Wegner 1990

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The road to defeat: The

German campaigns in Russia
1941–43
a
Bernd Wegner
a
Freiburg University
Published online: 24 Jan 2008.
To cite this article: Bernd Wegner (1990) The road to defeat: The German
campaigns in Russia 1941–43, Journal of Strategic Studies, 13:1, 105-127, DOI:
10.1080/01402399008437403
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402399008437403
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The Road to Defeat: The German
Campaigns in Russia 1941-43*
BERND WEGNER
Compared with other theatres and campaigns of the Second World War,
the war between Germany and the Soviet Union has received relatively little
attention from English-speaking historians.1 The reasons for this situation
are understandable, if not convincing: in English-speaking countries, which
were not directly involved in the war in the East, that war has been associated
far less with those painful and glorious experiences that are evidently still the
motivating force behind much historical research than have been the events
of the Second World War in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, Western Europe
or South-east Asia. Moreover, the international political climate in the first
decades after 1945 was not conducive to a critical historical evaluation of
the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. Not the only reason for this
was the fact that Soviet archives were and have remained closed to foreign
scholars. In the shadow of the cold war the question of the importance of
the struggle in the East possessed rather a primarily political significance. An
acknowledgement of the fact, emphasised for propaganda purposes in every
Soviet history book, that the Red Army had contributed more than any other
army to destroying the Third Reich and liberating large parts of Europe from
German occupation seemed to many people in the non-communist world to
be a legitimation of the new communist order established in the states of
Eastern Europe dominated by the Soviet Union.
Under these conditions Western interest in the war between Germany and
the Soviet Union concentrated less on the writing of critical, scholarly history
and more on the practical evaluation of military experience gained during
that conflict. The most important results of this interest were the hundreds
of operational studies on the war in the East produced by German generals
after the end of the Second World War for the Historical Division of the
United States Army.2 A large number of these studies have been published
and have strongly influenced historians in English-speaking countries and in
Germany, preparing the way, in spite of the high quality of the presentation
of events in some cases, for an apologetic interpretation of the German war
in Russia from the point of view of the German military leaders.
This interpretation, according to which the German failure in the East
106 DECISIVE CAMPAIGNS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR
was due primarily to Hitler's dilettantism, combined with unfavourable

geographical and climatic conditions, 3 has been abandoned only partially
in more recent works, the reason being that academic historians have
concentrated their attention only on certain aspects and phases of the war in
the East. Especially the 'Barbarossa' campaign of 1941 can be considered one
of the most thoroughly studied and discussed subjects of the entire Second
World War. There are good reasons for this: no other decision taken by Hitler
had more far-reaching consequences for the course of the war and the fate of
the National Socialist state than did his decision to attack the Soviet Union;
no other campaign provided such numerous and clear examples of National

Socialist imperial and race-ideological madness; nowhere else was the use of
the German army for criminal purposes more obvious. It is thus all the more
remarkable that historians (except Russian ones) have tended to neglect the
course of the war in the East after the failure of German blitzkrieg hopes in
the winter of 1941-42. Several critical studies have been published, it is true,
on individual aspects such as German foreign and occupation policy, and on
the war economy and operations in the years 1942-44, but a comprehensive
interpretation, based on the sources and analysing the different levels of the
conduct of the war in the East after 'Barbarossa', is still lacking.4 As far as
the writing of history in West Germany is concerned, a basic reason for
this deficit is probably the widespread aversion there to military subjects in
general and the consequent tendency to attribute little significance to purely
military events. Proceeding from the basically correa view (which, however,
dangerously simplifies the extremely complex reality of a total war lasting
several years) that the battles in the East after 1941 represented only the
continuation of a war which in fact had already been lost, historians have
generally left the study of the prolonged death struggle of the Third Reich to
memoirists, authors of picture histories and various apologists. As a result,
the second German offensive, on the southern sector of the Eastern front in
the summer of 1942 (as well as the enormous defensive battles of 1943 and
1944, which this study does not deal with) is still overshadowed in historical
studies of the Second World War by the events of 1941 5 and thus surrounded
by more legends and myths. In view of this situation and the need to limit the
length of the present article, the following remarks will concentrate on the
German summer offensive in 1942 ('Operation Blue'), which was decisive
for Germany's final defeat.
I. 'BARBAROSSA* - THE FIRST CAMPAIGN

The theses presented by Andreas Hillgruber after the mid-1960s have
dominated the discussion about the origins of the war between Germany
and the Soviet Union and the genesis of the operation plan 'Barbarossa'. 6 In
two respects they have withstood all attempts at refutation 7 and, with minor
THE GERMAN CAMPAIGNS IN RUSSIA 1941-43 107
additions and modifications, have been essentially confirmed by more recent

research. They can be summarised as follows:
(1) Hitler's decision to attack the Soviet Union was the result of a mixture
of ideological and strategic considerations. The idea of a large-scale
colonisation of the East, with the two main aims of annihilating Bolshevism
and conquering 'living space' for the German nation8 had been, in addition
to his militant anti-Semitism, the most important element in Hitler's world
view since 1924-25 at the latest. It provides the key for understanding the
attack on the Soviet Union, which, from a purely strategic or operational
point of view, was foolish. The emphasis on Hitler's ideology does not
mean, however, that strategic considerations played no role in his decision,
but rather that they can be understood only in terms of their function in his
attempt to realise his overriding ideological aims.9
The importance of ideological aims in Hitler's strategic calculations was
evident in his rejection of plans submitted by the Navy leaders and by
Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in 1940 as alternatives to an offensive in the
East. The plan developed by the commander-in-chief of the Navy, Raeder,
to shift the main German war effort to the Mediterranean, the Near East
and North-west Africa, and the concentration on the disruption of sea links
between Great Britain and the United States favoured by the commander of
the submarines, Dönitz, did not, in the end, receive Hitler's approval because
they ignored his most important war aim, namely expansion by conquest in
the East.10 The situation was similar with regard to Ribbentrop's plan for
a 'continental bloc' directed against the sea powers Great Britain and the
United States and extending from 'Madrid to Yokohama' with the partici-
pation of the Soviet Union. Hitler did consider this option in the summer of
1940, but only as a means of increasing the pressure on Great Britain and
not with the intention of laying the foundation for a lasting new European
order.11 In his eyes the conditio sine qua non for that was a war not against
Britain, but against the Soviet Union.
Against this background, Hitler's decision to turn East, considered even
before the end of the fighting in the West in June 1940, was obviously an
attempt to correct what he regarded as a war on the wrong front: instead of
waging an unwanted war against Great Britain (and thus, it was to be feared,
sooner or later against the United States) with the benevolent neutrality of
the Soviet Union, the real, mortal enemy, he intended to attack the latter
country and force Great Britain to remain neutral. The fact that, contrary to
his expectations, he was unable to achieve this last aim by defeating France
reduced decisively the political value of his brilliant military victory in May
and June of 1940.
(2) The war against the Soviet Union was of a fundamentally different nature
from that of all other German campaigns in the Second World War. More
than a mere military operation with a clearly defined, limited aim, it was
rather a 'crusade against Bolshevism' (as described quite accurately by
contemporary German propaganda), a colonial war of exploitation, and
a racist war of annihilation. The unprecedented brutality of the war in the
East can be explained only in part as the result of the experiences of soldiers
on the battlefield.12 The decisive factor was rather that the campaign in the
East was planned deliberately from the beginning with a complete disregard
for internationally accepted laws of war. As early as the beginning of March
1941 Hitler ordered that 'all Bolshevik leaders and commisars' were to be
'rendered harmless immediately' (that is, killed) without the use of military
courts.13 A few weeks later, in his address to about 250 generals, he again
made clear that the coming campaign would not be a normal military
operation but rather a 'war between two ideologies':
We have to free ourselves from ideas of soldierly camaraderie. A
communist is not and can never be considered a fellow-soldier. This
war will be a battle of annihilation.... It will be very different from the
war in the West. In the East harshness will guarantee us a mild future.
Military leaders must overcome their [humanitarian] reservations.14
Hitler's appeal did not fall on deaf ears. The Wehrmacht Operations Staff
and the Wehrmacht legal section, as well as the Army General Staff, quickly
prepared the necessary orders to take into account his wishes and at the same
time the exaggerated security requirements of the officers involved. In fact,
however, these orders seriously compromised the role of the Wehrmacht in
Russia. For example, the decree on military justice of 13 May 1941 withdrew
crimes committed by enemy civilians in the East from the jurisdiction of
military courts, required that partisans be 'brutally eliminated' and ordered
that Wehrmacht soldiers committing crimes against the civilian population
no longer needed to be prosecuted.15 In the so-called 'Commissar Order',
issued as a supplement on 6 June, soldiers were informed that generally
commissars of the Red Army, 'originators of barbaric Asiatic methods of
fighting', were to be killed immediately.16 The 'Guidelines for the Conduct
of German Soldiers in Russia', issued somewhat earlier, and a number of
basic orders issued by prominent field commanders (for example, Reichenau,
Manstein, Hoth) during the first months after the initial German attack were
similarly brutal in their aims and tone. For example, Field Marshal von
Reichenau demanded in a notorious order of 10 October that German
soldiers in the East should 'not only fight according to the rules of warfare'
but should also 'avenge all the atrocities committed against Germans and
other racially related peoples'.17
Such words, accompanied by a broad propaganda campaign against the
slavic 'subhumans', were sharply rejected by many officers, but they opened
the gates for a barbaric conduct of the war in the East much more widespread
than most surviving German officers were willing to admit after the war.
Not only the Wehrmacht High Command, but also the Army General Staff
thus accepted responsibility for politically motivated annihilation measures
in addition to their proper military tasks, as for example when the army
worked closely with the SS in 'pacifying' conquered areas18 (that is, the
extermination of undesirable elements in the population) or in the treatment
of Soviet prisoners of war. Of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of war captured
by the Germans by February 1945, at least two to 2.5 million, more probably
about 3.3 million, that is, 57 per cent, died by the end of the war, the great
majority before the summer of 1942. In contrast, deaths among British and
American prisoners in Germany during the Second World War amounted to
only 3.5 per cent. Of the 3.15 million German soldiers captured by Soviet
forces, 35 to 37 per cent died during a usually long period of captivity.19
In this regard we must also mention Hitler's intention, accepted without
contradiction by the responsible front commanders-in-chief, to raze to
the ground Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. To avoid having to feed the
populations of these cities during the winter, they were to be first encircled,
then cut off from all supplies, bombed and starved out.20
The racist view of the war in the East, typical not only of Hitler but also
of many Wehrmacht and army generals, provided arguments for ignoring
moral reservations, but its practical effects greatly contributed to making
the realisation of the objectives of 'Barbarossa' difficult or impossible.
Ideological prejudices repeatedly resulted in an astonishing loss of any
sense of proportion and led to increasingly radical attempts to solve
problems requiring pragmatic solutions. An excellent example of this was
the rise of partisan groups, which began shortly after the German attack
and became a significant operational factor in the second half of 1942.21
The most important cause of this development, as even the German side
eventually realised, was the inhuman character of German warfare and
occupation policy. It is, however, indicative of the special quality of
warfare based on National Socialist principles that this insight did not
lead to any basic change in the behaviour of the conquerors. The partisan
resistance remained an unsolved problem. Perhaps even more harmful was
the effect of ideological preconceptions on German military intelligence,
the main result in that area being constant underestimation of the enemy
and an often grotesque overestimation of Germany's own possibilities.22
As this and other examples show, the ideological view of warfare was by
no means an alien idea forced upon the military 'professionals' by Hitler
and fanatics of his inner circle; rather it was the natural consequence
of a specific image of the enemy held by the German military elite
responsible for operations in the East. In other words, the planning
and execution of the German campaigns were strongly influenced by
ideological factors from the beginning, a fact which has received insufficient
attention, even in more recent studies, by British and American historians.23

Against the background presented above, how are the objectives, execu-
tion and result of the first campaign in the East to be judged? Immediately
after the conclusion of the armistice with France, the Army General Staff had
begun preparatory work for an offensive in the East on their own initiative
and had conducted relevant map exercises in the autumn of 1940. The
results were presented to Hitler at the beginning of December 1940 and
led to his Directive No.21 ('Operation Barbarossa'), issued on 18 December
and followed on 31 January 1941 by the deployment order of the Army
High Command. These basic directives determined German objectives in

the first phase of operations in the East and required the Wehrmacht to
'defeat Soviet Russia in a fast campaign' and advance to a line between the
Volga and Archangel.24 This would place the industrial areas of the Urals
within the range of the Luftwaffe and Germany itself beyond the range
of Soviet aircraft. The decisive prerequisite for the success of the German
attack was, however, that the mass of the Red Army must be annihilated
west of the Dvina-Dnieper line in order to open the way to the East. To
achieve this objective the strongest German forces (two army groups) were
to be concentrated in the area north of the great Pripet Marshes, while only
one army group was to operate in the south, with the aim of conquering the
industrially important Donets Basin as quickly as possible. The German army
group in the middle sector of the front was, on the other hand, to advance
to White Russia and then turn north with strong forces to join Army Group
North, which would advance from East Prussia through the former Baltic
States, in the conquest of Leningrad. Only thereafter, if Soviet resistance had
not collapsed beforehand, was Moscow to be attacked.
After the offensive had begun on 22 June 1941 - with a total of almost 3.6
million German and allied soldiers (Finns, Romanians, Hungarians, Italians,
Slovakians), about 600,000 vehicles, 3,600 tanks, and over 2,700 aircraft - it
seemed of course for a few weeks as if the expectations of the German leaders
would indeed be completely fulfilled. When the double battle of Bialystok
and Minsk was over on 9 July, two Soviet armies (the Third and the Tenth)
had been completely destroyed and a third (the Thirteenth) shattered. Entire
divisions had deserted to the Germans. The German forces had captured
more than 300,000 prisoners and destroyed or captured more than 3,000
tanks. German optimism reached its highpoint. On 3 July the chief of the
Army General Staff, Colonel-General Haider, noted in his diary that it was
no exaggeration to say that the campaign in Russia had been won within
a fortnight.25 The next day Hitler observed that 'the Russian' had already
practically lost the war.26 Most observers in Washington, London and other
capitals completely agreed with this estimate of the situation. The final defeat
of the Soviet Union seemed to be only a matter of weeks. In those July days
of 1941 the war had entered a phase, seemingly like the situation in June
1940, which in the eyes of the German leaders, has correctly been described
as the 'zenith' of the Second World War.27 In that brief historical moment in
which the Soviet Union seemed to have been eliminated as an international
power factor, Hitler began to make plans for the time after 'Barbarossa'.
In his view the world then would be dominated by the conflict between
Germany and the United States, a struggle between continental empires in
which Hitler hoped to have not only Japan as an Asian junior partner but
also Great Britain as a European ally. He assumed that the defeat of the Soviet
Union would also mean the political end of Churchill and his anti-German
'war party'. Indicative of the new orientation of German war policy in this
period of expected triumph in the East was Hitler's order of 14 July 1941
for a change in armaments priorities. The main emphasis was to be shifted
away from army armaments, important for a land war such as that against
the Soviet Union, to the Luftwaffe and the Navy. Six months later Hitler was
forced to reverse this decision.28
Of course reality soon caught up with Hitler's dreams about the future.
At the moment of maximum German expansion the weaknesses of German
operational planning became apparent. This was due in the first place to the
complete underestimation of the Soviet enemy and especially of his ability to
mobilise material and human resources.29 But the German military leaders
had also underestimated the Soviet soldier's endurance and ability to bear
hardships. The lack of reserves for the German army in the East also made
itself felt after the middle of July. In the feeling of superiority in the East
such reserves as were available were often kept at home. Similarly, new
tanks and tank motors were reserved for new motorised divisions planned
for later operations against Britain and the British position in the Near
East and were not sent to the Eastern front. Moreover, the unexpectedly
high losses in the East led at this time to an even more intense struggle
between the Wehrmacht, the armaments industry and administrative organs
for available personnel.30
For the moment, however, another factor was more important namely
the fact that Hitler and the Army General Staff had not come to any
real agreement on the point of main effort of the offensive. In any
case, it now became clear that Directive No.21 represented a superficial
compromise between two fundamentally incompatible operational ideas.
On the one hand, the Army General Staff believed that Moscow as the
operational objective should have absolute priority. Its capture would mean
the elimination of the political and administrative nerve centre of the Soviet
Union and the fall of the most important Soviet traffic junction. On the
other hand, Hitler was convinced that military successes on the flanks of
the offensive were more important than capturing the Soviet capital. In the
North he wanted to link up with the Finns and destroy the Soviet position
in the Baltic by eliminating Leningrad; in the South he wanted to capture the
all-important industrial and raw materials centres of the Donets Basin and
the Caucasus and destroy Soviet air bases near the Black Sea, which posed a
threat to German oil supplies from Romania.31
It was no accident that the conflict between Hitler and the military leaders,
which had been smouldering for months, broke out into the open exactly one
month after the start of the offensive when Hitler decided on 22 July that his
armoured units should not advance farther to the East. With the capture
of Smolensk on 16 July and the subsequent great battle of encirclement
the first phase of 'Operation Barbarossa' had been concluded.32 On the
surface the victory in the battle of Smolensk appeared to be another great

German success (by the beginning of August over 300,000 prisoners, over
3,000 tanks and about the same number of guns had been captured), but
for the first time the German military leaders were now confronted with a
number of unpleasant truths with far-reaching consequences. The duration
and course of the battle had shown that the enemy's determination to
stop the German advance on Moscow at any price was unbroken. Hitler
observed with resignation that 'the Russian' could not be defeated by German
operational successes 'because he simply refuses to recognise them'. The Red
Army would therefore have to be destroyed piece by piece in small, tactical
encirclements.33 Hitler ordered Army Group 'Centre' to take up a defensive
position on 30 July.34 For him the massive resistance of the Red Army in
the narrow area between the Dnieper and the Dvina and the considerable
logistical problems of the German army, especially in the middle sector of
the front,35 were convincing arguments for a return to the idea, which he
had favoured from the very beginning, of seeking a decision on the flanks.
The fact that the successes of Army Groups 'North' and (above all) 'South'
had been less impressive than those of Army Group 'Centre' probably seemed
to Hitler an additional reason to transfer armoured forces from the centre
to the flanks. This did not mean that Moscow had been abandoned as an
operational objective, but only, as envisaged in a directive of 12 August,
that its capture had been postponed until the situation on the flanks had
been taken care of.36
While Hitler probably regarded this plan as a compromise in the dispute
about the direction of further operations, the army leaders found it extremely
alarming. They feared that the operation, which until then had developed con-
siderable momentum, could run out of energy and that Moscow would not be
reached in time, that is, before the beginning of winter. Moreover, the offen-
sive now seemed in danger of failing to achieve its main objective: the destruc-
tion of the Red Army. Because the enemy expected the main German thrust to
be against Moscow and had concentrated the mass of his forces in the central
section of the front against Army Group 'Centre', so the Army General Staff
calculated, the best chance of forcing a decisive battle would be there.37
However, the campaign could not be won in 'decisive battles' alone. This
became clear at the end of September after the overwhelming German victory
in the great battle east of Kiev, which ended with the annihilation of most of
the Soviet southwest front and the capture of 650,000 prisoners. Convinced
that the Red Army was now really at the end of its strength, Hitler yielded to
the urging of his chief of the General Staff and ordered Army Group 'Centre'
to resume its drive on Moscow ('Operation Typhoon'). Again the Germans
inflicted devastating defeats on the enemy. In October they surrounded and
wiped out almost eight Soviet armies under Timoshenko in the area of
Vyazma and Bryansk (650,000 prisoners). The Red Army was only able to
win time, but time had now become the determining factor in the campaign.
The time gained made it possible for the Soviet leadership to prepare a
defence of the capital and its approaches, to evacuate vital industries and
to organise large numbers of new divisions or to transfer reserves from other
parts of the country, including Siberia, to the West. On the other hand, the
time lost because of the crisis in the German leadership and the stubborn
resistance of the Red Army meant that the advancing Wehrmacht formations
had been subjected to considerable wear and tear. On 26 September, when
Army Group 'Centre' issued the order to resume the drive on Moscow, the
German army in the East was already 200,000 men under strength. It was
doubtful if these missing men could ever be replaced.38 It was possible to
mobilise 80 divisions with a total strength of almost two million men for
'Operation Typhoon', but this meant that, in contrast to the situation of
the Red Army, the last German reserves were exhausted. From this point
on the German forces used up their resources faster than they could be
replaced, with the result that the Wehrmacht's fighting power in the East
rapidly declined. Moreover, climatic conditions for a large-scale offensive
worsened dramatically as winter approached. Again and again the German
advance became mired down in mud, slush and snow. In addition, serious
disruption of supplies for the troops made themselves felt.39
By the end of October at the latest the blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union
had failed, although the German army in the East had not lost a single battle.
Nevertheless, Hitler and the General Staff did not break off the drive on
Moscow but tried to capture the city with a last effort before winter arrived.
At the beginning of November they even talked of capturing Stalingrad and
the oil fields in the northern Caucasus (Maikop).40 Their intention was to
reach an advantageous starting position for continuing the war in 1942, but
they were also convinced that, after its long series of crushing defeats, the
Red Army was in an even more desperate situation than the Wehrmacht.
From this point of view, it still seemed possible in late autumn of 1941
to conclude 'Operation Barbarossa' successfully. Unlike the majority of the
front commanders-in-chief, Hitler and the General Staff still believed41 that
the important thing was to see the battle through, stake everything on one
last effort and demonstrate strong nerves. This expectation was doomed to
failure, for it was based on a mistaken estimate of the possibilities open to

the enemy. That became abundantly clear on 5 and 6 December when the
great Soviet winter offensive began and forced the Germany army to fight a
murderous defensive battle lasting several months.
II. 'OPERATION BLUE' - THE SECOND CAMPAIGN
'Operation Blue', the code name for the second German campaign in the
East, planned for 1942,42 may seem at first glance to have been merely
a continuation of 'Barbarossa' with a different name and operational
objectives. This impression is strengthened by the fact that the push to

and over the Caucasus, the main goal in German planning for 1942, had
already been envisaged and prepared by Hitler for 1941. As late as July 1941,
he had assumed that German troops could reach the Volga by the beginning
of October, and Baku and Batumi a month later.43 When such hopes faded
shortly thereafter, a continuation of operations in 1942 became inevitable,
and petroleum production forecasts became increasingly pessimistic, Hitler
quickly decided on the Caucasian oil fields as the objective of the next
German summer offensive. Basic planning for the coming operations in the
spring of 1942 was worked out by the responsible departments of the Army
High Command as early as October 1941. In that month Hitler also informed
the Italian foreign minister of his intentions.44
Although 'Operation Blue' was certainly an immediate consequence of
the fact that the aims of the campaign against the Soviet Union in the
summer of 1941 had not been achieved and the war in the East had not,
therefore, been concluded, it was, on the other hand, the last German
campaign in the East conducted with independent strategic aims and
was fundamentally different from all earlier German offensives, including
'Operation Barbarossa'. Whereas the latter had represented the high point
of an essentially European war which Hitler could still rightly consider, in
terms of its origins and previous development, to be 'his' war, the situation
had changed dramatically since the end of 1941. In December of that year
Japan and the United States had entered the conflict. In relative terms, their
weight greatly reduced the influence of the German dictator on the outcome
of the worldwide struggle and consequently made a German victory in the
East, even if it were achieved, less decisive. At the same time, German
freedom of action had become more restricted. In 1940-41 'Barbarossa'
had been only one of several conceivable options for continuing the war,
but in the spring of 1942 - in view of the remaining fighting power of the
Red Army—the German leadership had no choice but to resume the attack in
the East. This meant, however, that such a campaign would necessarily lack
the element of political and strategic surprise that had been characteristic
of 'Barbarossa'. 'Operation Blue' was to be undertaken against an enemy
who, after making enormous sacrifices, was now very well prepared to
fight a total war. At most, surprise could be achieved with regard to the
direction of the attack. Moreover, after the conclusion of the winter battles,
the forces available for a second German campaign in the East were, from
a personnel, material and logistical point of view, only a shadow of those
which had invaded the Soviet Union the previous summer. A comparison of
the fighting-value-estimates of the divisions in the East produced from time
to time by the Army General Staff shows that the Army High Command was
very much aware of this situation. On the eve of the German attack on the
Soviet Union in 1941,134 divisions, or 64 per cent of all participating units,
were classified as completely ready for attack. Nine months later, at the end
of March 1942, when Directive No.41 containing the basic instructions for
the coming summer campaign was completed, the number of divisions 'suited
for all tasks' had shrunk to a total of eight, that is, five per cent of all available
units.45 Even though hopes of being able to improve this depressing situation
a little before the start of the new offensive were justified, it was clear to all
concerned that the offensive would have to be planned on the basis of much
reduced forces and restricted to the front of only one of the three army groups
in the East.
Only in terms of the expected time required do the campaigns of 1941
and 1942 appear to be, at first glance, similar. The illusory belief of 1941
that the war against the Soviet Union could be ended in a matter of weeks
had indeed vanished, but the campaign plan for 'Operation Blue' was in its
conception and military organisation also a blitzkrieg which Hitler hoped
to be able to conclude by autumn. This, however, was the only similarity.
While in 1940-41 the German dictator and his military advisers had been
confident of their ability to 'defeat Soviet Russia in a short, quick campaign'
and eliminate that country as a military, economic and political factor, their
expectations with regard to 'Operation Blue' were on the whole much more
modest. There can be no doubt that the near-disaster of the winter months
had taught Hitler to respect the Red Army's power and readiness to make
sacrifices, although he often emphasised these qualities to excuse his own and
the Wehrmacht's failures.46 Although, for propaganda or tactical reasons,
Hitler encouraged hopes in his relations with his allies that 1942 would
bring a decision in the East, concrete German planning took as its point of
orientation a goal which in retrospect was also unrealistic but at any rate
less Utopian: maintaining Germany's ability to continue the war. In 1942
planning for the war in the East was primarily concerned not with conquering
additional land for German settlement or with smashing Bolshevism, and not
even with destroying the Red Army (although the hope of achieving all these
things continued to be the driving force of the German war effort), but with
conquering sources of raw materials, especially oil, adequate for the middle
and long term. During a visit to the front in Poltava, Hitler openly admitted:
'If I don't get the oil in Maikop and Grozny, I'll have to liquidate this war.'47
Indeed, since the autumn of 1941 the critical oil supply situation in
connection with the failure of the German attack on Moscow, the entry
of the United States into the war and the possibility of a 'second front',
which Hitler feared would be opened in France or Norway in 1942 or
at the latest 1943, had confronted him with the choice of either trying to
end the war by negotiations (which he refused to consider) or preparing
as quickly as possible for a long war. His decision to pursue the latter
alternative48 confronted the German war economy and military with the
necessity of crossing relatively exposed a 'danger zone' between the failure
of the blitzkrieg and the readjustment to a long war. 'Operation Blue' was
the operational attempt to cross this 'danger zone' in time, that is, before the
Western Allies could intervene on a large scale on the Continent, and thus
to close as soon as possible the 'window of vulnerability' represented by the
real threat of a land war on several fronts. In this situation the necessity of
achieving strategic success deprived Hitler from the very beginning of the
freedom to plan the coming operations in the East solely according to the
principles of classical operational logic, that is, above all under consideration
of the relative strength of the forces and the problems presented by the sheer
distances in that theatre.
The readjustment of the German war machine to fighting a long war
meant that the main task of the German army in the East was now the
conquest of sources of raw materials. This new priority influenced Hitler's
operational plans all the more as he also expected in this way to be able
to cut the Soviet Union off from raw materials essential to her survival. In
this respect his assessment agreed with that presented by the French General
Staff within the framework of Allied planning for operations in the Caucasus
two years earlier. In February 1940 Gamelin had also been convinced that a
direct attack on the Soviet oil industry in the Caucasus could deal 'a heavy,
perhaps decisive blow to the military and economic organisation of the Soviet
Union'.49 In Hitler's view there were several additional important, though
not in themselves decisive political, strategic and operational reasons for
choosing the conquest of the Caucasus as an operational objective: his
calculation that, because of the economic and logistical importance of the
region, the Red Army would not be able to avoid a decisive battle there;
the expectation of being able to cut the southern Soviet supply lines to the
Western Allies and establish a base for a later strike against the British
position in the Middle East, and not least the hope of persuading Turkey to
enter the war on the side of the Axis Powers by achieving a decisive military
success so near the Turkish frontier.
The fact that German planning for the war in the East in 1942 was based
largely on a strategy for securing raw materials did not mean that race-
ideology had ceased to be a factor in this war of annihilation. Considerable
efforts were made by political and Wehrmacht leaders in 1942 to indoctrinate
the troops with the ideological principles on which their operations were
based. Even more important was the fact that in 1942, the year of the
'Wannsee Conference' and the Generalplan Ost,50 the illusory belief that the
new campaign would secure German conquests in the East led to an increase
in long-term volkstumspolitische planning. At the same time the programmes
for the extermination, enslavement, deportation and resettlement of entire
population groups, begun on a large scale in 1941, were continued. In
a speech on 23 November 1942 (the day on which the ring around the
Sixth Army in Stalingrad closed) Heinrich Himmler, the main proponent
of this policy, promised that the East would be 'a colony today, an area
of settlement tomorrow and part of the Reich day after tomorrow'.51 Two
months earlier, in a small group, Himmler had gone even further and had
spoken enthusiastically about 'a final struggle sooner or later with Asia', of
which Russia was after all only 'an outpost': 'After the Greater German Reich
will come the Germanic Reich, and the Germanic-Gothic Reich all the way
to the Urals, and then perhaps even the Reich of the Goths, the Franks and
the Carolingians'.52
In contrast to such bizarre ideas, however, a striking discrepancy had
begun to emerge between Germany's political ambitions and her military
possibilities in the winter of 1941-42. While attempts were made to
realise the former in an unspeakably murderous and barbaric fashion,
as if a German total victory were still possible, strategic and operational
planning was increasingly determined by the question of whether the
conquests already achieved could be held or the material preconditions
for that could be fulfilled. These doubts and an awareness of imponderable
factors began to influence the thinking of senior German military leaders
in the phase of the war between the failure to take Moscow and the defeat
at Stalingrad and led to a more pragmatic conduct of the war in the East.
In the area of military planning, the disillusionment with regard to the
course the war had taken, which was clearly present in varying intensity
at all levels of the German military leadership, forced a certain revision of
imperialistic visions of conquest and a concentration on what was actually
achievable. This reorientation was, however, very limited: the dogma that
the war could not be lost remained officially unquestioned even under the
difficult conditions of 1942. Ideological prejudices were still responsible for a
continuing underestimation of the abilities of the Soviet enemy, and wherever
practical solutions were actually developed, they were often frustrated by
Hitler's increasingly frequent personal intervention.
In deciding to make the conquest of the Caucasus the main objective of
the German summer offensive, Hitler chose an option which Germany had
attempted in vain to achieve during the First World War and which he
himself had already considered for 1941. It was thus not a stroke of genius
resulting from sudden inspiration. Nevertheless the choice of the Caucasus
was to a much greater extent than the attack on Moscow Hitler's personal
decision, taken during the most serious phase of the winter crisis without
any previous consultation with the commander-in-chief of the army, his
chief of the General Staff, the chief of army armament programmes or
even the commanders-in-chief of the army groups. In the following months
their influence was limited to the practical questions of operational planning.
The Army High Command and parts of the OKW, especially the War
Economy and Armaments Office and the Wehrmacht Operations Staff,
and occasionally even Keitel, had considerable doubts about the feasibility
of the operation. Contrary to the impression spread by numerous post-war

publications, in part under Haider's personal influence,53 these doubts,
however, never assumed the form of concrete criticism of the basic ideas
of the approaching campaign. Quite the opposite: Haider himself soon
adopted, at least officially, the strategic ideas of the Caucasus operation.
He told the Navy liaison officer assigned to him that the conquest of the
Caucasus was 'an urgent necessity' as that region had about the same
importance for Germany as Silesia had once had for Prussia: only the
possession of the Caucasus would enable Germany to hold the empire she
had conquered during the war.54
The situation assessments and memoranda submitted by various depart-
ments of the OKH and OKW during the first half of 1942 on the readiness of
the German and the Soviet armies and the Soviet war economy were written
almost without exception in a cautiously optimistic tone.55 They all tended
to emphasise the opportunities of the planned operation more than its risks
and were too often marked by extremely sketchy knowledge of the situation
of the enemy and a lack of the kind of worst-case thinking generally typical of
good military planning.56 Quite obviously uncritical optimism had become
a dogma in German military planning. But while in 1940-^41 it had resulted
from an excessive but subjectively honest feeling of superiority, the situation
in the spring of 1942 was marked by a really compulsive optimism, which
saved Hitler and his military advisers from having to consider the possibility
and the consequences of a failure of their operation.
This fateful inclination resulted from a combination of three circum-
stances: the first was that there actually seemed to be no alternative to
Hitler's operations plan. Neither the 'strategic defensive' perhaps considered
occasionally by some members of the Army General Staff, nor a new drive
towards Moscow, not to mention the global ambitions of the Navy War
Staff,57 offered a solution to the problems of the war economy, which were
becoming more acute with every passing month. With regard to the 'Moscow
option', the Army General Staff was, from a psychological point of view, in
the most unfavourable position imaginable vis-à-vis Hitler: the unsuccessful
operation of the previous year had, after all, been Haider's idea, and the
resulting near-disaster had, so it seemed, been averted only thanks to Hitler's
ruthless orders not to retreat an inch. In view of this situation, the General
Staff had no choice but to either support Hitler's plan for continuing the war
in the East or to argue for a negotiated peace.
The question why they did not take the latter course points to a second
important circumstance: Hitler's operational thinking for 1942 assumed
that the Red Army was at the end of its strength and possessed only
very limited powers of regeneration. It has been generally overlooked by
historians that this fundamental error was based to a considerable degree on
the mistaken information which the OKH, and especially their department
Foreign Armies East, had spread about the enemy during the winter crisis.
When they were forced to correct this assessment in the spring of 1942,58
the decision to conquer the Caucasus had already been taken. In a fatal
reversal of rational decision-making processes, decisions were no longer
determined by unpleasant but unalterable realities; rather, in discussions
and analyses, these realities were presented in such a way as to make them
support supposedly irrevocable decisions.
A third, and perhaps the most important explanation of the forced
optimism in official German assessments of the situation in the East
can be found in the communication structure of the top political and
military authorities of the Third Reich. It was typical of this structure that
within and outside the individual Wehrmacht services there were numerous
staffs and departments with complementary or overlapping functions, but
hardly any intermediary coordinating organs comparable to those which
existed in Britain and the United States in the form of various committees
and subcommittees to smooth out conflicting interests and prepare joint
decisions. While 'horizontal' communication was limited largely to the
small areas of personal contacts and the mutual dependence of individual
departments necessitated by their specific tasks, 'vertical' communication,
that is, with Hitler as the highest and in the final analysis only decision-
maker, became all the more important. A real competition developed
among the armed services for the favour of the 'Führer'. As Hitler was
not interested in studying files or in being systematically informed about
developments, winning his favour was essential to gaining his support for
certain problem solutions and projects. Apart from some basic positions and
unchanging ideological principles, the dictator's decisions could thus indeed
be influenced by skilful and sensitive advisers. This was even more the case
as the number of decisions to be taken increased, Hitler's health declined and
he became increasingly selective in his perception of the realities of the war.
In this situation in the spring of 1942, in spite or perhaps even because of
his doubts about Hitler's abilities as a strategist and about the operational
feasibility of the Caucasus plan, the chief of the Army General Staff believed
himself to be in a good position. Did the situation not offer a new chance,
perhaps the last chance, for the Army High Command to display their
professional superiority? As there was no promising military alternative to

'Operation Blue', did not everything depend on influencing Hitler to take the
right operational decisions? In the General Staff, Haider had at his disposal
the decisive instrument for planning and carrying out the operation. He
probably also hoped to be able to influence Hitler more easily, as his contact
with the 'Führer' had become closer since Brauchitsch's departure and he
was, according to service regulations, Hitler's 'first adviser in all questions
concerning the conduct of the war'. For several months, it seemed that
Haider's hopes would be fulfilled. Not only did the most important parts
of Directive No. 41 5 9 bear his imprint, but Hitler also followed Haider's
advice for the most part in his operational decisions in connection with
the great battles in the spring of 1942, even when, as the tank battle of
Kharkov in May and the dismissal of Field Marshal Bock at the beginning
of July show, they were quite incompatible with the views of the responsible
field commanders.
Paradoxically the convincing operational successes of the spring battles
and the rapid conquest of territory during the first phase of 'Blue' contributed
to the break between Hitler and Haider shortly thereafter. Soon Hitler's
optimism about operational developments in the East was again boundless,
and his growing nervousness about an early landing by the Western Powers
on the Continent caused him to make a fatal mistake. Trying to conquer
the Caucasus oil fields as soon as possible and to bring the war in the
East to at least a temporary halt before the onset of winter, Hitler divided
'Operation Blue' into two parallel offensives: against the Soviet forces west
of the Volga and against the Caucasus.60 This decision, which the Army
General Staff tried in vain to prevent, again made clear the differences
between Hitler's thinking and that of his first adviser. Whereas Haider based
his judgement solely on conclusions derived from the operational situation
in 'his' theatre, these remained for Hitler always secondary to supposedly
overriding strategic necessities. Taking these as his point of orientation
instead of the realities of the battlefield, Hitler rejected at a decisive point
Haider's persistent attempts to bind him to the professional military thinking
of the General Staff. But in contrast to his reaction half a year earlier, Haider
was no longer prepared to accept the responsibility for operationally absurd
decisions of his commander-in-chief. In view of the fact that the German
offensive had achieved a rapid conquest of territory, but not the hoped-for
annihilation of the greater part of the Red Army, Haider was well aware of
the fatal consequences any reduction of the German forces moving to attack
Stalingrad would have, especially as that city was obviously being turned into
a fortress. In the following weeks Haider prepared to resign his commission.
Not the least important reason for his decision was his realisation that it
would no longer be possible to win the war against the Soviet Union, for
the preparation and conduct of which he bore responsibility.
Hitler came to this realisation only at the beginning of September, after

the general stagnation had set in on all sectors of the front. This led
to the 'September crisis',61 whose significance, beyond the formal break
between Hitler and Haider, lies above all in the fact that, as in earlier
crises in 1938 and 1941, it represented a new outbreak of the profound
conflict in relations between Hitler and the traditional military elite. As
in December of the previous year,62 the inner crisis of September 1942
was triggered by an external crisis. Hitler reacted to both in the well-
known fashion: he attempted to master the inner crisis by shifting the
blame, removing inconvenient generals (such as List and Haider) and by

concentrating additional military functions (in this case command of Army
Group 'A') in his own hands; to meet the external crisis he fell back on the
simple 'hold-the-line' tactic which had become basically the only acceptable
form of defensive warfare for him at the latest after the experiences of the
winter of 1941-42. Unlike the position Stalin had taken in his famous Order
No. 227 at the end of July,63 however, Hitler's tactic was not part of a
strategy based on a realistic plan to regain the military initiative. Instead,
his reaction to the dramatically worsening ratio of German to Soviet forces
was nothing more than an expression of his operational incompetence and
the fact that he was at a loss as to what to do. Fully aware of the
second front soon to be expected in the West, he was not able to accept a
second failure of his plans in the East. The ultimate price of this obstinacy
was the loss of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad.
III. THE 'TURNING POINT' OF THE WAR
The imminent disaster in Stalingrad, as the SS Security Service reported, had

'aroused the deepest fears of the entire population'. Moreover, it led to a
lasting change in most Germans' view of the military situation. 'Generally',
the Security Service observed in another report of 4 February 1943, 'the
conviction is to be found that Stalingrad represents a turning point of the
war'.64 It was hardly surprising that the morale of the population had reached
'the lowest point ever'.65 After Stalingrad questions which had long been
ignored had to be answered. Instead of anxious hope, the question was
now: 'How will it all end?' The question 'How long will victory take?' was
replaced by 'How long can we hold out with prospects of ending this war
on favourable terms?'66 Even the 'Führer', who had until then been largely
exempt from direct criticism in spite of his increasingly tarnished image as a
leader, now became a target of discontent.
The psychological effects of Stalingrad in countries allied with Germany
were no less serious than those in the Reich itself. It became very clear that
there, too, the morale of the population was directly dependent on the
success of German arms. In this regard Finland was an especially striking
example. Confidential surveys showed a dramatic decline of expectations of

victory among the Finnish population,67 which stood in sharp contrast to the
repeated declarations of loyalty to Germany by the Finnish government, and
to reports in the Finnish press, which were often characterised by censorship
and self-censorship. The situation in other countries allied with Germany
was similar, especially in those which, like Romania and Hungary, had
themselves suffered the loss of a considerable portion of their armed forces
in the Stalingrad debacle and which, moreover, now had to listen to serious
reproaches and accusations from their German ally. It was therefore not
surprising that in the weeks before and after the surrender of the Sixth
Army in Stalingrad, German diplomats reported frequently 'increasing war
weariness in parts of the Romanian army as well as in the population'68 and
the 'vacillation of influential [Hungarian] circles in regard to their readiness
to continue the war'.69 This change in mood, not entirely unexpected but
nevertheless dramatic and only briefly stopped by the re-stabilisation of the
Eastern Front in the spring of 1943, favoured the efforts undertaken with
varying intensity after Stalingrad by all governments allied with Germany to
persuade the German government to accept a compromise peace, or, in view
of the futility of such efforts, to distance themselves from Germany's policy
of continuing the war.
The fact that the German defeat at Stalingrad was almost unanimously
felt to be a turning point in the war by most contemporaries70 undoubtedly
influenced to some degree the further course of the war itself. Whether or
to what extent this contemporary assessment agrees with the retrospective
judgement of modern historians is, of course, a different question. Indeed,
more recent research in this area has been marked by a strong tendency to
place the turning point in the German conduct of the war not in November
1942 (or even later),71 but already in December 1941, or even in the summer
of that year.72 This development has been due less to the dramatic events of
those months than to the growing realisation, based on a better knowledge
of German sources, that Germany simply did not possess the personnel or
material resources to cope with the expansion of the war, which took place
in the second half of 1941, from a short, regionally limited conflict to a long,
worldwide struggle.73
The discussion about the 'turning point' of the war has, it seems to me,
pushed another, more important question into the background: the question
of whether, with regard to the German conduct of the war, it is possible to
speak of a 'turning point' at all. This term suggests, after all, that at some
point the war took a course fundamentally different from that which it had
taken until then, that is, that at some precise point a war which until then
could still have been won became a war which Germany was bound to
lose. This was not, however, the case. Hitler's extreme war aims, the early
globalisation of the war, the completely unequal distribution of human and
material resources, the American lead in the development of nuclear weapons
and, last but not least, the determination of the Allied great powers not to end
the war which had been forced upon them before they had defeated Germany
— all of these factors taken together clearly show, at least in retrospect, that
the thesis that Germany at some point had a real chance of winning the war
as a whole is untenable.74 It is therefore misleading to speak of Moscow,
Stalingrad or Kursk generally and without qualification as a 'turning point'
of the war.
It is, however, another matter to ask whether the loss of the Sixth Army
on the Volga marked a turning point of the war in the East. There the
Wehrmacht had in fact twice been close to achieving a strategically important
victory. In the autumn of 1941 before Moscow and in the following summer
on the southern section of the front a collapse of organised Soviet resistance,
or even of Stalin's regime itself, had been within the realm of possibility. In
any case, in both instances the outcome was determined by a constellation of
relatively few factors and not by some kind of 'historical necessity'.75 With
its defeat on the Volga the German army in the East also lost irrevocably the
ability to force such potentially decisive battles. The strategic initiative in the
East (and elsewhere) now passed to the other side. In this sense Stalingrad
did indeed represent a 'point of no return'. More precisely, it marked the
culmination of a process of shrinking options to achieve victory in the East.
The most important stages in this process had been the battle of Smolensk
in July 1941 and the resulting halt of the German advance, the failure of
the drive to take Moscow in December 1941, the transfer of much of Soviet
industry farther east, which has been correctly described as an 'economic
Stalingrad',76 and Hitler's decision to divide the forces used in 'Operation
Blue' in July 1942. After each of these events the foundation on which any
German victory in the East would have to be built became weaker and the
number of options smaller. The German defeat at Stalingrad represented the
final military consequence of this development. After Stalingrad there was
no longer any basis for hope of victory in the East. The realisation of this
fact could have led to a change in German war policy. That it did not, but
rather resulted in a further radicalisation of the German conduct of the war
was perhaps the most noteworthy result of the battle on the Volga.
NOTES
*This article was translated from German into English by Dean S. McMurry. It is dedicated to
Klaus-Jürgen Müller (Hamburg) on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
1. The few really important exceptions prove the rule. See, above all, John Erickson, Stalin's
War with Germany. Vol.1: The Road to Stalingrad; Vol.2: The Road to Berlin (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975 and 1983 respectively); Earl F. Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin:
The German Defeat in the East and ibid, (together with Magna E. Bauer), Moscow to
Stalingrad: Decision in the East (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1968 and
1987 respectively). In addition, in spite of its considerable shortcomings, Albert Seaton, The
Russo-German War 1941-45 (London: Arthur Baker, 1971) should be mentioned; see also
the older but still important work by Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia 1941-1945
(London: Macmillan, 1957).
2. On the circumstances under which these studies were written, see Charles B. Burdick,
'Vom Schwert zur Feder. Deutsche Kriegsgefangene im Dienst der Vorbereitung der
amerikanischen Kriegsgeschichtsschreibung über den Zweiten Weltkrieg', Militärgesc-
hichtliche Mitteilungen 2/1971, 69-80.
3. This type of explanation is prominent in almost all accounts written by former German
generals; see pars pro toto Alfred Philippi and Ferdinand Heim, Der Feldzug gegen
Sowjetrußland 1941-1945 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1962).
4. See also the author's research report 'Kriegsgeschichte — Politikgeschichte — Gesellschafts-

geschichte. Der Zweite Weltkrieg in der westdeutschen Historiographie der siebziger und
achtziger Jahre', in Jürgen Rohwer (ed.), Neue Forschungen zum Zweiten Weltkrieg:
Literaturberichte und Bibliographien (Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, in print).
5. The most important exception is the Battle of Stalingrad itself, most aspects of which have
been thoroughly examined. See in this regard, above all, Manfred Kehrig, Stalingrad:
Analyse und Dokumentation einer Schlacht (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1974);
Jürgen Förster, Stalingrad: Risse im Bündnis 1942/43 (Freiburg: Rombach, 1975) and
Geoffrey Jukes, Hitler's Stalingrad Decisions (Berkely, CA: University of California
Press,1985).
6. See especially Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie: Politik und Kriegführung 1940-1941
(Munich: Bernard & Graefe, 2nd ed. 1982).
7. For example, most recently in Hartmut Schustereit, Vabanque: Hitlers Angriff auf die
Sowjetunion 1941 als Versuch, durch den Sieg im Osten den Westen zu bezwingen (Herford
and Bonn: Mittler & Sohn, 1988).
8. Historians still disagree on the question as to whether these aims were limited to a German
hegemony in Europe or rather extended to global domination. See in this regard the
extensive literature references in Gerhard Schreiber, Hitler: Interpretationen 1923-1983
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2nd ed. 1988), pp.280 ff., 362 ff.
9. It is not necessary to discuss here the debate begun recently by Viktor Suworow about
Stalin's alleged intention to attack Germany in 1941, for even if Suworow's thesis should
prove to be true (which does not seem very probable), that would make no difference as
far as Hitler's own motives are concerned. It is certain that the fear of an imminent attack
by the Soviet Union was not one of those motives. See Viktor Suworow, Der Eisbrecher
(Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1989), and also Bianka Pietrow, 'Deutschland im Juni 1941 -ein
Opfer sowjetischer Aggression?', Geschichte und Gesellschaft 14 (1988), 116-35.
10. See Michael Salewski, Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung 1935-1945, Vol.1 (Munich: Bernard
& Graefe, 1970), pp.287 ff.; Karl Dönitz, 'Die Schlacht im Atlantik in der deutschen
Strategie', in Andreas Hillgruber (ed.), Probleme des Zweiten Weltkriegs (Cologne and
Berlin: Kiepenheuer, 1967), pp.159 ff.
11. See Wolfgang Michalka, Ribbentrop und die deutsche Weltpolitik 1933-1940 (Munich:
Fink, 1980), pp.287 ff.
12. See the interesting methodological approach in the study by Omer Bartov, The Eastern
Front, 1941-1945: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (London: Mac-
millan, 1985).
13. Percy E. Schramm (ed.), Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (Wehr-
machtführungsstab) 1940-1945, Vol.1 (Munich: Bernard & Graefe, 1965), p.341 (3
March 1941).
14. Colonel General Halder, Kriegstagebuch: Tägliche Aufzeichnungen des Chefs des Gene-
ralstabes des Heeres 1939-1942 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1962-64). Vol.2, pp.336 ff. (30
March 1941).
15. See here the exhaustive account by Jürgen Förster in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite
Weltkrieg, edited by the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Vol.4 (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Verlagsanstalt 1983), pp.426 ff.; see also Jürgen Förster, 'New Wine in Old Skins? The
Wehrmacht and the War of Weltanschauungen, 1941', in Wilhelm Deist (ed.), The German
Military in the Age of Total War (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1985), pp.304-22.
16. Gerd R. Ueberschär and Wolfram Wette (eds.), 'Unternehmen Barbarossa': Der
deutsche Überfall auf die Sowjetunion 1941: Berichte, Analysen, Dokumente (Paderborn:
Schöningh, 1984), p.314 (doc. 8).
17. Ibid., p.339 (doc. 20); see also Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 4,
pp.1049 ff.
18. See the thorough study by Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Truppe
des Weltanschauungskrieges: Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD
1938-1942 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1981).
19. Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen
1941-194S (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1978); Alfred Streim, Die Behandlung
sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener im 'Fall Barbarossa'. Eine Dokumentation (Heidelberg:
C.F. Müller, 1981).

20. Kriegstagebuch des OKW, Vol.I, p.1021 (doc. 69); Adolf Hitler: Monologe im Führer-
hauptquartier 1941-1944: Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims, edited by Werner
Jochmann (Hamburg: Knaus, 1980), pp.39, 93; Halder, Kriegstagebuch, Vol.3, p.53.
21. For a new general account, see Matthew Cooper, The Phantom War: The German Struggle
against Soviet Partisans 1941-1944 (London: Macdonald and Jane's, 1979); see also the
important contribution by Bernd Bonwetsch, 'Sowjetische Partisanen 1941-1944', in
Gerhard Schulz (ed.), Partisanen und Volkskrieg: Zur Revolutionierung des Kriegs im
20: Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Reprecht, 1985), pp.92-124.
22. In addition to the somewhat older works by Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm and David Kahn there
are several new studies of the German intelligence service on the Eastern front; see Michael
Geyer, 'National Socialist Germany: The Politics of Information', in Ernest R. May (ed.),
Knowing One's Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp.310-46; David Thomas, 'Foreign Armies East
and German Military Intelligence in Russia 1941-45', Journal of Contemporary History 22
(April 1987), 261-301 ; Bernd Wegner, 'The Tottering Giant: German Perceptions of Soviet
Military and Economic Strength in Preparation for Operation Blau, 1942', in Christopher
Andrew and Jeremy Noakes (eds.), Intelligence and International Relations 1900-1945
(Exeter: University of Exeter 1987), pp.293-311.
23. For example, in the otherwise excellent works of Earl F. Ziemke (see note 1 above).
24. Walther Hubatsch (ed.), Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung 1939-1945 (Koblenz:
Bernard & Graefe, second edition, 1983), pp.84 ff. By far the most thorough analysis
of the military preparations for 'Barbarossa' is to be found in Das Deutsche Reich
und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol.4, pp. 190-326. See also the concise analysis by Jürgen
Förster, 'The Dynamics of Volksgemeinschaft: The Effectiveness of the German Military
Establishment in the Second World War', in Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray,
Military Effectiveness (Boston, MA: Allen & Unwin 1988), Vol.III, especially pp.199
25. Halder, Kriegstagebuch, Vol.3, p.38 (3 July 1941).
26. Kriegstagebuch OKW, Vol.1, p.1020 (doc. 67).
27. See Andreas Hillgruber, Der Zenit des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Juli 1941 (Wiesbaden: Steiner,
1977).
28. Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung, pp.136 ff. (doc. 32 b). Thorough analyses of the
reorientation of armaments production in the summer of 1941 can be found in Dietrich
Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1939-1945, Vol.II (Berlin, GDR:
Akademie-Verlag, 1985), pp.11 ff., and in Rolf-Dieter Müller in Das Deutsche Reich und
der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol.5/I, pp.567 ff.
29. Two recent studies give an idea of the gigantic organisational problems and achievements
of the Soviet leadership in those first critical months of the war: Mark Harrison, Soviet
Planning in Peace and War 1938-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985);
Klaus Segbers, Die Sowjetunion im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Die Mobilisierung von Verwaltung,
Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im 'Großen Vaterländischen Krieg' 1941-1943 (Munich:
Oldenbourg, 1987).
30. The first to describe this conflict in detail was Bernhard R. Kroener in Das Deutsche
Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol.5/I, pp.871 ff.; for a summary see ibid., 'Squaring
the Circle. Blitzkrieg Strategy and Manpower Shortage 1939-1942', in Deist (ed.), The
German Military, pp.282-303.
31. See the account by Ernst Klink in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol.4,
pp.496 ff.
32. On the political and strategic significance of the battle of Smolensk, see Andreas Hillgruber,
'Die Bedeutung der Schlacht von Smolensk in der zweiten Juli-Hälfte 1941 für den Ausgang
des Ostkriegs', in ibid., Die Tierstörung Europas: Beiträge zur Weltkriegsepoche 1914 bis
1945 (Frankfurt a.M. and Berlin: Propyläen, 1988), pp.296-312.
34. Directive No.34 of 30 July 1941, printed in Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung, pp.145
35. See the new study by Klaus A. Friedrich Schüler, Logistik im Rußlandfeldzug (Frankfurt
a.M. and Bern: Peter Lang, 1987), pp.308 ff.

36. See 'Ergänzung der Weisung 34' of 12 Aug. 1941, in Hitlers Weisungen für die
Kriegführung, pp.148 ff.
37. See the memorandum of the army leadership of 18 Aug. 1941: 'Vorschlag für die
Fortführung der Operation der Heeresgruppe Mitte im Zusammenhang mit den Opera-
tionen der Heeresgruppen Süd und Nord', printed in Kriegstagebuch OKW, Vol.1, pp.1055
38. Halder, Kriegstagebuch, Vol.3, p.254 (26 Sept. 1941).

39. Klaus Reinhardt, Die Wende vor Moskau: Das Scheitern der Strategie Hitlers im Winter
1941/42 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1972), pp.146 ff.; Schüler, Logistik, pp.410
ff.
40. See Memorandum of the chief of the Army General Staff of 7 Nov. 1941 (Bundesarchiv-
Militärarchiv: RH 20-4/279).
41. This conflict was very evident at a General Staff conference in Orsha on 13 Nov. 1941.
See Reinhardt, Wende vor Moskau, pp.135 ff., 139 ff., and Das Deutsche Reich und der
Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol.4, pp.589 ff.
42. A detailed account of the objectives and course of 'Operation Blue' will be available in the
near future in my contribution to Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol.6.
44. Kriegstagebuch OKW, Vol.1, pp.1072-3 (doc. 105); Andreas Hillgruber (ed.), Staats-
männer und Diplomaten bei Hitler, Vol.1 (Frankfurt a.M.: Bernard & Graefe, 1967),
p.629.
45. Bundesarchiv-Militärchiv: RH 2/427 and RH 2/429.
46. For example, in his conversation with Marshal Mannerheim on 4 June 1942; see Carl G.
Mannerheim, Erinnerungen (Zurich: Atlantis, 1952), pp.482 ff.
47. Testimony of General Field Marshal Paulus, quoted in Der Prozeß gegen die Hauptkriegs-
verbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof (Nuremberg: International Military
Tribunal, 1947), Vol.VII, p.290.
48. Various measures were connected with this decision: a new shift of priorities in
armaments, a reorganisation of armaments production (under Albert Speer), more
intensive exploitation of occupied areas, increased mobilisation of the military and
economic potential of Germany's allies, etc.
49. Gamelin's memorandum of 22 Feb. 1940, in: Auswärtiges Amt, Weißbuch Nr. 6: Die
Geheimakten des französischen Generalstabs (Berlin: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1941),
p.50 (doc. 22).
50. On the origins and content of this planning, see Helmut Heiber (ed.), 'Generalplan Ost',
Verteljahreshfte für Zeitgeschichte 6 (1958), 281-325.
51. Quoted in Bernd Wegner, Hitler's Politische Soldaten: die Waffen-SS 1933-1945 (Pader-
born: Schöningh, third edition, 1988), p.48 (English edition: The Waffen-SS, Oxford:
Blackwell, 1990, p.23).
52. Quoted in ibid.
53. See Haider's own book Hitler als Feldherr (Munich: Dom-Verlag, 1949), pp.48-9; the
book by Adolf Heusinger, Befehl im Widerstreit (Tübingen: Wunderlich, 2nd ed. 1957),
pp. 176 ff. is another good example of this tendency.
54. Letter of the Naval Liaison Officer attached to the Army General Staff of 4 April 1942
(Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv: RM7/259).
55. See, above all, the memoranda of the department Foreign Armies East (Fremde Heere Ost) :
'Die personelle Wehrleistungsfähigkeit der UdSSR" of 23 March 1942; the War Economy
and Armament Office ( Wehrtvirtschafts- und Rüstungsamt) : 'Die wehrwirtschaftliche Lage
der UdSSR Anfang des Jahres 1942' of 31 March 1942, and the Wehrmacht Operations
Staff (Wehrmachtführungsstab): 'Wehrkraft der Wehrmacht im Frühjahr 1942' of 6 June
1942 (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv: RH 2/1924, Wi/ID 138 and RM 7/395.
56. In more detail, see author's article 'The Tottering Giant' (note 22 above).
57. See Salewski, Seekriegsleitung, Vol.11, pp.72 ff.
58. See especially the memorandum submitted by the department Foreign Armies East,
'Gedanken über die vermutete Kampfkraft der sowjetischen Armee bei Winterbeginn
1942', of 28 June 1942 (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv: RH 2/932).
59. Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung, pp. 183 ff.

60. Directive No.45 of 23 July 1942, printed in ibid., pp.196 ff.
61. For a critical analysis of this crisis, see Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg,
Vol.6, soon to be published.
62. On the 'December crisis', see ibid., Vol.4, pp.605 ff.; on the function of crises in
Hitler's system of rule, see also Reinhard Stumpf, Die Wehrmacht-Elite. Rang- und
Herkunftsstruktur der deutschen Generale und Admírale 1933-1945 (Boppard a.RH.:
Boldt, 1982), pp.303 ff.
63. Printed in Voenno Istoricheskii Zhumal 1988, No.8, pp.73 ff.
64. Heinz Boberach (ed.), Meldungen aus dem Reich 1938-1945: Die geheimen Lageberichte
des Sicherheitsdiensts der SS (Herrsching: Pawlak, 1984), Vol.12, pp.4720 (28 Jan. 1943)
and 4751 (4 Feb. 1943).
65. Quoted in Ian Kershaw, Der Hitler-Mythos: Volksmeinung und Propaganda im Dritten
Reich (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1980), p.168.
66. Meldungen aus dem Reich, Vol.12, pp.4784 (11 Feb. 1943) and 4761 (8 Feb. 1943).
67. See Eino Jutikkala, 'Mielialojen Kirjo jatkosodan aikana', in Eero Kuparinen (ed.), Studia
Historica in Honorem Vilho Niitemaa (Ekenäs, Finland: Turun Historiallinen Yhdistys,
1987), pp.131ff., 145ff.
68. Report of the German general attached to the High Command of the Romanian armed
forces (5 March 1943), quoted in Förster, Stalingrad, p.138 (Annex 1).
69. Report of 17 Feb. 1943 from the German minister in Budapest to the Foreign Ministry,
Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik 1918-1945, series E, Vol.v (Göttingen: Vanden-
hoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), p.237 (doc.136).
70. Haider's successor as chief of the Army, General Staff, General Zeitzler, also gave his
unpublished account of the battle of Stalingrad the subtitle 'Der Wendepunkt des Krieges'
(Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv: N 220/126).
71. Walter Hubatsch, for example, saw the year 1943 as 'the culminating year of the war'. See
his thoughts in this regard in Kriegstagebuch OKW, Vol.III, pp.1487 ff.
72. See also Jürgen Rohwer and Eberhard Jäckel (eds.), Kriegswende Dezember 1941
(Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 1984).
73. This is also the conclusion reached in the most recent studies, based on an enormous
wealth of material, by Hans Umbreit, Bernhard R. Kroener and Rolf-Dieter Müller in
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol.5/I, pp.1003-16.
74. For a summary of the main arguments, see Alan J. Levine, 'Was World War II a Near-run
Thing?', Journal of Strategic Studies 8 (March 1985), 38-63.
75. See Jakushevsky's account in Voenno Istoricheskii Zhumal, 1982, No.12, pp.41 ff.
76. A.M. Belikov, 'Transfert de l'industrie Soviétique vers l'Est (juin 1941-1942)', Revue
d'Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale 11 (1961), No.43, p.48.

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Journal of Strategic Studies

The road to defeat: The

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was due primarily to Hitler's dilettantism, combined with unfavourable

no other campaign provided such numerous and clear examples of National

I. 'BARBAROSSA* - THE FIRST CAMPAIGN

additions and modifications, have been essentially confirmed by more recent

attention, even in more recent studies, by British and American historians.23

High Command. These basic directives determined German objectives in

surface the victory in the battle of Smolensk appeared to be another great

failure, for it was based on a mistaken estimate of the possibilities open to

II. 'OPERATION BLUE' - THE SECOND CAMPAIGN

objectives. This impression is strengthened by the fact that the push to

of the operation. Contrary to the impression spread by numerous post-war

professional superiority? As there was no promising military alternative to

Hitler came to this realisation only at the beginning of September, after

blame, removing inconvenient generals (such as List and Haider) and by

III. THE 'TURNING POINT' OF THE WAR

The imminent disaster in Stalingrad, as the SS Security Service reported, had

example. Confidential surveys showed a dramatic decline of expectations of

4. See also the author's research report 'Kriegsgeschichte — Politikgeschichte — Gesellschafts-

C.F. Müller, 1981).

a.M. and Bern: Peter Lang, 1987), pp.308 ff.

38. Halder, Kriegstagebuch, Vol.3, p.254 (26 Sept. 1941).

59. Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung, pp. 183 ff.

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