Operation Barbarossa- the invasion of the
Soviet Union- has been discussed and planned by German High Command since last summer,
and those plans haven’t been entirely just directives and orders for troops and material
to be equipped and deployed, they have also been for specific actions, and they were also
examined as to how feasible they actually were. I’m Indy Neidell; this is a WW2 in real
time special episode about German invasion plans and the Paulus War Games. On September 3, 1940, Friedrich Paulus was
appointed Head Quartermaster of the General Staff. This actually made Paulus deputy to Chief
of Staff Franz Halder. As soon as he moved into his offices in Zossen,
SW of Berlin, he began work on his new assignment, which was “to prepare a study… dealing
with the problems of the distribution and deployment of forces in the east.” (Halder, Kriegstagebuch) This was to be separate from the plans produced
by Erich Marcks for OKH- Army High Command. Back on July 29th, Halder had asked Marcks
for a theoretical study of an operation in the east. This was not the only plans he would ask for,
in early August Colonel Kinzel had made one and Colonel Greiffenberg and his junior Lietuenant-
Colonel Feyerabend had made another. Neither of these favored a drive on Moscow
through the center of the Soviet Union. Kinzel’s first planned for a strong link
with the Baltic, then taking Moscow, then turning south and attacking Ukraine is a reversed
front. Greiffenberg- Feyerabend had the main attack
in the south, anticipating the strongest enemy forces there. Halder, however, insisted that the main attack
go toward Moscow. “The idea of a single main blow with the
goal of taking Moscow above all else is usually referred to as either the OKH Plan or as the
general staff plan. It would be more accurate to term it the Halder
plan, for no one else in the general staff originally agreed with it…” (Fugate, Operation Barbarossa) Marcks turned in his study August 4th. He had two separate areas of operation, north
of the Pripet Marshes and south of them, and they are formidable natural barrier. His southern wing was subordinate to the larger
northern one, but it was important to protect the Romanian oil fields from any counter attack. In fact, he did write “if it were possible
for the main force of the German Army to strike from Romania along with other forces from
Hungary, Galicia, and Southeastern Poland, then the major assault on Moscow could perhaps
be carried out east of the Dnieper which would decide the war.” He did not, however, think that possible,
because of the Hungarian and Romanian infrastructure. Marcks’ plan had no doubt whatsoever that
the Red Army would be speedily defeated. Both Marcks and Halder thought that it would
be forced to stand and fight in the west of the Soviet Union, and destroyed either in
a huge battle or by several battles of encirclement. Marcks did not believe they would retreat
beyond the Dvina-Berezina line in the north and the Pruth and Dniester Rivers in the south,
and that the whole campaign would take around 17 weeks, tops. OKW- High Command of the overall armed forces,
the Wehrmacht- was actually having its own plan prepared under Walther Warlimont’s
direction, and authored by Lieutenant- Colonel Lossberg. This was the Lossberg Plan. It had a few big differences from the Marcks
Plan. It had three army groups, not two- two in
the north, and one south of Pripet. AG Center would be the largest. To stop the Red Army from withdrawing eastward,
AG Center would stop east of Smolensk, turn north and hit the Soviets facing AG North
from the rear. Directive Number 21 for Operation Barbarossa
December 18th, incorporated several features of the Lossberg Plan, notably the three army
groups. I talked about that directive in the regular
episodes, but it calls for AG Center to advance into Belarus, routing the enemy, and then
turning north to help AG North in the Baltics. Only after the occupation of Leningrad would
a drive on Moscow occur. By this time, Paulus had directed a series
of war games with 7 general staff officers. This was in late November and in December. Paulus decided they had to reach the Leningrad-
Smolensk line, then after that they could continue, but only if the supply situation
had kept up. Now, in November, Edouard Wagner in the Quartermaster
General’s office- which is different from Paulus, who was attached to the General Staff-
had done a study of the supply issues. Wagner came to the conclusion that they would
have to temporarily halt things after Minsk because of transportation problems. The Quartermaster’s department concluded
that they would have to fight and defeat the Red Army west of the Dnieper or that the fan-like
spreading of the German armies further into Russia would lack the concentration to defeat
it. Paulus too warned against allowing them to
withdraw intact. Well, Paulus did his final war games between
December 17-20th, and there are two main questions that leap out, 1) how to coordinate marching
infantry with motorized units, since they move at very different speeds, and 2) how
to supply 3.5 million men advancing deeply into enemy territory. Without satisfactory answers to these two,
then the whole premise of a quick victory of the Soviets would have to be abandoned. Now, doing these games and analyzing this
is breaking new ground, since they’d never had to do so over such a large geographical
area. Even though Hitler was favoring a strategy
that did not involve a push for Moscow, Paulus’ final war game WAS done with Moscow as the
main objective. Those participating did not question several
of OKH’s basic assumptions- that the Soviets would have to fight west of the Dnieper- Dvina
Line to protect production centers, that they would have a huge chunk of their forces in
the border regions to slow the Germans as much as they could and to protect recent territorial
acquisitions, and that the Wehrmacht was superior to the Soviets in the air, in artillery, in
armor, and in communications. Even though Moscow is the goal of the whole
operation here, the first game objective was to reach the Dnieper- Dvina Line. AG South would head for Kiev, AG Center would
attack and cut off the Soviets in the Bialystok region, then zoom forward to the east for
Orsha and Vitebsk and make bridgeheads across the Dnieper, AG North would head toward Leningrad
and its first objective would be the Velikie-Luki- Staraia Russia- Lake Peipus line. This group would also protect the flanks of
group center. The exercise called for 20 days of severe
fighting, then they called for a three week rest period to bring up supplies and reorganize. The 2 panzer groups in AG Center were already
overstretched, though, and came under heavy enemy attacks. “The conclusion reached by the Blue (German)
commander was that the Red (Soviet) army aimed to counter attack and destroy the leading
Blue armies. The significance of this is clear. The forward elements of the blue forces represented
the cutting edge of the operational knife upon which German blitzkrieg theory depended. Blunt the knife and the opportunity for rapid
penetration of the enemy is lost, eliminating the mobility of the army and leaving the marching
infantry with a predicament not unlike that faced by Napoleon’s slow- moving Grand Armée.” (Stahel) AG South, which had not taken Kiev, now asked
for some armor from AG Center and the reserves to be sent down to cut off the Soviets from
the rear, AG North asked for the same to be sent up to shore up its right wing. AG Center didn’t want to do this, arguing
that side issues would not win the war and AG Center had to keep up its strength to keep
its eyes on the prize- Moscow. AG Center was given the go-ahead. AG South, with only its own forces, was to
surround Kiev and then cut off the Soviets west of the Kharkov- Kursk line. Once there, the flank of AG Center would be
secure. As for AG North, Halder straight out said
that taking Leningrad and dealing with the Red Army in the north had to wait until AG
Center had reached its goal. In the meantime, they were to just beef up
their right wing. Bryan Fugate writes, “In his summary of
the lessons learned in the war game study, Paulus concluded that the German forces “were
barely sufficient for the purpose” assigned to them. Paulus demonstrated that the Wehrmacht would
be shorn of its reserves by the time it reached Moscow and that the final assault on the city
would have to be undertaken by forces already engaged on the front lines without any follow-up
reinforcements at all. Paulus also noted that reaching the Volga-
Archangel line was beyond the power of the Wehrmacht to achieve.” (Fugate) David Stahel further adds to this, “This
working assessment implies grave consequences given that Paulus’ mandate limited the exercise
purely to questions of military strategy and that his war-game offered no analysis of the
logistical difficulties or the distinctively harsh conditions of climate and poor infrastructure
prevalent in the east.” That’s pretty serious. And what about answering those two questions? How to reconcile the different speeds of infantry
and armor, and how to supply the men? They just had the armor blasting on ahead
independently, with the infantry left to mop up the cutoff enemy by itself. This means that the armored thrusts will have
no protection on their flanks. And those are serious distances- I mean, from
the Bug to Smolensk is 700km, to Moscow 1,000 as the crow flies. So the games conclude that the initial supply
depots will be adequate for a drive to the Dnieper- Dvina Line, but new supply areas
would be dependent on the Soviet rail system, that have a wider gauge than the Germans and
mostly single tracked. Destroyed rail lines would have to be rebuilt
and it would take time to change the gauge so they determine that shortages and even
total interruptions in supply cannot be prevented. So Paulus’ conclusion of the plans for Operation
Barbarossa is that they are extremely optimistic to say the least, and the goals beyond the
first phase are just plain unrealistic. However: “That the results of Paulus’
efforts were not deemed conclusive by Halder and the OKH was not the fault of Paulus; it
was, rather, due to their own short- sighted inability to perceive the difficulties with
respect to time and space that faced them in the east.” (Fugate) Now, I cannot see into the future the invasion,
but we can all see that the results of the first 20 days of it are remarkably consistent
with what Paulus predicted. It will be very interesting to see if and
how the Germans will improvise from here on in. That’s all for today, but you can click
here to watch or rewatch the first weekly episode to cover Operation Barbarossa. Make sure to sign up for the TimeGhost Army
on timeghost.tv or patreon.com - also remember to subscribe, ring the bell and I will see
you next time!
it was basically lost from the start and halder wasn't such a military genius
This is classic leftist propaganda. The facts are that Aryan German troops had far superior combat stats compared to the evil Asiatic uncultured commie hordes. Throughout the entire war they had 1:60 kill death ratios while the Soviet bastards just sent their troops in with one rifle for three men. Go look up that documentary called "Enemy at the Gates". And by the way, while Hitler wasn't that great, he'd have easily steamrolled the Red Army if he had listened to his generals. If he hadn't killed off Saint Rommel the Wehrmacht would be at Vladivostok by 1943! Facts don't care about your FEELINGS libtard.
This video is a very good summarised version of David Stahel's book Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East first chapters.
If our invasion plans worked in France, then it HAS to work here, right?... Right?