Hitler's Panzers East: World War II Reinterpreted

Book Notes #34

Hitler’s Panzers East, by R.H.S. Stolfi, is an excellent document simply due to the fact that it gets to the point. There is no fluff, special pleading, or anything extraneous to the main thesis of the book, which is that the Germany Army could have defeated the Soviet Union in 1941, and changed the course of history. The basic reasons why this did not happen are articulated in the first part:

First, Hitler was a siege commander and not a blitz commander. His military goals were always “to improve the siege position of Germany by systematically expanding the siege lines around it.”

The author writes that the most important decision Hitler made from 1919 to 1945 was to invade the Soviet Union, and the most important military decision he made was to “abandon the great operational concept of destroying the Soviet armed forces in the forefield of the Moscow-Gorki space during the battle for Russia and to substitute limited operations with limited goals for the destruction of the Russian armed forces and collapse of the Soviet state.”

The author reminds us that “Hitler made the correct judgement in July 1940 to attack the Soviet Union, but not, as it might have been projected at the time, because Britain would be forced into some face-saving accommodation with Germany. He made the right judgement because defeating the Soviet Union would have been a decisive event notwithstanding virtually any action taken by Britain to stay in the war.” Modern midwit historicism suggests basic, repetitive, uneducated aphorisms like “never get in a land war with Russia” or nonsense about Hitler’s megalomania in vastly underestimating the Soviet enemy. The author reminds us that Hitler possessed no immediate means of executing an operation like Sea Lion in order to defeat Britain, and that expanding the Reich spatially and giving Germany control of an entire continent’s worth of fuel, iron ore, and agricultural resources would have negated any strategy the British could have employed.

A surprise victory over Russia required Hitler’s daring political will in combination with offensive will and daring on the part of the Germany army. In planning this war, it is evidenced that Germany did not underestimate Russia in a general sense. The author cites Halder’s plan of attack for Barbarossa, and how the Germans knew that German victory depended largely on the Soviet reaction to the invasion. If the Soviets decided to stand and fight, then the Germans had a chance, but if they pulled back hundreds of miles behind rivers and prepared defenses, then the panzer thrusts could be halted. The author cites a number of other quantitative preparations, such as the purchase of 15,000 Polish light wagons and horses for Russia’s unpaved roads, and the requisition of Luftwaffe anti-aircraft guns for the army as artillery pieces. Guderian had also estimated the Russian tank for at 10,000.

P. 20:

“Hitler’s conversations, speeches and decisions during the planning and concentration of forces for Operation Barbarossa reflect a realistic appraisal of the chances of success. It is also easy to forget that Hitler made the right decision, the only decision that gave him a realistic opportunity to win, dependent almost completely on playing Germany’s trumps rather than awaiting certain defeat by losing the initiative and eventually encountering the strength of an overwhelming enemy coalition. Hitler played the trumps—his political decisiveness and audacity in ordering a timely 1941 attack on the Soviet Union and the superior operational style of the German army to beat the Soviets—and it must be assumed that he had alternate fits of pessimism and optimism about the whole business reflected in both moderate and immoderate statements on the outcome of the invasion. The obvious criticism that Hitler should have finished Britain first is not convincing, for when Sea Lion was cancelled indefinitely on 17 September 1940, he faced a six-month wait before launching an amphibious operation against a high-technology, Athenian-style state, which would have regained its psychological balance after the disasters in France and Norway. Hitler displayed correct instinct and reason in the choice of a surprise attack, but in doing so he decided to engage a colossus and must be suspected of having a clear appreciation of the risk.”

In citing how the Germans allegedly underestimated Russia and was not prepared to fight Russia, historians will point out that the Germans thought that Russia could be defeated in 6 to 10 weeks. They fail to account for the fact that the Germans fought for an additional 195 weeks beyond their lowest estimate and against Russia’s allies Britain and the United States, which suggests a high degree of preparedness. Citing the estimate offers no evidence that the Soviets were underestimated.

In terms of deciding the war, the author states that “Hitler’s planning decision to halt the Schwerpunkt army group to assure the progress of Army Group North—a side showforce from the viewpoint of the defeat of the Soviet Union—was the planning decision of the war.” Later decisive decisions by the Allies were only made possible by this decision.

The proficiency of the German army masked Hitler’s meddling in plans in which the main effort was dissipated by extraneous local concerns. Hitler’s plans against France, for example, did not seek a decisive victory over France, as happened, but the taking of Belgium for defensive concerns. The OKH order issued on October 1939 read: “To defeat the largest possible elements of the French and Allied Armies and simultaneously to gain as much territory as possible in Holland, Belgium, and Northern France as a basis for successful air and sea operations against Britain and as a broad protective zone fro the Ruhr.”

Hitler was obsessed with the idea that France might occupy Belgium “to the exclusion of a decisive plan to defeat the Allied force.” Hitler “ignored a principal aim of military strategy, the destruction of the enemy armed forces, and instead chased less important objectives. Well before the planning and execution of Barbarossa, he can be seen in a pattern of going for every tempting objective at once on the offensive, then overreacting tot crises in the ensuing battle.”

The author states that the German victories were more a result of Hitler’s decisiveness in great political moves rather than in his military planning, and also that the capabilities of the Germany army ought to be seen as extraordinary in spite of working against his tendencies.

P. 29:

“The German offensive against France can be employed to understand the grander possibilities of the offensive against the Soviet Union. Hit can be shown, for example, more willing than the commander and chief of staff of the army to combat the French. It appear that Hitler, as usual, displayed unerring instincts in his aggressive will to attack France, but erred in almost every detail of the battle against the French army.”

In the battle against France, Manstein and Guderian were able to modify the final plan with an alternative that delivered the defeat of France. In Russia, the OKH delivered a simple plan but there was no Manstein at the helm to modify Hitler’s directive and save the campaign.

The author cites the Balkan campaign as evidence of German efficiency when the army was given a decisive objective absent whimsical changes and stubborn attention to irrelevant operational details, and that the toughness of the Greeks in fighting of the Italians makes them a fair comparison to the Russians despite immense manpower and technological differences.

P. 34:

“Because it took place on the eve of Barbarossa, the Balkan campaign suggests a “Hitler-on-vacation” reevaluation of the Second World War. In that reevaluation, it could be generalized that the German army would have defeated the Soviet armed forces and occupied enough territory to cause the collapse of the Soviet Union had Hitler been absent from the scene from 22 June to approximately 31 August 1941 for whatever reason. In the Balkan campaign, the key to German success was the effectiveness of the Hitler-army synthesis, not so much the weakness of the opposition. Being reoriented into the sequence of events leading to Barbarossa, the Balkan campaign serves historical purpose by illuminating the possibility that the Germans would have won the war in Russia very quickly had they used their trumps more effectively. A major objection to that generalization is that the Germans would have faced tougher resistance from a larger army in a more expansive theater in the battle of Russia. Part of the thesis of this book, however, is that the Hitler-army synthesis was so strong that no combination of Soviet forces in the short offensive could check the Germans, and it follows that only a mistake by the Germans could have led to a German defeat.”

In regard to whether or not the Balkan campaign itself had a negative impact on Barbarossa due to scheduling, the author writes

P. 35:

“Strategic timing is an important consideration in evaluating Hitler’s realism in his decision to move east. Hitler announced his decision in July 1940 to attack the Soviet Union and confirmed in writing in December 1940 that the attack would take place by approximately 15 May 1941. The well-chronicled Balkan campaign contributed to the delay of Barbarossa more than five weeks, to 22 June 1941. It is less well known that the winter of 1940-1941 was severe and the spring of 1941 exceptionally wet. Weather conditions combining late thawing of the eastern European rivers, late melting of snow, and spring rains conspired to keep rivers at flood levels until well into May and the surrounding land almost impassable for large-scale military movements. The Bug River and its tributaries stood in the path of Panzer Group 2, the largest organized for the invasion, and farther north the Nieman River stood in the path of Panzer Group 3. These two panzer groups comprised the armored wedges (Kielen) of Army Group Center and carried the hopes of the army for a quick victory in the Soviet Union. The river flood levels and wet ground conditions would probably have delayed Barbarossa at least three weeks to allow the natural barriers in front of Army Group Center to clear up even if the Balkan campaign had not taken place. One authority recently noted that German weaknesses in the production of important weapons and other equipment (notably motor vehicles) would probably also have delayed the start of the campaign beyond the directed ready-date of 15 May 1941.

Historians and analysts have emphasized this delay in the German attack, the consensus being that the Balkan campaign was a critical factor in the collapse of the German winter attack against Moscow in the first week of December 1941. Virtually every book, article, and report taking the Russian campaign as its major theme notes the Balkan war, relates it to a delay in opening Barbarossa, and often links it with the collapse of a German offensive close to Moscow later in December. The subtle but important point made in only a few of the more perceptive and knowledgeable German works—and with startling candor in several Soviet works—is that the great offensive of 22 June-16 July 1941 had achieved the necessary preconditions for a German victory over the Soviet Union. The important element, then, is not the delay in opening the campaign in June but the results achieved by July.”

We can conclude from these facts about the terrain and German preparedness that the Balkan campaign and the specific timing of Barbarossa was not the decisive factor in German defeat, as is sometimes claimed by historians.

P. 37:

“Hitler’s instincts, reasoning, and timing of Barbarossa for 1941 were striking because further Soviet preparations for war, including 1941 and most of 1942, would have been disastrous. The Soviets would have had at least twelve months to develop border fortifications, expand their peacetime army, improve tanks and aircraft, deploy frontier forces more effectively, and take steps to prevent a surprise attack by the Germans. A useful historical analogy illustrates the probable adverse situation for Germany. When the elder Helmut von Moltke, chief, army general staff (1859-1888), faced the increasing possibility of a two-front war with France and Russia in the 1880s, he conceptualized an initial main attack against Russia to knock it out of the war quickly and then turn on France. His successor (once removed), the decisive Count Alfred von Schlieffen (1891-1906), faced an Imperial Russian program to improve fortifications and communications on the Russo-German border, which changed the strategic calculus in Schlieffen’s mind. He felt compelled to launch the opening main attack in a two-front war against France, then move against Russia. The analogy shows the decisive effect of a moderate increase in preparations for war by the Russians in the early 1890s on Germany’s eastern front and suggests adverse effects for the Germans had the offensive been delayed until 1942.”

Hitler wanted to capture the city of Leningrad to secure German communications in the Baltic before advancing on the city of Moscow, as well as securing routes for Swedish iron ore. Army Group North’s success in pushing back the Baltic Russian forces freed Army Group Center to move toward Moscow, contrary to the idea that it would pivot north to support the attack on Leningrad, which would have ruined the German chances of victory at that point. In the original Barbarossa plan, as Hitler explained to Generalleutant Alfred Jodl, it was vital for “large numbers of the mobile troops of the Army Group in the center to pivot north after they penetrated the enemy front in White Russia. Not until this most vital mission had been accomplished should operations against Moscow be conintued.”

In order for Army Group Center to have proceeded to victory, the Army Group North would have had to at least pin Soviet armies in the north and their biggest obstacle was preventing the Soviets from building up a defensive on the Dvina river. The OKH was aware in the defects of the plan as Hitler outlined it, but Brauchitsch and Halder both assumed that the defects would be overtaken by an aggressive Army Group Center rapidly closing on and capturing Moscow before such a diversion could occur. Hitler himself agreed that for Moscow and Leningrad, “only a surprisingly rapid collapse of Russia resistance could justify the simultaneous pursuit of both.” That this did occur is credit to Halder and the OKH, and although Army Group Center avoided this diverseion, Hitler still did not ultimately allow Army Group Center to continue its drive for Moscow.

The Dvina river was the critical obstacle for the early phases of the Leningrad campaign, as if it could be surpassed, then nothing could stop a rapid German advance on Leningrad itself. Note that the “Dvina” here means the Western and not Northern Dvina River. The Germans had just had tremendous success in taking Dvinsk (modern day Daugavpils in Lithuania) Here is a useful map that shows how the river was the last major terrain obstacle protecting Leningrad (modern day St. Petersburg). Note that the Germans seized the first crossings of the Dvina on June 26th, only four days after the start of Operation Barbarossa.

P. 46:

“Inexplicably, for a man of his talents, the panzer commander, General der Infanterie Erich von Manstein. fails to connect the operational goal to seize the Dvina crossing with the strategic end of winning Leningrad. Manstein notes that before the offensive started he had been asked how long it would take to reach Dvinsk, assuming it were possible to do so. He answered, “If it could not be done inside four days, we could hardly count on capturing the crossing intact.” He does not mention why it was important to capture the bridges intact, nor does he comment on why it was necessary strategically to secure the crossings intact and immediately in a successful advance to Leningrad. What appears in the most important opportunity offered the German attackers in Barbarossa is that, like the earlier case of the Meuse in France, they were engrossed in the details of crossing the Dvina." Unlike in France, where Guderian kept the strategic goal of an advance to the sea clearly in mind and pressed on un hesitatingly through powerful but confused and dislocated French and British forces, Manstein made the astounding offhand comment that he was less exercised by his initially isolated position, “which would not continue indefinitely, than by the problem of what the next move should be.” The next Day, 27 June 1941, Hoepner arrived in Dvinsk and could not set a deep strategic objective for Manstein, or for the 41st Panzer Corps.”

The author postulates that Guderian, in his place, would have projected himself across the Dvina toward Leningrad, dragging a reluctant high command behind him. The actual decision that could have been made for Panzer Group Hoepner is as such:

P. 50:

“The war-winning decision would have been tot order the 8th Panzer Division and accompanying 3d Motorized Infantry Division to take Pskov immediately, then keep the Soviets off balance the remaining distance to Leningrad. One might fairly ask: Did the two German mobile divisions have the necessary mobility and strength to drive through to Pskov? The second part of Hoepner’s super-decision, to order the 41st Panzer Corps immediately forward along the same axis of advance, answers the question. The dangerously exposed and distant 8th Panzer and 3d Motorized Infantry divisions of Hoepner’s concentrated Panzer Group would have been followed by Totenkopf and the three mobile divisions of the 41st Panzer Corps. That force—six German mobile divisions—would have the capability against surprised, confused, and disrupted Soviet defenders of 27 June 1941 and the following days to drive through to Pskov.”

This possibility shows not the decisive point in how the war was lost, but what could have been a decisive moment in victory. It is illustrative to the fact that it was actually possible for the Germans to defeat the Russians, which is necessary in showing what the fateful decision was that lost the war, if it was the Germans’ war to lose. The author postulates on whether or not the Germans could have encircled or seized Leningrad in July rather than partially encircling it in September.

P. 50:

“The war-winning decision would have been to order the 8th Panzer Division and accompanying 3d Motorized Infantry Division to take Pskov immediately, then keep the Soviets off balance the remaining distance to Leningrad.”

P. 51-52:

“It can be argued that the Germans did eventually encircle Leningrad even though they did not exploit their initial grand opportunity at Dvinsk. That the Germans reached the great Russian city on the Baltic in September supports my argument that they would have been similarly successful in July 1941 had they exploited their earlier, equally nonconjectural opportunity at Dvinsk. Manstein, the gifted commander of the 56th Panzer Corps, argues convincingly that “a tank drive such as [the] panzer corps made to Dvinsk inevitably generates confusion and panic in the enemy’s communication zone: it ruptures the enemy’s chain of command and makes it virtually impossible to coordinate his countermeasures.” Others, including the former operations officer of the 6th Panzer Division, 41st Panzer Corps, have argued to the contrary that the Rossenie battle disrupted that corps just enough that it could not reach Dvinsk fast enough to contribute decisively to an effective drive of the entire panzer group concen trated for an advance to Pskov. The argument is not convincing because parts of the 41st Panzer Corps pushed on so rapidly after the Rossenie battle that they reached Jakobstadt only two days after Manstein crossed the Dvina. At Jakobstadt they did not seize any bridge intact and took until 2 July 1941 to cross and recapture momentum. Had the 41st Panzer Corps pushed through to Dvinsk on 28 June as it had moved to Jakobstadt, it would have been able immediately to cross the bridges already seized by the 56th Panzer Corps and found itself part of a concentrated thrust to Pskov led by the latter corps, now almost two days ahead.

Presented with the grand opportunity to develop the operations noted above, Hoepner opted instead for a safe, staff-college solution in the north, ordering the 41st Panzer Corps to advance on Jakobstadt, while the 56th Panzer Corps eventually spent seven days waiting for its companion corps to force a crossing of a river bridged a week previously. When every hour counted at the start of the blitz to keep the Soviet forces in the Baltic off balance. Hoepner and his commander at Army Group North, Ritter von Leeb, allowed a panzer corps to sit in a bridgehead. Soviet forces were attracted to it, regained their composure, and launched strong at- tacks against the voluntarily immobilized German tank forces. The circumstances present several ironies, foremost among them that Hitler, through OKW on 27 June 1941, ordered Army Group North to redirect 41st Panzer Corps through Dvinsk to exploit the great opportunity created by Manstein’s troops. Hitler, who, with this noteworthy exception, served as a brake on forward momentum in Barbarossa, escapes blame for the indecisive handling of Panzer Corps Hoepner. The soldiers—Hoepner, his commander, Leeb. and to some degree, OKH—must shoulder the blame for the war- losing conservatism at Dvinsk. Perhaps equal in irony. Manstein, who argued in retrospect for continuation of the drive, commenting that Hoepner “could tell us nothing” about future objectives after crossing the Dvina, under reevaluation is no longer the hero of the piece. ”

Manstein knew that the destruction of the Soviet forces blocking the way to Leningrad, and the city itself, were the objectives of the panzer drive. He did not need Hoepner to enter into the bridgehead to reiterate that or, worse yet, to claim the panzer group was bound to be cautious about future moves because of uncertainties about keeping the attack marshalled. One does not need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing, and Manstein required no elaboration from his immediate senior on a drive aimed unambiguously at Leningrad. This lack of initiative by Manstein stands up poorly compared with Guderian’s uninterrupted exploitation of the earlier Meuse crossing. particularly since Guderian never received instructions on what to do after he crossed the Meuse. German operations were so finely tuned that had Guderian waited for instructions from another conservative commander (Kleist) in the bridgehead over the Meuse on 13 May 1940, it is doubtful that the French campaign would have been a German success. The analogy shows that Manstein realistically could have been expected to forge ahead out of the bridgehead. dragging a reluctant high command in Army Group North along the road to Pskov and Leningrad as Guderian dragged Kleist and the Führer himself to the English Channel in 1940.

Instead. Manstein sat tamely in his bridgehead, losing seven irretrievable days that should have been used to deepen the shock in the opposing field armies and to tear up the command and control capabilities of the Soviet Baltic military district.”

The author pivots to Ukraine and asks why the most powerful Soviet forces were deployed there. Intelligence gathered from a capture first lieutenant in the encirclement of Kiev revealed that the Soviets planned to attack Romania in autumn 1941. This is conjectural but provides one reason why the Soviet forces were arranged as they were. To the detriment of Army Group South, Hitler ordered an attack through a narrow front between the Pripyat marshes and Carpathian mountains. This prevented the Germany army from encircled foes and forces them to assault the enemy head-on. Some historians believe that the fierce resistance in the Ukraine forced the Germans’ hands in diverting Army Group Center, but the author argues otherwise.

P. 73:

“On 7 July 1941, the Soviet position in the Ukraine deteriorated rapidly. from being pinned down and forced back into avoiding the disaster of a great encirclement west of the Dnieper. By now, German Army Group South had “equal strength due to the heavy losses inflicted on the enemy and soon [would] add numerical superiority to tactical and operational superiority.” At this crucial juncture, the Germans were poised to achieve operational freedom of movement, facing the great decision in the south of where to pivot and in which direction to proceed to trap the Soviet armies west of the Dnieper. Two days later, on 9 July, at Army Group South. Rundstedt stated his intention to strike with the bulk of Panzer Group 1 for Belaya Tserkov, approximately 110 km farther east of Berdichev, and then to push south or southeasterly as dictated by the situation. Earlier in the day, however. Hitler directed the commander of the German army (ObdH). Generalfeldmarschall Walter von Brauchitsch, to execute a timorous half- measure advance south from Berdichev with about one-third the armor of Panzer Group 1, splitting the remainder of the armor into two formations in widely divergent directions of advance. By the evening of 9 July. Brauchitsch and his chief of staff. Halder. who had immediately protested Hitler’s concept of further operations, and Rundstedt, who protested against splitting his armor and the timid nature of the attack south from Berdichev, faced their toughest enemy in the Ukraine—Adolf Hitler. Hitler seemed destined to prevent the disorderly retreat and large-scale encirclement of a significant part of the Soviet forces in the Ukraine. The Soviet command and the Russian soldier had shown substantial skill and casualty-absorbing toughness, respectively, but finally met disaster west of the Dnieper the second week of July 1941. Hitler’s decision probably would not have adversely affected Army Group Center’s advance toward Moscow. However, it would have allowed the Soviet forces to avoid the severe casualties and substantial weapons losses associated with a big German Kessel (pocket) and the psychological disequilibrium and sense of inferiority caused by precipitous retreat across the Dnieper. Hitler would have let the Soviet command and Russian soldier regain their composure. That, so reassuring to bureaucratically oriented commanders and peasant-based soldiers, was dangerous to the deep feints and daring advances of the German blitzkrieg attacker.

As commander in chief of the German armed forces after February 1938. Hitler passed his orders mostly to Brauchitsch and Halder. Except for the support the latter two men could marshal from senior field commanders affected by the orders, they stoodas almost the only bulwark against the whimsical instability, nervousness, and unfocused energy of the supreme commander. Since

November 1939, Brauchitsch was largely incapable of standing up to Hitler in confrontations over the conduct of the war, leaving his chief of staff largely responsible for maintaining effective direction in military operations. Halder was shielded from most immediate confrontations with Hitler, who dealt initially with Brauchitsch Halder nevertheless proved a tough, determined, and generally effective antidote to Hitler’s esoteric scattering of military effort and fear of risks. On 10 July 1941, Hitler reiterated in writing that he thought it "advisable and necessary to swing the leading elements of Panzer Group 1 promptly to the south." Although Brauchitsch disagreed with this blitzkrieg-diluting directive, he would make no decision that did not have the Führer’s approval.

Unlike the many later Hitler decisions examined ad infinitum and ad nauseum concerning Stalingrad and Kursk, which had virtually no effect on winning or losing the war, Hitler’s interference in Army Group South is relatively undiscovered—though it took place when the Germans were winning the campaign in Russia and the struggle in Europe. The decision, in effect, conjoined by a few similar ones, could have affected decisively winning or losing the war.”

This is only the concluding portion of the chapter on Army Group South, but the it makes the point that Army Group South was performing well in the Ukraine and did not need any immediate assistance from Army Group Center. The author also again demonstrates Hitler’s propensity for slowing down operations, although in this case he only caused a minor delay.

Because of the arrangement of Soviet forces, Army Group Center, unlike the other groups, was more powerful than the Soviet forces it opposed. Hitler, however, was more concerned with sealing and eliminating pockets such as those at Bialystok and Minsk.

The author describes how Hitler had developed a “fortress mentality” which characterizes his military thinking. Great, general attacks were launched not to achieve a decisive victory, but to secure some component of the German fortress.

German planning in war games suggested that the best chance the Soviets had was if they disengaged their forces and traded space for time to organized a defensive on the Dnieper river. It was therefore imperative that the Russian armies not be allowed to escape. The Germans were astonished that the Soviets decided to fight at the border.

After recounting the sheer success of Army Group Center, the author also comments on the quality of German solider as opposed to the Russian:

P. 95:

“The German private rendered a clear, almost analytical account of the combat, in which he appears as a cool and thoughtful soldier and the Russians as tough and determined fighters but men with definite tolerances when balancing death against surrender.”

The point being to show that the Germans soldiers were of a sufficient quality on a man-to-man level to defeat the Soviets.

The author also examines the strategic success of the campaign in France in detail. the German Schwerpunkt army drove deep into enemy strategic space and kept the enemy off balance. A key to their success, one the author emphasizes repeatedly, was the swift and unexpected crossing of the Meuse. Guderian received orders prior to the crossing to divert and reinforce another area, and again after the crossing to halt. Guderian advanced to the sea anyway, this winning the campaign. The author points out that long-term, underlying causes for French defeat were not the blame, but the specific victorious drive of Guderian.

Once the Meuse bridgehead had been established, Hitler became obsessed with securing it rather than using it as a means to destroy the enemy in Belgium. Hitler did not have the operational nerve to continue the offensive nor did he in Barbarossa, and it was only the operational nerve of Guderian that won him the campaign. Hitler underestimated his own forces.

P. 119:

“At this juncture. Guderian noted that the Germans had to hurry to prevent the buildup of Soviet defenses on the Dnieper, which he intimates might have denied a German win in 1941. On his own initiative, with no encouragement from OKH or Bock. Guderian decided not to wait for the following horse-drawn infantry armies but to cross the Dnieper with his motorized infantry. Generalfeld- marschall Gunther von Kluge, commander of the 4th Panzer Army and Guderian’s immediate superior, ordered Guderian not to cross the river but to await the following infantry. Despite this tough commander and the expected tenacious resistance along the last great natural barrier to Moscow. Guderian attacked and success- fully crossed the Dnieper by 11 July 1941.5 He maintained the mo- mentum of Army Group Center, and his successes in early July 1941 led toward the political and military collapse of Soviet Russia. At this moment, though, the German army was fighting two wars. As Guderian was defeating the main body of the Soviet armed forces, fighting on the Dnieper River for the immediate political and military survival of Soviet Russia. Hitler launched an attack of his own that would accomplish what the Soviets were incapable of doing. He would halt and disperse Army Group Center.”

German attacks broke Soviet command and control because the attacks moved so rapidly that the Soviet commanders lost track of their divisions on their operational maps. Destruction of telephone lines also cut off Minsk from Moscow four days into Barbarossa. The Soviets could neither cope psychologically nor technologically with the German advance. The Soviet armies were thus simply ordered to resist to the death in the absence of any ability to exact precise control over armies.

Compounding German problems in the two-month halt that gave the Soviets time to prepare the defense of Moscow, fighting in the Autumn left the Germans with fewer hours of daylight to fight each day. Less daylight also meant less air support from the highly effective, concentrated air superiority of the Luftwaffe over the German panzer wedge. Despite the these disadvantages, the Germans destroyed eight of the nine armies the Soviets assembled for the defense of Moscow.

The Germans were also severely outnumbered by Soviet tanks; however, other factors worked in their favor to offset the quantity and quality of Soviet tanks.

P. 161:

“Hitler probably underestimated the size of the Soviet tank force and the special qualities of a small but important part of it. Yet the German tank force—tanks combined entirely in the four panzer groups—advanced so swiftly against the defending Soviets in June and July 1941 that it established the preconditions for defeat of the Soviet Union. Hitler’s underestimation of the size and certain qualities of the Soviet tank force is accurate but irrelevant to the Russian campaign because the German panzer groups advanced against the Red Army and its tanks on a schedule that could be projected in June-July 1941 into the defeat of the Soviet Union. If Hitler underestimated the Soviet tank force, and yet the German panzer groups advanced swiftly through it. logic demands that Hitler must have underestimated the striking power of his panzer forces. The intriguing generalization supported by such argument is that the underestimations cancel themselves. The underestimated Red Army and its tanks found themselves all but eliminated by the pace, destructive power, and territorial gains of the under-estimated German army and its panzer groups by the first of August 1941.”

The German panzers also had a number of advantages over the Soviet tanks in the combined arms support capacity of the German army.

The author also gives us his conjectured estimate of German tanks that would have been available for the final assault on the Moscow-Gorki space, if the Germans had not halted and continued their advance.

P. 163:

“The panzer leaders based their estimates largely on tanks available for the advance. The two panzer groups of Army Group Center were similar in size. Thus the estimates show approximately 55 percent of the original total of tanks in the army group ready for a hypothetical advance on Moscow on about 13 August. The 65 percent estimate in the listing above, applied to Army Group Center, is more optimistic but probably also more accurate than those made by the panzer group leaders for a projected offensive hedged in by Hitler’s reservations, excursions, and ancillary tasks. Had they known before the end of July that they would be called on to drive singlemindedly for Moscow, they probably would have achieved the tank percentage suggested above.”

Note that, although Army Group Center had only 65% of its original tank power on hand, the remaining 35% was not all destroyed, but some were rotated to the rear for repairs.

The author also gives us a long explanation of the myth of the T-34 that is worth quoting in full.