World War II: German strategy in Russia, 1939-43

By Darren Parsons

German strategy in World War II is wholly intelligible only if Hitler`s far-reaching system of power politics and his racist ideology are borne in mind. Since the 1920`s his program had been first to win power in Germany proper, next to consolidate Germany`s domination over Central Europe, and than to raise Germany to the status of a world power by two stages:

1. the building up of a continental empire embracing all Europe, including the European portion of the Soviet Union, and

(2) The attainment for Germany of equal rank with the British Empire, Japan and the United States—the only world power to be left after the elimination of France and the U.S.S.R.—through the acquisition of colonies in Africa and the construction of a strong fleet with bases on the Atlantic. In the succeeding generation Hitler foresaw a decisive conflict between Germany and the United States, during which he hoped that Great Britain would be Germany`s ally.

The conquest of the European part of the Soviet Union, which in Hitler’s calendar was dated approximately for 1943-45, was to be proceeded, he thought, by short localized campaigns elsewhere in Europe to provide a strategic shield and to secure Germany`s rear for great expedition of conquest in the East, which was also bound up with the extermination of the Jews. The most important of the localized campaigns would be that against France. While this European program remained unfulfilled, it was imperative to avoid any World War, since only after the German Reich had come to dominate the whole European continent would it have the economic base and the territorial extent that were prerequisite for success in a great war, especially against maritime world powers.

Hitler had always contemplated the overthrow of the Soviet regime, and though he had congratulated himself on the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939 as a matter of expediency, anti-Bolshelism had remained his most profound emotional conviction. His feelings had been stirred up afresh by the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States and of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in June 1940 and by the consequent proximity of Soviet forces on the Romanian oil fields on which Germany depended. Hitler became acutely suspicious of the intentions of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, and he began to feel that he could not afford to wait to complete the subjugation of Western Europe before the dealing with the Soviet Union. Hitler and his generals had originally scheduled the invasion of the USSR for-mid May 1941, but the unforeseen necessity of invading Yugoslavia and Greece in April of that year had forced them to postpone the Soviet campaign to late June.

The swiftness of Hitler`s balkan victories enabled him to this revised timetable, but the five weeks` delay shortened the time for carrying out the invasion of the U.S.S.R and was to prove the more serious because in 1941 the Russian winter would arrive earlier than usual. Nevertheless, Hitler and the heads of the Oberkommando Des Heeres (OHK, or German high command), namely the army commander in chief Werner von Brauchitsch and the army general staff chief Franz Halder, were convinced that the Red Army could be defeated in two or three months, and that, by the end of October, the Germans would have conquered the whole European part of Russia and the Ukraine west of the line stretching from Archangel to Astrakhan. The invasion of the Soviet Union was given the code name " Operation Barbarassa."

The most famous battle of this campaign took place in Stalingrad, (between the (summer 1942-Feb. 1943). As a major industrial centre, Stalingrad was an important prize in itself, and control of the city would have cut Soviet transport links with southern Russia via the Volga River. The German campaign against Stalingrad also served to anchor the northern flank of the larger German drive into the oil fields of the Caucasus. The Germans knew that the capture of Stalingrad would be. "Catastrophic for the Soviet ability to withstand the German army because they would be cut off from their own oil supply." On July 22, 1942 the German 6 army was given the task of assaulting the industrial heart of Russia-Stalingrad. The Soviets had over one million soldiers in reserve and to assault an enemy position you need a majority of 3: 1. The Germans were outnumbered by 4: 1. Yet many Germans mirrored the sentiment that "with a little effort the town should fall in two days."

During the summer of 1942 the Germans advanced to the suburbs of Stalingrad but failed to take the city itself against a determined defense by the Red Army, despite repeated attacks by the 6^th Army under Friedrich Paulus and part of the 4^th Panzer Army under Ewald von Kleist. From the very first engagements in the western suburbs of Stalingrad it was clear that the Russian defenders were contesting every inch of the ground.

On 23 August an airstrike of 600 bombers was launched "killing 40,000 civilians", but not rousting the defenders. On that evening German troops reached Rynok, northern most suburb of Stalingrad. The Russians were mining and sabotaging buildings as they were ousted, creating death traps for the Germans, than reclaiming the same building after the Germans had detonated all explosives and killed themselves. The Germans however still pushed on. By 3 September they reached the city center, (on the western side of Volga) where they encountered stiff resistance from the Soviet 62nd Army under General Chuikov. Stalingrad was now under siege. Russian commander Marshal Zhukov was ordered to attack the north and northwest of Stalingrad. The next day saw one thousand German bombers fly missions over Stalingrad. On September 5, the first Soviet counterattack began and failed. The following morning saw Russian reinforcements arrive and the two sides were now savagely attacking each other. The city’s Soviet defenders had been driven almost to the Volga by mid-October, but the German’s supplies were beginning to run low, their tanks were of little value in the constant street fighting and winter was approaching.

On November 19, the Soviets launched a counterattack in the form of pincer movements north and south of the city and by the 23^rd they had encircled the 6^th Army and part of the 4^th within Stalingrad. A German attempt to relieve Paulus failed in mid-December. Under orders from Aldof Hitler, Paulus continued to fight on, making possible the eventual escape of the beleaguered German forces from the Caucasus. On January 31,1943, Paulus disobeyed Hitler and surrendered, and on February 2 the last of the remainding 91,000 troops turned themselves over to the Soviets. The Soviets recovered 250,000 German and Romanian corpses in and around Stlingrad and the total Axis losses ( Germans, Romanians, Italians and Hungarians ) are estimated to have been 800,000 dead. Official Russian military historians estimate that 1,100,000 Soviet solders lost their lives in the campaign to defend the city. The German defeat at Stalingrad however, began to mark the turn of the war in the allies favour.

The experience of completing a special study topic introduced me to the following skills of the historian:

1. I learnt to look in the school and local library for suitable source material.
2. I learnt to look for information, using search engines on the Internet.
3. I learnt, before writing an essay, to read many sources to avoid bias.
4. I learnt how to use Microsoft Word, learning new skills such as how to justifiy, using footnotes etc.
5. I learnt the rules of historical writing which include how and when to use footnotes, how to write up a bibliography etc

Bibliography

• Holmes, R. The Second World War In Photographs, Carlton Books Limited, London, 2000

• Magenheimer, H. Hitler`s War, Arms & Armour, London, 2000

• Willmott, H.P. The Second World War In The East, Cassell, Wellington House, London, 1999

• Beevor, Anthony. Stalingrad, Penguin Books, ISBN

(1) SHORT QUESTIONS

Stalingrad

Why did this topic merit study?

This topic merited study because:

1. It’s was probably the single most important battle of the World War II.
2. The battle showed that often technology is not enough to win a battle, against a determined enemy.
3. Despite the fact that it was the most important battle of the war, it only gets one page of the Leaving Cert book.

(2) Review – One book used for this essay was Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor. In his book Beevor tells how Hitler made two fundamental and crippling mistakes during the Second World War. The first was his whimsical belief that the United Kingdom would eventually become his ally, which delayed his decision to launch a major invasion of Britain, whose army was unprepared for the force of blitzkrieg warfare. The second was the ill-conceived Operation Barbarossa--an invasion of Russia that was supposed to take the German army to the gates of Moscow. Antony Beevor's thoughtfully researched compendium recalls this epic struggle for Stalingrad. No one, least of all the Germans, could foretell the deep well of Soviet resolve that would become the foundation of the Red Army; Russia, the Germans believed, would fall as swiftly as France and Poland. The ill-prepared Nazi forces were trapped in a bloody war of attrition against the Russian behemoth, which held them in the pit of Stalingrad for nearly two years. Beevor points out that the Russians were by no means ready for the war either, making their stand even more remarkable; Soviet intelligence spent as much time spying on its own forces--in fear of desertion, treachery and incompetence--as they did on the Nazis.It was a good book because it gave due attention is also given to the points of view of the soldiers and generals of both forces, from the sickening battles to life in the gulags.

(A ) We learned in history class that it is very difficult to write the history of anything. This is a definitive statement. Most of the time it can be only a history. And it is very hard to find definitive history, this is because of bias and subjectivity.

While doing my research topic I became aware that to read one book, might lead to the essay being one-sided. The way I solved this difficulty was by reading widely and using the internet and Encarta.