Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (70 page)

Compounding
the absence of strategic reserves and the increasing gaps in the ranks was the inability to compensate with firepower owing to munition shortages. On 1 August in a telephone conversation with the Army Quartermaster-General,
Bock insisted that the lack of munitions previously acknowledged as ‘serious’ was, after a week without improvement, ‘gradually becoming a crisis’.
Wagner attempted to assure Bock that the urgency of the situation was well known to him and that he was doing everything possible to alleviate the problem,
¹²⁰
but these were just words and he was unable to alter substantially the realities of the German predicament. The logistical network was supposed to be sustained by a combination of Soviet and German railways bringing up the great bulk of supplies that would then be delivered to the front over relatively short distances by trucks. In practice, however, the system was so flawed that Bock was lucky to be getting enough for the bare subsistence of his army group.
Gercke, the Chief of Wehrmacht Transport, explained to Halder on 2 August that the ‘numerical scarcity’ of captured Soviet locomotives
and rolling stock was a major complication to the supply of the army.
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As a result, rail supply would have to be overwhelmingly undertaken by the overstretched
Reichsbahn
and this meant that the conversion of the railways was of even more fundamental importance. This in turn gave rise to disputes over how the process should be managed. The army was clamouring for an extension of the railways as close to the front as possible, but extending the railways such a distance could only be achieved at the expense of their carrying capacity. Wagner argued for a slower extension of the railways with a higher carrying capacity, but this left a sizeable shortfall in distance which would then have to be made up by the trucks of the
Grosstransportraum
.
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As
Halder noted: ‘Building a logistical system in parallel to running supplies is difficult and slow.’
¹²³
In some cases, converted railroads replaced two-way tracks with single lines, forcing bottlenecks of one-way traffic. Moreover, liberties taken to extend the lines as fast as possible often resulted in poor quality, reducing the speed of the trains. In some instances it was not the workmanship so much as the materials which caused problems. Soviet rail beds were sometimes so weak and their rails so feeble that the only German locomotives that could be used were light models dating from World War I.
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Gercke also complained about the inadequacy of communication infrastructure, as well as the civilian German railway workers who were, in his opinion, too inflexible and slow.
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In the most favourable circumstance, four companies of railway engineers managed to re-lay 20 kilometres of track in a 24-hour period.
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Overall, however, the pace was far too slow to alleviate the army's great shortages and, as Halder concluded on 3 August: ‘The question of munitions is for the time being unsolvable because the trains are failing to appear.’
¹²⁷
Not surprisingly, the supply situation was a major headache for the German command and Halder singled out Bock's army group as the main ‘problem child’.
¹²⁸

With the railways both too limited and heavily overburdened, German commanders desperate for supplies pressed every available motor-driven vehicle into service. In the most favourable circumstances the nearest supply depots were still 150 kilometres from the front, meaning a 300-kilometre round trip, assuming there were supplies to be had. Often the trucks would have to drive a great deal further, including all the way back to the pre-war border,
¹²⁹
or wait aimlessly for rail shipments while
the men at the front pleaded for ammunition and other essentials. Thus, the stalling of Army Group Centre's offensive provided no respite for the
Grosstransportraum
which was being ground down on the dreadful Soviet roads, steadily reducing the army's future mobility. The war diary of the
19th Panzer Division noted that supplies were being brought up from a distance of 250 kilometres or more, meaning at least a 500-kilometre journey for each load.
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The supply officer of the
10th Panzer Division informed his commanding officer, Lieutenant-General Ferdinand
Schaal, that the division could only be supplied from a maximum of 200 kilometres away. Beyond that ‘serious difficulties’ were to be expected as only 50 per cent of the original transportation fleet remained serviceable. Particularly high was the loss of requisitioned French trucks, which Schaal acknowledged could not be replaced from Germany, meaning that the division would therefore have to ‘fend for itself’.
¹³¹
Previously, about one in every ten broken-down vehicles was being replaced by new production from Germany, but, by the end of July, the OKH refused to send any more vehicles because of shortages and the planned establishment of new formations.
¹³²

Overall the
Grosstransportraum
of the army was in rapid decline. Halder noted on 5 August that trucks requisitioned from civilian industry had already suffered a total fallout rate of 30 per cent, while the loss of military vehicles stood at 20 per cent.
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Army Group North was the worst off with an average total loss of 39 per cent among its transport fleet,
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but worse still was the fact that the bulk of trucks still classed as serviceable were rapidly succumbing to the same fate. Throughout the army there were serious shortages of tyres and spare
parts,
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while the conditions in the east were noted by Guderian's Quartermaster-General to be ‘very severe’ in oil consumption, accounting for usage in ‘frightful masses’. On the poor roads the vehicles were often forced to drive for long periods in low gears, while the hot summer temperatures and pervasive clouds of road dust combined to increase oil consumption dramatically. Not only this, but the engines were in far more frequent need of total oil changes.
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In
LVII Panzer Corps a report from 6 August noted: ‘Already many vehicles are consuming 20 to 30 litres of oil per
100 kilometres instead of the normal half litre of oil.’
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Shortages of oil and a general lack of careful maintenance meant that the abrasive effects on the engines, particularly from the dust, were extremely damaging even over short distances. A report from
XXXXVII Panzer Corps on 4 August made clear that the dust in the motors of its trucks doomed them all to an early grave. Those of the
17th Panzer Division and the
29th Motorised Division were expected to last a further 500 to 800 kilometres ‘without excessive operational demands’, while the engines of the
18th Panzer Division were forecast to last only another 200 to 400 kilometres. The difference between the two estimates rested on the high number of French vehicles in the 18th Panzer Division.
¹³⁸
Although such lifespan projections were only made in the XXXXVII Panzer Corps, it may be assumed that the other panzer corps were similarly affected, spelling a foreseeable end to the mobility of the panzer divisions even if the panzers themselves could be brought back up to offensive
strength.

As
the army struggled to cope with its many burdens, the news filtering back to the German home front was not quite the triumphant blitzkrieg being trumpeted by
Goebbels's propaganda machine. The majority of the German population were still convinced of eventual success, but classified SD reports (the SD
Sicherheitsdienst
were a sub-element of
Himmler's SS) undertaken to gauge the public mood detected an emerging groundswell of anxiety about the war in the east. An SD report from 4 August read:

It is often said that the campaign has not been proceeding as might have been assumed from reports at the start of the operation…Since then, we have had the impression that the Soviets have plenty of materiel and that there has been
increasing resistance
…From the number of reported deaths…the panzer corps reports and front reports, one can safely assume
that casualties really are higher than in previous campaigns
.
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Indeed, towards the end of July the difficulties at the front were causing Goebbels to rein in the enthusiasm of his propaganda. He declared in his diary: ‘We must no longer promise so much.’ He then signalled a new direction for propaganda. ‘It is therefore correct, when we very explicitly inform the German people of the harshness of the battles playing out in the east. One must tell the nation that this operation is very difficult,
but that we can overcome it and also will overcome it.’
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As the harsh realities of the eastern front were just dawning on many Germans, there were others to whom it came as no surprise. Anti-Hitler conspirator Helmuth James Graf von
Moltke, the great-nephew of the celebrated Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, harboured reservations from the earliest days of the war. Writing to his wife from Berlin he spoke in harsh terms about the progress of the war, which ‘has already produced very heavy fighting and cost us very great losses’.
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Two days later on 3 July Moltke concluded: ‘I have come to the conclusion that we have obviously completely underestimated Russia.’
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Another civilian and one of Moltke's compatriots, Ulrich von
Hassell, judged the overall situation on 2 August in similarly bleak terms. ‘The situation: heavy Russian resistance, heavy losses, heavy English air raids in the west. Very meagre results in the submarine and air war against the British merchant fleet. Consequently, low barometer readings, feeling of endlessness and
doom.’
¹⁴³
In Italy Goebbels ominously observed that the public mood was rife with criticism for the perceived ineptitude of
Mussolini's Fascist regime and claimed that the people had placed ‘their last hope in the German
Wehrmacht’.
¹⁴⁴
Even at the front, an Italian journalist travelling with the German armies, Curzio
Malaparte, observed the error of German pre-war estimates and the alarming strength of the Soviet enemy.

I am thinking of the mistake made by those who hoped, at the beginning of the war against Russia, that at the first impact revolution would break out in Moscow – in other words, that the collapse of the system would precede the collapse of the army. These people showed that they failed to understand the spirit of the Soviet society. Rather than the
kolkhozi
– the great collective farms – rather than her giant factories, rather than her heavy industry, the supreme industrial creation of Soviet Russia is her Army.
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While
the German population were only just beginning to comprehend the scale and cost of the new war in the east, any illusions held by the Soviet populace about the ‘invincibility’ of the Red Army were quickly dispelled in the opening days of the war. With the exception of the Soviet territories recently incorporated in to the USSR and certain regions of
the Ukraine, the mood can generally be characterised as one of defiance and nationalistic zeal. Although Soviet post-war histories went to great lengths to demonstrate the absolute unity of the Soviet population, in truth of course there were exceptions.
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Yet much evidence still points to widespread support for the Soviet Union's war effort, indicating that the war evoked a passion beyond a simple adherence to the Soviet state or Stalin.
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Many people did fight for socialism, although perhaps not always Stalin's particular brand of it, while others fought, in spite of the Soviet system, for their homeland.
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Some supported the Soviet war effort to forestall the advent of Nazi rule which they wisely feared. Of course there were also many who were simply given no choice, being drafted to the army or into the factories where draconian discipline enforced loyalty. Nevertheless, popular enthusiasm was shared by a majority of the Soviet population.
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There was an overwhelming acceptance that the Soviet Union was the victim of Nazi aggression and the past mistakes of the political leadership were soon forgotten in the rush to defend the state. Stalin shrewdly propagated this by enacting a quiet revolution in state freedoms, previously unthinkable. Anti-religious propaganda was soon halted
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and past national heroes,
forgotten in favour of new socialist idols, were resurrected as symbols of past national glories.
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Propaganda improved in both medium and content.
¹⁵²
Pravda
, the Soviet daily newspaper, dropped its weary peace-time slogan: ‘Proletarians of all lands, unite!’ Instead the new message was simple and direct: ‘Death to the German invaders!’
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The war was soon being portrayed as ‘a great patriotic war’ to evoke comparisons with the victorious ejection of Napoleon's invading army by Tsar
Alexander I. There were also 600,000 people freed from the labour camps, 175,000 of whom where then mobilised.
¹⁵⁴
It was a new Stalinist state with a slightly more compassionate face, designed to bleed every last drop of popular fervour from its inhabitants, while retaining an iron-fisted grip on power. The comparison with Nazi Germany at the time could hardly be more stark. The Soviets were mobilising fully on the home industrial front as well as for the Red Army, and psychologically the conflict was already being heralded as a time of great national crisis, requiring untold
sacrifices. In
Germany, by contrast, there was no ‘total war’ economy, no national state of emergency and the majority of the population still expected the war to be of short duration, ending in another triumph of German arms. It seemed only the boldest sceptic could venture to presume that in the summer of 1941 Germany was, in fact, irretrievably losing the war.