While undoubtedly still very cold, well-clothed Red Army infantry march across open terrain. In these near whiteout conditions the horizon where earth and sky meet is indistinguishable. (Elukka)
Army Group North
Whether Army Group North could have conquered Leningrad is unknown; Hitler ordered von Leeb’s men to halt short of the city. Throughout the campaign, practically every time the army group, and more specifically Hoepner’s panzers, was on the brink of success a higher headquarters halted them for the infantry or logistics to catch up. These pauses resulted in a fatal loss of momentum that allowed the Soviet forces time to recover.
As a result of losing the Byzantine battle for influence within Führer Headquarters over sending Guderian to Army Group South, Halder dug in his heels against sending Hoth’s panzers north to von Leeb. Halder’s “victory” undermined Barbarossa in the north. The decision to halt von Leeb outside of Leningrad doubtless saved his men from desperate and bitter urban warfare, but investing Leningrad tied down too great a proportion of the army group’s strength and left it with no reserves.
Although in command at Leningrad for less than a month, Zhukov arrived at the critical point. He conducted an active defense, fired weak commanders, and forbade further retreat. For their part, the German forces were never able to completely seal off the city from the rest of the USSR. Bombing Lake Ladoga’s winter ice in order to cut the supply road, for example, was an exercise in futility; Soviet truck drivers easily drove around any holes, which re-froze quickly. Even Spanish dictator Franco took better care to feed and clothe his Guripas than Hitler did his Landsers.
In common with other commanders von Leeb wielded an imperfect weapon. In his case he labored with an undersized contingent of panzers. At one point two-thirds of the Ostheer’s infantry divisions considered significantly under-strength belonged to him. Logistically von Leeb was supposed to receive 34 supply trains per day but never took delivery of more than 18.
The VIII Fliegerkorps commander von Richthofen was very critical of von Leeb’s campaign. The Luftwaffe flew without rest throughout the battles in the north: it supported the advance to the Dvina River, attacked Kronshtadt and Murmansk naval bases and mined numerous harbors, attacked the Stalin Line and the White Sea (Stalin) Canal, supported the Staraya Russa defense and counterattack, the advance on Leningrad, amphibious operations against the Baltic Islands, and the defense at Tikhvin, all the while interdicting Soviet rail lines throughout the theater. The Red Army Air Force and its antiaircraft artillery ruled the skies over the city while “almost the entire generation of [Luftwaffe] prewar trained officers was lost in combat.”32
Nevertheless Army Group North began the invasion very well; in fact Führer Headquarters viewed its initial reports with disbelief. But von Leeb could not manage conflicting reports from below and orders from above. Mismanaged victories, such as at Dünaburg, were frequent. Neither was von Leeb the right man to command the Leningrad effort during the leadership vacuum represented by the Hitler–Halder duel in mid-summer. Von Leeb eventually received two panzer corps from Hoth, separated in time and space. Lacking the mass of a similar reorganization sending Guderian southward, the impact of the additional panzers on Army Group North was significantly less. The former maneuver created the largest encirclement battle in history while the latter is nearly forgotten.
In Finland the Axis tried in vain to fight an effective campaign in a poorly-resourced strategic backwater. Von Falkenhorst constantly worried about Hitler’s emphasis on defending Norway and fought with too little directed from too far away. Hitler had no respect for the 50 miles Dietl had to cover to reach Murmansk. Mannerheim’s Finns outclassed the Soviet troops at every turn but were not fighting a war of world domination like Germany.
Finland always had limited objectives for the war and Mannerheim took a dim view of the German forces’ demonstrated weakness in front of Leningrad. When the Red Army drove Army Group North away from Tikhvin and Volkhov after only a month, the prospect of the two “co-belligerents” linking up receded even further. In the final analysis, the Wehrmacht’s half measures at Tikhvin and Volkhov only drained valuable resources from the Ostheer’s Moscow Schwerpunkt. More German resources employed earlier might have made a union on the Svir River a reality. The possibility of Finland fighting an unlimited war completely changes the complexion of Barbarossa in the north but properly belongs in the contra-historical category.
Approximately 30 miles west of Moscow, reasonably well-clothed German infantry present a contrast with the usual image. A number of photographs of men from SS Reich, in the Istra river sector during the mid-November actions against Rokossovsky’s 16th Army, show them wearing white hooded smocks and trousers as well as the more common, long, snow-camouflage coats. Such clothing would not become general issue until the second winter of the Nazi–Soviet War. Right up to the gates of Moscow, Paul Hausser’s men could be found in the thick of the fighting at von Bock’s center. (Podzun)
The poor leadership of first Kuznetsov and then Voroshilov presented von Leeb with every opportunity to succeed in the early going. While the Red Army may have collapsed along the northern front, the Soviet state held strong everywhere; Stalin’s USSR was internally stable. The Northwest Front may not have halted Army Group North, but it did cause von Leeb to swerve more than once. Counterattacks at Soltsy and Staraya Russa might have failed tactically or even operationally but succeeded on the strategic level.
The battle for Leningrad magnified differences in leadership on both sides. Von Leeb could not focus his strength on a single, decisive Schwerpunkt. Across the frontlines however, Zhukov brought superior command to bear. Even though the German troops cut off Leningrad from overland communication with Russia eight days before Zhukov’s arrival this did not signify the end of the city’s struggle. The fact that Leningrad did not surrender when basically surrounded (and never would surrender) was probably a bad omen for Germans hoping Moscow would soon give up. Both huge cities were central to the Soviet state and cities they would die fighting for.
Von Leeb told the postwar Nuremberg tribunal he “hardly hoped ever to reach the gates of Leningrad.” General Günter Blumentritt, writing after the war, compared Hitler’s decision to halt before taking the city to a similar decision at Dunkirk 16 months earlier. Blumentritt believed that Leningrad “probably would have fallen.” However, as Hitler would do weeks later when he declared the battle for Moscow over following the twin encirclements at Viazma and Bryansk, Hitler declared victory too soon.
Field Marshal von Leeb conducted a flawed campaign. His own plan did not take into account the fact that with such a small panzer group its only hope of encircling and destroying major portions of the Red Army would be to trap the enemy against the Baltic Sea. As he said later he had “very limited experience in the use of panzer formations on a large scale.” This was quite obvious as at numerous critical junctures he halted Hoepner or refused to accept risks essential to blitzkrieg success. He failed to stand up to his higher headquarters’ demands that he divide Fourth Panzer Group into non-mutually supporting corps. As Army Group North commander the lion’s share of its failings rests on von Leeb’s shoulders.
Army Group Center
Von Bock’s army group began the invasion with almost every advantage, while Pavlov’s West Front could hardly have been in a worse position. In a matter of days von Bock’s men had trapped a third of a million Red Army soldiers at Minsk. Two weeks later they were on the verge of closing another, larger, and more significant Kessel at Smolensk. Everywhere, Soviet countermeasures came up short due to a combination of effects.
Nazi poster comparing POW totals for World War I, the Polish Western and Balkan campaigns of World War II, as well as during the first four months of Barbarossa. Unfortunately for them, massive numbers of POWs did not equate to strategic victory over the USSR. (Corbis)
The drive on Moscow looked unstoppable. However, Moscow did not rate high on the list of Barbarossa’s objectives. In the various campaign orders, in Hitler’s pronouncements, and in other pertinent documents Stalin’s capital is mentioned almost as an afterthought. Consistent with the Prussian-German orientation on the destruction of the enemy, the Ostheer concentrated on exterminating the Red Army.
All did not go perfectly for Army Group Center, but initial successes concealed Barbarossa’s flaws from both combatants and the wider world. Logistics represented a limiting factor from its earliest days. Various Kessels took longer and required more mechanized forces to reduce than planners expected. Leaders like Guderian pursued individual goals. Organizations like Third Panzer Group were expected to accomplish too much relative to its resources: to continue the advance eastward, reduce encirclements and close the northern flank with von Leeb.
Many German generals at the time thought in terms of taking Moscow, chief among them Franz Halder. But even he was far from consistent in this as he changed his mind often. Many commentators have taken the German leadership to task for not capturing the city. While taking the enemy’s capital has the false ring of sound military judgment, there is no proof that occupying Moscow would have led directly to the collapse of the USSR shopworn clichés about the “seat of centralized Soviet power” or the “hub of the Soviet transportation net” notwithstanding.
In fact, it seems clear that the closer the German forces got to Moscow the more Barbarossa lost its compass. After Smolensk they surrendered the initiative in the center to regain it on the flanks. Guderian’s turn south reaped a huge harvest at Kiev. The half measure of sending only part of Hoth’s Third Panzer north did not have nearly the same impact.
Meanwhile, first Timoshenko and later Zhukov gladly picked up the initiative dropped by the German commanders. Their counterattacks achieved little more than the temporary liberation of Yelnia; a place it turns out not that essential to the assault on Moscow, and, therefore, not justifying costly German efforts to hold it.
On the eve of Typhoon Goebbels thought Hitler looked healthy, full of confidence and energy. By this time both dictators knew Japan would not enter their war. The speed and ferocity of the final assault surprised the Soviet leadership once again. However, first exhaustion and logistic weakness, and then the rasputitsa terminally slowed the advance. On October 8 Hitler hinted at a speech to Party faithful at Munich’s Löwenbraükeller that the war in the east might even last until 1942. With the Kremlin practically in sight Hitler diluted the Moscow offensive by attacking Voronezh and stripped away much of von Bock’s air support in favor of the north African sideshow. During Typhoon the Soviet defense crumbled as before but it did not devolve into a confused rout. As Timoshenko told the Supreme Defense Council:
If Germany succeeds in taking Moscow that is obviously a grave disappointment for us, but it by no means disrupts our grand strategy; that alone will not win [them] the war.
As throughout Barbarossa, at Moscow the Red Army took advantage of every German pause and weakness.
For more than two years, through the battles of Viazma–Bryansk, the German forces had prevailed everywhere they chose to create a Schwerpunkt. However, in November and December 1941, it was not to be; the Germans failed this time. Barbarossa’s weaknesses, principally the failure to set clear objectives east of Dnepr–Dvina River line, lack of consensus among the national leadership, sanguine planning, and simply the realities of a relatively small country (allied with even smaller countries) invading the world’s largest nation all conspired to bog down the campaign at this late date. When these factors are balanced against the ruthless Soviet leadership, the tenacious never-say-die Red Army defense, terrible weather and terrain, plus a new and talented generation of generals led by Zhukov, one can see that the German forces had to perform flawlessly if they were to win in Russia.
The Germans seriously underestimated the Communist Party’s ability to mobilize the Soviet population to repel the invader. Here men and women dig an antitank ditch in front of Moscow. (Elukka)
Army Group South
Of the three army groups von Rundstedt’s came closest to achieving its Barbarossa goals: it crossed the Dnepr, occupied most of the agrarian and industrial areas of the Ukraine, neutralized the Crimea as a threat to Rumanian oil, captured over 1 million Red Army troops, and killed again as many. As with the rest of Barbarossa, all of these operational victories did not equal strategic victory over the USSR. After five months the Führer had driven the army group’s commander into temporary retirement, begun to micromanage even the smallest frontline units, and handed the German generals their biggest defeat since 1806.
Battles on the frontier were brutal. Von Reichenau mismanaged the First Panzer Group (initially under Sixth Army control) from the time it was jammed-up behind the German start line until von Kleist received his freedom of action on June 26. Kirponos counterattacked but could not concentrate his mechanized corps. With his riposte at an end both armies raced east to see which one would occupy the Stalin Line first. Von Kleist’s panzers did and they soon reached the gates of Kiev. But so far Kirponos had avoided encirclement and destruction plus kept Army Group South behind schedule. This permitted Stavka to reinforce the Western and Reserve Fronts fighting on the Moscow axis.
While the Soviet military leaders expected von Rundstedt to turn northeast against their capital at any time (many German commanders expected the same thing), instead he pivoted his panzers southward to Uman. Kirponos had too few tanks left after the frontier battles to halt such a maneuver. In place of a modest Kessel at Vinnitsa the Seventeenth Army and First Panzer scored a major victory at Uman, the army group’s first significant encirclement. The victory was tarnished, however, when von Kleist lost time clearing the Dnepr bend instead of racing for bridgeheads over the massive river. As Paulus wrote after the war, securing these crossings “proved to be very prolonged and costly.”
On the far south flank the Eleventh Army and two Rumanian armies moved out along the Black Sea coast. Some German units had marched all the way from Greece. Soldiers of the Rumanian Mountain Corps marched “barefoot for two or three weeks.” By mid-August, however, they achieved von Rundstedt’s first operational objective when they encircled Odessa.
Von Reichenau on the army group’s extreme left continued to struggle. The Sixth Army had won no big victories, was stuck near the Rokitno Marshes against the pesky 5th Army and watched as First Panzer and Seventeenth Army grabbed all the glory. Hitler blamed many of the army group’s delays on “that egoist von Reichenau” and Halder likewise never forgave him.
Some Soviet armies migrated to their destruction inside the trap while Stavka ordered others to die in place there. The Kiev battle had four phases: 1) securing bridgeheads over the Dnepr and Desna rivers, August 21 – September 9; 2) pushing toward Lokhvitsa, September 4–16; 3) fighting for Kiev proper, September 13–19; and 4) clearing the pocket, September 14–27.
A Ukrainian woman laments the destruction of her village. Civilians paid a brutal toll during the fighting all around them. (NARA)
The issue of the Kiev encirclement is one of the most contentious of Operation Barbarossa and indeed World War II. Many see forfeiting the potential capture of Moscow as the worst example of Hitler’s desire for the quick reward in an ultimately futile operational-level conquest. Two facts support the German leaders’ actual course of action: 1) the simultaneous threat to von Bock’s left and von Rundstedt’s right posed by unvanquished enemy forces ignored at Kiev and around the Rokitno Marches and 2) the resilience and will to survive of the USSR. Soviet plans to continue fighting beyond the potential loss of Moscow are well documented. The real issue surrounding Kiev is a month wasted on indecision and bureaucratic infighting within the German leadership.
Army Group South suffered a serious dispersion of effort following Kiev. It gave von Bock’s drive on Moscow nine divisions, including two panzer and two motorized. Luftflotte 4 likewise could not concentrate but supported the Crimean operation and pursuit to the Don, fought the Black Sea Fleet, and interdicted Soviet railroads and rear areas. It expected 724 trains to reach its bases on the Dnepr in September but received only 195. Von Rundstedt’s troops in the field starved while five trains per day shipped food from the “Ukrainian breadbasket” back to the Reich. Soviet recuperative powers continued to amaze the German leaders.
Meanwhile, on October 21 the OKH vainly ordered the Sixth Army to Voroshilovgrad, the Seventeenth to Stalingrad, and the First Panzer to Maikop! Even refueled with oil siphoned off the Baku–Stalino pipeline von Kleist barely made it to Rostov. Timoshenko fortified the resurrected Soviet defenses there, looked for any opportunity to sting the German troops and chased von Kleist back to the Mius River. Within a week the momentum switched back to the Red Army, Hitler cashiered von Rundstedt and Barbarossa ended on the southern wing.
Within strategic and political constraints first Kirponos and Tyulenev and later Timoshenko worked defensive wonders in the Ukraine. Nevertheless von Rundstedt’s men performed masterfully. His army group alone conquered an area larger than France. It is appropriate to quote at length his Order of the Day for August 15, following the battle of Uman:
… I am proud to stand at the head of an army group whose troops execute all their tasks with the highest devotion and battle readiness and meet the enemy in fierce daily combat… I repeatedly express my thanks and unreserved appreciation for all those outstanding efforts… However, the campaign has not yet been won. We must keep pressure on the enemy and allow him no quarter, for he has many more reserves than we… I request that all command authorities find the means to create short recuperation breaks for their exhausted formations, during which they can be removed from the front and, for one day get the rest they need. During these recuperation breaks don’t harass the troops with training. They should get their fill of sleep, dedicate time for personal hygiene and mending clothes and equipment, and if possible, further refresh themselves with increased rations…
Personnel losses were horrendous. One fifth of the German casualties were killed in action while another 5 percent went missing. The remaining three-quarters were wounded who might eventually return to duty or were POWs. The figures given below detail the damage caused to the Southern and Southwestern Fronts by the III Panzer Corps plus von Mackensen’s own losses:
III Panzer Corps Losses
Theater, dates |
Soviet POWs |
Tanks Dest/Capt |
Guns Dest/Capt |
KIA (Off) |
MIA (Off) |
WIA (Off) |
Frontier, June 22–July 10 |
14,500 |
868 |
472 |
806 (65) |
388 (3) |
2,426 (124) |
Kiev, July 11–22 |
16,800 |
932 |
622 |
1,294 (95) |
448 (4) |
3,846 (194) |
Uman Flank, July 23–Aug 12 |
28,900 |
940 |
759 |
1,642 (120) |
500 (6) |
5,095 (233) |
To Dnepropetrovsk Aug 13–25 |
62,100 |
1,281 |
1,350 |
2,015 (135) |
508 (6) |
6,442 (439) |
Dnepropetrovsk Bridgehead Aug 26–Sept 29 |
96,300 |
1,304 |
1,509 |
3,215 (178) |
625 (7) |
11,097 (439) |
Melitopol–Mius, Sept 30–Nov 5 |
118,400 |
1,423 |
1,856 |
3,805 (204) |
667 (8) |
13,517 (548) |
Rostov, Nov 6–Dec 2 |
137,900 |
1,506 |
2,116 |
4,214 (223) |
814 (10) |
15,356 (638) |
One can see that the German forces’ heaviest losses came during two periods: 1) the initial 18 days breaking through fresh Soviet units and holding off Kirponos’ counterattacks; and 2) while defending their bridgehead at Dnepropetrovsk. When advancing their casualties were noticeably lighter.
The Southern and Southwestern Front leadership suffered no catastrophic breakdown as occurred elsewhere along the battle lines. Major disasters happened when they were caught by a surprise German move (Uman), when their actions were dictated by Stavka (Kiev), or when they were ordered to execute desperate measures (Sea of Azov).
Operationally and tactically von Rundstedt was in the stronger position. This won him engagements and battles but not the war. The field marshal himself was caught between a rock (in this case both Hitler and Halder) and a hard place (too few, under-motorized forces in a huge country bitterly defended). But he performed well and is guilty of few mistakes.
Operation Barbarossa was not an event per se, it was much more of a process. As each battle or maneuver occurred, new opportunities arose or disappeared; Barbarossa was not about certainties but about possibilities. At its start Hitler told an aide, “At the beginning of each campaign one pushes a door into a dark, unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.” The campaign in the East was Hitler’s war; without Hitler there is no Barbarossa. Planning by both combatants was strikingly similar in that each appeared to be divorced from reality. After the war one German general wrote that the campaign’s planning “rested upon the assumption that German military power was and would continue to be irresistible.”
Many of Barbarossa’s senior leaders had served on the Russian Front during 1914–17, and knew that even the Tsar’s bungling army had still fought that of the Kaiser to a stalemate. Yet these same men believed a force smaller than that required to subdue France in 1940 would only need a couple of months to conquer the earth’s largest nation and army. The Wehrmacht’s leadership might have gained some valuable tactical lessons from the 1940 Western campaign, but it had learned all the wrong operational and strategic ones. Unlike the campaigns in Poland and France, the Soviet Union’s vastness dissipated the blitzkrieg’s shock value. Meanwhile, Soviet leaders naively expected to be counterattacking deep into the German rear within days or weeks of an invasion.
A scene repeated countless times during Operation Barbarossa: a frontovik who has given his all defending the motherland. The ordinary German and Russian junior rank – the Landser and frontovik – fought and tried to survive in very similar conditions. Both served regimes led by dictators of boundless wickedness and violence. Both fought boldly in the attack and tenaciously in defense. Summer heat and winter cold affected them equally; the dust or mud were just as bad on each side of the lines, and poor food, inadequate medical care, lack of home leave, and abundance of vermin made life miserable for the fighting men of both armies. (Elukka)
By the spring of 1941 each military had evidently developed more respect for the other; Germany essentially doubled the number of divisions it considered necessary, while the USSR mobilized an additional half-million men the month before Barbarossa. Not wanting to test wartime German civilian morale as had happened a generation earlier, Hitler maintained domestic goods manufacture over ordnance production until well past 1941. For his part, Stalin discounted unmistakable signs of the German build-up as just another skirmish in the war of nerves that had dominated Europe for five years.
Following long tradition, the Ostheer concentrated on destroying enemy formations rather than seizing terrain objectives common in many other armies. This doctrine made it very difficult to judge success, especially in view of the Wehrmacht’s pitiable strategic intelligence capabilities. As for logistics, Barbarossa devoured materiel at a rate unanticipated by all but the most dire estimates.
The whole world did indeed hold its breath on June 22, 1941. The one bright spot for Stalin that day was Churchill’s promise of unconditional support (although many conditions were added later). Shortly after Barbarossa began, Stalin complained that he had lost Lenin’s proletarian state and went silent. German soldiers heard rumors that he had escaped to China, Iran, or Turkey or had been assassinated. Judging by his diary entries, German successes surprised even Halder. The Wehrmacht assaulted in strength everywhere along the lengthy front. This massive effort confused the Soviet leadership to the extent that the Red Army could not discern its main effort, thus complicating the defense immensely. In a couple of days the German forces snatched up the Dünaburg bridgehead, were closing the Minsk Kessel, and had fended off determined Soviet counterattacks in the Ukraine.
The less glorious side of war. Germans pause to bury their dead in a ceremony repeated often by both sides. During Barbarossa the advancing Germans could at least honor their fallen comrades, the retreating Soviets usually could not. (NARA)
By the first half of July, panzer groups were within striking distance of Leningrad, Smolensk, and Kiev. Soviet counterattacks following prewar plans all failed due to a pattern of poor command and control, inexperience, and German operational and tactical acumen. By then, however, first lieutenants commanded some battalions. The Red Army initiated a second wave of countermoves along the Moscow axis, most notably those bearing Timoshenko’s name. These attacks signaled that the Soviet forces would not give up the Dvina–Dnepr line without a fight.
Not even a coffin lid for shelter… Doubtless trying to share body warmth, these German soldiers froze to death in their sleep beside a road. (Podzun)
By the first week of August the Uman and Smolensk pockets marked victories by Army Groups South and Center. In the north, however, operational triumph eluded the German forces. Von Leeb ordered the costly and time-consuming assault across the upper Luga River. Although Army Group North eventually cut off the USSR’s second city from overland communication, von Leeb’s attack essentially culminated at this point.
Civilians and soldiers formed many militia divisions for the urgent defense of large Soviet cities. It is likely that these men, photographed in the shadow of Moscow’s Kremlin walls, are heading directly out to the fighting line; note their mixture of uniform and civilian clothing. (Elukka)
With Paulus admittedly concerned about purely military issues, that left Hitler to be his “own Ludendorff” and run the political and economic aspects of the Nazi–Soviet War. However, key generals, like Halder, would not accede to the Führer’s primacy and constantly interjected their own ambitions and goals. In addition to fighting the stubborn Stalin, Hitler had to fight his own general staff while the Red Army essentially bled white and de-mechanized the Ostheer. By the end of July, exactly one year after Hitler announced his Eastern crusade at Berchtesgaden, the campaign had stalled as the Führer argued with his generals over the prosecution of the war’s second half. Barbarossa moved forward, albeit rudderless, until Hitler resolved the matter in late August. But despite the month delay at German headquarters, the Ostheer still operated well within the Boyd Loop of the Soviet’s decision-making cycle.
Never in favor of a direct attack on Moscow, Hitler had strategic reasons for taking decisive action on Barbarossa’s wings. Success at either extreme could possibly bring Turkey into the war or motivate Finland to redouble its efforts. Anyone even slightly familiar with Germany’s tremendous economic problems knows it needed every last resource of the Ukraine (at the same time the Soviet Union was proving that it could survive without them). Jodl considered turning Guderian south the “perfect solution” to getting von Rundstedt on schedule.
The battlefield today; the author seated before an SU-152 assault gun at the Chernigov war memorial in July 2005. Casual historian beware: the map in the background shows the 1943 liberation of the city, but no mention is made of its loss on September 7, 1941. (Author’s collection)
Once the decision to go to Kiev had been made, Guderian moved south quickly. Stalin, focused on Moscow and distracted by Luftwaffe bombing of the capital, missed the move. Von Kleist’s panzer group sought the line of least resistance and occupied most of the middle Dnepr. Their two armored jaws slamming shut at Lokhvitsa represented the zenith of German operational art, but victory at Kiev was soon offset by superior Soviet force generation.
While Army Group Center had been fairly static on either side of Yelnia, the Soviet forces took the offensive and proved that they were not beaten. Von Bock’s last great victory came at Viazma–Bryansk. He was then abruptly slowed by weather (first in the form of mud and later by sub-zero cold) combined with the “four horsemen” of Nazi strategic overstretch: troop exhaustion, personnel and materiel attrition, anemic logistics, and the continuing inability to settle on attainable objectives.
Toward the end of November, von Bock’s men stumbled toward Moscow in the infamous Flucht nach Vorn. Von Leeb at Tikhvin and Volkhov, and von Rundstedt at Rostov, did the same. Capturing Moscow, seen by many as the Brobdingnagian checkmate of the Soviet state, never occurred. Encircling the city represented an orthodox but equally impossible solution (as subsequent events at Leningrad and Stalingrad would indicate).
In the skies above, initial Luftwaffe victories amazed friend and foe; Göring did not believe estimates of Red Army Air Force aircraft destroyed on the ground during Barbarossa’s first days until an actual count of captured airfields revealed the claims were low. Like many German assets, the Luftwaffe was stretched too thin. It tried to prosecute a reduced war against Britain, sent training units into combat as a short-term solution to its small size, thus eliminating any reserves, and soon lost hard-to-replace specialists. It concentrated its efforts only twice during Barbarossa. The Luftwaffe’s premier CAS unit, VIII Fliegerkorps, deployed only when approved by Göring and Hitler.
In closing, even with the advantages of hindsight, at no point before about mid-November 1941 is Barbarossa’s conclusion clear. If one concentrates on operations and ignores German logistics and the disparity in force generation, it may seem that until the end of that month the Ostheer might have had a chance of winning. Strategically the USSR held the best cards, small comfort to Red Army generals and soldiers facing the German forces. In the end the two sides were just too unevenly matched.
In June the balance sheet seemed to favor the invaders as clearly as it appeared to favor the defenders in December. Did the German High Command cling too long to the anachronistic concept of the Napoleonic decisive battle when planning Barbarossa? None of their spectacular list of victories at Minsk, Ivanskoye, Uman, Smolensk, Kiev, Viazma–Bryansk, Melitopol, the Crimea, and elsewhere delivered the hoped-for knockout blow against the Red Army.
German victory required operational success in destroying the Red Army and capturing Leningrad, Moscow, and the Ukraine, not just one or two of these objectives. That was clearly beyond their capabilities. The constant Soviet counterattacks, the death-by-a-thousand-cuts technique, eventually saved the USSR. As Barbarossa went on, wherever Zhukov showed up, German fortunes faded. However, Barbarossa also had to demolish the Stalinist state, even more difficult than achieving the required battlefield victories. When the Nazi– Soviet War transitioned from one of maneuver to one of attrition, victory moved decisively beyond Hitler’s grasp. Ultimately, for all who wore the Feldgrau the prospect of Barbarossa was much brighter than its reality.
32 Bergstrom, Black Cross, Red Star, p.222.