Re: Operation Barbarossa - 68th Anniversary

I agree.

If you want to be pedantic about.  There were no reserves to back up the
attack.

I agree.

Actually, what causes "great reactions" is
someone misquoting and misinterpreting
Tooze's work.

If Germany committed _100%_ of its armed forces
to the Eastern Front, then who was Afrika Korps?
Who were the garrison forces in the Balkans,
western Europe, and Norway?

Who manned the U-boats, and the thousands of
minecraft, tenders, and patrol boats operating
on the west coast of Europe and in Greece?

Who flew the Kondors that bombed Allied
convoys in the Atlantic, and the nachtjagers
that intercepted British bombers over Germany?

They couldn't have been Germans, because
Tooze, who is infallible, has stated that

"the Germans had already conscripted virtually
all their prime manpower."

That of course clearly means that all German
forces were sent to the Eastern Front. Well,
actually, it says absolutely nothing about
where the German armed forces were deployed.

Anyone who thinks it does has reading
comprehension issues. The problem is not
Tooze. It is someone who can't understand
Tooze.

I would largely agree with that, with reservations. The T-34 started the
reverse of the German Army, the German Army would have petered out anyway. I
have been Googling this group, a book by Tooze causes great reactions.  I
read it and found it revealing indeed, especially on the German invasion of
the USSR.

It commited 100%. There was no reserves.
Tooze, Page 452:
"the Germans had already conscripted virtually all their prime manpower. By
contrast, the Red Army could call up millions of reservists."

It was not.
Tooze - Page 431:
"the strongest arguments for rushing to conquer the Soviet Union in 1941
were precisely the growing shortage of grain and the need to knock Britain
out of the war before it could pose a serious air threat."

"Meanwhile, the rest of the German military-industrialised complex began to
gird itself for the aerial confrontation with Britain and America."

The US was to make 50,000 planes a year with UK production on top and much
of these planes in the hands of the UK.  Germany did not have a cat in hells
chance of matching this level of production, with UK & US being new modern
designs as well, against a now increasingly outdated Luftwaffe.  They
thought they could crush the USSR in months and turn to the UK before the
planes came on line in mid 1942.

In June 1941, German industry was geared to producing more planes not land
army equipment in preparation for the coming air war with the UK. They wound
down army production.

Page 454:
"The existing Russian rail infrastructure, even if it had been captured
intact, was insufficient to support the German army.  As a rule of thumb,
the German logistical experts liked to assign at least one high capacity
railway line to each army sized unit.  But for the 10 armies that invaded
the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht was able to assign only three main railway
lines, one for each army group."

Further up the page he writes:
"the retreating Red Army became extremely proficient at evacuating rolling
stock and sabotaging bridges, tracks and other railway installations."

This means the German Army was not going to be supplied properly even if the
rail system was taken intact, and very poorly in real shooting war, to
compound matters

On the same page:
"Critical stores would be reserved above all for the main strike force of 33
tank and motorised infantry divisions.  If the battle extended much beyond
the first months of the attack, the fighting power of the rest of the German
army would dwindle rapidly."

"Fundamentally the Wehrmacht was a "poor army".  The fast striking motorised
element of the Germans army in 1941 consisted of only 33 divisions of 130.
Three-quarters of the German army continued to rely on more traditional
means of traction: foot and horse.  The German army in 1941 invaded the
Soviet Union with somewhere between 600,000 and 740,000 horses.  The horses
were not for riding.  They were for moving guns, ammunition and supplies."

"The vast majority of Germany's soldiers marched into Russia, as they had in
France, on foot."

"But to imagine a fully motorised Wehrmacht, poised for an attack on the
Soviet Union is a fantasy of the Cold War, not a realistic vision of the
possibilities of 1941. To be more specific, it is an American fantasy. The
Anglo-American invasion force of 1944 was the only military force in WW2 to
fully conform to the modern model of a motorised army."

Page 455:
"the chronic shortage of fuel and rubber"

"the fuel shortage of 1941 was so expected to be so severe that the
Wehrmacht was seriously considering demotorisation as a way of reducing its
dependency on scarce oil."

"Everything therefore depended on the assumption that the Red Army would
crack under the impact of the first decisive blow."

Page 456:
"a new Soviet industrial base to the east of the Urals, which had the
capacity to sustain a population of at least 40 million people."

"Soviet industrial capacity was clearly very substantial."

"Franz Halder recorded Hitler's ruminations about the Soviets' immense stock
of tanks and aircraft."

Reading further Tooze gives the misgivings of the German generals of the
invasion. All were negative.

Page 457:
"Halder noted in his diary: Barbarossa: purpose not clear, We do not hurt
the English. Our economic base is not significantly improved."

At the top of page 459 Tooze emphasises that Hitler misinterpreted Backe's
comments about the Ukraine grain. A region that had little surplus and had a
substantial population increase from WW1.

Page 459:
"On 22 January 1941 Thomas had informed his boss, Keitel, that he was
planning to submit a report urging caution with regard to the
military-economic benefits of the invasion. Now he reversed directions. As
it became clear that Hitler was justifying Barbarossa first and foremost as
a campaign of economic conquest, Thomas began systematically working towards
the Fuehrer."

Thomas was head of the OKW economic planning staff. He modified his reports
from negative to positive, presenting the Ukraine as an economic
breadbasket. Thomas was an insider and it is assumed he had heard of the
misinterpreted Backe's comments to Hitler.

Page 459:
"The OKW now claimed that in the first thrust the Wehrmacht would be able to
seize control of at least 70% of the Soviet Union's industrial potential."

Page 460:
"As late as the Spring of 1941, the Foreign Ministry was still opposing the
coming war, preferring to continue the alliance with the Soviet Union
against the British Empire."

"If the shock of the initial assault does not destroy Stalin's regime, it
was evident in February 1941 that the Third Reich would find itself facing a
strategic disaster."

Page 452:
"the Germans had already conscripted virtually all their prime manpower. By
contrast, the Red Army could call up millions of reservists."

Why did Germany invade the USSR in a rushed ill-conceived plan?  Madmen!

Since today marked the 68th Anniversary of Nazi Germany's attack on
the then Soviet Union (SU) it might be interesting to review info re.
this huge surprise attack especially since it changed the nature of
WW2 and started the Eastern war where Germany committed 65% - 75% of
its armed forces. The attack was launched for ideological reasons -
crush a Socialist ideology state and gain lebensraum where the Slavic
people became virtual serfs under Nazi occupation.

The major significance of Operation Barbarossa was:

1  This was the largest Theater operation in WW2 & history - almost 3
million men (some historians claim 4.5 million)  in the German & its
allied armies were in the invasion along a 1800 mile front reaching
from the Baltic Sea almost to the black Sea.

2 Largest till then armored forces involved (mobile on German side)
mostly static on SU

3  Largest Luftwaffe operation and huge Soviet Air force airples
destroyed but mostly on the ground

4 First major defeat for the Wehrmacht in WW2 -  its attack being
checked on the approaches to Moscow, then pushed back by a SU counter-
offensive

5 After Barbarossa Wehrmacht forced to transition from Blitzkreig to a
war of attrition loosing its edge.