
Brauchitsch, as well as the chiefs of the OKW, to hear the army's report on operational intentions. In typical fashion, before his generals could present their proposals Hitler used the high-level gathering as cause for another long-winded overview of the general military situation. This covered at length the many operational possibilities being considered in the Balkans and Mediterranean, but, as Halder noted, Hitler saw the definitive decision concerning German hegemony in Europe as arising from the struggle against Russia.
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According to Hitler, in comparison to the German Wehrmacht, the Red Army was weaker in armaments, personnel and especially leadership. He predicted that, once hit, the Soviet state would suffer a collapse greater than France had earlier that year. Yet he also warned against simply pushing the Soviet forces back without breaking through the front and encircling the bulk of the Red Army. He cited the
Volga as the point where the campaign could conclude with air raids able to destroy the remaining armament industry in the distant east.
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When Halder was finally able to take the floor he kept his focus wholly concentrated on the planned operation against the Soviet Union, beginning his address with a summary of the geographical conditions to be encountered there. Halder reported that the most important armament centres lay in the Ukraine,
Moscow and
Leningrad with the Soviet Union's agricultural requirements also dependent upon the Ukraine. The
Pripet marshes formed a natural barrier which divided the operational area into northern and southern zones, with the most favourable road and rail networks laying in the northern sector along the Warsaw–Moscow road. He described the transportation network in the southern zone as bad and emphasised the advantage of the northern sector for large-scale movement operations. Halder stated that the greater portion of the Soviet Army was deployed in the northern sector
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in close formations set behind the former Soviet–Polish border with extensive field fortifications and supply routes. He postulated that the Dnepr–Dvina line represented the Soviets' easternmost point of defences given their need to protect vital industrial assets. Accordingly the army, with special emphasis on the panzer forces, would have to ensure that, once the initial breakthrough had been achieved, there was no re-establishment of resistance before the great rivers could be secured.
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Of critical importance in the evolution of the strategic planning was Halder's assertion that an especially powerful thrust should be made from the area around Warsaw to the Soviet capital, Moscow. This, he stated, would proceed through Minsk and
Smolensk in tandem with advances by the northern and southern army groups on Leningrad and
Kiev respectively. In outlining his objectives Halder allowed no room for ambiguity regarding the direction of Army Group Centre nor the primary importance he attached to Moscow. Like Hitler before him, he pointed to the Volga and to the area around
Archangel as the overall area to be
occupied in the campaign. The army, he suggested, would invade with 105 infantry and 32 panzer and motorised divisions.
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With the conclusion of Halder's address Hitler rose again to voice his general agreement with the proposals thus far presented by the army, but he also sought to redirect his audience's attention to the main points as he saw them. With careful attention to the language Hitler used it is not without significance that he began by pointing out that the most ‘important objective’ (
wichtigstes Ziel
) lay in not allowing the Red Army an orderly withdrawal. He went on to state that the blows dealt to the Red Army had to be of sufficient strength to prevent any prospect of recovery. This, he then explained, required the use of panzer forces to encircle the strongest enemy elements and destroy them.
Army Group North was to seek encirclements in the Baltic states,
Army Group South in combination with Romanian forces would do the same in the Ukraine, while
Army Group Centre, far from then being assigned Moscow as its absolute priority, was to be prepared to send ‘considerable forces’ (
erhebliche Teile
) northward to assist in the drive on Leningrad
. Hitler then declared that the question of whether Army Groups North and South, following the destruction of enemy forces opposing their fronts, should proceed to Moscow or into the region east of the capital could not yet be decided. Finally, Hitler acknowledged that the figure of 130–140 divisions for the whole operation was adequate.
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Halder spoke one last time before the conclusion of the meeting, but rather than confronting Hitler over the apparent difference of opinion concerning the importance of Moscow, he commented only on the secondary issues of moving troops to their assembly areas and the number of divisions to remain garrisoning the occupied countries.
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