Barbarossa Revisited: A Critical Reappraisal of the ...

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Barbarossa Revisited: A Critical

Reappraisal of the Opening Stages of

the Russo-German Campaign

(June-December 1941)

Stolfi, Russel H.S.

Journal of Modern History, Volume 54, (March 1982), pp. 027-046



Barbarossa Revisited: A Critical Reappraisal of the

Opening Stages of the Russo-German Campaign

(June-December 1941)

Russel H. S. Stolfi

Naval Postgraduate School

In the Soviet Union in 1941, a complex, ill-understood play of events

projected the German field armies in the east close to Moscow in the

late autumn of the year, but ended with their ultimate defeat. The

reigning Soviet interpretation of the campaign remains the one in

which the natural strengths of the Russian motherland and the inspired

leadership of the Communists predetermined a Soviet Russian triumph

over the invading Germans. Western historians and writers also generally agree that Hitler subjected himself and the Germans to inevitable

defeat by the invasion of the Soviet Union. However, critical reappraisal of the opening stages of the Russo-German campaign fails to support the present Soviet and western views of the war, showing rather

that the German successes of the first four weeks virtually assured the

seizure of Moscow-the rail, road, political, psychological, and demographic plexus of the USSR-in the late summer of 1941.

After the immensely successful opening stages of the campaign, the

military dilettante Adolf Hitler sent the German armies into a series of

gyrations and halts which cast the final battle for Moscow into the autumn of 1941. The magnitude of the initial German successes and the

extraordinary procrastination of Hitler combine to support a view that

chance, in the form of Hitler's personality, rather than the predetermined strengths of the Soviet Union, operated to effect Soviet survival

in the summer of 1941. The Germans retained enough strength even

later in the year to defeat the Soviet armies defending Moscow and

seize the capital city and communications center of the Soviet Union,

but only if the early winter weather remained mild enough not to interfere with offensive movement. Given the closely-run circumstances of

the final battles before Moscow in October-December 1941, the issue of

victory or defeat within the lingering framework of Barbarossa still

hung on historical chance, specifically on the characteristics of the

onset of the winter of 1941-1942.

[Journal of Modern History 54 (March 1982): 027-046]

?1982 by the University of Chicago. 0022-2801/82/5401/002$01.00

All rights reserved.

28

Stolfi

In July 1940, Adolf Hitler issued his first instructions for an attack

against the Soviet Union. 1 The German Armed Forces (die Wehrmacht)

had defeated and partly occupied France and neutralized Britain by

that time, and Hitler, who proved unwilling to risk failure in an invasion of Britain, had decided instead to deal with his powerful diplomatic partner in the east. The Soviet government had been bold and aggressive in its drive into eastern Europe toward the Baltic and had

become an immediate threat to Rumania after June 28, 1940, especially

as concerns the oil resources of that state. The strategic question of

Germany fighting a war on two fronts was solved in 1941 by the neu1 The grandeur and scope of the war in the east supports a large body of

documents, books, articles, reports, etc. The most complete body of original

documents is that contained in U. S. National Archives, Guides to German Records Microfilmed at Alexandria, Virginia, a catalogue of several thousand feet

of shelf space of documents formerly held by the U. S. Government in warehouses at Alexandria, Virginia, but presently returned to the Federal German

government. The U. S. Army carried out a broad study of the European war

and the documents collected; those commissioned to be written can be found in

U. S. Army European Command, Guide to Foreign Military Studies, 1945-54,

Catalogue and Index (Headquarters, U. S. Army Europe, 1954). The catalogue

contains numerous valuable unpublished manuscripts on the subject of the

Russo-German campaign. The most impressive German historical works on the

campaign include especially Klaus Reinhardt, Die Wende vor Moskau (Stuttgart,

1972) and A. Philippi and F. Heim, Der Feldzug gegen Sowjetrussland

1941-1945 (Stuttgart, 1962). The finest German first-hand accounts of the war

run the gamut from Erich von Manstein, Lost Victories (Chicago, 1958) and

Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (New York, 1954) through the extraordinary

collection of first-hand accounts in Paul Carell, Hitler Moves East (New York,

1964) and his subsequent two volumes on the later years in the war. Important

works of general scholarship available in English include the early volume of

George E. Blau, The German Campaign in Russia-Planning and Operations

(1940-1942) (Washington, D.C., 1955), which is based on German documents

and conversations with German armed forces personnel (made available by the

U. S. Army in the period 1945-1954), and the effective later accounts in Alan

Clark, Barbarossa (New York, 1965) and Albert Seaton, The Russo-German

War, 1941-45 (New York, 1970). German division and higher-level histories

exist in growing numbers and uniformly high quality including army works like

Wilhelm Meyer-Detring, Die 137. lnfanteriedivision im Mittelabschnitt der Ostfront (Petzenkirchen, Austria, 1962) and the detailed material on the Waffen SS

in Otto Weidinger, Division "Das Reich," Der Weg der 2. SS-Panzer-Division

"Das Reich," Die Geschichte der Sturmdivision der Waffen SS, Drei Bande (Osnabruch, 1967, 1969, 1978). Journals which have published valuable articles on

the Russo-German campaign include especially Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, and the French language Revue de

l'histoire de la deuxieme guerre mondiale. Concerning the planning for Operation Barbarossa from the viewpoint of OKH, see Generaloberst Franz Halder,

Kriegstagebuch, vol. 2 (1.7.1940-21.6.1941) ed. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (Stuttgart,

1963).

Barbarossa Revisited

29

tralization of British influence on the continent, and the essence of the

matter was that only one major land front would exist during that

year. 2 Hitler, who had a flair for grand strategy and a sure instinct for

tactical openings, probably realized that the defeat of Britain would

not be a decisive event. 3 The United States and the British dominions

would remain potential enemies of great strength, with the Soviet

Union, the state whose destruction would assure the achievement of the

National Socialist Weltanschauung, continuing to be the primary target

for German expansion. The risks involved in the invasion of Britain

(including the trauma of possible defeat) would also have had adverse

internal effects in Germany and detrimentally affected a final reckoning

with the Soviet Union. 4 The delay in the final reckoning with the Soviet Union, which was inherent in Operation Sea Lion, would have ad2 The Allies evacuated on June 8, 1940, the last of the 24,500 troops engaged

in the siege of Narvik in northern Norway. In combination with the evacuation

at Dunkirk, which was completed by June, 3, 1940, and the collapse of France

signalled by the armistice of June 17, the Allied flight from Norway left the

Germans with no active land fronts on the European continent. German troops

were not committed to North Africa until February 1941, and then only in

small numbers for the entire year. For the most authoritative account of the

Norwegian operations based on German sources and available in English, see

Earl F. Ziemke, The German Northern Theater of Operations 1940-1945 (Washington D. C.: Department of the Army, 1959), pp. 1-112. See the recent estimate of the western Allied situation in Europe in 1941 in David Downing, The

Devil's Virtuosos: The German Generals at War 1940-5 (New York, 1977), p. 53,

in which the author notes that "the spectre of a two-front war on land had

been, for an indefinite period, removed" (italics in original). See also Clark,

Barbarossa, pp. 26-27.

3 Generalfeldmarschall Eric von Manstein and Generaloberst Heinz Guderian

held both command and staff positions in the German army which brought

them into close contact with Adolf Hitler at several of the most crucial junctures of the Second World War in Europe, e.g., Case Yellow planning and execution, Sea Lion planning, deflection of Barbarossa southward, Stalingrad,

Kharkov (March 1943), Citadel, and the great defensive battles of 1944 in the

east. Both officers emphasize that Hitler had substantial military capabilities,

albeit counterbalanced by his tendency to panic at local crises and to meddle in

details. See Guderian, Panzer Leader, pp. 92, 109-111, 117-119 for Hitler's

strengths and, Manstein, Lost Victories, pp. 121, 125, 274-5, 282-3. See also the

estimate of Hitler's capabilities with relation to the acceptance of the Manstein

variant of Fall Gelb for the attack against France in Telford Taylor, The March

of Conquest, The German Victories in Western Europe 1940 (New York, 1958),

pp. 166, 168, 171.

4 See Peter Fleming, Operation Sea Lion (New York, 1957), pp. 144-5,

229-41, 266-286, and Manstein, Lost Victories, pp. 164-5, for basic considerations in an amphibious attack on Britain in 1940. See also the first-hand account in Walter Garlitz, Paulus and Stalingrad (New York, 1963), pp. 87-96,

and the German naval analysis in Anthony Martienssen, Hitler and his Admirals (New York, 1949), pp. 63-91.

30

Stolfi

versely affected the balance of ground strengths between the German

and Soviet armies. Soviet armaments production was formidable at this

time, probably exceeding German production of ground weapons by a

significant margin. 5 In tanks, the German army's most important weapon for continental warfare, there was little doubt that an extra year's

production of the revolutionary Soviet T-34 tank might have given the

Soviets an insuperable advantage in ground combat. 6

The High Command of the army, Oberkommando des Heeres (OKI/),

conducted War Game Barbarossa between November 29 and December

14, 1940, and included the basic assumption that an effective campaign

against the USSR would have to be launched across the entire front

extending from the Baltic to the Black Seas. 7 The obstacle of the Pripyat Marshes, the largest permanent marshland in the world, 8 would di5 Burton Klein, Germany's Economic Preparations for War (Cambridge,

Mass., 1959), pp. 181-94, 208-210. The author was one of the directors of the

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, which was a 208-volume report giving detailed

insight into the German (and Japanese) war production efforts during the Second World War. Klein, in his more general Harvard work, reveals the extraordinary weakness of German armaments production in 1940-1941. British production alone of "armored vehicles" was greater than German in both years.

Soviet production of tanks was also considerably greater than German during

the same years and the Soviet tank force existing in 1941 proved to be approximately seven times larger than the German force employed in the attack. The

Germans attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 with approximately 3200

tanks; the Soviets had approximately 24,000 tanks available for the defense of

the state. See U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States,

Diplomatic Papers, 1941, vol. i, p. 807, for Joseph Stalin's account to Harry

Hopkins of the numbers of Soviet tanks.

6 Interviews in summer 1966, spring 1967, and spring 1972 with Walter J.

Spielberger, presently residing in Munich, Germany, and holder of probably

the largest private collection of data on German tanks and automotive vohicles of the Second World War. Spielberger, in the winter of 1941-42, was a

young engineer on the German technical team which conducted in east Prussia

the first detailed examination of a Soviet T-34 (variation A) tank. The armor,

main cannon, engine, and certain details of the track and suspension system

were superior to those on any German tank in existence in January 1942. See

also Rudolf Steiger, Panzertaktik im Spiegel Deutscher Kriegstagebucher

1939-1941 (Freiburg, 1973), an impressively documented work, where the thesis

is advanced that the T-34 tank can perhaps be considered the "Kriegsentscheidende" weapon, or decisive weapon in the war in the east, responsible for saving the Soviets in the autumn of 1941, and swinging the entire war in their

favor.

7 See Gorlitz, Paulus and Stalingrad, pp. 98-120, which is based largely on a

Paulus memorandum of August 13, 1946, and gives exceptional insight into

OKH theoretical planning and the style of the German general staff in approaching the problem of a successful invasion of the Soviet Union.

8 George W. Hoffmann, ed. A Geography of Europe Including Asiatic USSR,

Second Edition (New York, 1961), p. 125.

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