The Caucasus 1942–43: Kleist’s race for oil (Campaign)

CAMPAIGN 281

THE CAUCASUS 1942¨C43

Kleist¡¯s race for oil

ROBERT FORCZYK

ILLUSTRATED BY STEVE NOON

Series editor Marcus Cowper

CONTENTS

ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN

CHRONOLOGY

OPPOSING COMMANDERS

German Soviet

OPPOSING FORCES

German Soviet Order of battle, 1 August 1942

OPPOSING PLANS

German Soviet

THE CAMPAIGN

Crossing the Don, 20¨C31 July, 1942 Pursuit, 1¨C10 August Clearing the Kuban, 11 August¨C27 September Costly

diversion to Tuapse, 11 August¨C23 October To the High Caucasus, 10 August¨C2 September Stymied on the Terek

River, 12 August¨C3 October Last gasp on the Terek, 25 October¨C12 November Behind the lines Stalemate and

retreat, November 1942¨CJanuary 1943

AFTERMATH

THE BATTLEFIELD TODAY

FURTHER READING

ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN

If I don¡¯t get the oil of Maikop and Grozny, then I must liquidate the war.

Adolf Hitler, 1 June 1942

Traditionally, Germany preferred to fight its wars with Bewegungskrieg (manoeuvre

warfare) and by the early 20th century this required considerable quantities of oil both to

power a mechanised military machine and to operate the war industries at home. Hitler¡¯s

Third Reich developed powerful Panzer-Divisionen and a strong Luftwaffe in order to

conduct its wars of aggression, but these tools were particularly dependent upon assured

access to large stockpiles of fuel. The problem was that Germany was an oil-poor nation

and had to import about 70 per cent of its petroleum products in 1939. The unlikely

solution was to import oil from the Third Reich¡¯s primary enemy ¨C the Soviet Union. By

signing the Molotov¨CRibbentrop Pact in August 1939, Hitler was able to thwart the British

blockade initiated at the outset of World War II and to gain access to the Soviet Union¡¯s

huge oil reserves, in return for German financial credits and industrial technology. By

1940, Germany was receiving about 51,000 tons of oil per month from the Soviet Union,

mostly from the oil-rich Caucasus region. Over the course of the 18-month economic pact,

Germany received 912,000 tons of oil from the Soviet Union, which gave the Wehrmacht

the ability to mount the lightning campaigns of 1939¨C41.

Slovak troops entering Rostov, July 1942. Although the 1st (Slovak) Mobile

Infantry Division (or Fast Division) was an integral part of 1. Panzerarmee, it was

misused in the Caucasus as a second-echelon unit, which reduced its contribution.

(Author¡¯s collection)

Yet Hitler was not sanguine about maintaining a trading relationship with his archenemy Stalin, particularly since it meant transferring technology that would make the

Soviet Union¡¯s armed forces stronger in the long run. After France was defeated, Hitler

issued F¨¹hrer Directive 21 in December 1940, which outlined his intent to ¡®crush Soviet

Russia in a rapid campaign¡¯ known as Operation Barbarossa. Although this betrayal

would cost Germany its steady supply of oil from the Soviet Union, Hitler believed that

his military could seize the Soviet Union¡¯s main oil-producing areas before the cut-off

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