Barbarossa 1941

Reframing Hitler's Invasion of Stalin's Soviet Empire

Frank Ellis

• Editore: University Press of Kansas
• Anno: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780700621460
• Argomento: Historia
• Categoria: Segunda Guerra Mundial

Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's plan for invading the Soviet Union, has by now become a familiar tale of overreach, with the Germans blinded to their coming defeat by their initial victory, and the Soviet Union pushing back from the brink of destruction with courageous exploits both reckless and relentless. And while much of this version of the story is true, Frank Ellis tells us in Barbarossa 1941, it also obscures several important historical truths that alter our understanding of the campaign. In this new and intensive investigation of Operation Barbarossa, Ellis draws on a wealth of documents declassified over the past twenty years to challenge the conventional treatment of a critical chapter in the history of World War II.Ellis's close reading of an exceptionally wide range of German and Russian sources leads to a reevaluation of Soviet intelligence assessments of Hitler's intentions; Stalin's complicity in his nation's slippage into existential slaughter; and the influence of the Stalinist regime's reputation for brutality—and a fear of Stalin's expansionist inclinations—on the launching and execution of Operation Barbarossa. Ellis revisits two major controversies relating to Barbarossa—the Soviet pre-emptive strike thesis put forward in Viktor Suvorov's book Icebreaker; and the view of the infamous Commissar Order, dictating the execution of a large group of Soviet POWs, as a unique piece of Nazi malevolence. Ellis also analyzes the treatment of Barbarossa in the work of three Soviet-Russian writers—Vasilii Grossman, Alexander Bek, and Konstantin Simonov—and in the first-ever translation of the diary kept by a German soldier in 20th Panzer Division, brings the campaign back to the daily realities of dangers and frustrations encountered by German troops.

1 Unternehmen Barbarossa

Conception, Planning, and Execution

If, then, civilized nations do not put their prisoners to death or devastate cities and countries, it is because intelligence plays a larger part in their methods of warfare and has taught them more effective ways of using force than the crude expression of instinct.

Carl von Clausewitz, On War

The vast area must, of course, be pacified as quickly as possible. The best way for this to happen is that any person who so much as looks askance is shot dead.

Adolf Hitler, 16 July 1941

Planning for Barbarossa was set in motion by Adolf Hitler’s Weisung (Directive) Nr. 21 and began in earnest in December 1940. Every significant agency in the National Socialist (NS) state was involved. Experts in economics, diplomacy, agriculture, meteorology, and metallurgy worked alongside ethnologists, military planners, lawyers, and propagandists. Dreaming of personal empires and estates, future administrators maneuvered for appointments as Reichskommissare and Gauleiter. Meanwhile, in the nether regions of this planning, the mass murderers of the SS and Einsatzgruppen were preparing for the day when the vast areas behind the German front line would be turned into an experimental killing laboratory where the theories of Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg, and Heinrich Himmler would be translated into genocidal reality by efficient technocrats and willing, obedient, or indifferent executioners. Once these rear areas had been formed, German civilian agencies became part of the occupation administration; these agencies included the Todt Organization, the Reich Work Service, the National Socialist Vehicle Corps, the Reich Railway, the Reich Postal Service, the German Red Cross, the National Socialist People’s Welfare Organization, and the National Socialist Women’s Organization.¹ The aim of Barbarossa was the swift destruction of the Soviet state apparatus, which would pave the way for German occupation of the vast territories of the east, to Germany’s long-term advantage. Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians would form a new class of helots, and the huge reservoir of Jewish populations would be exterminated. This chapter examines the considerations confronting the multifarious planners, the doctrinal and operational changes that had made the Wehrmacht so formidable by 1941, and some of the problems facing its Soviet opponent.

Introduction

They planned, they invaded, they conquered: the French were defeated, the British were ejected from the European continent, 1918 was avenged. So whither now Germany’s victorious legions? Would the Germans undertake an all-out assault on southern England to complete the task in the west? Or could Britain be contained until Germany’s remaining continental adversary, the Soviet Union, had been vanquished in another lightning campaign? These were the options facing Hitler and his generals as they enjoyed their moment of triumph and pondered the future in the summer of 1940.

The decision whether to launch an invasion of Britain (Unternehmen Seelöwe, or Operation Sea Lion) had all kinds of consequences for the outcome of Barbarossa. Defeating the British in the late summer of 1940 would have transformed the entire strategic situation in Europe and beyond: there would have been no air campaign against Germany, no resistance movements controlled and equipped from across the English Channel, no reason to allocate vast resources to a large U-boat fleet, no British troops in the Mediterranean, no need to raise Rommel’s Afrika Korps, and no Anglo-American second front; in addition, with Britain out of the war, Germany might have developed an atomic bomb ahead of the United States. For the Soviet Union, the consequences of Britain’s defeat would have been dire: no Lend-Lease; no access to British secrets derived from ULTRA; and the full weight of the German armed forces, now bolstered by the advanced industrial economies of western Europe, deployed against the Red Army. That the invasion of Britain would have entailed enormous risks is a given, but considering the astonishing advantages accruing to Germany in the event of success, the attempt now seems justified. The Germans’ recent successes in Poland, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, and France further support this view.

In fact, the invasion of France—the Germans’ main focus in the late spring and summer of 1940—ended with the rapid collapse of French arms and the exit of the British Expeditionary Forces (BEF) in disarray from the European continent. It is considered one of the most immaculate operations in military history. In nearly every aspect of this campaign, the German commanders and their technical support staffs introduced major innovations and, crucially, pioneered a new way of waging war that became known as Blitzkrieg. This fast-moving combined-arms doctrine was prefigured in the deployment of German mechanized forces in the Anschluß and the occupation of Czechoslovakia; it was fully implemented for the first time in the Polish campaign and was demonstrated again on a much larger scale in the summer of 1940.

The potential of airborne and glider forces had been appreciated before 1940, as demonstrated by the Italians and the Red Army, but it was left to the Germans to show what could be done with genuinely elite troops and bold leadership. British irregulars, such as T. E. Lawrence, had ably assisted the pursuit of British goals in the Middle East a generation earlier. Yet it fell to the Abwehr, combining the thorough training of the regular soldier with the ethos of the irregular, to come up with the Brandenburg zur besonderen Verwendung (zbV). These Brandenburg 800 units—the precursor of modern special forces—inspired the British to raise commando units and to form the Special Operations Executive (SOE). They also corroborated the views of British officers such as Colonels Mayne and Stirling that the Special Air Service (SAS) and similar units could wreak havoc behind the German lines in North Africa, as they did indeed in 1942 and 1943.

To defeat Britain, a proper plan was required to exploit German military excellence, but no such strategy existed. Hitler’s hopes were pinned on the expectation that after Dunkirk, the British would be prepared to reach some kind of accommodation. Rebuffed by Winston Churchill, Hitler had to think seriously about the risks and opportunities of an invasion of Britain. Erich von Manstein’s thoughts on the impasse immediately after Dunkirk, set out in his 1955 autobiography Verlorene Siege (Lost Victories), provide detailed insight into German military thinking at this juncture in the war. Paying full tribute to the leadership of Churchill and the tenacity of the British, he nevertheless argues that in pursuing its determined opposition to Hitler and the NS regime, Britain failed to recognize the much greater danger posed by the Soviet Union. This argument carries weight—hindsight is certainly not required to identify the Soviet threat—but it seems improbable that Churchill would have made a deal with Hitler. Hitler undoubtedly would have given all kinds of assurances that Britain and its empire would be left alone in return for guarantees that the British would not interfere in Europe. However, no agreement between Britain and Germany could have resulted in a long-term solution to the essential problem arising from a German-dominated Europe facing an offshore imperial rival.

The obvious advantage for Germany was that a deal with Britain would have removed the burden of a two-front war, allowing Germany to attack the Soviet Union and immeasurably enhancing its chances of success. Then the question confronting Hitler after the defeat of France would have arisen again: Was nun? (What now?) Having vanquished the Soviet state, would Hitler respect the agreement with Britain, or would he decide to solve the British problem by force? I cannot envisage any kind of agreement between Britain and Germany being maintained while Europe—from the French coast to Moscow and beyond—remained under Nazi occupation. That state of affairs would have been intolerable to both parties: Britain could never realistically accept Nazi domination of Europe, since it would represent a permanent threat to British interests—above all, national security. Hitler’s new order would be jeopardized by the existence of an independent and militarily strong Britain with close links to the United States, given the threat to German hegemony implicit in the Anglo-US relationship. These tensions could be resolved only by war. In that case, it would not be in Britain’s interests to conclude any kind of deal with Hitler, certainly not one that would help neutralize the Soviet Union. Churchill, like von Manstein, would have recognized that despite the Non-Aggression Pact, the Soviet Union posed a threat to Germany in the east. Therefore, from the British perspective, it made sense not to strike a deal with Hitler and thus maintain the possibility of a war on two fronts. Time worked in Britain’s favor, not Germany’s.

Commenting on the Anglo-German conflict in 1940, von Manstein writes, “It is the tragedy of this brief time span in which the long-term fate of Europe was decided that neither of the two sides had seriously sought to find a way to an understanding based on a reasonable foundation.”² The basis of any understanding would have been, first and foremost, Britain’s recognition of Germany as the undisputed hegemon of Europe, thus giving Germany a free hand not only to exterminate millions of Jews but also to implement its occupation policies in the eastern territories undisturbed by war. It may well be true, as von Manstein claims, that outside of a few National Socialist Party fanatics, ideas associated with the Herrenvolk (master race) were not taken seriously. Unfortunately, these fanatics were able to pursue their policies in the eastern territories. Writing after the end of the war, von Manstein would have been well aware of what happened in the rear areas, assuming he did not know during the war, which strikes me as scarcely credible. Had he, in 1940, bemoaned the lack of an understanding between Britain and Germany, this might be seen as an appeal to mutual Anglo-German interests and realpolitik (vernünftig, to use his word), but doing so after the war ignores the enormity of Nazi crimes in the east—crimes that were possible because of the outstanding success of German arms, of which von Manstein was one of the chief architects. From the perspective of the summer of 1940, Britain had every reason to refuse to strike a deal with Hitler; from a post-1945 perspective, Churchill’s defiance shows a sure and inspired historical and moral understanding of what was at stake.

According to von Manstein’s view, any invasion had to be launched immediately to ensure the best chance of success. Delays would mean the loss of good summer weather, complicating any landings undertaken in the autumn. Moreover, Germany had to defeat Britain as quickly as possible because of the ever-present threat posed by the Soviet Union. A long war may well have encouraged US entry sooner rather than later, whereas it would be too late for the United States to make any difference in the event of a German invasion.

Von Manstein also addresses the assertion that Hitler thought only in terms of war on the European continent and failed to grasp the importance of sea power and the need to attack British interests in the Mediterranean. In his view, loss of the Mediterranean would not have been a deadly blow to Britain, even allowing for the loss of Gibraltar and Malta and access to the Middle East. Von Manstein argues that trying to achieve a decisive solution in the Mediterranean would have had negative consequences for Germany. If Germany had made the Mediterranean the center—the Schwerpunkt—of its operations, Britain could have been defeated. But if Spain and Portugal refused to permit German troops access to Gibraltar and had to be subjugated by force, this would have required a permanent German presence, adversely affecting Germany’s position relative to South America and the United States. A German presence in the Middle East would have exacerbated relations with the Soviet Union. Von Manstein also maintains that conquest of the Mediterranean would have required vast amounts of troops, and “the temptation for the Soviet Union to get involved in the war against Germany would have risen extraordinarily.”³ A major German commitment in the Mediterranean would have repeated the mistake made by Napoleon, tying down large forces. In any case, a campaign in the Mediterranean constituted a deviation from the main task: the invasion of Britain, the motherland, herself.

The main conclusion drawn by von Manstein is that an invasion of Britain, assuming it had a chance of success, was the right solution. After the Dunkirk evacuations, the British were in disarray, and this worked in the Germans’ favor in the summer of 1940. The capture or destruction of the BEF would have had profound military and political consequences. First, the loss of so many men—as well as the equipment—would have seriously weakened not just the defense of Britain but also large-scale operations in North Africa. Second, it may have brought down the Churchill government and led to serious consideration of Hitler’s overtures for a deal. Regardless of the specific outcomes, the loss of the BEF would have been a deadly blow to Britain. The failure to either capture or destroy the BEF—both entirely possible—was Hitler’s, and it had far-reaching consequences for the outcome of World War II.

Von Manstein cites two factors as critical for any invasion of Britain. First, the invasion had to be launched as soon as possible to derive maximum advantage from Britain’s weak defenses. Second, the effectiveness of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy had to be reduced “to a sufficient level” for the duration of the operation.⁴ In other words, total destruction of the RAF was not required; rather, its impact and interference had to be reduced only enough to allow the invasion to occur. Deploying the Luftwaffe in the hopes of destroying the RAF before attempting a landing was, von Manstein argues, an error. The German air attack played to British strengths. The RAF was able to concentrate its entire fighter arm, backed up by a superior command and control system (including radar), on defeating the Luftwaffe. It was unencumbered by the need to attack German shipping or German troops on the bridgeheads or to provide support to British troops on the ground. Had the Luftwaffe attacks been part of an invasion with airborne troops, beach landings, and lodgment battles, the RAF would not have been able to concentrate solely on defeating the Luftwaffe. Its efforts would have been dissipated by the necessity of dealing with all the other facets of the invasion.

The Luftwaffe’s attempt to defeat the RAF alone marked a significant departure from the all-arms concept of Blitzkrieg—a simultaneous assault in the air and on land. The Germans envisaged a seaborne landing after a successful air battle, a one-dimensional attack that lacked the concentrated violence of an all-arms assault, the defining feature of Blitzkrieg. Moreover, since the RAF bore the brunt of the Luftwaffe’s attack, the British had time to improve their land defenses and recover their physical and psychological balance after the evacuation from Dunkirk. No such reorganization would have been possible had the British army been thrown into the battle immediately after Dunkirk. In von Manstein’s view, even if the invasion had not succeeded, the losses could have been made good. The real damage would have been political, and it would have been considerable. Conversely, the failure to deal with Britain carried enormous...