Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (18 page)

On 31 January 1941
Brauchitsch hosted a meeting attended by
Halder and the army's top field commanders, Field Marshals
Rundstedt,
Leeb,
Bock and
Witzleben. Here it was made clear that the army's plan proceeded from the assumption that the Red Army could be engaged and defeated before the Dvina–Dnepr line. Field Marshal Bock, however, asked what would happen if the Red Army did not oblige OKH plans and instead fell back into the depths of the country. He received the curt reply from
Halder, ‘it might well happen otherwise’.
²⁴
Disturbing as this must have been for Bock, who was returning from four months of sick leave and receiving his first detailed briefing on the Barbarossa campaign, Halder, after months of planning that he himself had overseen, was not about to be thrown off by having the whole theoretical conception called into question. As recently as November 1940, Halder had confided to his diary that the daunting scope of commitments around Europe suggested a limitation of operations in the east to the first operational objective (i.e. the Dvina–Dnepr line). He believed that ‘starting from there, one could attempt an enveloping operation, but in the endless expanse of space this would have no prospect of success’.
²⁵
Not surprisingly, the prospect of fighting on into the Soviet hinterland boded ill for Halder, but once again the Chief of the General Staff failed in the duty of his office, ordering no review or follow up, asking none of the difficult questions, trusting instead in the plans at hand and avoiding the glaring flaws so apparent to others.

Bock's concern, however, was not so easily assuaged and he took up the matter the following day (1 February 1941) during a meeting with
Hitler. Bock expressed his certainty that the Soviet forces could be defeated if they stood their ground and fought, but questioned what could be done to force a settlement if they refused to give battle. To this Hitler replied that if the occupation of the Ukraine, Leningrad and Moscow did not bring about peace then the campaign would just have to carry on, using mobile forces, to
Yekaterinburg, a staggering 2,000 kilometres further east from Moscow.
²⁶
Bock recorded Hitler's response without comment but, as an experienced field commander, alarm bells should have sounded at the mere suggestion of such an audacious assertion. Yet early in the war Hitler still possessed the ability to allay many fears in the minds of
his generals with long, at times grandiose lectures, exuding unbounded confidence and showing off his meticulous acquaintance with military and political developments. Here Hitler's use of sweeping euphemisms, especially in military matters, often allowed little room for attention to detail; he was content with vague references to ‘annihilation’, ‘collapse’ and ‘reduction to rubble’.
²⁷
Bock would not be the first, or last, general to falter before
Hitler.

Thus, the planning for Barbarossa proceeded without delay or revision and Hitler's unrestrained megalomania was left unchallenged by the principal army commanders. The dangers of this approach were only identified in retrospect by some in the High Command. Speaking in July 1945,
Jodl told his American interrogators: ‘He took part in the trench warfare…he had had no real experience with mobile warfare and all the difficulties that are caused in communications with the uncertain conditions of mobile warfare. He, therefore, tended to overlook the difficulties of executing some of the operations which he had planned.’
²⁸
What Jodl neglected to mention was the gross failing of the German military in condoning and acting upon Hitler's wild gambles.

The first draft of the Army's Deployment Directive Barbarossa (
Aufmarschanweisung Barbarossa
) was issued on 22 January 1941 with a subsequent final version submitted to Halder and dated 31 January. It began by re-emphasising the need to eliminate the bulk of enemy forces in the western districts and prevent any withdrawal. The second section, entitled ‘Enemy Situation’, began with the important assumption that Soviet forces would accept battle west of the
Dnepr and
Dvina Rivers with at least strong parts of their forces, thereby fulfilling the German requirement for the subsequent destruction of the Red Army's main force.
²⁹

The substance of the document was based upon the guidelines set out in
Directive No. 21 and accordingly followed Hitler's well-known preference regarding operational objectives. Under the title ‘Intention’, the Deployment Directive noted:

Army Group Centre – Field Marshal von Bock
– will commit strong and fast-moving forces from the area around Warsaw and Suwalki to enact a breakthrough in the direction of Smolensk. This will permit the turning of strong, mobile elements northwards to assist
Army Group North – Field Marshal von Leeb
– attacking out
of East Prussia to annihilate enemy forces in the Baltic and proceed in the general direction of
Leningrad.
³⁰

Even so, the army, was keen to emphasise that in the event of a general collapse of Soviet forces ‘the abandonment of the northward turn and an immediate thrust towards
Moscow could be considered’.
³¹
The Deployment Directive was signed by
Brauchitsch, although the Army High Command's own operational objectives remained, as ever, separate from those of Hitler. Their apparent acceptance was only another act of deception designed to concede only what they must. Evidence to this effect is provided by
Paulus who, writing after the war, made clear:

In the Army Headquarters’ plan the capture of Moscow was regarded as the principal objective. Its capture, however, was to be preceded by the capture of Leningrad, the fall of which would deprive the Baltic Fleet of its main base, the Russian war effort of the armament production of the city and, above all, the Russian Army of a strategic assembly area for a counter-offensive against the flank and rear of the German forces advancing on Moscow. For this last reason alone it was essential that Leningrad should be the first objective.
³²

What Paulus neglects to mention of course is that the army simply had no other choice but to accept the precedence of Leningrad over Moscow and that, left to their own devices, it seems highly unlikely the army would have subordinated Army Group Centre's mobile forces to its northern counterpart. On the contrary, if indeed there did exist a serious threat to the northern flank of Army Group Centre, the army would have re-designated Army Group North's priority to protecting the central front's flank, just as they had previously done in Paulus's December war game. Brauchitsch and
Halder, however, knowing the limits to which their arguments and powers of persuasion could influence Hitler's reasoning, decided instead on a covert subversion of Hitler's plan. This cannot be seen in any way as an act of resistance to Hitler or his regime, rather a strictly military matter calculated to win Hitler's war in what was perceived by the army command to be a more efficient manner. The conspiracy of silence was a means to this end and was therefore in the service of the regime rather than in opposition to it. Almost certainly the plotters were restricted to the highest officers of the OKH and the extent to which any formal plan of action was developed, if indeed anything so exact was produced, is unknown. Most likely the plotting consisted simply of strongly voiced personal opinions followed by actions being taken,
where possible, to meet the army's interests, but without raising Hitler's suspicions or incurring further interference. The overriding realisation of the difficulties in dealing with Hitler necessitated a patient resignation. The generals bided their time, seeking to force the issue only at the critical moment, convinced that events leading up to the secondary phase of operations would prove the intrinsic value of a direct assault on Moscow. Here again one identifies the overarching conviction of complete confidence in the coming campaign. The Soviet armies, in spite of their size, were believed to be so utterly inferior to the Wehrmacht and its relentless ‘blitzkrieg’ that the secondary phase of operations would have no more important goal than the immediate thrust on the Soviet capital
. The certainty of a short, victorious war did not allow for dire predictions of German setbacks or troublesome Soviet counter-attacks. The question was only how best to win a war that none doubted would be
won. As Colonel-General Heinz
Guderian later observed: ‘All the men of the OKW and the OKH with whom I spoke evinced an unshakable optimism and were quite impervious to criticism or objections.’
³³
In a similar tone, Colonel-General Maximilian Freiherr von
Weichs, who was to command the 2nd Army in Operation Barbarossa, wrote after the war: ‘One began the war with an underestimation of the enemy that would be hard to surpass and an arrogance stemming from the surprisingly rapid victories of past campaigns.’
³⁴

Figure 2.1 
In the planning for Operation Barbarossa Halder (right) and Brauchitsch (left) privately disagreed with Hitler's objectives for Army Group Centre.

On 3 February 1941 Halder met
Hitler for further discussions concerning the preparations for Barbarossa. Halder was careful to base his report, at least in the realm of operations north of the
Pripet marshes, on Directive No. 21 and presented an overall picture, not always in line with fact, of confident progression. He began with a detailed description of the enemy strengths, indicating available Soviet forces at 100 infantry divisions, 25 cavalry divisions and 30 motorised divisions;
³⁵
these were to be seen against a German force of 104 infantry and 34 mobile divisions.
³⁶
Halder acknowledged to Hitler a Soviet numerical advantage in tanks including those attached to infantry divisions, but dismissed their worth
on account of German qualitative superiority.
³⁷
The notes made in his diary on 2 February, in preparation for the meeting with Hitler, however, record the imposing figure of 10,000 Soviet tanks in comparison with 3,500 German panzers.
Guderian's 1937 book on tank warfare also set the number of Soviet tanks at 10,000.
³⁸
After the war, Guderian's memoir made the claim, impossible to substantiate, that Hitler remarked to him during a military conference in early August 1941: ‘If I had known that the figures for Russian tank strength which you gave in your book were in fact the true ones, I would not – I believe – ever have started this war.’
³⁹
As it was, Halder apparently did not quote the figure to Hitler. The
low estimation of Soviet quality in tanks was tempered by the observation, ‘Nevertheless surprises not impossible.’
⁴⁰
Indeed, Soviet production of the KV-1 and T-34 would ensure surprises of the most profound kind awaited the Wehrmacht. Yet, for the time being, brash, self-assured impunity sustained the Army High Command in spite of
the acknowledged limitations in intelligence.
⁴¹
Hitler's army adjutant, Major
Gerhard Engel, had earlier noted that Hitler and Halder shared a ‘very optimistic’ estimation of the Red Army, foreseeing ‘obsolete equipment and above all few aircraft and old
tanks’.
⁴²
Soviet artillery, Halder informed Hitler, was outfitted to its units in the conventional manner, but suffered again from poor quality.
⁴³
Halder's diary of the previous day, however, included the noteworthy addition, ‘numerically strong’.
⁴⁴

Instructions for the three army groups generally aimed at breaking through the Soviet front and preventing an enemy withdrawal. Halder then specified the tasks of
Army Groups North and
Centre, detailing a joint action by the three panzer groups over the
Dvina in a north-easterly direction. Yet, as he continued, Halder's commitment to the northern operation appeared less certain. While Army Group North's panzer group advanced towards Lake Peipus in
Estonia, Halder stated the other two panzer groups from Army Group Centre would make Smolensk their first objective and follow on from there in co-operation with the northern group, ‘further to the east’.
⁴⁵
Undoubtedly, Halder was aware that reaching Smolensk would also ensure strong arguments in favour of Moscow simply on geographical terms. From this position the Soviet capital lay only a further 360 kilometres to the east, while
Leningrad would necessitate a 90 degree turn northwards with an advance of 600 kilometres over terrain dotted with swamps and marshes.