Holocaust versus Wehrmacht

How Hitler's "Final Solution" Undermined the German War Effort

Yaron Pasher

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780700620371
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

In 1941, as Nazi Germany began its disastrous campaign against the Soviet Union, Hitler's other campaign, to exterminate European Jewry, was also commencing in earnest. What began with organized executions carried out by the Einzatsgruppen evolved into systematic genocide, reaching its frenzied final moments just as the Wehrmacht was meeting defeat on the military front. These campaigns—and Germany's failure—were inextricably linked, Yaron Pasher tells us in Holocaust versus Wehrmacht. Pasher argues, in fact, that the major share of the logistical problems faced by the Wehrmacht during World War II stemmed from Hitler's obsession with securing the resources—especially from the Reichsbahn railway—needed to implement the "Final Solution." To a degree never fully recognized or understood, Hitler's anti-Semitic ideology was his war's undoing.Through four major Wehrmacht military campaigns—Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk in the east and Normandy in the west—Pasher explores this fatal contradiction in Hitler's efforts to dominate the European continent. As Operation Typhoon, the sequel to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, got underway in November 1941, organized train transports began carrying Jews to the East—with the last trains taking Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz just as the Allies invaded Western Europe and moved inexorably to encircle the Third Reich. In these years, this book shows us, the trains transporting Jews could have carried men, machines, and fuel to depleted and trapped divisions in the Caucasus, and later, to the Western Front. As the Germans moved deeper into Soviet territory, they became increasingly dependent on train transport—which entailed converting Soviet railway line to German specifications; and yet, however successfully this conversion was completed, the trains that might run on these rails were working elsewhere in service of the Final Solution, leaving the Wehrmacht's overextended armies without the resources to survive, let alone win, their final battles.In the end, what Hitler called "the Jewish problem" was his downfall. In documenting the distribution of Germany's resources and operational capabilities through four major campaigns, Holocaust versus Wehrmacht offers a clear picture of the Nazis' military objectives as inseparable from—and finally, fatally susceptible to—Hitler's and his henchmen's other, ideological war to rid Europe of Jews.

Part 1

Operation Typhoon and German
Deportations to the East

From October 16 to December 15, 1941, forty-three Jewish transports, which also included five Gypsy trains, left the German Reich for Lodz, Minsk, Riga, and Kovno in the East.¹ This operation, which did not take place during the earlier successful blitz campaigns, appeared to have been a logistical burden that was not taken into consideration by Nazi leaders and was to cause major problems. The transports were halted because of protests coming from the Wehrmacht High Command about the waste of trains for missions other than military ones. At that point, the German army had ceased gaining new territory in the Soviet interior but had managed to repel a Soviet counteroffensive launched on December 5, 1941, bringing the blitz era to an end. Operation Typhoon — the sequel to the course of events that began on June 22, 1941, and part of Operation Barbarossa — was allegedly another gamble taken by Hitler. However, if the other side were lucky this time, the course of events on the German side had nothing to do with luck or chance but with decision making.

In this respect, it is worth examining Soviet histories, which for years shaped, at least partially, the perception of war on the Eastern Front. The official approach toward Soviet histories, which viewed 1941 as the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, split this event into to two time periods. The treatment of and amendments to official Soviet history were linked to the ongoing changes in the communist regime over almost fifty years, from the end of the war until communism’s collapse. Under Stalin, there was no Soviet history. The Soviet dictator’s wartime speeches and essays were compiled into a volume entitled The Great Patriotic War and served for years, and certainly until his death in 1953, as the only official Soviet history.² At the beginning of the cold war, official Soviet history was rewritten in the context of Soviet propaganda against the West, and it went through several transformations and revisions. In the early postwar years, the aim was to glorify Stalin and credit him with defeating Germany. In addition, there was an attempt to undermine Russia’s allies during the war by claiming that their contribution was insignificant.³

Throughout the years, the Soviet position was colored by the ideological line of the time. However, historical writing that actually dealt with the war began only in the days of Khrushchev (1953–1964). The historical approach during the eras of Khrushchev and Brezhnev (1964–1982) differed, of course, from that in the days of Stalin. The narrative was revised after Stalin died because the political situation within and the military-strategic situation without demanded changes — this time with the objective of learning from the past, especially concerning assumptions related to surprise attacks in a possible future war.⁴ Under Khrushchev, the official approach was characterized by attempts to create a narrative whose central motif was the assumption that the USSR’s natural strength, along with the Communist Party’s strong leadership, promised certain victory against the Nazi invaders from the outset.⁵ Soviet history in the days when Khrushchev was secretary general of the Communist Party was marked by three fallacies. The main one was directed at freeing the Soviet leadership from any responsibility for the initial failures of the war and to explain the Red Army’s withdrawal as part of a preplanned strategy. The second sought to give the Communist Party all the credit for winning the war and to diminish the part of the Red Army High Command and the soldiers and people, who carried the heaviest burden. The third fallacy was underestimation of British and American fighting abilities in the war and an attempt to portray the Japanese surrender as a direct outcome of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, which allegedly was far more significant than the consequences brought about by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.⁶ Emphasis during the Khrushchev regime was on the leadership of Stalin and the Communist Party. As the party’s secretary general, Khrushchev conducted a struggle against the senior officers of the armed forces, especially Marshal Georgi Zhukov, former chief of the Red Army’s High Command and a hero of the Soviet Union. After Khrushchev’s resignation, Soviet history underwent another revision.

When Brezhnev became secretary general of the Communist Party, dozens of titles about the war were published, the most important of them being Zhukov’s memoirs issued during the marshal’s later years. They too appeared only after strict censorship and in an incomplete version.⁷ Emphasis during Brezhnev’s time was on the Red Army’s strength as well as on the Soviet state. It was only in the 1980s, at the peak of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost, that the Russians began revising their official history, a process that continued into the 1990s with the fall of the Soviet bloc and that limited access to part of the Russian archives. The myth that had been created in regard to Stalingrad, which symbolized Soviet strength and endurance, was suddenly undermined.⁸ Stalingrad remained a Soviet victory, but the price the Russians had to pay turned out to be almost too much: although the 6th Army had been brought to its knees, the superhuman efforts made to drive the German invaders from Soviet soil had involved enormous losses and major military failures.

1

Operation Barbarossa

From Minsk to Moscow

To obtain a swift victory over the Soviet Union, the German High Command initially planned to annihilate the majority of Soviet forces in a series of encirclements close to the new Polish–Soviet border.¹ The scheme presented to Hitler regarding the upcoming campaign in Russia by the German High Command on December 5, 1940, exactly one year before a Russian counteroffensive forced the Germans to move to defense formations, was to concentrate the main forces in the central sector of the Eastern Front. Army Group Center under General Fedor von Bock’s command got two Panzer groups; the army groups in the northern and southern flanks got one Panzer group each.

Their initial objective was to encircle Soviet forces gathered around Minsk. After a short pause for reinforcements, the intention was to continue deep into Russian territory toward Moscow and strike a final blow to the enemy formations. Northern Army Group under General Ritter von Leeb was supposed to cleanse the Baltic states of enemy forces and capture Leningrad, while Army Group South under General Gerd von Rundstedt was to conquer the Ukraine, with Kiev as its main objective. Hitler made a few changes in the plan, although they were not conceived until August 1941 in the midst of the campaign. Instead of capturing Moscow, his first priority was to encircle the Russian forces before they could retreat deep into the vast territories of the Soviet state. To gain that advantage, Army Group Center had to turn one of its two Panzer groups toward the northern sector after it had finished encircling the enemy in its own area, help with the annihilation of enemy forces in the Baltic region, and finally capture Leningrad. The other Panzer group was to turn south and take part in encircling the enemy in the Ukraine.² This plan was presented as Directive 21, code-named Barbarossa, issued on December 18, 1940, with the final objective being to build a barrier against Russia in general on the Volga–Archangelsk line.³

At the time, there appeared to be no objection to this document from the German High Command, except for General Franz Halder, chief of the Army General Staff, who in his diary referred to its purpose as unclear, “since ‘Barbarossa’ does not solve the British threat.”⁴ However, in general, no one argued that it was impossible to destroy Soviet Russia in a swift blitz campaign. On July 22, 1940, the commander in chief of the army, General Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, told Hitler that the German forces would need only four to six weeks of combat to bring the Soviets to their knees, and that eighty to a hundred divisions would be needed against fifty to seventy-five divisions of quality Russian troops. Halder claimed in July 1940 that from his point of view, a victory over the Soviet Union was simply a matter of executing the correct operational approach.⁵

Thus, although the German generals were not convinced at the time of the necessity of a campaign against Russia and thought that Germany should deal first with the British threat on the Western Front before turning toward the East, both Halder and von Brauchitsch⁶ believed that an operation such as Barbarossa was feasible if it could be carried out swiftly.⁷

Hitler was especially intent on annihilating the forces of the Red Army. However, he claimed Moscow had no particular significance. The forces deployed in western Russia were to be destroyed in a series of swift operations that would involve penetrating deep into enemy lines and preventing elements capable of fighting from withdrawing to the vast Russian interior. A rapid pursuit would take place, beyond which the Soviet air force would be unable to attack the German territories of the Reich.⁸ The German planners hoped that the lack of roads or rail network would be to their advantage: it meant that a Soviet retreat eastward was impossible without falling prey to German encirclement. It later became apparent that German intelligence misinterpreted the amount of forces concentrated on the front line and had no idea of the reserves that were available east of the Dnieper River. After the initial battles around the border, the planned advance of the German forces led to deployment along the entire Russian front. From the outset, such archaic planning of a linear attack resembling Napoleonic strategy posed the risk of decentralizing efforts in an attempt to achieve all objectives at the same time.⁹

Although preparations for Barbarossa had been made and the generals studied the terrain countless times, there was no concrete objective and no precise definition of an operational approach. Rather, Operation Barbarossa exemplified competing objectives and operational approaches while everyone was convinced that the campaign would move forward in the direction he intended.¹⁰ If one examines the counteroperational opinions — Moscow versus Leningrad and the Ukraine — it is apparent that neither Halder nor Hitler expected to bring the Soviet campaign to a showdown by conquering either of those objectives. In any event, as evidence shows, the decision was cardinal only in mid-July 1941. The only operational aim was the subjugation of the Red Army; the assumption was that the initial blows would pave the way to move forward with the other missions.¹¹

When the attack began, the main effort was focused on the Minsk–Smolensk line on the way to Moscow. Both Panzer armies, under the command of generals Hermann Hoth and Heinz Guderian, operated on that front. They attacked on separate routes. On the sixth day of fighting, they met near Minsk, some 200 kilometers from the Russian–German border (created in 1939) while leaving large numbers of encircled Soviet forces behind them in western Belorussia. In the Soviet war scenarios and plans for deployment prepared between February and June 1941, there was no coordination among the Russian forces, and the surprise attack by the Germans did not allow for organized resistance. Each division fought by itself, and operational maneuvers were carried out by local commanders, not always in accordance with orders from the Soviet High Command.¹²

Until mid-July, Guderian and Hoth managed to cover some 450 to 600 kilometers from the border to Smolensk. On the northern front, German forces penetrated as deep as 450 kilometers, conquering Lithuania, Latvia, and part of Estonia, as well as territories in northern Russia, until they reached the outskirts of Leningrad.

In the southern sector, the Germans advanced into the Ukraine, and by mid-July, they had managed to conquer the western part.¹³ On July 15, the German armies had to pause for reinforcement and redeployment. It was then necessary to make decisions regarding the next objectives, in particular for the two Panzer armies in von Bock’s Army Group Center. Because they had reached Smolensk and completed the first stage of their advance successfully, the German High Command, including von Bock, Hoth, and Guderian, sought to return to the original plan and annihilate the enemy at the point where they expected it to concentrate before the capital. In contrast to the generals, Hitler preferred to clear the Baltic states of enemy concentrations and conquer Leningrad in the north, as well as renew the advance toward Kiev and the Dnieper in the southeast. This was intended to disengage the Russians from their industrial and agriculture resources in the Ukraine and open the way to the Caucasus.

The dispute within the German High Command between Hitler and his generals lasted for more than a month. The delay in renewing the attack and reaching a decision originated from the savage ongoing battles around Smolensk and Yel’naya as well as along the flanks of the Army Group Center.¹⁴ Among other reasons was perhaps Hitler’s poor physical condition during his stay at the Wolf’s Lair, his temporary headquarters during Operation Barbarossa, which neutralized him for about three weeks. According to Theo Morell, his personal physician, Hitler had dysentery, which probably had some influence on the timing of the crucial decision.¹⁵ Eventually both parties reached a compromise: it was decided that the push toward Moscow would be renewed but only after a breakthrough in the Ukraine.¹⁶ A halt and a shift to the north and the south were in any event required by the supply situation, which was becoming an obstacle. Apparently the earliest time for a resumption of the offensive on Moscow was October, but it seemed that the attack in the Ukraine was being held up as another factor because of the risk of a Soviet thrust into the southern flank of any bulge toward Moscow.

Although the initial assault was disastrous for the Russians, it still did not break their spirits. At this point, the Germans made a decisive blunder. While Hitler was arguing with his generals over the next objectives, the Soviet High Command was given a blessed delay, which enabled them to renew lines, and redeploy and advance new divisions, even though these divisions were not adequately trained and equipped. After being sent by Stalin to bring the forces concentrated on the weste...