Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (20 page)

It is a further sign of the decline in excellence that the two studies, not ordered by the army command but by Hitler, that were to prove of such prophetic importance to the outcome of the campaign, could be so wantonly mismanaged and distorted in their conclusions, that they precluded the very real dangers each contained from being confronted. Far from being a ‘haven’ from the regime separate from the other more sinister Nazi agencies, Hitler's army was in fact a willing and integrated component,
⁷²
determined to retain his favour and suffering in the process from an ever widening distortion of
reality.

By 14 March 1941 preparations for the campaign were well advanced, but even at this stage, the over-extension of forces was becoming plainly apparent.
Halder, together with his operations department chiefs, assessed the plans and objectives for each of the armies taking part in Barbarossa with the conclusion that more strength and greater concentration would be necessary. The extent of the problem was most evident in
Army Group South where it was determined the
12th and
17th Armies would need to be strengthened by the active involvement of
Romanian,
Hungarian and
Slovak units. In
Army Group Centre Halder was concerned with the weakness of the
4th Army's southern flank, in spite of
the fact that he perceived little threat emerging from the Pripet marshes. The
9th Army was expressing reluctance at giving up units to the
3rd Armoured Group. Likewise,
Army Group North's
18th Army was having difficulty co-ordinating its activities with the
4th Armoured Group. The
16th Army was criticised for being spread too widely and would be dependent on reserves for increased striking power. Despite the clear pressure on German forces operating in the east Halder then matter-of-factly noted the observation of Major-General
Wagner, that fuel reserves would last for just three more months. To this worrying observation Halder nevertheless added the note: ‘Fuel preparations adequate.’
⁷³
The importance of a short, victorious war could no longer be seen as a best-case scenario; it had become a vital necessity. The following day (15 March) Halder's
concern at the army's strength for Barbarossa received a further setback when he learned that
Brauchitsch was allocating additional forces to French coastal security at the expense of those deployed in the east. ‘It is not the point’, he recorded in frustration, ‘to ensure 100% security everywhere, but rather to provide the necessary minimum security, allowing the fullest success for Operation Barbarossa.’
⁷⁴

Worse news was to come in
Halder's meeting with
Hitler on 17 March 1941. Halder had made extensive notes in preparation for the conference which included the addition of satellite forces to reinforce
Army Group South. The enemy forces, he now noted, numbered a total of 155 divisions while Halder could muster just 134 divisions. German reserves totalled a mere 21 divisions and of these Halder noted nine were designated for
Operation Marita (the planned invasion of the Balkans) leaving just 12 divisions, which Halder himself acknowledged as ‘very few!’
⁷⁵
The conference of 17 March opened with Hitler's insistence that Barbarossa must proceed from the very outset with great successes and no reverses. He then ruled out Halder's hope for allied armies in the south with the dismissive objection that there was no point building operations on unreliable forces. The
Finnish forces, he believed, could only be counted on for local successes along the Baltic; the
Romanians were seen as completely unreliable with no offensive strength; the
Hungarians were mistrusted with no reason for joining the war and the
Slovakians, he disdainfully remarked, ‘are Slavs’, perhaps of later use as occupation forces. German forces, Hitler stated, were the only ones which he could be sure to count on.
⁷⁶

If Halder was disheartened by his stalled attempt to prop up Army Group South's strength with satellite forces, he was to suffer greater disappointment when Hitler declared his intention to reassign the
12th Army (soon to take part in the Balkan campaign). Hitler justified the move by casting doubt on Halder's plan, claiming it ‘would be fundamentally wrong to attack everywhere’ and insisting that the offensive across the
Pruth and
Dniester was doomed to fail. The result for Halder was an exacerbation of the problem he had hoped to solve. With the depletion of his forces, no additional allied armies, near non-existent reserves and a radical modification to his strategic plan, Halder should have been well disposed towards confrontation, but his conformist subservience to Hitler's bidding precluded that consequence. Instead, he accepted Hitler's reorganisation of the southern sector providing only for the defence of Romania
and adding the remaining forces to the northern thrust of the army group.
⁷⁷
Not without justification did
Ulrich von Hassell write only the day before in his diary: ‘Halder and Brauchitsch are nothing more than technical stooges [to Hitler].’
⁷⁸

Halder's concession to Hitler in the south was not so easily accepted by the commander of Army Group South, Field Marshal
Gerd von Rundstedt, who, concerned for his southern flank and hoping to tie up Soviet forces near the border, made further pleas to Hitler for Hungarian
involvement from the Carpathians and a reactivation of the offensive across the Pruth.
⁷⁹
Such arguments failed to alter Hitler's decision, but reveal the anxiety of Rundstedt and the weakness of Halder in failing to deal directly with Hitler over such important
concerns.

At another conference on 30 March Hitler again re-emphasised that
Army Group Centre was to advance to the
Dnepr and then, using the safety of the river, assemble its strength for the northward thrust.
Moscow, Hitler added incidentally, without realising the strongly partisan opinion of Halder, was ‘completely irrelevant!’ (
völlig gleichgültig!
).
⁸⁰
If Halder was not motivated to challenge Hitler over his changes to Army Group South, he was certainly not about to reveal his ardent insistence on Moscow as the central war-winning objective. Halder hoped this would be made clear by the early course of the campaign and only if Hitler persisted to oppose his plans would a more direct confrontation have to be
contemplated.

Halder's
attempts to subvert Hitler's authority, most notably regarding Moscow, offer much room for misinterpretation of his character and may be regarded by some as evidence of his maverick, non-conformist status, perhaps even offering notions of an officer, formerly opposed to Hitler, and now seeking a war-winning solution for Germany to counter Hitler's confused strategy.
⁸¹
Yet such representations would be misleading. Throughout the war Halder's loyalty to the regime never wavered. Not even towards the bitter end in July 1944, when all hope of victory was long since gone and the last vestiges of honourable men within the army resolved to act, did Halder betray his Führer. If Halder was not prepared to abandon Hitler at Germany's lowest ebb, he was in no way inclined to do so before the war had turned and he had suffered the indignity of his dismissal in disgrace. Halder's motivations in circumventing Hitler's authority were governed solely by his desire to advance Germany's conquests through personal conviction of his superior military aptitude.
⁸²
Yet his standing in Hitler's eyes was influenced by precisely the opposite impression. To Hitler, Halder was an acceptable Chief of Staff for his skills as a capable technocrat, but strikingly lacking in his grasp of modern strategic concepts, resulting primarily from his poor submissions prior to the French campaign.
⁸³
Following the triumph in the west, Halder's failure to be recognised among the many newly-created Field Marshals is perhaps the most noteworthy indication of Hitler's disfavour. Halder thus suffered from a lack of prestige, especially on issues of strategic significance, which led to friction, seldom openly expressed, but present nevertheless. It also drove Halder in his quest for redemption and explains his timidity around Hitler, not wishing to set himself back with pessimistic assessments or objections, as he had done prior to the western campaign. The result was a Chief of Staff outwardly loyal and compliant, yet pursuing his own agenda, convinced of his ability and hoping to recapture Hitler's approval through it. The practical consequence in the day-to-day planning for Barbarossa, however, was a man observing unquestioning obedience, without the professional objectivity necessary to adequately evaluate the scope of the undertaking, or the personal courage to withstand Hitler's overbearing personality.

Halder's nominal superior at OKH, Field Marshal von
Brauchitsch, was a man of even weaker character, not only in his dealings with Hitler but in many respects with Halder too. His ascension to Commander-in-Chief of the Army in 1938 necessitated his willing compliance in Hitler's dictate ‘to lead the Army closer towards the state and its philosophy’
⁸⁴
and Brauchitsch's acquiescence set the tone for his tenure in command. On 18 December 1938 in a directive on army education Brauchitsch declared: ‘The officer corps must not allow itself to be surpassed by anyone in the purity and genuineness of its National Socialist
Weltanschauung
’ (world-view).
⁸⁵
Along with Brauchitsch's appointment, a new command structure surrendered the army's previous hegemony over military affairs and installed one of the most spineless and contemptible of all Hitler's officers, Field Marshal
Wilhelm Keitel, as chief of the combined armed services. Unlike Halder, Brauchitsch refused any decisive action in the planned coup during the crisis over
Czechoslovakia and his passivity continued throughout the war. Worse still, Brauchitsch sanctioned the reprehensible acts of the Wehrmacht and SS in
Poland and even sought to justify their atrocities to those courageous individuals who voiced objections.
⁸⁶
Although portrayed by some to be an unwilling accomplice to the regime without the power to affect its political decisions,
⁸⁷
an accomplice he nevertheless remains, with moral considerations after the fact counting for nothing. Brauchitsch was an integral and willing servant of the regime whose prosperity and future success were inextricably tied to his own. Yet his close association with Halder and the dominance exerted by the Chief of the General Staff over their relationship
⁸⁸
caused Brauchitsch, in addition to his own misgivings, to voice doubts over the war in the west, incurring in consequence Hitler's great anger and resentment. The scathing verbal tirade this drew from Hitler and the ultimate success of the operation reduced Brauchitsch's confidence and standing even further.
⁸⁹
He adopted a meek compliance to Hitler and relied even more on Halder for direction of the army and its military policy.
Halder exploited this weakness, using it to garner support for his subversion of Hitler's
Directive 21, and rapidly established himself as the true authority within the
army.

Brauchitsch and Halder's scheming over Moscow did not include the field commanders of Army Group Centre and their instructions were accordingly vague and ambiguous. In his post-war memoir
Guderian complained: ‘I received at my headquarters only bare indications of the Supreme Command's intentions for the second phase of the operation after the first objective (in the case of my corps the area
Roslavl–Elnya–Smolensk) had been reached.’
⁹⁰
The commander of Panzer Group 3, Colonel-General
Hermann Hoth, stated that he learned only after the war of the full text contained within War Directive 21 and the Barbarossa deployment directive. Until then Hoth claimed to have no knowledge of the plan to turn his forces northward and assist
Army Group North. In this regard
Brauchitsch and
Halder's control of information was assisted by Hitler's January 1941 order limiting knowledge of the campaign to a commander's immediate zone of operations, which prohibited a more general conception of Hitler's intentions.
⁹¹
Utilising this advantage, Brauchitsch and Halder could pass on all orders through
Army Group Centre giving their own subtle interpretation, always with emphasis on keeping the operation and its commanders directed towards
Moscow. As Hoth wrote:

In fact within Panzer Group 3 itself, everyone was driven by the thought that they were on the way to Moscow. One must understand, if the Commander-in-Chief of the Army [Brauchitsch] would have been determined to fulfil Hitler's wishes, he would have informed the commander of the troops.
⁹²

Without question Brauchitsch and Halder avoided giving anything too exact in their instructions for the secondary phase of the operations, but they could not directly contradict Hitler by stating that the one and only goal was to seize Moscow. To accept that Hoth was really so utterly ignorant of the plan to turn his panzers northward may give Brauchitsch and Halder too much credit for concealment. Possibly Hoth had his own connections at OKH, or maybe there was something Bock or another of the Field Marshals learned and passed on; in any case, the first phase of the operational plans gave rise to some unwanted questioning by Hoth. The issue at stake was the direction of Hoth's initial thrust and where this would leave his forces for the secondary operation. As Bock observed in
his diary on 18 March 1941: ‘The initial deployment of
Panzer Group 3 for the attack is difficult. Hoth is casting his eyes beyond the
Dnepr and
Dvina from the very outset and is paying scant attention to the possibility of attacking and defeating enemy forces which stand and fight somewhat farther forward.’
⁹³
If Hoth was in fact oblivious to Hitler's intentions for his panzer group, his stance must be seen purely in terms of favouring a large encirclement for the first operational manoeuvre. If Hoth, however, was aware of Hitler's intentions, then making the rapid drive for the Dvina would provide the best springboard for a thrust northwards.