THE INVASION
On 22 June 1941 Adolf Hitler’s forces invaded the Soviet Union. Jonathan Trigg examines the surprise Nazi attack on the USSR
In 1939 Hitler’s Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, yet on 22 June 1941 Nazi troops entered the USSR and one of the bloodiest campaigns of World War II began. The initial operation, codenamed Barbarossa, saw the German troops make rapid advances, but the tide began to turn against them in the winter months. Over the following years, the
Red Army gradually forced the Nazis out of the USSR, and the fighting on the Eastern Front became a turning point in the war. Historian Jonathan Trigg explains why Adolf Hitler broke the pact with the Soviets and how the Nazis were so successful in their initial attack.
What was the situation in 1941? How was the war going for Nazi Germany?
In a word, splendidly. The Nazis were at the absolute zenith of their power. In a very short period of time they had defeated France and conquered nearly the whole of Europe, apart from Britain. Both Greece and Yugoslavia joined the Axis allies in the Balkans, so essentially by 1941 all the countries on the Continent were controlled by the Germans, were allied to them, or neutral. The only thing they couldn’t do was make the leap across that short little bit of water, the English Channel. The Nazis were even down in North Africa: Erwin Rommel had a small force and had thrown back the British troops, advancing into Tobruk, Libya. Hitler was really at the top of the tree – Germany was not at war with the United States and not yet at war with the Soviet Union. Only Great Britain stood against them, and even then it seemed as if it was only a matter of time before the British capitulated and Germany won.
What was the background and lead up to Barbarossa? Why did Hitler attack Russia at this time?
The popular opinion in Germany, even among the civilian population, was: ‘Let’s concentrate on destroying Britain.’ At the time the Nazi-soviet Non-aggression Pact was in place and both countries had taken part in the dismemberment of Poland in 1939. The German public and military didn’t feel there was a need to strike Russia, but the one person who did was Hitler. To him the enemy was Soviet communism; in his mind Soviet communism was bound up with the Jews and to attack one was to attack both. He’d always been clear that sooner or later Germany was going to have a showdown with the Soviet Union and take the land, mineral and food resources that Germany didn’t have. Hitler started to move his troops but the crazy thing was that no one thought it was going to happen. Millions of men, with all their equipment, were moving to the Russian border but everyone was saying: ‘It can’t be an attack on the Soviet Union, that will be mad.’ They all assumed the Soviets would allow the army through their territory, down into the Middle East. Once there, a big German claw would then destroy the British Middle East Army, and cut the Suez Canal and the links to British India. That would be the end of the war because Britain would have to sue for peace, but of course that wasn’t the plan at all.
What was the initial offensive?
The German front was absolutely huge, almost 1,600km from north to south. They split it into three army groups: Army Group North, Army Group Centre and Army Group South. The vast bulk of the Soviet armed forces were in the
western Soviet Union. The Germans were going to smash through the border defences as quickly as possible and, using a whole series of encirclements, trap the enemy in big pockets to annihilate the bulk of the Red Army before it could withdraw. Once that had been achieved, they would advance down through Moscow down to Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, and then the war would be over. On 22 June, very early in the morning, the border was hit and the Soviets were caught completely by surprise. Despite all the intelligence and information to the contrary, Stalin never believed the Germans were going to attack and was caught with his trousers down, so to speak. The Germans, in a very rapid series of advances, swept forward and went through the Baltic states in double-quick time and got to the borders of Russia. In the centre, where the main punch of the German offensive was, they carried out a whole series of engagements. The biggest and most important was the Battle of Bialystok-minsk, which basically destroyed the entire central force of the Red Army. The south is where the Soviets had their greatest forces so the Germans had a hard time going through Moldova and into the borders of Ukraine; it was only later that they started to gain traction. It was an absolute shock, that cannot be overstated – the Soviets just couldn’t believe that they were under attack.
Who were some of the key commanders on both sides?
The army group commanders were key, they were the guys on the ground who controlled the mass of Nazi Germany’s armed forces. In the north it was a staunch Catholic Bavarian called Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb; in the centre was Fedor von Bock; and down in the south was the old Prussian war horse himself, Gerd von Rundstedt. All three had seen action in World War I and were very experienced. On the Soviet side there was the Soviet Chief of General Staff, Georgy Zhukov, who had famously beaten the Japanese in 1939 and effectively pushed them to look to the south, sparking the events that led up to Pearl Harbor. He was an incredibly competent general and quite brutal in his outlook. A key subordinate he had, looking after the central forces, was Dmitry Pavlov. He was a young guy, only 43, but was well thought of and was in charge of large parts of the Red Army. Pavlov himself, unfortunately, believed Moscow’s utterances that there was no chance of war against Nazi Germany, and the night before the attack he went to watch a comedy show. When the Germans attacked his forces were crushed. Moscow was screaming at him to counter attack but there was just no way of doing it. Pavlov and his staff were infamously ordered back to Moscow, where they were sentenced and executed. Pavlov’s body was thrown in a landfill.
How key was the Luftwaffe to the Germans’ initial success in Operation Barbarossa?
It was fundamental to German success. The Luftwaffe was designed as a tactical air force entirely dedicated to supporting the army. It didn’t operate in its own strategic sense like RAF Bomber Command did for much of its life. The Luftwaffe’s goal was to achieve aerial supremacy and, if possible, wipe out the enemy air force on the ground.
This would leave the skies open for the dive bombers, who would act as aerial artillery that could range ahead with the Panzers. Whenever the Panzers met any resistance, the Luftwaffe could smash it to pieces and allow the advance to continue at speed. The concept had been tried in Poland and hadn’t worked very well: the Luftwaffe defeated the Polish Air Force but not on the ground. It worked better against the Dutch and Belgian air forces. Because the Soviet Air Force wasn’t expecting an attack, its planes were literally
parked in lovely neat rows at airfields. The slaughter on the ground was horrific. The Germans themselves didn’t even believe the claims of their own pilots (they were notorious for exaggerating) but when they checked the numbers of wrecked enemy aircraft they found they were actually higher than they thought. Any Soviet planes that got into the air were outmatched, outgunned and outnumbered – over 2,000 Soviet aircraft were destroyed. That left the skies open for the Germans to bomb their way forward – wherever the planes went, the troops went.
What happened during the Battle of Kiev?
At the time, Kiev was one of the largest cities in the Soviet Union. It was the capital of Ukraine, a key position on the Dnieper River, and the fulcrum of the entire Soviet Southern Front. Stalin was determined to keep hold of it and gave a ‘no withdrawal’ order. He just pushed more and more of his armed forces into the city, and that gave the Germans an opportunity. If you look at a map of where Kiev sits, with the Dnieper curling round it, there’s a bulge and that naturally lent itself to an encirclement. The Germans hoped this would lead to a knockout blow. They stopped their advance in the centre, towards Moscow, and switched the majority of the Panzer forces and sent them south to link up, well over 160km to the east of Kiev, with other Panzer forces. They could then destroy the Red Army troops and deliver a knockout blow. The Soviets didn’t clock on to what was happening because the scale was so vast – it was about the same landmass as Slovenia. It was a horrific battle because the Soviets fought tooth and nail and the casualties on both sides were shocking. When the Soviets were trapped inside they couldn’t get reinforcements, they couldn’t get ammunition, food or water, and eventually they had to capitulate. The Germans captured 665,000 men. It was an incredible achievement but it didn’t lead to victory, and that was the ridiculousness of the situation.
Why did Hitler view the capture of the Ukraine as important, going so far as to halt the German advance on Moscow?
Hitler always had an economic view rather than a strictly military one. The attack on the Soviet Union was undertaken for material resources, and you don’t get more material resources than in Ukraine. The blacker soils of Ukraine are famous for their fertility. Hitler knew that starting the war would mean he would be cut off from foreign imports. He had to find a supply of food and that was where Ukraine came in. For him, that was hugely important. Strangely, he didn’t view the capture of Moscow as being a prime military objective, even though it was the centre of the government, a huge transport hub and huge industrial hub, and its capture would signify the end of Soviet communism. But Hitler did not see it in that way – as far as he was concerned he saw Leningrad as the cradle of Bolshevism, where communism started. It was a fundamental error to not cut off the head of the Soviet state, which would have been to take Moscow.
What was the situation at the end of September?
The Germans were within spitting distance of Leningrad but were running out of steam. Up in the north they were getting close to their final objective and down in the south they had achieved that astounding victory at Kiev. In the centre a huge amount of fighting power was concentrated in Fedor von Bock’s hands and a new operation, Operation Typhoon, was declared. This would be the attack that would take Moscow, but the Germans didn’t understand that by now their forces in the east were exhausted. Casualties had been extremely heavy, well over a third of a million men had been killed or wounded or gone missing. Equipment was in an even worse state. The German operation in the east had become a very fragile weapon and it was only a matter of time before it cracked. The writing was on the wall by the end of September
1941 because the Germans needed a huge burst in their reinforcements and they didn’t get it. That really was the end of Barbarossa and the end of
Hitler’s quest for world domination.