War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (9 page)

Stalin’s personal experience serving with a military district during the German advance into southern Russia in 1918 suggested to him that any future German blow would be delivered in the same region. A number of indicators supported such a premise, encouraging and probably accounting for much of the intense military activity between the Russian interior and the frontier in May–June 1941. It appeared unlikely to the Russians that Germany was sufficiently equipped at this time to attack the Soviet Union along her entire western border. Germany would be dependent upon and desire the economic resources of southern Russia. To seize them would require the capability to engage in deep operations maximising space, and penetrating with massive forces. Russia would need to block this move and attack elsewhere. A particularly favourable jump-off point might be the Bialystok salient in the Western Military District in Belorussia and possibly from Lithuania. Occupying such option areas in force would enable the pursuit of Russian
realpolitik,
applying the politics of pressure in future relations with Germany.
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As the Red Army deployed towards the western frontier in June 1941, it did not dig trenches and anti-tank ditches, neither were obstacles and barbed wire barricades erected. There was no perception of immediate threat. Divisions secreted themselves in woods near the frontier, exactly as the German units were doing on the opposite side. The crucial difference was that the massive force the Germans had assembled was ready for action. The Soviet force was not.

Even now German units positioned in woods across the frontier were striving to assess and gauge their future opponents. Officer observation posts were set up to observe the border area using scissor telescopes. Hauptmann Heinz-Georg Lemm, a company commander in the 12th Infantry Division, poised to advance with Army Group North, scanned Soviet positions near Gumbinnen in East Prussia. He commented:

‘We received only poor information on the enemy and terrain in the area of attack … we had been able to recognize that the Russians had high wooden guard-towers, and had been able to observe the relief of the sentries and their supply procedures.’

Trenches were visible 800–1,000m behind the border. Information was sketchy. Aerial photographs revealed some Russian field artillery. The German assessment was they could anticipate a delaying action from two Soviet regiments from prepared positions. ‘The maps we received,’ Lemm complained, ‘were poorly printed and provided hardly any information on altitudes, road conditions and forest vegetation.’
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Likewise, Hauptmann H. J. von Hoffgarten, training in east Poland with a motorcycle infantry company from 11th Panzer Division, recalled that, even when training ceased on 19 June, ‘there was no information on the Russian Army or on the impending campaign’.
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Despite the apparent lack of information available to troops at the front, the Wehrmacht’s appreciation of Soviet strength facing it, two days before the offensive, was reasonably accurate in outline.
Abteilung Fremde Heer Ost des Generalstabes des Heeres
[the General Staff section analysing eastern theatre enemy forces] had identified a total of 154 rifle divisions, 25.5 cavalry, 10 tank and 37 motorised divisions in Europe. There were, in addition, seven or eight parachute brigades. In Asia it identified a further 25 rifle divisions, eight cavalry, and five tank or motorised brigades.
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The location of staff headquarters and, in particular, mechanised units was generally known. The assessment, however, lacked depth, and rough assumptions concerning the potential effectiveness of German unit organisations versus Red Army formations were wide of the mark. Figures were broadly accurate, perceptions were not.

The Wehrmacht was to assault with a strength of 3.6 million men – just over three million German soldiers, the remainder Romanians, Finns and Hungarians. In support were 3,648 tanks and self-propelled guns, 7,146 artillery pieces and 2,510 aircraft. Opposing them in the Western Military District were 2.9 million Soviet soldiers with 14,000–15,000 tanks with at least 34,695 artillery pieces and 8,000–9,000 combat aircraft. Of the German Panzers, 1,700 were completely inferior to Russian tank technology. Only 1,880 German tanks within the armoured spearheads were capable of combating the mass of even the older types of the 14,000–15,000 Russian tanks they expected to meet. Soviet industrial potential to make good losses was also grossly underestimated by Wehrmacht planners. Innate superiority in qualitative, racial (ie belief in racial superiority), combat experience, military organisational and technological terms was deemed to be sufficient to deal the required crushing blow in a short campaign. So confident was the Wehrmacht that after September, based upon a reckoning of anticipated casualty levels, there would be no reserves of manpower available in October.
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Serious consideration of possible withdrawals or the likelihood of a winter campaign was not contemplated or assessed. The Wehrmacht was about to attack its most heavily armed opponent to date with fewer misgivings than when it had launched its western offensive, then with some trepidation.

Lack of knowledge was feeding a false bravado. In the 20th Panzer Division sector it was remarked that, contrary to the plethora of information available prior to the western campaign, ‘not once were briefings received over troop strengths, to say nothing of enemy organisation tables or their equipment’. All that was issued were out of date reports or ‘rough estimates’. Observation of forward Soviet positions revealed sentries stripped to the waist who had laid down their weapons and taken off boots and socks. ‘This was taken as an indication of slack discipline within the Red Army.’
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General Heinz Guderian’s Panzergruppe waited either side of the Soviet fortress of Brest-Litovsk on the River Bug. Following a visit to his forward units on 20 and 21 June, Guderian concluded:

‘Detailed study of the behaviour of the Russians convinced me that they knew nothing of our intentions. We had observation of the courtyard of the Brest-Litovsk citadel and could see them drilling by platoons to the music of a military band. The strongpoints along their bank of the Bug were unoccupied. They had made scarcely any noticeable progress in strengthening their fortified positions during the past few weeks. So the prospects of our attack achieving surprise were good and the question therefore arose whether the one-hour artillery preparation which had been planned was now necessary after all.’
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The General decided not to cancel it.

Heinrich Eikmeier’s artillery unit situated next to the River Bug continued to monitor the far bank. They were in position to observe the rail traffic that crossed the Bug to the west of the Brest-Litovsk citadel. Flowing across this bridge was much of the economic rail traffic agreed within one of the protocols of the Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact. ‘On 21 June,’ Eikmeier recalls, ‘we were told that the next morning the war with the Soviet Union would go ahead.’ But to their amazement they observed:

‘Despite this, at six o’clock a goods train loaded with either wheat or coal passed over the Bug river to Russia. We could not understand the point of delivering up these locomotive crews as victims. Actually we were somewhat uncertain over whether it was right or wrong. Was it going to be war or not?’
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Nothing had changed. Within a few hours the war would begin.

Across the river in Brest, life went on much as before. It was a stiflingly hot summer. Colonel Il’ya Grigoryevich Starinov, a mine specialist and a military engineer department head, arrived in Brest on 19 June. He was due to attend manoeuvres with the troops of the Soviet Western Border District. Starinov saw that:

‘The streets were blossoming with young girls and women in bright dresses. Ice-cream vendors screeched at passers by. “It’s going to be very hot here!” At a trolley stop on Mayakovsky Square, a young fellow dressed in an Apache shirt was trying to pick up a leggy girl, but she had just turned up her sweaty nose and kept a haughty silence. A trolley sailed majestically along past beautifully decorated windows, flower stalls, and carefree crowds on the evening sidewalks … ’
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Following famine, forced collectivisation and civil war, there had been peace in Russia for a few years. Some rebuilding was taking place. In a closed totalitarian society, the population had no idea of the momentous events about to unfold. An increase of military strength in border areas had simply resulted in the appearance of more uniformed soldiers. This was not so unusual. There were now no food shortages and in Minsk the shops were full. Milk and bread were plentiful. These were the ‘good times’ that some were to later recall. Natalie Shirowa recalled the prevailing atmosphere. People were relaxed and enjoying the weather:

‘I remember the hot summer. We lived in wooden houses then, today they are of stone. But in those days we had two-storey houses, and when the weather was so hot, the people simply went out into the open. They fetched their mattresses and feather beds with them and slept under the sky. There was no rowdyism, people lived together then with some understanding.’

Clothing was even more fashionable in Minsk than it is now. There were fashion shows, cinemas and the shops were full. Natalie Shirowa emphasised, looking back:

‘I must say that there was a great variety of things to buy in the shops. I remember I had a pair of leather boots that cost 36 roubles. My father earned 700 roubles then, so all in all we felt we led comfortable lives.’

Normal life continued. Football matches featured ‘Locomotive’ versus ‘Spartakist’ Minsk. There were sports parades. A degree of contentment was being felt in those areas beginning to create wealth again. The Soviets were proud of the establishment of the new border in Poland, which had recovered for Russia ground lost in 1918. Confidence that had faltered during the war with Finland was returning.
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Along the Soviet western border, however, there was a paradoxical sense of tension at odds with the heat wave that had engulfed the region by 20 June. Engineer Colonel Starinov in Brest-Litovsk observed:

‘It was another marvellous sunny morning. The sun shone down on the heaps of coal along the railway track and on the stacks of glistening new rails. It was the very picture of tranquillity.’

Starinov, on exercise, had already heard reports ‘about German spies and aircraft violating our borders’. The TASS announcement of 14 June, castigating such rumours as ‘propaganda’ inspired by those hostile to the Soviet Union, had contributed to a lessening of tension but still did not account for the disturbing activity apparent on the other side of the River Bug. Starinov was informed by the Fourth Army Engineer Chief, Colonel A. I. Proshlyakov, that the Germans had been bringing up equipment to the western side of the River Bug all through June. Camouflage screens had been erected in front of the open sectors in their lines and observation towers. An artillery colonel told him that the TASS announcement had not changed the situation on the German side of the border, ‘but our troops had begun to relax’. Nodding toward soldiers carrying suitcases along the Brest railway station platform, he remarked ironically:

‘Not so long ago these guys were sleeping with their boots on, and now they’re getting ready to go off on leave! Why? The TASS announcement!’
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Soviet military archives clearly demonstrate that the commanders of the respective military districts bordering the frontier were aware of the German build-up. Reports from troops stationed on the border were giving clear indications of an impending German attack. Although mobilisations of interior districts were producing a partial deployment toward the western frontier, no concrete measures were ordered by the Soviet General Staff to raise readiness postures on the border itself. Indeed, where measures were taken on the initiative of individual staffs, they were ordered to be reversed.
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