History of the Second World War (42 page)

In retrospect, it is clear that Hitler’s veto on any extensive withdrawal worked out in such a way as to restore the confidence of the German troops, and probably saved them from a widespread collapse, while his insistence on the ‘hedgehog’ system of defence brought the Germans important advantages at the outset of the 1942 campaign.

Nevertheless, they paid a heavy price indirectly for that rigid defence. Its success encouraged the belief that it could be as successfully repeated in the more adverse conditions of the following winters. A more immediate handicap was the strain to which their air force was subjected in the prolonged effort to maintain supplies by air, under winter conditions, to the garrisons of these more or less isolated bastion-towns. Because of the bad weather the accident rate was high, while an excessive number of aircraft had to be used to make up supply shortages in the intervals of good weather — on occasions over 300 transport planes had to be used in the day to provision a single army corps. The effort of providing air transport on such a scale to a whole chain of exposed forward positions damaged the air transport organization of the Luftwaffe, and the withdrawal of experienced air units to other theatres limited the Luftwaffe’s combat effectiveness on the Russian front.

The tremendous strain of that winter campaign, on an army that had not been prepared for it, had also a serious delayed effect in other ways. Before the winter ended many divisions were reduced to barely a third of their original strength. They were never fully built up again, and it was well into the summer before they even reached a level sufficient to attempt active operations. Moreover, the additional divisions that were raised at home during the winter created a total figure that was basically fictitious. In 1942 and subsequently, divisions which had been almost destroyed in heavy fighting were maintained in existence, as a camouflage, without the gaps in their ranks being filled up. These nominal divisions sometimes comprised only two or three battalions.

Hitler had been told by his generals that an additional 800,000 men must be provided if the offensive was to be resumed in 1942. Albert Speer, the Minister for Armament Production, said it was not possible to release such a number from the factories for service in the army.

The deficit was eventually met by a radical change in organisation. Infantry divisions were reorganised on a basis of seven battalions instead of nine. The battle-strength of the infantry company was fixed at a maximum of 80 men, compared with 180 as formerly. That reduction served a dual purpose, as it was found that with the loss of trained officers the younger officers who replaced them as company commanders were apt to lose control when handling companies of the old bulk, while it was also found that larger losses occurred in the larger-size companies without much difference of effect.

The combined reduction in the number of battalions and number of men gave unreality in subsequent years to the tendency of the Allied Intelligence staffs to continue reckoning the number of German divisions as if they were of similar size to their own. It would have been a better approximation to count two German divisions as equivalent to one British or American division. Even that ratio ceased to be a true guide by the late summer of 1944, when few divisions actually approached their reduced nominal strength.

The 1942 campaign also saw an increase of the German Army’s tank strength that was superficial rather than real. Two new armoured divisions were formed during the winter — partly through the conversion of the horsed cavalry division that it had hitherto preserved, only to find it of negligible value. Some additions were made in the tank holdings of the motorised infantry divisions, but barely half of the twenty existing armoured divisions were brought up to strength in tanks.

Thus, in sum, the Germans’ balance-sheet represented a precarious foundation for a continuance of the offensive. Even by the most strenuous efforts they could barely regain their former level of numbers, and then only by increased drafts upon their allies’ forces, poorer in quality than their own. They could have no margin to meet the losses of another costly campaign. A still greater handicap was their inability to develop their two main offensive assets, their air force and their armoured force, to the scale needed for an assured superiority.*

* These drawbacks could be deduced even by distant onlookers in the West. In a commentary I wrote in March 1942, my conclusion was that ‘it would be reasonable to anticipate this summer not only a repetition of last autumn’s German frustration but a definite change in the tide’.

The unfavourable aspects of the situation were realised by the German General Staff, but its heads had diminished power to influence Hitler’s decision. Hitler’s pressure was too strong for them to resist, and the pressure of events was too strong for Hitler. He was compelled to go on and on.

The question of resuming the offensive in 1942 was under discussion in November 1941 — even before the final attempt to capture Moscow. Rundstedt claimed to have argued in those November discussions not only for a changeover to the defensive, but the advisability of a withdrawal to the original starting line in Poland. Leeb was said to have agreed. While the other leading generals did not advocate so complete a change of policy, most of them felt an increasing anxiety as to where the Russian campaign was leading them, and showed no keenness for a resumption of the offensive. The failure of the December attack on Moscow and the trials of the winter reinforced their doubts.

But the weight of military opposition was weakened by the changes in the higher commands which followed the miscarriage of the 1941 campaign. Rundstedt had asked, and been allowed, to resign at the end of November, when Hitler overruled his proposal to discontinue the southern drive to the Caucasus and fall back to a winter defence line on the Mius River. He at least was relatively fortunate in the time and manner of his departure. When the failure of the whole campaign was plain to the world, the departure of Brauchitsch on December 19 was publicly announced in terms which implied that he was the man to blame. That act served the dual purpose of furnishing Hitler with a scapegoat and opening the way for him to take over direct command of the Army. Bock, the too zealous supporter of Hitler’s last bid for Moscow, had reported sick in mid-December with a stomach ailment brought on by worry and strain and his resignation was accepted on December 20. Leeb remained for the moment, and it was less easy to blame him for failure to take Leningrad, since his planned attack on that city had been cancelled by Hitler’s own order just as it was about to start — from a fear of the losses that might be incurred in street-fighting. But when Leeb saw that nothing could persuade Hitler to withdraw from the Demyansk salient he asked to be relieved.

The disappearance of Brauchitsch and the three original army group commanders diminished the restraining influence of Halder, the Chief of the General Staff. That effect, and Hitler’s advantage, were deepened by the natural tendency of the successors to swallow their doubts and become initially more amenable to the Fuhrer’s desires. Hitler well understood the effect of promotion in seducing men’s judgement and producing compliance. Professional ambition rarely resists that form of temptation.

Rundstedt was replaced by Reichenau; Bock by Kluge; and Leeb, later, by Kuchler. Bock’s departure from command of the Central Army Group was due to a temporary illness, and when Reichenau died suddenly from a heart-attack in January, Bock was reinstated as his successor. He was dropped finally in July, however, when the forces in the south were reorganised during the summer offensive. In this reorganisation a special ‘Army Group A’ was created out of Army Group South for the drive to the Caucasus, and command of it was given to Field-Marshal List. The remainder of ‘Army Group South’ was then redesignated as ‘Army Group B’ firstly under Bock and then under Weichs.

The plan to launch another great offensive crystallised in the early months of 1942. Hitler’s decision was influenced by pressure from his economic experts. They told him that Germany could not continue the war unless she obtained oil supplies from the Caucasus, as well as wheat and ores — a view that was proved mistaken by the fact that Germany failed to secure the Caucasus oil yet managed to continue the war for three more years. But Hitler was the more responsive to such economic arguments because they coincided with his instinctive urge — to do something positive and offensive. The idea of a withdrawal was repugnant to him, whatever the relief and potential advantage it might bring. Since he recoiled from that step-back he saw nothing else he could do than to push forward again.

That instinct made him insensitive to uncomfortable facts. For example, the German Intelligence Service had information that 600-700 tanks a month were being produced by the Russian factories in the Urals and elsewhere. But when Halder gave him the evidence he slammed the table and declared that any such rate of production was impossible. He would not believe what he did not want to believe.

He was led, however, to recognise the limitation of Germany’s resources to the extent of admitting the necessity of limiting the scope of his new offensive. As defined early in the spring, it was to be pursued on both flanks, but not on the whole front.

The main effort was to be made on the southern flank near the Black Sea. It would take the form of a drive down the corridor between the Don and Donetz rivers. After reaching and crossing the lower reach of the Don, between its southerly bend and Black Sea mouth, the drive was to turn south towards the Caucasus oilfields, while also extending eastward to Stalingrad on the Volga.

In formulating that dual aim Hitler originally entertained the idea that the capture of Stalingrad might open the way for a northward wheel to get astride the rear of the Russian armies that were covering Moscow, while some of his entourage even talked of an advance to the Urals. But, after much argument, Halder convinced him that this was an impossibly ambitious project, and the objective actually set was to extend the advance beyond Stalingrad only so far as to provide tactical security for that strategic keypoint. Moreover, the purpose in capturing Stalingrad was now defined as a means of providing strategic flank-cover for the advance into the Caucasus. For Stalingrad lay on the Volga, commanding the land bridge between that river and the Don, and as a focus of communications formed a potential cork for this bottleneck.

Hitler’s 1942 plan also comprised a secondary offensive to capture Leningrad during the summer. Apart from the prestige value, this northern move was considered important as a means of securing overland communication with Finland and relieving her isolated situation.

On the rest of the Eastern front, the German armies were to remain on the defensive, merely improving their fortified positions. In brief, the German offensive of 1942 was to be confined to the two wings. That limitation was the measure of the extent to which German reserves were running short. Moreover, the intended drive on the southern wing could only be carried out by drawing more heavily on Germany’s allies to furnish most of the rearward cover for the flanks of the advance as it pushed deeper.

The idea of such a deep advance on one flank, without any simultaneous pressure on the enemy’s centre, ran contrary to the canons of strategy with which the German generals had been indoctrinated from youth onwards. It looked all the worse to them since the flank advance would have to run the gauntlet between the main Russian armies and the Black Sea. They felt still more uneasy at the thought that the protection of their inland flank would have to depend largely on Rumanian, Hungarian, and Italian troops. Hitler answered their anxious questions with the decisive statement that Germany could only maintain herself in the war by securing the oil supplies of the Caucasus. As for the risk of relying on allied troops to protect their flank, he said that these would be used to hold the line of the Don, and of the Volga between Stalingrad and the Caucasus — where the river lines themselves would help. The capture of Stalingrad, and the holding of that keypoint, would be entrusted to German troops.

As a preliminary to the main offensive, on the mainland, the German forces in the Crimea launched a stroke on May 8 to capture the easterly part of it, the Kerch peninsula, where the Russians had managed to check them in the autumn. A well-prepared attack, covered by a concentration of dive-bombers, made a breach in the defences. Pouring through, the Germans wheeled northward and penned a large part of the defenders against the coast, where the dive-bombers soon produced their surrender. With their own path thus cleared, the Germans swept down the fifty-mile long peninsula. After a momentary check at the ‘Tartar Ditch’ — an historic line of defence twelve miles from the peninsula tip — they captured Kerch itself by May 16, and thus cleared the Russians out of the Crimea, except for the long-isolated fortress of Sevastopol in the south-western corner.

This coup had been conceived as a means of creating a leverage in aid of the main objective — by a jump across the Kerch Straits onto the Kuban peninsula, which forms the western end of the Caucasus. The German forces were to be used to open the way. But the main offensive made such rapid progress, along the overland route into the Caucasus, that this leverage became unnecessary.