Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (74 page)

Through a combination of the Allied economic embargo and the lacklustre progress of Hitler's war in the east, Japan's course was at last decisively set for war against the Anglo-American powers.
²³⁴
The battle of Smolensk was therefore important not only for the damage done to Germany's armies, but also for the political and strategic ramifications these involved. Hitler had lost the prospect of aid from an army larger than any of his other Axis allies deployed on the eastern front. Moreover, Japanese intervention would have forced the Soviet Union into a two-front war, further straining their resources as well as isolating them even more from outside economic assistance.

Contrary to popular assumption, Japan's ill-fated decision to seek conflict with the Anglo-American powers was not her entry into war, rather it was her first desperate move in a war she had been fighting since 1937 against
China. Consequently, the summer of 1941 was the critical turning point towards eventual defeat for Japan as well as for
Germany.

For all the faults inherent in Japanese strategic decision making during 1941, they can at least be said to have shown enough respect for the Red Army to await the development of Hitler's war before making a commitment themselves.
Mussolini, on the other hand, was as rash as he was foolhardy and immediately committed
Italy to Hitler's new war in spite of the heavy burden he was already shouldering in North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Balkans. Ultimately the
CSIR (Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia) would number just 62,000 men and were supposed to be among the best Italy had to offer so as not to make a poor impression alongside the other Axis allies.
²³⁵
When
Keitel caught sight of them upon their arrival on the eastern front at the end of August, he scornfully described the army as ‘a boundless disappointment’ with officers who were far too old, leading what he deemed to be ‘half-soldiers’
incapable of standing up to the Red
Army.
²³⁶
Even Hitler disparagingly referred to the Italians as nothing more than ‘harvest hands’.
²³⁷
In any case, the Italians were too few in number and arrived too late on the eastern front to influence the fortunes of Germany's 1941
campaign.

Thus, while Japan and Italy were Germany's two most prominent Axis allies, their overall importance to Hitler in the summer of 1941 was largely replaced by Romania and
Finland.
²³⁸
At either extreme of the eastern front these two small powers contributed sizeable forces to Barbarossa and were the only two nations to be officially informed of German plans before the invasion. After Germany, Finland provided the most professional army on the eastern front, numbering 476,000 men and, because of the
Winter War (1939–40), was in possession of considerable quantities of high-grade armaments supplied by Germany, Britain and the United States. In the early weeks of the war Finland recovered its recently lost territories from the Soviet Union, but the cost was very high and the country already faced critical manpower shortages with few reserves. Soviet resistance stiffened, leading the Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army, Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil
Mannerheim, to suspend forward operations and to permanently go over to the defence. The escalating demands of Germany's war forced anxious requests by Hitler's OKW for renewed Finnish action, but Mannerheim informed Keitel that this went beyond the terms of their pre-war agreement and, in any case, exceeded his military capabilities. Consequently, as early as August 1941 the Finnish leadership determined that the Red Army had been badly under-estimated and the Wehrmacht over-estimated. The result they concluded was that a German victory before the onset of winter was no longer feasible and this resulted in a state of quasi non-belligerence. Thus, before the end of the summer, Germany had effectively lost its most worthy ally on the eastern front.
²³⁹

Romania
was Germany's other major ally, fielding two armies in the invasion (
3rd and
4th organised as
Army Group Antonescu) with some 325,685 troops between them.
²⁴⁰
Yet size does not equal strength. The Romanian army suffered greatly from poor training among officers and
men, obsolete equipment and a meagre standard of motorisation and domestic industrial support. Accordingly, the head of the German military mission to Romania, General
Erik Hansen, described the Romanian contribution as useless for ‘difficult offensive actions’.
²⁴¹
Initial operations for the recovery of
Bessarabia and
Northern Bukovina were achieved with German aid,
²⁴²
but by late July 1941 the degree of German over-extension on the southern flank led to pleas for ‘urgently desired’ independent Romanian action to be taken against
Odessa.
²⁴³
Unlike the Finns, the Romanian Head of State and self-appointed field commander, General Ion
Antonescu, willingly heeded the call to advance further into the Soviet Union and launched successive failed assaults in an attempt to take Odessa by force. The city was eventually evacuated by the Soviets and awarded the distinctive title ‘Hero City’ of the Soviet Union. Antonescu tried to claim a victory, but his losses had been staggering. There were 80 per cent casualties in the 12 divisions which took part, equalling some 98,000 casualties in less than two months of fighting.
²⁴⁴
Even though Antonescu was willing to accept such casualties and press on with his campaign, losses of this scale naturally undercut the effectiveness of his forces and ultimately the whole army had to be reorganised and undergo further training.
²⁴⁵
If Hitler lost Finland to the looming danger of escalating warfare on the eastern front, he effectively lost Romania in the firing line of that
danger.

Hitler's other allies on the eastern front fielded smaller contingents and proved even more vulnerable to the harsh conditions and savage fighting. The Slovak forces in Operation Barbarossa numbered some 41,000 men, divided into a motorised Rapid Group followed by the remaining bulk of the army in the Expeditionary Army Group. In the view of General Otto, head of the German Army Mission to Slovakia, the Slovak forces suffered from an ‘inappropriate craving for prestige and an overestimation of strength’.
²⁴⁶
The tangible results of this were soon revealed at the battle of
Lipovec on 22 July when the Rapid Group first encountered organised formations of the Red Army, and suffered its highest casualties of its entire war against the Soviet Union in a single day. Inadequately trained,
poorly equipped and too large for the domestic economy to sustain, the Slovak forces had to be reorganised into a smaller army which was then relegated mostly to rear-area security tasks.
²⁴⁷

At the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union the Hungarian regent, Admiral
Miklós Horthy, committed the ‘
Carpathian Group’ numbering 45,000 men to Hitler's war. This included two brigades of infantry which were left behind for security tasks and a ‘Mobile Corps’ of 24,000 men. This formation was the pride of the Hungarian army and gave a good account of itself even alongside the motorised divisions of Kleist's Panzer Group 1. By the beginning of August, however, heavy casualties and serious doubts about the future of Hitler's war led to much debate about Hungary's commitment. The Chief of the General Staff, Colonel-General
Werth, wanted to substantially reinforce Hungary's eastern army, whereas the commander of the Carpathian Group, Lieutenant-General
Szombathelyi, argued for the withdrawal of the Mobile Corps. With first-hand knowledge of the conflict Szombathelyi argued: ‘The war will last for a long time, we must be prepared for that and not a lightning war.’ Horthy sided with Szombathelyi and even promoted him to replace Werth. Extracting their forces, however, proved more difficult. In early September when Horthy and Szombathelyi approached Hitler, the limited progress of Army Group South, with the bulk of its forces still on the western bank of the Dnepr, caused Hitler to block the Hungarian
withdrawal.
²⁴⁸

Added to the overall total of Axis troops fighting in the east were volunteers from all over Europe who took up the Nazi propaganda of a ‘European crusade against Bolshevism’. Of these
Spain
²⁴⁹
contributed the most, forming their own ‘
Blue Division’
²⁵⁰
with 17,909 men. The overall total of foreign volunteers aiding the Germans in 1941 reached 43,000 men,
²⁵¹
but owing to the fact that these forces still had to be trained and equipped, they did not appear on the front until autumn at the earliest – in other words, after Barbarossa had failed.

Clearly Germany's eastern front allies were of dubious value.
²⁵²
As the varying examples illustrate, from the earliest weeks of the campaign, each nation was decisively affected in its contribution to the overall war effort by the rapidly growing demands of the conflict. Some recoiled, seeking to minimise their involvement after astute military assessments of the horrendous warfare they found there, while those that remained, particularly those on the front line, suffered accordingly. As small powers without the resources to influence events fundamentally, they had staked everything on Hitler's victory, expecting to profit from it. Germany's failure was also their own.

Despite frequent representations of the battle of Smolensk as an unambiguous German victory, it did not achieve the main German aim of tearing open the Soviet front to allow an unhindered advance into the depths of the Soviet Union. It is important to remember that battlefield victories are not ends in themselves. Their worth is calculated from the strategic possibilities, military or political, that these stimulate. The deepening crisis within the German command underscores their failure to work out how to defeat the Soviet Union – certainly the battle of Smolensk had not provided an answer. Bock's encirclements in the centre of the front achieved impressive operational successes, but did not open up a strategic alternative through which the war could be won. Conversely his forces had been badly crippled by the effort. As a result, whatever may be said of the huge Soviet losses, these were not suffered in vain, and indeed can be seen as the price of halting the German advance. With the blitzkrieg stopped, the realisation was dawning that the war was not going to be won soon, and that it would be a long, costly struggle, decided more by economic factors than any dramatic battlefield manoeuvre. In this regard the Soviet Union, backed by its western allies, was far better placed. Even if the tangible benefits of this Allied co-operation would take many months to reach the battlefield, it still meant that time was running against Germany. The Soviet Union had to be crushed, not worn down. The prospect of spending the winter bogged down in Russia, while its frozen army continued to shed men and equipment in a violent war of attrition, was tantamount to losing World War II. The last weeks of summer were to be decisive, although the scales were already precariously tipped against Germany.

1
Franz Halder, KTB III, pp. 115–116 (25 July 1941).

2
Krumpelt,
Das Material
, p. 167.

3
‘KTB Nr.1 Panzergruppe 2 Bd.II vom 22.7.1941 bis 20.8.41’ BA-MA RH 21–2/928, Fol. 34 (25 July 1941).

4
Werner Haupt,
Die Schlachten der Heeresgruppe Mitte. Aus der Sicht der Divisionen
(Friedberg, 1983), p. 66.

5
Ibid.

6
This report comes from a reporter attached to a propaganda company who wrote of an attack by ‘30 ton heavy T-28’ tanks, but owing to their lighter weight and much thinner armour, that could be pierced by German anti-tank guns, I have assumed that the tanks being referred to were in fact the 30 ton T-34s (ibid.).

7
Günther,
Hot Motors, Cold Feet
, pp. 105–106.

8
‘18. Panzer Division, Abt. Ia. Kriegstagebuch Teil I vom: 22.6 – 20.8.41’ BA-MA RH 27–18/20, Fols. 50–51 (25 July 1941).

9
Underlining in the original. Ibid., Fol. 52 (26 July 1941).

10
Bartov,
Hitler's Army
, p. 21.

11
‘18. Panzer Division, Abt. Ia. Kriegstagebuch Teil I vom: 22.6 – 20.8.41’ BA-MA RH 27–18/20, Fol. 54 (27 July 1941).

12
Franz Halder, KTB III, p. 124 (26 July 1941).

13
‘Gen.Kdo.LVII.Pz.Korps Kriegstagesbuch Nr.1 vom 15.2. – 31.10.41’ BA-MA RH 24–57/2, p. 249 (27 July 1941).

14
‘KTB 20th Pz. Div. vom 25.5.41 bis 15.8.41’ BA-MA RH 27–20/2, Fol. 62 (27 July 1941).

15
True To Type
, p. 16 (27 July 1941). The book in which this diary is printed claimed that Dittri was serving in the 21st Panzer Division (not the 20th Panzer division) but this is not possible given that the 21st Panzer Division was not even in existence in July 1941 (it was created later in 1941 and then deployed in North Africa). The confusion probably stems from the fact that Dittri was serving in the 21st Panzer Regiment, which was part of 20th Panzer Division.

16
Franz Halder, KTB III, p. 124 (26 July 1941).