Read Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 Online
Authors: Paul Carell
Hitler's plan for attack, therefore, was a gamble. It followed the recipe which had proved successful in the West, when, to the complete surprise of the French, he had broken rapidly through the unfavourable Ardennes terrain, piercing the Maginot Line, which was weak there, and thus bringing the campaign to a rapid conclusion. Hitler intended to apply the same plan to the Soviet Union: he would attack with all available forces in an unexpected place, tear open the
enemy front, break through, utterly defeat the enemy, and seize his vital centres—Moscow, Leningrad, and Rostov— still carried by the momentum of the first great sweep. The second wave was then to advance to the line he had mapped out for himself —the line from Astrakhan to Archangel. That was Operation Barbarossa on paper.
The time was 0300 hours. It was still dark. The summer night lay heavy over the banks of the Bug. Silence, only occasionally broken by the clank of a gas-mask case. From down by the river came the croaking of the frogs. No man who lay in the deep grass by the Bug that night of 21st/22nd June, with an assault troop or some advance detachment, will ever forget the plaintive croaking mating-call of the frogs on the Bug.
Nine miles on the near side of the Bug, outside the village of Volka Dobrynska, on Hill 158, stood one of those wooden observation towers which had sprung up on both sides of the frontier during the past few months. At the foot of Hill 158, in a patch of wood, was the advanced command post of Second Panzer Group, the brain of Guderian's tank force. "The white G's," the men called the group, because of the large white letter 'G' which all vehicles bore as their tactical identification sign. 'G' stood for Guderian. At a glance a vehicle was recognized as "one of ours." Guderian had introduce this idea during the campaign in France. It had proved so successful that Kleist had adopted it and had ordered the vehicles of his Panzer Group to be painted with a white 'K.'
During the preceding night, the night of 20th/21st June, the staff officers had arrived in greatest secrecy. They were now sitting in their tents or office buses, bending over maps and written orders. No signals came from the aerials: strict radio silence had been ordered, lest the monitoring posts of the Russians became suspicious. Use of the telephone was permitted only if strictly necessary. Guderian's personal command transport—two radio-vans, some jeeps, and several motorcycles—stood parked behind the tents and buses, well camouflaged. The command armoured car approached. Guderian jumped out. "Morning, gentlemen."
Map 1.
The starting position for Operation Barbarossa. On 21st June the German forces in the East were poised for the attack with seven Armies, four Panzer Groups, and three Air Fleets— 3,000,000 men, 600,000 vehicles, 750,000 horses, 3580 armoured fighting vehicles, 7184 guns, and 1830 aircraft. In the South, moreover, stood the Rumanian Third and Fourth Armies. The Soviets had ten Armies deployed in the frontier area, with 4,500,000 men.
The time was exactly 0310. A few words, then Guderian drove up the hill with his command transport to the observation tower. The luminous minute-hands of their wrist-watches crept round the dials.
0311 hours. In the tent of the operations staff the telephone jangled. Lieutenant-Colonel Bayerlein, the 1A, or chief of
operations, picked up the receiver. Lieutenant-Colonel Brücker, the chief of operations of XXIV Panzer Corps—or XXIV Motorized Army Corps, as it then was—was on the line. Without greetings or formality he said, "Bayerlein, the Koden bridge was all right."
Bayerlein glanced across to Freiherr von Liebenstein, the chief of staff, and nodded. Then he said, "That's fine, Brücker. So long. Good luck." He replaced the receiver.
The bridge at Koden was the kingpin in the rapid tank thrust across the Bug to Brest. An assault troop of 3rd Panzer Division had orders to capture it by surprise a few minutes before the start of operations, to eliminate the Russian bridge guard on the far side, and to remove the explosive charges. The coup had succeeded.
A sigh of relief was heaved at Guderian's headquarters— even though provision had been made for the event that the surprise would not come off. Fourth Army had made preparations for bridging the Bug both above and below Brest. About fifty miles north of Brest, at Drohiczyn, Engineers Battalion 178 had crept up quietly to the intended spot, in laborious and lengthy secret marches, in order to build a pontoon bridge for the heavy weapons and equipment of 292nd and 78th Infantry Divisions.
It was 0312 hours. Everybody was watching the time. Everybody had a lump in his throat. Every one's heart was thumping. The silence was unbearable.
0313 hours. It was still not too late to change the course of events. Nothing irrevocable had yet happened. But as the minute-hands crept over the watch dials the war against the Soviet Union, which was lying ahead plunged in peaceful darkness, was drawing ineluctably nearer.
Appendix 3 The Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht
Fuehrer's Headquarters 18.12.40
OKW/WFSt/Abt.L
(1)
No. 33 408/40 g.K. Chefs.
Directive No. 21 Case Barbarossa
The German Wehrmacht must be prepared, even before conclusion of the war against Britain, to
overthrow Soviet Russia by a rapid campaign
(Case Barbarossa).
Preparations are to be made by the High Command on the following basis:
The bulk of the Russian
Army
in Western Russia is to be annihilated in bold operations by deeply penetrating Panzer wedges, and the withdrawal of combat-capable units into the wide-open spaces of Russia to be prevented.
By means of a rapid pursuit a line must then be reached from which the Russian Air Force can no no longer attack German Reich territory. The final objective of the operation is a screen against Russia-in-Asia from a general line Volga-Archangel. In this way the last industrial region left to Russia, in the Urals, can be eliminated by the Luftwaffe if necessary.
.................................................................................................................................
(A) Army (in approval of intentions submitted to me):
In the operations area divided by the Pripet Marshes into a southern and a northern half the centre of gravity is to be formed north of this area. Here two Army Groups are to be envisaged.
The more southerly of these two Army Groups—Centre of the front as a whole—has the task of bursting forward with particularly strong Panzer and motorized formations from the area around and north of Warsaw and of smashing the enemy forces in Belorussia. In this way the prerequisite must be created for strong units of fast troops to wheel northward, where, in cooperation with the northern Army Group operating from East Prussia in the general direction of Leningrad, they will annihilate the enemy forces fighting in the Baltic area. Only after the accomplishment of this priority task, which must be followed by the occupation of Leningrad and Kronshtadt, are offensive operations to be continued with a view to the seizure of the important communications and armaments centre of Moscow.
Only an unexpectedly quick collapse of Russian resistance might justify the simultaneous pursuit of both these objectives.
The Army Group deployed south of the Pripet Marshes must form its centre of gravity in the Lublin area in the general direction of Kiev, in order to advance rapidly with strong Panzer forces into the deep flank and rear of the Russian forces and to roll it up along the Dnieper.
Once the battles south and north of the Pripet Marshes have been fought the following objectives are to be aimed at in the course of the pursuit:
In the south
the early seizure of the Donets Basin, which is important for the war economy.
In the north
the quick gaining of Moscow.
The capture of this city will represent a decisive success politically and economically, and will, moreover, mean the elimination of an important railway centre.
(Signed) Adolf Hitler
Bayerlein recalled September 1939. Then, too, he had been here at Brest with Guderian. That was a year and nine months back. Then, on 22nd September 1939, the Russians, in the shape of General Krivoshein's Armoured Brigade, arrived as allies. A demarcation line was drawn through their joint booty —defeated Poland. The Bug became the frontier. Under the treaty which Stalin had signed with Hitler the Germans had to withdraw behind the river and leave Brest with its citadel to the Soviets.
The arrangements had been meticulously observed, a joint parade had been organized, and colours had been exchanged. Finally, toasts had been proposed. For without vodka and toasts no treaty is considered valid by a Russian.
General Krivoshein had scraped together what little German he remembered from school and proposed his toast in German. In doing so he made a curious little mistake. He said, "I drink to eternal fiendship"—but instantly corrected himself with a smile: "eternal friendship between our nations."
Every one had raised his glass in high spirits. That was twenty-one months ago. Now the last few minutes of this "friendship" were ticking away. The letter 'r,' hurriedly inserted by General Krivoshein, was once more being deleted. "Fiendship" would break out with the first grey light of 22nd June.
The time was 0314. Like a spectre the wooden tower of Volka Dobrynska stood out against the sky. The first pale daylight appeared on the horizon. Deathly silence still reigned throughout the area of Army Group Centre. The forests were sleeping. The fields were quiet. Had the Russians not noticed that the woods and villages were bristling with assembled armies? Armies ready to spring? Division after division—all along the endless frontier.
The hands of the carefully synchronized watches jumped to 0315.
As though a switch had been thrown a gigantic flash of lightning rent the night. Guns of all calibres simultaneously belched fire. The tracks of tracer shells streaked across the sky. As far as the eye could see the front on the Bug was a sea of flames and flashes. A moment later the deep thunder of the guns swept over the tower of Volka Dobrynska like a steamroller. The whine of the mortar batteries mingled eerily with the rumble of the guns. Beyond the Bug a sea of fire and smoke was raging. The narrow sickle of the moon was hidden by a veil of cloud.
Peace was dead. War was drawing its first terrible breath.
Directly opposite the citadel of Brest stood the 45th Infantry Division—formerly the Austrian 4th Division—under Major-General Schlieper. The 130th and 135th Infantry Regiments were to mount the first assault against the bridges and the citadel. Still under cover of darkness the units composing the first wave had carefully worked up to the Bug. Like a black phantom, the railway bridge straddled the river. At 0200 a goods train chugged over the bridge, puffing, lamps brightly lit. It was the last grain train which Stalin sent his ally Hitler.
An ingenious ruse or an incredible degree of unsuspecting confidence? That was the question the officers and men of the assault battalions and shock companies were asking themselves as they lay in the crops and in the grass, by the railway embankment and opposite the Western Island. They did not know how many trains had crossed the bridge during the past few weeks. They did not know how conscientiously Stalin had implemented the German-Soviet trade agreement. Since 10th February 1940 up to that hour on 22nd June 1941 Stalin had delivered to Hitler 1,500,000 tons of grain. The Soviet Union was thus Germany's principal supplier of grain. But not only rye, oats, and wheat had been sent across the bridges over the Bug. During the sixteen months of friendship Stalin had sent Germany, strictly according to their contract, nearly 1,000,000 tons of mineral oil, 2700 kilograms of platinum, and large quantities of manganese ore, chrome, and cotton.
In contrast to the painstaking discharge of their obligations by the Russians, Germany had been a dilatory supplier right from the start. Even so, goods worth 467,000,000 marks had been supplied to the Soviet Union, including the half-finished heavy cruiser
Lützow.
When the last grain train from the east crossed the Bug at 0200 hours on 22nd June, Hitler was in debt to Stalin to the tune of 239,000,000 marks. Nothing of this was known to the officers and men by the railway bridge of Brest at first light on 22nd June. Above them, by the little wooden hut at the end of the bridge, reigned an atmosphere of peace and unsuspecting normality. The two German customs officials climbed on to the train. The sentry waved his hand to the Russian engine-driver. If any mistrustful eyes were watching from the far side they would see nothing suspicious or unusual. Slowly the engine puffed on towards the station of Terespol on the German side.