Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (29 page)

Clearly, such a plan would further polarise the spilt between motorised divisions and the rest of the army. The worst, however, was yet to come as continued tank production, and Hitler's later decision to arbitrarily double the number of panzer divisions, resulted in many more trucks being required to provide for their movement and supply. The infantry divisions were thus forced to shed an even greater share of motorised vehicles, finding themselves ever more dependent on horses and wagons.
¹¹³
In the spring of 1941 the drain was somewhat offset by the expropriation of
French war materiel, furnishing the Wehrmacht with 13,000 trucks
¹¹⁴
and 341 trains.
¹¹⁵
In addition, the army gained between 3,000
and 4,000 trucks from French North Africa
¹¹⁶
and was able to purchase more from
Switzerland.
¹¹⁷
The trade-off for alleviating the immediate strain on resources was a further exacerbation of the standardisation problem, which had grown so out of proportion that by the launch of Barbarossa some 2,000 different types of vehicle were in service and
Army Group Centre alone had to stock and distribute over a million types of spare parts.
¹¹⁸
The administrative complexity inevitably led to time-consuming delays in returning vehicles to service. It also complicated the smooth function of panzer divisions. The
18th Panzer Division, for example, fielded no fewer than 96 different types of personnel carriers, 111 types of trucks and 37 types of motorcycles.
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The evidence suggests that Hitler's eastern army resembled a pieced-together, mismatched construction – not the imposing, purpose-built, uniformly-equipped war machine often portrayed in the immediate post-war literature.
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A further complication of primary importance to a motorised supply system was the availability of fuel. Only nine days before the beginning of the campaign
Thomas visited Halder and outlined for him, in the bleakest of terms, the grossly inadequate state of Germany's oil reserves. ‘Fuel supplies’, Thomas explained, ‘will be exhausted in the autumn, aviation fuel will be down to one-half, regular fuel to only a quarter. Diesel and heating oil would be at only half the required levels.’
¹²¹
The Wehrmacht operations department had been observing the dwindling oil stocks since the beginning of the planning for Operation Barbarossa and had exerted some of its influence to push for economic objectives. These were focused on the Soviet oil-producing region of the Caucasus and necessitated that part of
Army Group South's strength march towards the Donets region and then on to Krasnodar and Maykop-Grozny. In accordance with these objectives the War Economic Staff issued a request to the
17th Army dated 12 June in which it asked that the oil region of Drogobycz in Galicia be occupied as soon as possible. Halder, however, refused to pass on the request
¹²²
and noted in his diary on the following day: ‘Political Questions – I refuse to allow economic considerations to influence the operational direction.’
¹²³
Not only does this highlight the urgency of Germany's fuel shortage, at least according to the War Economic Staff,
but it also illustrates Halder's refusal to allow any encroachment on his operational concept, especially for objectives he saw as extraneous to the task of defeating the Soviet Union. Importantly for the coming war, a good deal of Hitler's operational conception in the secondary stage of the campaign was fixed on economic objectives.

In a reversal of logical procedure characteristic of Halder's General Staff, the feasibility of the operation was assumed from the outset and planning for its logistical support only begun on that basis. It is not surprising, therefore, that on the same day (1 August 1940) that Major-General
Marcks was reporting to Halder his planned conduct of the operation, the Quartermaster-General was instructed to begin his own
planning.
¹²⁴
This was entrusted to Major-General Wagner, who would be faced with the seemingly intractable task of giving the campaign an equitable chance of realising its grand objectives, which, if at all possible, necessitated a short campaign that could largely be won between the German border and the Dvina–Dnepr line. The German army's supply system was simply incapable of adequately sustaining anything further than a penetration of about 500 kilometres into the Soviet Union.
¹²⁵

After the defeat of France in 1940 Germany's army was initially to be expanded from 120 to 180 divisions, but by the eve of Barbarossa it had ballooned to some 209 divisions.
¹²⁶
As a result, availability of motor transport for the divisions had both shrunk as a percentage of the pre-war total, and been heavily concentrated into the new panzer and motorised divisions. In the same period, an equivalent expansion of the logistical apparatus had proved utterly impossible owing to materiel shortages, namely of trucks.
Supplying an army of such size necessitated the extensive use of railways; this, however, faced the cardinal problem that the Soviet railway gauge was wider than the rest of Europe. The lines would first have to be reset to accommodate German trains, but this could not be undertaken at anything approaching the speed necessary to sustain the operational timetable. The solution therefore hinged on supporting the panzer and motorised divisions as far to the east as possible with wheeled transport. Determining whether this was possible or not depended entirely on estimates of fuel consumption and ammunition expenditure which, owing to the many unknown variables, were ultimately decided upon by the maximum transport capacity of the vehicles,
and not any informed projection of conditions.
¹²⁷
As such, the panzer spearheads would be dependent on a logistical system already pushed to full capacity, without any available reserves.

To propel the panzer groups forward as far as possible even the tanks were heavily loaded with supplies. The Mark II, III and IV tanks were fitted with two-wheeled trailers each carrying two 200-litre petrol tanks, while some were further loaded with 20-litre petrol cans strapped to their turrets. Moreover, twice the standard complement of ammunition was squeezed inside each tank, making them as self-sufficient as possible during the earliest phase of the campaign.
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Despite such improvisations, supplying operations to ranges hundreds of kilometres beyond the German border clearly required a more sustained approach. A reorganisation of the army's rear services, which included stripping the infantry divisions of all but the most essential motorisation and replacing the loss with 15,000 Polish ‘
Panje
’ horse-drawn wagons, eventually raised the capacity of the
Grosstransportraum
behind the three army groups to 15,880 tons in the south, 25,020 tons in the centre and 12,750 tons in the north.
¹²⁹
This was then chiefly concentrated in support of the panzer groups, which gave Army Group Centre the only chance of securing the Dvina–Dnepr line before a major halt became necessary. In practice, however, estimates indicate that the trucks could only provide the motorised divisions with about 70 tons of supplies per day when they required on average 300 tons.
¹³⁰
Specifically, the supply operation employed a new method of distribution known to the troops as ‘hand baggage’ (
Handkoffer
). This determined that supply columns advanced with the panzer units replenishing them as they went and dumping the remainder of their loads at a forward point about 100 kilometres from the border. While these columns then returned for new loads, others would continue with the advance to establish a second supply dump 300 kilometres from the border. The panzer divisions would use their own
Kleinkolonnenraum
to supply themselves from the dump sites.
¹³¹
Obviously the efficiency of
the system deteriorated with distance, while complications owing to poor roads, vehicle breakdowns and enemy action only weakened the already tenuous basis upon which it all rested.
¹³²

Included in the administrative regulations for the Soviet territories was a directive entitled: ‘Guidelines for booty, confiscation and exacting of services’, which translated into the open exploitation of the occupied areas for the army's benefit. Yet, in recognition of the enormous burden carried by the motorised transport columns,
Wagner issued his own ‘Order for the securing of booty during operations’. This was intended for army and corps commands and aimed at keeping the operations moving by utilising captured stocks of vital resources and materials such as foodstuffs, motor-vehicles, fuel, horses, wagons and ammunition.
¹³³
The great need to supplement the existing supply system was not limited to the employment of captured Red Army equipment, but extended to the plunder of the local populace. Accordingly, the German army undertook a ruthless programme of expropriation which, in addition to further exposing the shortcomings of its own logistical apparatus, also had the profound effect of rapidly alienating the Soviet population. Before the invasion the
18th Panzer Division ordered its troops to undertake ‘full exploitation of the land’, which later resulted in instances where whole villages were looted with anyone who resisted being shot.
¹³⁴
One
SS report denounced such practices of the army, complaining:

The positive attitude towards the Germans
¹³⁵
is being jeopardised by the indiscriminate requisitions by the troops, which become generally known, further by individual instances of rape, and by the way the Army treats the civilian population, which feel handled as an enemy people.
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This is not only a moral indictment on the conduct of the army, underlining its direct liability in hardening the resolve of the Soviet cause, but, at its root, it highlights the great inadequacy of the motorised-based logistical system for the size of the army driving into the Soviet Union.

According to the operational plans the achievement of the Dvina–Dnepr line would see the bulk of the Red Army cut off and facing destruction, leaving only weak reserves further east.
Yet it was also recognised that, irrespective of the enemy situation, this point would represent the
furthest possible extension of the motorised logistical system. Beyond this the railroads would assume a decisive importance, re-establishing stockpiles for the next thrust and providing for the great mass of infantry now drawing up behind the panzer and motorised divisions.

If the initial vehicle-based advance appeared tenuous at best, the conceptual foundation for the railway-based supply system should be characterised as sheer wishful thinking. Overwrought by buoyant optimism, the calculations made during the spring 1941 planning stage assumed the absolute minimum requirement for the repair and operation of the railways in the occupied areas. To make matters worse, planning assumed the widespread capture of broad-gauge Soviet trains and only insignificant damage to the Soviet rail network. The general disappointment of this absurd expectation forced heavy reliance on the immediate eastward extension of the standard-gauge rail lines, while the deficit in locomotives and rolling stock had to be borne by the already over-strained
Reichsbahn
(German railways).
¹³⁷
From a cursory study of the battlefield movements, the impending crisis was not at first evident, as the panzers raced ahead still supported by their motorised columns and the infantry were sustained by their own wagon trains. The railroad troops (
Eisenbahntruppe
), however, were faced with critical shortages of both manpower and materials, making rapid progress impossible. Dependent on the army groups for their allocation of fuel, they suffered from a low priority ranking, made worse by the fact that only one-sixth of the formations were fully motorised and two-thirds had to make do without any vehicles at all. In total only 1,000 vehicles were allocated to the
Eisenbahntruppe
(mostly inferior French and British models) across the whole eastern front.
¹³⁸

Administrative difficulties also encroached on the operation of the logistical system.
Wagner's position as the Army Quartermaster-General gave him authority over the stockpiles of supplies, the depots at which these were stored and the haulage vehicles, but not the railways, which were under the control of Lieutenant-General
Rudolf Gercke, the Chief of Wehrmacht Transport. Gercke was thus working under the timetables and constraints of the OKW while Wagner served the OKH, and the interests of the two command organisations did not always coincide. Thus, while Wagner was responsible for the organisation and distribution of supplies at each end of the railways, he held little power over what quantities could be shipped or when these would arrive.
¹³⁹

On
a technical level, the adaptation of German trains to the eastern theatre was much more complex than the conversion of rails to the standard gauge. In theory, converting the rails was a relatively straightforward procedure of removing the spikes, moving the rails and hammering the spikes down again. In practice, however, the Soviets were to prove particularly effective in damaging or destroying the rail beds and twisting rails, forcing the Germans to bring up new materials and engage in a much more time-consuming construction process. To make matters worse, most Soviet locomotives were much bigger machines, capable of carrying a greater load of water and fuel, which allowed them to travel about twice the distance of their German counterparts. This left an absence of service stations for the German trains, which had to be built from nothing and often required locomotive sheds, repair shops, slag pits, turntables, sidings and water towers. In contrast to the relative ease of rail conversion, these would require skilled personnel, scarce heavy construction equipment and considerable materials, not to mention much precious time. Such unforeseen complications altered the premise upon which all timetables were fixed and placed in doubt the relief of the hard-pressed panzer
divisions.