More Flak used in the direct-fire mode. Here a 20mm Flak 30 on a SdKfz 10/4 supports infantry with MG34 near Smolensk on July 13. (Topfoto)
A central feature of Auftragstaktik was that in the absence of explicit orders a subordinate would act in accordance with the higher commander’s intent. It was within this framework that in early July, in violation of Hitler’s instructions that the Minsk pockets be eliminated first, and largely on their own initiative, both Hoth and Guderian moved their panzer groups toward Smolensk from positions north and south of Minsk. As the slower marching infantry arrived at each of the smaller pockets they freed the armor to continue eastward. Every German leader knew that Barbarossa’s success depended upon not allowing the Red Army a moment’s respite in which to re-establish a credible defense.
Only in hindsight do we know that Barbarossa’s first few weeks did not represent the knockout blow that the German leadership needed. The same can also be said of its next stage. It should come as little surprise that Army Group Center scored the first major victory of Barbarossa at Minsk. Its status as the campaign’s Schwerpunkt, its two armored groups, two Fliegerkorps (including the elite VIII), plus Pavlov’s extremely vulnerable position made this practically inevitable. Von Leeb would never achieve a giant Kessel in the north, while down at Kiev von Rundstedt would require another two months to reach von Bock’s body count. With success at Minsk fresh in the German leaders’ minds, on June 30 OKH instructed von Bock’s headquarters to prepare to continue “operations in the direction of Smolensk.”
To the north, results looked similarly decisive for von Leeb. On the middle Luga, Hoepner replicated his earlier success at Dünaburg, but this opportunity was likewise squandered when the panzer bridgehead first languished for weeks and then came under serious Soviet attack. However, the German forces eventually fought their way tantalizingly close to Leningrad but the question remained, would they attempt to take the city or allow it to starve under the Nazis’ Hunger Plan? More importantly, were their strategic objectives better served by making a close siege of Leningrad or by earnestly joining hands with the Finns on the Svir River?
A Soviet locomotive destroyed near Tarnopol, probably by the Luftwaffe. Within weeks shortages of rolling stock and usable roadbed made themselves sorely felt. The availability of Soviet rolling stock such as this would have been invaluable at this point. (NARA)
Army Group South also started off slowly, but then managed to skirt the edge of the Rotkino Marshes and threaten Kiev, bag over two armies at Uman and approach the Dnepr in numerous places, all this against the heart of the Red Army’s defenses. But perhaps Kirponos had done too well too early; German staffs noticed weakness along the Soviet line that seemed ripe for exploitation. Meanwhile, early in July, fighting began along the Rumanian front, adding hundreds of miles to the Red Army’s defensive woes. Finally, the Finns in Karelia made impressive advances and far exceeded the 1939 frontier except where it mattered most, in Leningrad’s hinterland.
Beyond the Dvina and into Russia
Von Leeb violated a central tenet of the blitzkrieg when he halted Hoepner for six days on the Dvina. Furthermore, he breached another by preventing the already too small panzer group from concentrating. Neither Führer Directive 18 nor the Aufmarschanweisung firmly stated whether von Leeb should aim directly for Leningrad or veer northeast so he could attack either Leningrad or Moscow – Halder’s pet project. Even if von Leeb had been of a mind to fight an aggressive blitzkrieg campaign, OKH maintained tighter control over Fourth Panzer Group than its contemporaries because of the imagined “danger of being encircled and destroyed in the vast forests in front of Leningrad unless it has the support of closely-following infantry divisions.”
On the Soviet side, the average strength of a Northwest Front rifle division shrank to about 2,000 men. As their tanks melted away in uneven combat the Red Army could create nothing larger than tank brigades. By the end of June the Soviets had lost their first echelon formations. In response, they did add 30 small (3,447 troopers) but mobile cavalry divisions. Following Barbarossatag, the Soviet High Command managed to mobilize nine new armies in June, 13 in July, and 15 in August. Aware Kuznetsov had made a mess of his Front’s defense, on July 2, Stavka instructed the Northern Front to re-orient Leningrad’s defensive efforts on the Luga River, facing toward the south. The burden of the defense would fall on the newly created Luga Operational Group (LOG), holding the river line between Narva and Lake Il’men.
Stavka threw General K.P. Piadyshev into command of the Luga Operational Group in order to prepare to defend Leningrad against a threat from an entirely unexpected direction in less than three weeks with many sub-standard units. Although he slowed the Germans considerably, Stalin had him arrested for dereliction of duty. (David Glantz)
Having decided to defend Leningrad along the Luga, Northern Front commander Popov sent his deputy General K.P. Piadyshev to survey a possible defense line there. On July 9, Piadyshev took command of the LOG, consisting at first of two rifle and three militia divisions (the latter divisions 1, 2, and 3, created by the Leningrad Military Soviet five days earlier) and a mountain brigade. He later received four more rifle divisions and the 21st and 24th Tank Divisions. Behind this line stood two more defensive positions reaching back to Leningrad’s suburbs. The scene was set for the battle for the USSR’s second city.
At Führer Headquarters near swampy Lake Mauer, Hitler came down with dysentery and stomach pains and suffered through much of July and half of August. While his personal physician, Dr Theo Morell, pumped the dictator full of medications, a crisis of command paralyzed the Ostheer’s decision making. Von Brauchitsch, Halder, and others took full advantage of this leadership vacuum to push their own agendas and hamstring Barbarossa.
The Stalin Line
With his army group temporarily consolidated until the panzers would again outpace the infantry, von Leeb instructed his men to resume the advance in early July. Reinhardt on the left again served as the panzer group’s Schwerpunkt. Leading the XLI Panzer Corps, the 1st Panzer Division advanced 70 miles on July 2 against weak Soviet resistance to a point only 30 miles from Ostrov and its Velikaya River crossings. Red Army defensive efforts seemed to be directed against the sister LVI Panzer Corps coming up from Rezekne. Reinforcing success, Hoepner would not allow dilution of Reinhardt’s advance in order to help von Manstein further upstream.
Arriving just hours ahead of the 27th Army, the 1st Panzer Division took Ostrov on July 4, clearing its railroad bridge by 1730hrs. The 27th Army immediately counterattacked and soon the entire town was in flames. Under Red Army Air Force CAS and with KV tanks the Soviet forces renewed their assaults on July 8. By noon that day the German situation became desperate and they fell back into the relative safety of the burning town. When Reinhardt’s men finally stabilized the situation, 100 burning enemy tanks illuminated the night. New, well-coordinated Soviet attacks against the German bridgehead began at 0300hrs on July 11. However, by this point the Red Army units were spent and the panzers renewed their advance the next day. The Luftwaffe flew 1,200 sorties and claimed 140 tanks and 112 aircraft destroyed during the Velikaya River battles. By July 10 Red Army Air Force elements counted only 102 aircraft from an original 1,142. The old bunkers along the former Latvian– Russian border behind them, with difficulty Hoepner’s men had turned the Stalin Line. The weakened 27th Army retreated east through the swamps toward Opochka with von Manstein in pursuit. Reinhardt’s relative success caused Hoepner to take 3rd Motorized Division from von Manstein and transfer it north. With the Soviet 8th and 27th Armies split apart once again, the situation looked bright for the German forces.
A camouflaged bunker on the original Stalin Line west of Pskov captured in mid-July. Much of the line’s weaponry had been stripped a year earlier as the Red Army redeployed west after the seizure of eastern Poland, Bessarabia, and the Baltic States, rendering many of the defenses of doubtful value. (NARA)
Von Küchler had previously isolated remnants of the 8th Army but the latter now manned the Parnu–Tartu line. The 61st Infantry Division briefly captured Tartu, but did not have sufficient ammunition to maintain its position. By July 13 the 61st occupied an Igel south of Poltsamaa against the 10th Rifle Corps. Further inland to the southeast Busch’s Landsers finally caught up to the fight after weeks of marching 20–30 miles day after day. To the southeast, the Sixteenth Army fought the fresh 22nd Army near Polozk. With the Soviet forces mounting a serious defense there, combat in the unusual terrain required new tactics. Communications between neighboring German units was difficult and large gaps existed between formations.
Now in Russia proper, the wilderness and the impoverished conditions of the people there stunned the German troops. By July 6 von Manstein was stuck in the Velikaya swamps near Opochka. Confusion reigned within army group headquarters as von Leeb, Hoepner, and von Manstein argued over the direction LVI Panzer Corps should take next: reinforce Reinhardt or strike out on its own toward Staraya Russa? On the 10th von Leeb remarked in his diary “the Russians defend every step.” In fact, it took von Manstein’s men until the night of July 10/11 to capture Opochka, only to be subjected to immediate Soviet counterattacks. Hoepner wanted to swing north to trap Red Army forces facing the Eighteenth Army west of Lake Peipus. This course of action, the third offered up in von Leeb’s languid command atmosphere, had even less operational logic that the previous two. Miserable terrain plus Red Army defenders employing minefields, abatis, and other obstacles slowed the operation. East of the big lake the XLI Panzer Corps, using the primitive roads, reached the Plyussa River on July 12. But Luftwaffe air attacks failed to halt the Soviet’s continued withdrawal.
Soviet 45mm M1937 antitank gunners come under fire near Pskov in early July. These 11th Army soldiers had been conducting a fighting withdrawal without effective command from above, falling back in front of von Leeb’s men rather than halting them. (HITM)
As early as June 30 Hitler toyed with the idea of sending two panzer groups (Hoth in addition to Hoepner) first to Leningrad and then to Moscow. This plan might have worked if the German leaders had not delayed pulling the trigger, but by July 4 he still had not made the decision. After squandering nine irreplaceable days and thinking the Soviet forces were beaten, on July 8 Hitler and Halder agreed that Third Panzer Group would not participate against Leningrad (this proved to be a temporary, four-day decision). On July 9, von Brauchitsch, von Leeb, and Hoepner met at army group headquarters and hammered out a compromise with regard to Fourth Panzer Group’s actual method of attack. Both of Hoepner’s panzer corps would make for the massive city, XLI via Pskov and the lower Luga, LVI through Novgorod. On a map this looks like a concentrated panzer group attack, but in actuality intervening terrain and vegetation meant the two panzer corps operated in isolation. The Sixteenth Army would cover Hoepner’s exposed right while the Eighteenth would continue to clear the Baltic States and then follow Reinhardt. This plan also lasted only four days; by July 13 the issue was not whether Hoth would support von Leeb, but whether his panzer group would go all the way to Leningrad or only so far as Velikie Luki and whether all or some of Hoth’s units would come north.
Around this time Stalin made some leadership changes of his own. The USSR created a new echelon of command, the Strategic Direction. Directions came from the World War I tradition and were not independent staffs but extensions of Stavka under the command of a marshal. Accordingly, on July 10 Marshal K.E. Voroshilov arrived to coordinate the efforts of the Northern and Northwest Fronts as well as the Northern and Red Banner Fleets. Voroshilov may have been a trusted crony of Stalin’s but he could not lead; his Northwest Direction would be the first to go on August 30. On July 15 the Red Army temporarily disbanded rifle corps as a superfluous command echelon. In any event it no longer had sufficient staffs or qualified staff officers to man those rifle corps that remained.
Army Group North into Russia
The area between Lakes Peipus and Il’men and south of Petersburg is the historical Ingermannland. It marked the boundary between the Russians and first the Teutonic Knights, then the Swedes and later the Baltic States. Sixteenth Army and Fourth Panzer Group fought here until the end of August. Logistics, sanguinely sidestepped during most of Barbarossa’s planning, now dominated operations. It is appropriate to quote Martin van Creveld at length:
In the second half of July the supply service was incapable of supporting even the most limited offensive because it was fully occupied moving its base forward from Dünaburg to the area around Luga, and in this period the start of the attack was postponed no fewer than seven times… The offensive was resumed on 8 August but by that time the defense of Leningrad was ready.24
269th Infantry Division destroy Soviet T-34 tanks using captured antitank guns. The ZiS-3 76mm antitank gun (1) was a modification of a standard field gun of the same size. As another field-expedient method of destroying Soviet armor, the Germans became adept at turning these fine weapons against their former owners within minutes of capturing them. Members of the 269th Infantry Division are shown here attempting to keep up with Reinhardt’s XLI Panzer Corps as it advances across the marshy terrain between the Velikaya and Luga Rivers. The Landsers occupy temporary defensive positions but as soon as they dig out a spadeful of dirt the hole fills with brackish water (2). The German antitank gun crew prepares to put the captured piece into operation (3) while a couple of infantry squads provide security to the flanks (4). Across the marshy meadow the T-34 comes out of the tree line on a forest trail (5), which they then aim for. (© Osprey Publishing, Peter Dennis)
Fortuitously for the defenders, less than 24 hours into the German invasion, Popov in Leningrad began looking south at the axis of attack along the Pskov highway as the city’s main threat. His commissar, A.A. Zhandov, soon had 200,000 civilians digging hundreds of miles of antitank ditches and trenches, creating 15,000 fighting positions and 22 miles of barricades in front of Leningrad. Fearing the worst, authorities evacuated two-thirds of a million civilians from the city by August.
Reinhardt advanced on the left as planned along the highway toward Luga with the XXXVIII Army Corps behind. Hoepner’s second coup de main of Barbarossa in capturing a critical bridgehead came in early July near Kingisepp. The 1st and 6th Panzer Divisions raced north on roughly parallel courses east of Lake Peipus. A Kampfgruppe under Colonel Erhard Raus, including Brandenburger commandos, worked its way through forest and marsh to a bridge at Ivanovskoye early on July 14. His men discovered the bridge unguarded plus another bridge not shown on their maps. Farther south at Sabsk, the 1st Panzer Division likewise secured a bridgehead. The Soviet leaders rushed reinforcements directly to the threatened area on trains from Leningrad. Many of them were militia units that achieved little. Until August 19 Reinhardt’s isolated men relied exclusively on Luftwaffe resupply.
The XLI Panzer Corps had fought across 650 miles in less than one month and Leningrad was fewer than 100 miles away from its bridgeheads. However, although they had having crossed the last major river barrier blocking their advance to the city, Leningrad itself would prove beyond XLI Panzer Corps’ reach. While the Red Army dug a network of obstacles, trenches, and bunkers to their front, Reinhardt’s men settled into a relatively costly defensive battle. His panzer raid that gained two bridgeheads in the shadow of Leningrad reaped none of the operational benefits that von Manstein’s had just weeks earlier at Dünaburg or as Model would later at Novgorod-Severskiy as part of the Kiev encirclement (pages 274–6). On July 27, an exasperated Reinhardt tried in vain to resign his post, saying, “This [wait] is dreadful … the decisive opportunity [to rush Leningrad] has passed.”
To his southeast the LVI Panzer Corps hacked its way through the massive wilderness region between Opochka and Novgorod. Limited to one major road von Manstein’s troops stretched out in a long isolated and vulnerable line, 60 miles from Reinhardt and over 50 miles ahead of the trailing marching infantry. The situation was even worse for Kuznetsov, however. On July 10 Stavka told him of its “absolute dissatisfaction with the work of the Northwest Front,” saying commanders at every echelon “have not fulfilled our orders and like criminals have abandoned their defensive positions.” By mid-month Piadyshev had been arrested, perhaps unjustly. The headquarters subsequently divided the 250-mile long Luga defenses into three parts, each commanded by a major general: Kingisepp under V.V. Semashko, Luga (town) under A.N. Astanin, and Eastern under F.N. Starikov.
Von Manstein’s thrust aimed initially for Novgorod with a subsequent objective of cutting the Moscow–Leningrad rail line at Chudovo. Taking advantage of the German forces’ exposed positions, and perhaps spurred by Stavka’s criticism, the 11th Army struck the LVI Panzer Corps near Soltsy. With the supporting German I Army Corps far to the rear, Vatutin’s forces fought a desperate battle against von Manstein’s spearhead from July 14–18. The northern arm of the attack consisted mainly of the 10th Mechanized Corps, and the southern of the 16th and 22nd Rifle Corps. They cut off 8th Panzer Division, von Manstein’s vanguard, from the rest of LVI Panzer Corps which, surrounded in marshy terrain, could not maneuver off of the narrow corduroy roads.
A 20mm Flak 30 aboard an SdKfz 10/4 halftrack during Barbarossa’s opening days. Even at this early stage, however, the Red Army Air Force was capable of making life miserable for ground troops without such accompanying antiaircraft support. (NARA)
Over a two-day period 3rd Motorized and SS Totenkopf fought their way forward to rescue the 8th Panzer. By the time von Manstein stabilized the situation 8th Panzer Division had lost 70 of its 150 operational panzers. Von Manstein required four days to save General Brandenburger’s division while Hoepner diverted valuable resources from the XLI Panzer Corps’ successful operations to assist. The attack left the 8th Panzer Division severely shaken.
The ever-cautious von Leeb again insisted that his forces halt and clean the untidy situation before continuing. He therefore detached von Manstein’s most powerful formation, the recently rescued 8th Panzer, in order to reinforce Reinhardt. Meanwhile over half of Busch’s army struggled to secure the boundary with Army Group Center and was therefore unavailable for action around Leningrad. Most of his supplies still had to be flown in due to Red Army stragglers and partisan bands active in the Sixteenth Army’s rear area.
Another crisis mastered, von Manstein continued to the Luga River with the 3rd Motorized, Totenkopf and 269th Infantry Divisions. On July 22 von Brauchitsch visited Hitler as the latter leveled criticism at von Leeb. Hitler, and indeed the OKH, insisted von Manstein’s thrust be Hoepner’s Schwerpunkt. They agreed on the need to send Hoepner’s right-hand corps on a great counterclockwise arc to cut off Leningrad from Moscow and effect a junction with the Finns at the Svir. In hindsight this wider encirclement of Leningrad was probably the wiser choice. With the issue still unresolved, beginning on July 24, and with Nebelwerfer support, the LVI Panzer Corps fought slowly forward against determined defenders. The Soviet forces inflicted numerous losses and more than once von Manstein pulled his men back to their starting positions, but by August 2 they were once again ready to assault the town of Luga.
In the Sixteenth Army area, in front of the 30th Infantry Division near Staraya Russa, Luftwaffe reconnaissance noted a defensive system of trenches, mines, and barbed wire many miles deep. Weather delayed D-Day three times in four days. South of Lake Il’men Landsers of the 30th Infantry Division resorted to flamethrowers, bayonets, and hand-to-hand combat to inch forward in the face of the Soviet forces’ tenacious defense. To their left the 121st Infantry Division prepared to attack near Utogorsh. Von Richthofen’s VIII Fliegerkorps (four Stuka and three fighter Gruppen) arrived to help. German artillery could not destroy Soviet bunkers buried beneath six feet of soil and after two days 121st Infantry Division battle casualties exceeded a third of those suffered during Barbarossa’s first five weeks. Division headquarters issued its General Instructions #4 which concluded that the enemy’s talents “can be a remarkable example to us.”
The Fall of Tallinn
Far to the west, the weak Eighteenth Army with just six divisions struggled up the strategic Baltic Sea littoral against an even weaker 8th Army. In central Estonia the 16th Rifle Division ably defended Tartu while the 11th Rifle held Viljandi with effective Red Army Air Force CAS. Frustrated at the delay, on July 12 army group headquarters ordered the Eighteenth Army to attack with the XXVI Army Corps the next day. At 0300hrs, exactly one month after Barbarossa’s start, the 61st Infantry Division and StuG Abteilung 185 assaulted Poltsamaa. A day later the 217th Infantry attacked at Turi and by the evening of July 25 these two units had trapped most of the 48th and 125th Rifle Divisions against Lake Peipus, capturing over 9,000 POWs. The XXVI Corps kept up the pressure and by August 8 its 245th Infantry Division reached the Gulf of Finland at Kunda, half way between Tallinn and Narva.
Intent on depriving the Red Banner Fleet of its last base outside Kronshtadt (itself full of revolutionary Bolshevik significance), the German leaders planned to reduce Tallinn. Under overall command of Admiral Tributs, but tactically led by the 10th Corps (two rifle and two mechanized divisions under Major General I.F. Nikolaev), 20,000 soldiers and 25,000 civilians prepared the defense. From west to east Nikolaev stationed the 22nd Motorized, 16th Rifle, and 10th Motorized Divisions backed up by marines. The Soviet commanders expected the main attack to come from the south, but the German Schwerpunkt was to the east.
German infantry cross a pontoon bridge over the Narva River in September. The fortress dominating the photograph is the Russian Ivangorod while that in the far left is the Estonian Hermannsfeste. (Corbis)
The XLII Infantry Corps attacked at 0330hrs on August 20 with the 217th, 61st, and 254th Infantry Divisions (west to east) supported by 210mm mortars and assault guns. Estonian Self Defense Forces kept the German rear areas safe from partisans. Red Army defenders put up tough resistance but by August 27 the German troops reached Tallinn’s outskirts. The 61st entered the city a day later, marching single file over miles of railroad embankments. Tributs had evacuated most of the garrison except for an 11,000-man rearguard on the night of August 27. Nearly 190 vessels of all descriptions participated in the disastrous operation. Under German pressure, cargo loading was haphazard and discipline almost nonexistent. Luftflotte 1 bombers preyed on the 15-mile-long convoy, sinking 18 ships. A further 13 transports and 18 warships fell victim to mines while Finnish torpedo boats accounted for even more. Ultimately only one transport reached Kronshtadt 200 miles away and the German soldiers pulled 12,000 Soviet soldiers out of the sea while a further 10,000 perished.
Smolensk
Guderian, and to a lesser extent Hoth, did not conceal their belief that Moscow should be the Ostheer’s main goal. In his June 22 order of the day the former went so far as to say, “The objective is Moscow, every man must know this!” This opinion agreed with neither the various Barbarossadirectives, nor Hitler’s oft-stated belief that Moscow “is not very important.” However, neither Stalin, Timoshenko, nor Zhukov had any knowledge of this, another failure of the otherwise very effective Soviet spy network. For the remainder of the summer the Soviet commanders threw every possible obstacle in von Bock’s way, to the detriment of their defenses along other fronts.
At Minsk, von Bock had supposedly crushed everything the Soviet forces had with which to defend Moscow. Thus the exposed tips of both panzer spearheads received a nasty surprise when, on July 4, Stavka ordered Timoshenko to “organize a reliable defense, concentrate reserves … deliver counterstrokes along the Lepel, Borisov, and Bobruisk axes” (basically the Berezina River line). Timoshenko arranged his defenses north to south thus: 20th Army plus 5th and 7th Mechanized Corps guarded the middle Berezina due west of the River Gate versus Hoth’s right. Lieutenant-General P.A. Kurochkin’s 128th, 153rd, 229th, 233rd, 73rd, 18th, and 137th Rifle Divisions blunted the drive of Guderian’s northernmost XLVII Panzer Corps. Guderian’s central corps, XLVI Panzer, had it easier and his southern thrust by XXIV Panzer Corps had it easiest of all near Rogatchev, despite the opposition of 36 artillery batteries and the 117th Rifle Division on the east bank. He would overcome the Berezina obstacle here against the 117th Rifle Division.
Panzer IIIs of 11th Panzer Division pass a brewed-up BT-7 tank. The division’s unofficial ghost tactical symbol can be seen on the equipment box mounted on the panzer’s rear deck. (Topfoto)
Meanwhile to the north, Hoth was dangerously spread out, with a 100-mile gap between his XXXIX Panzer Corps near Vitebsk and LVII Panzer at Polotsk and Disna. The likelihood for mutual support did not exist. Following orders to “destroy the Lepel enemy concentration,” the Soviet 5th and 7th Mechanized Corps now turned their attention on XXXIX Panzer Corps, just slightly north of Guderian’s XLVII Panzer; if executed properly, the Red Army attack would split the seam between the two panzer groups. This meeting engagement, centered on Senno – northwest of Orsha – initially pushed 7th Panzer Division back 20 miles and eventually involved 12th, 17th, and 18th Panzer as well. Of the 2,000 mostly obsolete tanks available to the two Soviet mechanized corps, only 70 percent even made it to the battlefield and after five days the German forces had destroyed 832 of these. Beaten, the remnants of 5th and 7th Mechanized withdrew toward Smolensk.
In order to give Timoshenko no opportunity to establish his second echelon, XXXIX Panzer Corps took up the pursuit. Its 7th Panzer Division, followed by 20th, lay strung out along the one usable road from Lepel to Vitebsk. Rain slowed their advance and bought the Soviet forces time to stiffen their defenses. With their 22nd Army holding a 175-mile front with six weak divisions, they desperately needed such a pause. Elsewhere in the panzer group sector, Hoth’s men had to cross nearly 100 wooden bridges on the 50-mile long road from Borisov to Lepel, most of which collapsed under the weight of modern equipment.
Stavka noticed the vulnerable flanks of the panzer groups from the start, but lacked the wherewithal to defeat them. Soon the bulk of the marshal’s defenders were streaming east; with the Berezina line abruptly abandoned, the next stop were the Dvina and Dnepr rivers.
Toward Smolensk
Stalin had sent the Reserve Front forward on July 1, too soon and not massed, thereby creating a counteroffensive in name only. Fortunately for Stalin and the Red Army, the German forces had significant troubles of their own. Strategically, since Barbarossa’s inception, Minsk marked the point when Hitler would decide what to do during the second phase of the campaign. With forces in place and ready to continue the advance, he nevertheless deferred that decision. German strategic intelligence, wildly inaccurate before Barbarossa began, continued to flounder. At an July 8 conference at Rastenburg they put Timoshenko’s strength at 11 divisions; in reality Army Group Center faced 66 (24 in first echelon with 37 actually in position). Three days later Halder wrote that the Soviets had no reserves behind the fighting front; in fact, Stavka had created reserves that OKW could only envy.
The German leaders’ final problem was von Kluge, who now suffered a crisis of confidence in his new role as a panzer army commander. On July 5 he complained to OKW that he could not control Hoth and Guderian. Von Brauchitsch reminded him that his duty was to coordinate, not to micromanage his panzer commanders and advised him to give these capable subordinates free rein, creating his Schwerpunkt with the one who first gained freedom of action. A day later a frustrated von Bock admonished von Kluge to “Make a [panzer] fist, somewhere.” The army group commander correctly believed that a field marshal should be able to handle the two subordinate panzer group commanders. Von Bock soon concluded that von Kluge’s leadership was “useless” and henceforth frequently bypassed this superfluous command echelon altogether and sent liaison officers directly to Guderian and Hoth. An essential prerequisite for creating a pocket at Smolensk was for Hoth and Guderian to rupture the Dvina–Dnepr line at Vitebsk and Mogilev. This is where von Bock turned his attention next.
Hoth had already moved out, ordered by army group headquarters to continue towards Vitebsk and Polotsk, thunderstorms and rising rivers hampering his every step. Five or six new Red Army divisions established defensive positions at Polotsk astride both banks of the Dvina. With VIII Fliegerkorps flying overhead and after racing 120 miles in 24 hours, 19th Panzer Division seized a bridge intact at Disna on July 4. The 18th and 14th Motorized Divisions provided flank protection while engineers built a second bridge. On the same day 7th Panzer Division ran into Konev’s 19th Army defenses at Vitebsk and halted to wait for Strauss’s infantry to lend support.
At Disna, Red Army counterattacks were ably supported by aircraft and artillery. On July 5, heavily armored Sturmoviki attacked 7th Panzer without suffering a loss, despite some aircraft taking 200 hits. New pressure at Disna came from an unexpected source, the 27th Army, being shoved southeastward by Army Group North. Nevertheless, Hoth’s vanguards continued to expand their bridgeheads.
When Hoth’s troops arrived at Ulla they discovered the bridge over the western Dvina destroyed (left); engineers constructed the new bridge to the right. (MHI)
With 7th Panzer stalled before Vitebsk, Hoth opted for the indirect approach to spring them free. Between July 5 and 7, 20th Panzer, slowed by rains but supported by the 20th Motorized Division, encountered 62nd Rifle Corps defenses upriver at Ulla. But with support from von Richthofen’s flying artillery they sent across two waves of assault boats, and finally overcame the numerous bunkers late on July 8. With the Dnepr behind them and now in the open country, the 20th Panzer’s Kampfgruppe von Bismarck circled around clockwise from Ulla and assaulted burning Vitebsk from the rear the next morning. Red Army units counterattacked desperately against the bridgeheads and the smoldering city in an attempt to throw them back, but ultimately Hoth’s men made a deadly crack in the northern portion of Timoshenko’s Dvina–Dnepr line.
Unfortunately for them, approximately ten weak divisions of Erashkov’s 22nd Army plus some 27th Army stragglers sat astride the boundary between Army Groups North and Center near Nevel. Against von Bock’s wishes – he called helping von Leeb a “useless venture,” higher headquarters ordered his LVII Panzer Corps to liquidate this force. Spread too thin to close the trap at Nevel, this diversion accomplished little. Amid confusion and poor communication, 19th Panzer Division continued 30 miles to Velikie Luki and captured the town on the 20th, only to give it back to the Red Army days later when the division was redirected yet again; the same troops would have to retake it at a higher cost a month later. This Nevel detour reduced Hoth to only one panzer corps on his main axis, severely curtailing his ability to influence events at this critical time.
Having just broken through the Stalin Line, Landsers hitch a ride aboard an assault gun. The defensive fortifications were of uneven quality, offering little resistance at one point or delaying the Germans for days elsewhere. (NARA)
Also on July 4, Guderian’s 4th Panzer Division reached Bychov on the Dnepr, a well-defended town complete with a stout antitank ditch – one of the few places where the Stalin Line challenged the German units. They managed to cross the river, only to have the Soviet forces chase them back to the west bank and demolish the bridge. To the south, Model’s 3rd Panzer Division crossed the Dnepr at Rogatchev aided by its wading tanks, despite the fact that the 800-yard-wide river was in flood. By 0445hrs on July 5, 4th Panzer Division engineers had thrown a new bridge across and continued the assault with the support of 210mm howitzers; the bridge collapsed at 0730hrs, but would be rebuilt by 1100hrs.
For Second Panzer Group, the Stalin Line did not appear to be a hollow shell. The operational rate for tanks of 3rd and 18th Panzer Divisions stood at only 35 percent and 58 percent respectively. With the German rail and logistics system severely disrupted back at Brest, 4th Panzer Division sent a staff major all the way to Germany to scrounge for spare parts. On July 11, 87th Infantry Division received its first reinforcements since June 22, 350 men, which they promptly had to hand over to Guderian. Initially rejected on the left, Guderian shifted his Schwerpunkt first to the right and then to his center. The fight along the Dnepr raged during July 7–16, and as the Soviet troops retreated they managed to destroy many bridges over the wide river. Guderian’s new attack axis would send him straight for the fortress town of Mogilev.
Despite supply difficulties and stiff resistance, the German troops had turned the Dvina–Dnepr line into a shambles. From his bridgehead at Ulla, Hoth wrecked Timoshenko’s right, separating 27th, 22nd, and 20th Armies so they could be defeated in detail. Reinforcing success, he took the 12th Panzer and 18th Motorized Divisions from Kuntzen’s LVII Panzer Corps and gave them to Lieutenant General Rudolf Schmidt’s XXXIX Panzer Corps. Three infantry corps of the Ninth Army soon arrived at Vitebsk, freeing Hoth’s armor to continue advancing. Strauss now dealt directly with Konev’s 19th Army while air reconnaissance detected a general Soviet exodus toward Smolensk. The entire Dvina–Dnepr defensive line had become unhinged.
Guderian’s success on the Dnepr had been less spectacular than Hoth’s. Despite rougher terrain and poorer roads in its sector, the Third Panzer Group enjoyed a much straighter route to Moscow, placing Hoth in a better strategic position. Therefore von Bock recommended to von Kluge that Fourth Panzer Army immediately reinforce Hoth, making him the Schwerpunkt of Army Group Center. Consistent with von Kluge’s leadership style, he hesitated.
Events bore him out as Guderian broke free. On July 10 and 11, Second Panzer Group’s attack with 450 operational tanks achieved bridgeheads over the Dnepr on either side of Mogilev at Shklov (XLVI Panzer Corps) and Kopys (XLVII Panzer Corps), and for a second time at Bychov (XXIV Panzer Corps). At Kopys the 29th Motorized Division required numerous attempts plus the support of StuG Abteilung 203, a heavy Flak battery, corps engineer assets and other units just to get a foothold across the river. The division fended off numerous counterattacks so that dead Red Army soldiers piled up “corpses upon corpses.” By the 14th, von Bock ordered the Second Panzer Army to continue its advance to the line Belyy–Yartsevo–Yelnia.
Bicycle infantry still made up a significant part of the strength of German infantry division reconnaissance units. These soldiers, with their comrades on horses, motorcycles, and in light armored and field cars, were often far ahead of the foot-sloggers, and carried much of the burden of fighting on first contact. (HITM)
In Guderian’s center, an interesting drama played out at Mogilev, encircled on July 17 where units of 61st Rifle and 20th Mechanized Corps established a fortress-like defense of the city. These forces under Major General M.T. Romanov, especially 172nd Rifle Division, held out against repeated attacks by Guderian’s men until July 27 with the help of air dropped supplies. The defenders’ efforts against 23rd, 15th, 7th, and 78th Infantry Divisions earned the accolades “Gallant Mogilev” and “Russian Madrid” (the Spanish Civil War was still a fresh memory). Eventually more than 35,000 frontoviki (frontline soldiers) marched into captivity. Romanov escaped the trap, only to be captured by the German forces later and executed as a partisan. XXIV Panzer Corps crossed the Dnepr south of the town, and made for Krichev.
Meanwhile the hard-marching German infantry struggled to keep up with their panzers, reduce the encircled Kessels and fight off partisan attacks that were growing in boldness and intensity. Soviet units or semi-organized groups could attack at any moment, screaming the well-known “Urrah!” The 35th Infantry Division spent the first three months of Barbarossa marching 500 miles, an average of 20 miles per day. Men from 137th Infantry Division tore Russian houses apart and used the planks to cross swamps. Whatever rest days the infantry enjoyed were often more for the benefit of their thousands of draft horses than for the Landsers. The Heer had an entire veterinary system to care for its horses, with reserve horses at the division and army level plus a rotation plan to take horses out of the front line and even return them to Germany.
Back at his Wolfsschanze Hitler continued to fret over the ability of Army Groups North and South to accomplish their missions without reinforcement by von Bock’s panzers. On July 13 the German forces captured documents ordering Timoshenko to hold the already abandoned Dvina–Dnepr line and to counterattack. The previous day Stavka (via Zhukov) had instructed him to:
Immediately organize a powerful and coordinated counterstroke by all available forces from Smolensk, Orsha, Polotsk and Nevel regions to liquidate the enemy penetration at Vitebsk [Hoth] … [and to] conduct active operations along the Gomel and Bobruisk axes to exert pressure on the rear of the enemy’s Bobruisk grouping [Guderian].
This was good news for Hitler and Halder since it indicated that the Soviet forces had no intention of withdrawing into the interior – the dreaded 1812 gambit. However, it was their first inkling of what Guderian would later call the Timoshenko Offensive and hinted at threats to von Bock’s southern flank on his boundary with Army Group South. By July 5, Hitler had already been pondering the second phase of the invasion for a week. A few days later OKH began toying with the idea of sending Guderian to Army Group South and Kiev. Stavka’s intercepted instructions to Timoshenko and their implied threats could only serve to solidify the idea in Hitler’s mind of swinging south.
Closing the Trap
Now across the Dvina–Dnepr line, Army Group Center set itself to close the Smolensk Kessel and continue eastward. After the war Yeremenko wrote that “There were no troops … to prevent the enemy from crossing the Dnepr and then advancing in any direction he pleased.” Von Bock’s Schwerpunkt now clearly lay on his southern flank; Guderian had three times as much armor as Hoth, while Second Army fielded the unusually high number of seven corps (VII, IX, XII, XIII, LXVIII, LIII, and XXXV).
On July 11, XLVI Panzer Corps broke out of the Shklov bridgehead and made for Yelnia, XLVII Panzer Corps went from Kopys toward Orsha under von Richthofen’s CAS experts, while to the south XXIV Panzer Corps covered Guderian’s right. A day later his men split 13th and 20th Armies, outflanking Orsha and advancing almost to Mogilev. Air activity was intense: II Fliegerkorps flew 885 sorties on July 14 against 21st Army and 615 sorties two days later. Such responses as the Soviet forces could muster were ineffectual. The 13th Army’s new commander, Remizov, was wounded, and replaced by Lieutenant General V.F. Gerasimenko. Just to show that he was not ignoring Smolensk as he had Minsk, Guderian sent 29th Motorized Division (a “splendid unit” he called it) in that direction.
More importantly, finally clear of Vitebsk, Hoth’s 7th Panzer Division closed in on Smolensk from the north and by July 13 only 25 miles separated it from Guderian’s 29th Motorized. Two days later the 7th “Rommeled” into Yartsevo, cutting the main road and rail line into Smolensk and sealing the fate of the city and most of its defenders. However, as mentioned previously, both Hoth and Strauss had been stripped of valuable assets and were ordered to maintain contact with Army Group North in addition to continuing their push east; therefore many of their units were too far north to participate in the Smolensk battles in a timely fashion.
MiG-3 fighters in formation over Moscow: the Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral, and Red Square can be seen below. Most Soviet cities boasted formidable air defenses. The MiG-3 was available in large numbers during Barbarossa but was considered inferior to the German Bf-109 and the RAAF’s own Yak-3. (Courtesy of the Central Museum of the Armed Forces, Moscow via Stavka)
By the evening of July 15 the 29th Motorized Division arrived at the southwest end of the city, a ghost town which paid mute tribute to Stalin’s scorched-earth policy. The old section, south of the Dnepr, was occupied by Guderian’s men within 24 hours. The Soviet defenders launched repeated counterattacks, especially when the German troops tried to cross over to the north bank and 29th Motorized had to fight these off until July 22.
Inside the Kessel
Before the trap closed, trains with reinforcements were pulling out of Bryansk for Smolensk every ten minutes. Many of these forces manned the far western reaches of the pocket although the defense of the city itself left much to be desired. What had been intended to be a bastion city constructed by 300,000 workers under Communist Party control was in fact a feeble crust, held by a couple of General Lukin’s weak divisions plus militia battalions, totaling 18,000 men; many of the 16th Army units had been bled off to fight Hoth near Demidov. Stalin nevertheless enforced “stand until the last man” orders upon Stavka which were passed down to local commanders.
Demolition of the city’s bridges slowed the German advance and allowed 129th Rifle Division to augment the defense of the north bank. Tactically, Red Army units acquitted themselves well, especially in house-to-house fighting as combat around Smolensk dragged on for nearly five days. Inside the pocket the NKVD rounded up nearly 104,000 Red Army stragglers and returned them to the fighting. Although the German forces held the city proper in the face of Soviet counterattacks, they had not yet completely sealed off the pocket.
7th Panzer and 29th Motorized Infantry Divisions link up, closing the Smolensk Kessel, July 16, 1941. As reconnaissance elements of the 29th Division pushed east they linked up with troops of 7th Panzer; this scene reconstructs such a meeting. (1) Crewmen from a PzKw 38(t) of the 7th Panzer Division’s reinforced Panzer Regiment 25 stretch their legs while awaiting orders; the tank bears the division’s yellow runic symbol, and the white temporary marking of Third Panzer Group – a stylized “Hh” for Hoth; (2) farther off is an SdKfz 232(Fu) radio-equipped armored car of 29th Motorized Infantry’s divisional Aufklärungs Abteilung, marked with the white “G” of Guderian’s Second Panzer Group; (3) A group of senior officers speculate about the next objective – assumed at this stage by many German soldiers to be Moscow; (4) meanwhile infantrymen deploy to provide local security, and guard a few of the 300,000-plus Soviet prisoners (5) who were rounded up in the Smolensk Kessel. (© Osprey Publishing, Peter Dennis)
The air war over the pocket raged with savage intensity. The Luftwaffe interdicted rail lines leading into the city. Between July 10 and the end of the month the German air force launched 12,653 sorties and the Soviet air force approximately 5,200. When VIII Fliegerkorps departed north on August 3 for the hoped-for climactic battle of Leningrad, the Soviet air effort increased dramatically. Luftwaffe strength was further dissipated by bombing raids on Moscow beginning on the night of July 21. These were mainly symbolic and they had little material effect; in over three-quarters of the 76 raids conducted over the next month, fewer than ten bombers participated. All told, these nuisance raids killed only 736 Muscovites and wounded 3,513 more.
The German leaders considered the Smolensk trap officially closed on July 26, but von Bock had already complained in his diary that “it has a hole,” the 10-mile gap near Yartsevo and Solovevo through which, between July 31 and August 4, substantial portions of 16th and 20th Armies escaped the Kessel. Unfortunately for the German forces, many of their infantry divisions had been marching for the previous month and had done little or no fighting. The baptism of fire for these units came at least four weeks into the campaign; many formations and men were not prepared and therefore acquitted themselves poorly at Smolensk.
Von Bock ordered Hoth and Strauss to edge further to the south to compensate for Guderian’s eastward movement. The 7th Panzer Division again bore the brunt of the fighting, fending off Rokossovsky’s infantry attacks which came supported by 80 to 100 tanks. Of the division’s 284 Panzers, only 118 were operational and of its 166 damaged tanks, 70 were beyond repair. A rumored German airborne operation near Yartsevo was little more than aerial resupply of the hard-pressed 7th Panzer.
On August 5, von Bock announced the conclusion of the battle of Smolensk and the capture of 302,000 POWs, 3,205 tanks, 3,120 guns, and 1,098 aircraft. The previous day Hitler had flown to Army Group Center headquarters to offer his congratulations in person. The Führer reaffirmed his decision to divert Second and Third Panzer Groups towards Kiev and Leningrad. But he also authorized limited offensives from the vicinity of Yelnia. Von Bock, Hoth, and Guderian all approved, since they believed that the Soviet forces had only the barest means left for a defense of Moscow. They had no way of knowing that only five days earlier Stalin had ordered Zhukov to eliminate the threat to his capital represented by the Yelnia salient. At the August 4 meeting Hitler ordered Yelnia be held at all costs, devoting ten divisions to the effort. With von Richthofen transferred to Leningrad, only portions of II Fliegerkorps remained to provide CAS. Defending the salient, advancing on Moscow, and assisting its two neighboring army groups would have been a tough enough mission for von Bock, even if OKH had had a clear idea of where Barbarossawas going next.
The Western Ukraine
The Stalin Line
Thus far the Southwest Front’s performance far surpassed the bulk of the Red Army. Kirponos avoided allowing a penetration of his lines and, though outclassed, kept the enemy squarely to his front. On June 30 Stavka authorized Kirponos to withdraw to the fortified regions. But as his defenses fell back its frontage increased from just over 500 miles on Barbarossatag to nearly 850 miles at the end of June. However, by occupying the old Polish– Soviet border, Kirponos reduced his front by 200 miles. The permanent defenses that awaited Kirponos’ men there were described by von Stülpnagel to his troops as “like the Westwall,” which was falsely flattering to both lines. By July 4, however, the Soviet defense had lost all cohesion and the German troops stood in the midst of the fortified region near Novgorod-Volynskiy.
Von Rundstedt issued his Order No.2 on June 28, initiating the race for the Stalin Line. In the lead, von Mackensen’s panzer divisions oriented southwards and boldly planned to penetrate the obstacle. In places 210mm mortars were required to break the line. Soviet artillery, antitank, and antiaircraft guns cooperated to good effect. One company of the 16th Panzer Division lost three successive company commanders in two hours of tough fighting. While the 13th Panzer had an easier time of it near Gulsk, the 14th Panzer struggled near Novgorod-Volynskiy. The 25th Motorized maintained tenuous contact between the two. The V Fliegerkorps provided CAS, its fighters keeping the skies free of Red Army Air Force interference. The 13th Panzer reached Berdichev by July 7 while the 14th Panzer took Zithomir and its stout bunker line two days later. Von Kleist finally had freedom to maneuver. He sent the III Panzer Corps “to occupy Kiev as a deep bridgehead east of the Dnepr,” the XIV Panzer Corps through Fastov to Balaya Zerkov, and the XLVIII Panzer Corps toward Kasatin.
The Soviet commanders reacted quickly. On July 7 Zhukov ordered Southwest Front to attack Berdichev while on the 9th Kirponos dispatched 5th Army to Broniki and Chenitsa. As usual, internal conflict now distracted the German High Command. On July 9 Hitler advocated splitting the First Panzer Group into its separate corps. He wanted it to both head for Kiev and seek an encirclement inside the Dnepr bend. OKH and army group leaders opposed the move, wanting to leave the city to the Sixth Army’s infantrymen. The Führer remained focused on destroying enemy forces and issued orders to trap the Soviet troops near Vinnitsa. With that in mind, von Brauchitsch arrived at von Rundstedt’s headquarters on the 10th to work out details for a Belaya Tserkov encirclement to accomplish this. Two events rendered the argument moot and made the Belaya Tserkov operation impossible. First, the 13th Panzer reached and then crossed the Irpen River; 20 miles from Kiev, they stood among the city’s first line of defense. Secondly, Stavka created a new echelon of command, the Strategic Direction, and appointed Marshal Budenny to oversee the efforts of the Southwest and Southern Fronts plus the Black Sea Fleet. The offensive-minded marshal and his Political Commissar, N.S. Khrushchev, ordered vigorous counterattacks against the German spearheads.
A regimental command post at an abandoned Stalin Line bunker near Kiev. A lieutenant colonel points at his map as signalmen wait by their Pack Wireless Type d2 to transmit either by voice or by Morse Code. The communications net of the German forces was vastly more extensive and robust than that of the Red Army. (NARA)
The 13th Panzer stood at Kiev nearly 70 miles in front of the bulk of von Mackensen’s corps still back near Zithomir. The III Panzer Corps maneuver had bisected Kirponos’ command; henceforth the 5th Army held north of Kiev while the 6th and 12th Armies slipped to the south. To rectify this situation Budenny ordered forward the remainder of the mechanized forces with the 16th, 18th, 19th, and 62nd Air Divisions flying overhead. The 9th (down to 64 tanks), 19th, and 22nd (only 30 remaining tanks each) Mechanized Corps continued attacking von Reichenau in the north while the 4th, 15th, and 16th struck near Berdichev. Keeping the isolated 13th Panzer supplied became problematic as heavy fighting raged to the panzer group’s rear between July 13 and 18. The 14th Panzer Division defended Makarov as the 25th Motorized, battling nine rifle divisions, held near Zithomir with the recently assigned LSSAH.
A destroyed bridge over the Bug River at Vinnitsa. Von Rundstedt’s first encirclement opportunity slipped away at Vinnitsa when the Seventeenth Army’s marching infantry could not close the trap alone in the face of Soviet resistance and demolitions. (NARA)
Kirponos’ 5th and 6th Armies maintained pressure against this Zithomir corridor. Von Rundstedt threw in reinforcements and Stukas. Red Army artillery halted numerous attacks but its rifle regiment strength sank to 300 men. Budenny’s counterattacks foundered due to material weakness not lack of enthusiasm. For example, at Berdichev his men made human-wave assaults without the benefit of heavy weapons. The 11th Panzer Division suffered 2,000 casualties in these battles alone. With the help of Sixth Army’s infantry a route to the 13th Panzer opened on the 19th, though Soviet resistance had caused a critical expenditure of time and material.
It made no sense for the First Panzer Group to turn back southwest to Vinnitsa so it would drive directly south to Uman. This maneuver had the twin tasks of driving toward the Black Sea and creating Army Group South’s first encirclement. As for Kirponos, his defense in the southern theater henceforth would have to rely on the broad Dnepr and surviving Red artillery.
North of Kiev von Reichenau kept the pressure on the 5th Army, which nevertheless retired in good order. As ordered, von Kleist turned south toward the intended encirclement at Uman. But this move also created a gap generally south of Kiev. To fill the void von Rundstedt created an ad hoc army of six – later nine – infantry divisions called Group Schwedler (named after the IV Corps commander). Further south Seventeenth Army pushed southeast but faltered mainly due to the weather and mud. Kirponos sensed the growing threat, recognized that the German forces were about to outmaneuver him and ordered a general withdrawal from the Vinnitsa area.
Von Stülpnagel finally punched through the Stalin Line in mid-July. On the 18th, the 1st Mountain Division with StuG support took a Bug River bridge close to Vinnitsa. After coming up empty handed at L’vov Hitler saw an opportunity to trap over 50,000 Soviets. Along with the 4th Mountain and 24th Infantry Divisions, the 1st Mountain tried to close the pocket at Vinnitsa. But with von Kleist’s Panzers still far off to the north and east and the Eleventh Army slowed to the south the cordon was too thin; Red Army forces escaped as Kirponos had ordered. Had Hungarian forces been available, it is likely that the Soviet troops would have been completely cut off; therefore it appears that Hitler paid dearly for his spiteful decision to not include Hungary in Barbarossa’s initial planning. Destruction of the Soviet forces was postponed not avoided, however, as the 6th and 12th Armies slipped away southeastwards. The day before they retreated over the Bug River Hitler ordered another, even larger encirclement near Uman.
Kiev Threatened
Hitler had high expectations now that Army Group South advanced beyond the Stalin Line. Operations were disjointed as usual while the German High Command solved problems remaining from the initial ambiguities of Führer Directive 21. While Hitler wanted to split up First Panzer Group for a number of objectives, von Rundstedt argued for its continued concentration. Hitler sought a quick capture of Kiev (i.e. by von Kleist) while the field marshal wanted to leave the fortified city to the Sixth Army. Halder simply craved progress on the flank army groups that would dissuade the dictator from weakening the Moscow axis.
A Panzerbefehlswagen Ausf. E or H of 36th Panzer Regiment staff proves too heavy for a wooden bridge in rural Ukraine during battle for Kiev. German engineers repaired the bridge the same day so the regiment could continue its advance. (NARA)
Ultimately von Rundstedt’s men achieved two breakthroughs, First Panzer Group slicing toward Kiev and Seventeenth Army aiming south past Vinnitsa. Stavka encountered difficulty discerning Barbarossa’s geographic objectives because there weren’t any; Army Group South’s goal was the destruction of Red Army units, a moving target. Kirponos maintained an intact defense but positive control of the Southwest Front began to slip from his grasp. His 6th and 12th Armies fell southward into the Southern Front’s area of operations. Meanwhile the 5th Army slid further north into the Rokitno Marshes.
Identified from Barbarossa’s inception but downplayed by German planners, this massive terrain feature now demanded a solution. The marshes are often mislabeled a swamp. It is a primeval forest, primarily deciduous trees. On either side of this low area are bogs while the high ground is covered with pine trees. The Soviet commanders wanted to capitalize on the marshes’ defensive benefits as much as their German counterparts hoped the problem would simply go away.
A month into Barbarossa, von Reichenau found his Sixth Army in a very awkward position. When von Kleist sliced through to Kiev creating his own front, he split the Sixth Army. The southern portion was task-organized as Group Schwedler while the northern units remained under von Reichenau. The field marshal was not up to the task; in one of the Wehrmacht’s best-kept secrets, von Reichenau had suffered a “light stroke” the winter before and he suffered a fatal heart attack the winter after.
An assault gun of Sturmgewehr Abteilung 191 at Malin is resupplied by a half-track one month into Barbarossa. Assault guns were intended to help infantry reduce fortifications and force river crossings, but were also employed fighting enemy tanks. Sturmgewehr Abteilung 191 was nicknamed the Buffalo battalion after its unit emblem. It was established following the campaign in France and fought in the Balkans prior to Barbarossa. It remained deployed on the Eastern Front, ending the war as StuG Brigade 191 in Hungary. (NARA)
Potopov’s 5th Army, separated from the bulk of Kirponos’ forces, avoided decisive engagement and sniped at the Sixth Army from the relative safety of the marshes. German intelligence failures contributed to the Sixth Army’s discomfort by inflating the enemy, never larger than 12 divisions, to nearly 20. The Soviet 5th Army launched disrupting attacks as the Red Army Air Force lavished attention on exposed German units. Together they succeeded in keeping von Reichenau distracted from his main objective, Kiev.
However, even with his lines of communication through the Zithomir corridor cut, von Kleist focused on the Ukrainian capital. By July 10 the 13th Panzer Division soldiers could see the Kremlin spires. The 14th Panzer pulled alongside the next day. Soon the 25th Motorized Division joined them, making a solid line on the Irpen River, barely 10 miles from the city. Knowing infantry and artillery support necessary for the traditional assault was 100 miles to the rear, the decision of whether or not to take the city by coup de main rested with von Mackensen.
The Irpen is a small river with more than half a mile of swamp on either bank, representing quite an obstacle to the panzers. Initially Khrushchev commanded the Kiev garrison, a collection of regular infantry equal to three rifle divisions, an airborne brigade, a tank regiment, NKVD motorized forces, the 1st Kiev Artillery school, two antitank battalions, and approximately 29,000 militia. At a July 11 meeting Kirponos concluded that First Panzer Group had the mission of taking Kiev. Almost simultaneously Hitler halted von Kleist and prohibited a direct assault on the increasingly heavily defended city. At army group headquarters von Brauchitsch added his belief that the panzers could not both take the city and execute the Uman Kessel mission. Von Rundstedt concurred while von Reichenau compared the proposed city fight to Verdun.
The marching infantry of the Sixth Army finally broke through the Stalin Line and by late July approached Kiev. They relieved III Panzer Corps on siege duty, work made difficult by heavy Soviet artillery fire. Von Reichenau could expect little assistance from the army group and any help from Army Group Center, fighting for Smolensk, was unlikely. The Uman encirclement now required the attention of von Mackensen’s men.
Uman
When the panzers pulled out of the Kiev line Kirponos thought he had succeeded in blunting the German assault. He did not realize von Kleist had swung south toward Uman. The German commanders had decided on this less ambitious but more practical pocket instead of following the great bend in the Dnepr.
Splitting the Soviet 5th and 6th Armies even further apart, First Panzer Group pivoted on Belaya Zerkov. Kirponos ordered all of his air assets in this direction. Although it took nearly a week, Stavka finally saw the threat to Uman. It therefore created the 26th Army out of the 4th Rifle and the 5th Cavalry Corps and placed them east of the Dnepr, opposite Kanev. The 26th Army was to cross the river on July 15 and get into the rear areas of the First Panzer Group, thereby disrupting von Rundstedt’s plan for Uman. However, the German commanders learned of these intentions when a Soviet liaison aircraft landed behind their lines. Alerted, Group Schwedler set a trap. Nevertheless, the force of the Red Army’s blow near Kanev, launched finally on the 18th, surprised the Germans and von Kleist was forced to face the XIV Panzer Corps eastwards to assist Group Schwedler. This left only XLVIII Panzer heading for Uman. The German forces contained the emergency but failed to completely eliminate the threat at Kanev.
Army Group South’s ground-air team. Field Marshal Von Rundstedt and Colonel General Lohr await Hitler’s Fw-200 aircraft at Uman on August 28. Hitler visited army group headquarters one more time: in December to replace von Rundstedt. (NARA)
Major General I.N. Muzychenko was among the 103,000 Soviets captured at Uman. Responsibility for treatment of POWs, including their murder and neglect, lay with the Heer, not any Nazi organization. In 1941 200,000 died in one POW camp near L’vov alone. (NARA)
With III and XIV Panzer Corps thus diverted, XLVIII Panzer continued southward alone. By July 21 it reached Monastyrishche, Budenny’s headquarters only 24 hours earlier. Here elements of the trapped 6th Army attacked the XLVIII Panzer’s inner flank. The 11th and 16th Panzer and 16th Motorized Divisions, later augmented by the LSSAH, stabilized the situation by the 25th. The Soviet counterattack collapsed two days later. With the situations at Kiev and Kanev under control, the XIV Panzer rejoined the advance while the III Panzer covered the eastern flank; finally the panzer group was fighting united again. Meanwhile, the 1st Mountain Division and the Hungarians led the Seventeenth Army across the upper Bug River. Soviet defenders and poor weather slowed their right pincer. Losses among their horses forced the Landsers to leave heavy weapons behind while many had worn through their boots so marched barefoot. Nevertheless, by the 27th von Stülpnagel broke into the open country.
Tyulenev’s frustration increased in direct proportion. He sent the 18th Army to buttress the Uman defenses but it too only became part of the half encircled Soviet forces. He then ordered the 4th Mechanized Corps to create an escape route. The attack severely tested the German troops but with few tanks and no surprise 4th Mechanized ultimately failed. Budenny reported to Stavka, “All efforts to withdraw the 6th and 12th Armies to the east and northeast are fruitless.” The V Fliegerkorps contributed with a vertical envelopment. First Panzer and Seventeenth Army units finally linked up on August 3 after the 16th Panzer Division captured the 100-yard-long Bug River bridge at Pervomaysk.
Tyulenev ordered Musychenko and Ponedelin to break out. But the Southern Front commander complained they remained trapped “on account of a completely incomprehensible slowness.” By the 5th the pocket had been reduced to an area 14 miles square. In just four days German artillery fired more ordnance into the Kessel than had been expended during the entire Western campaign. Fighting raged inside the Kessel until August 8. The German forces captured 103,000 prisoners from 25 divisions and captured or destroyed 317 tanks, 858 artillery pieces, and 242 antitank and antiaircraft guns.
A briefing at Army Group headquarters in Uman following the Kessel battle there. From left at the map table are General Messe, Mussolini, Hitler, von Rundstedt, and Lohr. Cap devices in the audience indicate representatives from many Nazi and Fascist Party organizations. (NARA)
Back near Kanev the reinforced 26th Army attacked again on August 7. The V Fliegerkorps hastily redirected Stukageschwader 77 and Kampfgeschwader 51, 54, and 55 against the bridgehead. They destroyed 94 tanks in three days. Stavka decided to abandon the Dnepr on August 10 and concentrate its stay-behind forces at Odessa but much fighting continued near Kanev. Two days later von Brauchitsch issued a directive for von Kleist to continue the exploitation south and southeast. By the 13th the Soviet forces were in full flight. Group Schwedler manned most of the broad river by August 21. First Panzer Group would soon do the same along the middle course of the Dnepr. Red Army units held on for another ten days in small groups, finally evacuating the west bank on the last day of the month. The Soviet counterattack had cost little in the way of resources but likewise failed to halt von Rundstedt’s Uman operation.
A PzKpfw III of XIV Panzer Corps (with uninterested Soviet POWs on board) while clearing the Dnepr bend following the battle of Uman. Army Group South lost valuable time by not immediately establishing bridgeheads over this large river. (NARA)
Von Rundstedt’s panzers broke through the Stalin Line at Novgorod-Volynskiy on July 7. German indecision over Kiev, however, meant the Uman Kessel would not be closed for nearly another month. Even so, when von Kleist did turn south operational surprise was complete. Ultimately, however, Uman represented a compromise within the German High Command between those, like Hitler himself, who wanted a smaller, more certain pocket at Uman and those, like Halder, who considered a potentially larger one near Kirovograd. Von Rundstedt expertly maneuvered his meager forces against widely separated objectives, always keeping his center strong. Nevertheless, Kirponos avoided the destruction of the Southwest Front and kept Army Group South behind schedule thereby allowing Stavka to shift forces to the critical Smolensk theater.
The Rumanian Front
In April the 170th Infantry Division made a 17-day train trip to Rumania to join other German forces to guard the Ploesti oil fields. They reconnoitered the Soviet border in civilian clothes and trained Rumanian units. After Barbarossatag the Red Army Air Force launched hundreds of attacks against the Ploesti oil facilities without success. Hitler finally felt the chances of a Soviet ground attack were low enough that his far right flank could move out under Operation Munich.
All Axis forces in Rumania nominally fell under the command of dictator Ion Antonescu. But von Schobert’s staff conducted most planning while de facto controlling the Rumanian Third Army. The IV Fliegerkorps provided CAS. To the south the Rumanian Fourth Army initially guarded the Black Sea coast and lower Prut. As for the Soviet commanders, Tyulenev left Moscow on June 22 and arrived at Southern Front headquarters at Vinnitsa two days later. He found no phones, telegraphs, or radios. At least he had one week longer than the rest of the Red Army to prepare.
Prior to Operation Munich, Army Group South was constricted between Army Group Center and Hungary, thus restricting the area that the Soviet forces needed to defend. However, when von Schobert got under way this area suddenly tripled. To avoid detection, prior to attacking German soldiers bivouacked by day and marched toward the border only by night. On the evening of June 30, 46 men of Infantry Regiment 399 stormed a 300-foot bridge over the Prut and took it without a shot. The Soviet forces counterattacked and by the next morning half the German troops were dead but their bridgehead remained.
Von Schobert’s main offensive began on July 2 from these bridgeheads on either side of Iassy while assault boats crossed the Prut at 0315hrs. Eleventh Army struck the boundary between the 9th and 18th Armies where the Soviet troops were not fully prepared. Fighting centered on Beltsa where the XXX Corps tangled with the 48th Rifle Corps and at Kishinev, soon taken by the Fourth Army. Farthest north, where the distance between the Prut and Dniestr rivers was smallest, the XI Corps and Rumanian Cavalry and Mountain Corps closed in on the latter watercourse at Mogilev-Podol’skiy. Attempts to gain a bridgehead by coup de main failed when XI Corps could not negotiate the 45-mile gap and relieve the company of Brandenburgers. These commandos managed to hang on only for a few hours before being overwhelmed. Southern Front’s Dniestr River defensive line remained intact, a fact that had long-term negative effects on German operations until Uman.
Operation Munich. Rumanian cavalry crossing the Prut River to reoccupy Moldavia. Employed in brigade-sized divisions, cavalry units were among Rumania’s best troops. (NARA)
Simultaneously Tyulenev took two defensive measures: he created a counterattack force of 2nd Cavalry, 2nd Mechanized, and 48th Rifle Corps to reconquer Kishinev and he created the Coastal Group of three rifle divisions to cover the lower Prut. The Kishinev offensive struck the boundary of Eleventh and Rumanian Fourth Armies. Originally Barbarossa’s plan called for the assignment of the XIV Panzer Corps to Eleventh Army. But Hitler reversed this decision, leaving von Schobert without panzers and vulnerable to Red armor. However, the Soviet assault soon foundered but not before scattering the Rumanians which forced von Schobert to dispatch the LVI Corps to shore them up.
Meanwhile German pressure on the Moscow axis had a negative effect on defensive operations in the south. As part of the northward migration of Red Army units Stavka ordered Tyulenev to transfer the 7th Rifle Corps (116th, 196th, and 227th Rifle Divisions) north to the Southwest Front while Kirponos lost the 16th and 19th Armies to the Western Front. On July 16 Budenny ordered Tyulenev to evacuate the Dniestr and on the next day instructed him to mass near Uman. This played directly into von Rundstedt’s hands. The Eleventh Army now planned its own encirclement between the Dniestr and Bug rivers. Von Schobert ordered his left, the XI Corps, Rumanian Third Army, and the newly arriving Italians, to swing clockwise along the west bank of the Bug and behind Tyulenev.
The XI Corps began a deliberate crossing of the Dniestr on July 17. The steep slopes and thick woods reminded the German soldiers of their own Mosel valley. Stukas provided CAS, assault guns fired from the near bank, while 88mm Flak guns destroyed Soviet bunkers across the river. They succeeded this time against limited resistance and the XI, XXX Corps and Rumanian Cavalry and Mountain Corps crossed over by the 21st. Further south the LIV Corps, having just fought its way through Kishinev, lagged behind.
Poor weather and Soviet scorched-earth policies slowed the Axis forces, allowing the Southern Front to escape. Arriving on the Ostfront to great fanfare, the Italian Expeditionary Corps experienced its baptism of fire. Its commander, General Messe, consolidated his transport for the Pasubio Division. This unit bore the brunt of the fighting while the now un-motorized “Torino” marched far to the rear. Pasubio earned von Schobert’s praise during the battles between the Dniestr and Bug rivers. Tyulenev’s 18th Army had a difficult time fighting its way rearward; the Luftwaffe destroyed bridges over the numerous waterways, Soviet pioneers rebuilt them for their retreating comrades, then attempted to demolish them again to deny their use to the advancing Axis troops. Tyulenev’s men eventually escaped eastward denying the Eleventh Army its own Kessel.
Karelia
Finland’s war was not Germany’s war. Finnish strategy was mainly to secure easily defended lines across Karelia and along the Svir River. As good “brothers in arms,” the Finns would neutralize the Soviet base at Hanko and assist Army Group North by threatening Leningrad. Significantly, Mannerheim had few illusions about leaving behind the relative security of the Finnish forests and venturing too far into the more open Russian terrain.
Finnish forces in Karelia accounted for over half her military manpower, 230,000 men compared to the USSR’s 150,000 men. Karelia was defended by Major General M.N. Gerasimov’s 23rd Army with four rifle divisions and Meretskov’s 7th Independent Army with five rifle divisions. At Hanko the Finnish 17th Division faced two rifle brigades and 23,000 Soviets. Two Finnish divisions and the German 163rd Infantry Division (less the 388th Regiment) represented Mannerheim’s reserve.
A group of casual-looking Finnish soldiers. The Finns bested the Red Army every time the two clashed, but Finland’s limited objectives minimized its contributions to Hitler’s crusade in the East. (HITM)
The Finns began their Continuation War after the requisite provocation following Barbarossatag: Soviet air raids and a tank attack. General Axel Heinrich’s Army of Karelia north of Lake Ladoga moved out on July 10. Attacking north of Lake Yanis on the Finnish left, VI Corps and Group “O” created a breakthrough at Kopisel’kaya. The 71st Rifle Division gave way and the Jäger occupied Muanto on July 14, followed by Koirinoye on Ladoga’s north coast on the 16th. The Finns had covered 65 miles in ten days and trapped much of the 7th Army between the frontier and Lake Ladoga. VI and VII Corps applied frontal pressure, reaching the Yanis River on July 17 against ineffective Soviet resistance. Finnish 1st and German 163rd Infantry Divisions covered the far left flank.
VI Corps took Salmi on July 21, following a three-day battle. On the 24th, Red Army counterattacks forced the Finns to assume a defensive posture. The understrength 163rd Infantry Division, now alone in the north, became bogged down. A VI Corps’ attack toward Suvilakhti failed to rectify the situation. VII Corps exerted pressure on the 168th Rifle Division barely hanging on in Sortavala by the end of July. The Finns, now under command of I Corps, continued to push forward. However, weak Luftwaffe and Finnish Air Force elements precluded an effective vertical envelopment and these Soviets showed no more willingness to surrender than those encircled elsewhere during Barbarossa. Late in August the Ladoga Flotilla evacuated the bulk of the 142nd, 168th, and 198th Rifle Divisions across the lake.
On August 31, II Corps began its assault south of Lake Ladoga. By August 5, Mannerheim, in direct control of the northern elements, moved up his reserve 10th Division. Keksgol’m fell the same day and in combination these maneuvers cut off two more Red Army divisions.
On July 13 Mannerheim ordered II Corps south toward Pakkola on the Vuosalmi River. The 18th Division won a bridgehead there on the 18th. This move threatened the Vyborg fortress from the east. IV Corps began the frontal assault on August 22. Three days later the 8th Division crossed the bay, cut the rail line to Primorsk and completed the encirclement of Vyborg, trapping three rifle divisions. A Soviet counterattack opened a hole long enough for the 43rd and 123rd Rifle Divisions to escape. IV Corps troops entered the fortress on the 29th. Leaving their equipment and vehicles behind, a third rifle division retreated first to Koivisto Island then, in late November, to Leningrad. With IV Corps pressing on the right and I Corps (again reassigned a new sector) on the left, the Soviet 23rd Army withdrew behind the 1939 border by the end of August. Outside Leningrad the front stabilized barely 5 miles south of the old frontier for the next three years. By leaving Leningrad with such a large hinterland northwest of the German siege lines the Finns helped ensure the city’s survival.
T-34 tanks negotiate a ravine in Karelia. A stillborn attack 2 miles into Finland by elements of the 21st Tank Division on July 2 provided the “provocation” Finland needed to attack the USSR. (HITM)
Unresolved issues began to bedevil Fenno-German strategy. A binding strategic agreement never existed between the two nations. Two months into Barbarossa, Keitel wrote a letter to Mannerheim asking the Finns to attack past the Svir in order to link up with von Leeb. The marshal showed the letter to President Risto Ryti; both men agreed advancing beyond the Svir was not in Finland’s interests and that “under no circumstances” would they attack Leningrad, clearly “a German task.” The Finns feared that Army Group North would get no further than Volkhov and that Finland would have to push further forward to effect a juncture.
On September 4 Jodl arrived at Mannerheim’s Mikkeli headquarters with Iron and Knight’s Cross decorations for the marshal. Following their largest artillery preparation of the war the Finns began a general offensive that same day. VI Corps shoved aside the 3rd Rifle Division and reached the Svir in three days. Elements of the 17th Division captured the Svir Station the next day, cutting the Murmansk railroad. Until reinforcements arrived, the Siberian 114th Rifle Division held the river line against all threats. VII Corps made slower progress toward Lake Onega, finally capturing Petrozavodsk on October 1 after a two-week fight. At this point many Finns considered “their” war won, so morale and discipline began to wane.
Finally, north of Lake Onega, after regrouping, II Corps and Group “O” attacked north toward the upper Svir and the Stalin Canal on October 19. Passing west and east of Lake Lizhm, the two pincers joined on November 5. One month later the Finns reached Edvezh’yegorsk, destroyed two rifle divisions, cut the Murmansk rail connection again, and went onto the defensive on December 6. Three days earlier the Soviet forces had evacuated Hanko under virtually no Finnish pressure.
Axis operations in the far north failed for a number of reasons, primarily few common interests and disjointed command and control. The German forces were neither equipped, trained, nor inclined to fight effectively in the theater. They consistently underestimated the Red Army’s strength in terrain that particularly favored the defender. The Soviet leadership also had the flexibility to transfer forces laterally along the Murmansk railroad. Likewise Luftwaffe air support lacked its usual effectiveness: it was too weak for the massive frontage; it shifted Schwerpunkt constantly with changing objectives and weather often grounded its missions.
The importance of Archangel and Murmansk as supply conduits was obvious from the Great War. Nevertheless the far north represented Barbarossa’s poor relation. The Finns cut the Karelia rail line twice, but an eastern line ran uninterrupted. The Luftwaffe breached this eastern rail line over 100 times in 1941 alone but the Soviet troops quickly repaired the roadbed. Ju-88 pilots claimed that due to antiaircraft fire they would “rather fly over London three times than once over Murmansk.” Although potentially of great importance, the theater became a backwater of Barbarossa.
Summary
After considerable success during Barbarossa’s first two weeks when it advanced 270 miles, Army Group North required an entire month to advance the next 75 miles. Hitler complained openly to Halder about von Leeb’s failures, while the army group’s success carried it into inhospitable countryside and stiffening enemy resistance.
Inability to concentrate Fourth Panzer Group and difficult terrain deprived it of much of its punch. The talents of General Reinhardt, “one of the best Panzer leaders” according to von Lossberg, were poorly utilized. As the gap between Army Group North’s right and Army Group Center’s left increased, so did the danger to the flanks of both. Although David Glantz considers the Soltsy counterattack a failure, in reality it prompted a costly German overreaction. But contemplate the possibilities and the changed strategic situation if in early August von Leeb and Hoepner had made von Manstein’s drive toward Chudovo and Volkhov Army Group North’s Schwerpunkt so that in September Germans and Finns arrived on the Svir River together.
At the highest levels German command suffered a meltdown. The normally persuasive Hitler wanted to keep pressure on Leningrad but could not impose his will on senior generals beguiled by Moscow. Logistics hamstrung Army Group North as well; fuel consumption was three times the pre-Barbarossa estimates. By mid-summer von Leeb had ten of the Ostheer’s “stricken” divisions while Luftwaffe maintenance officers went in search of wrecked aircraft to scavenge for repair parts.
Finnish soldiers charge into smoke and dust in a typically thick forest found in their theater of operations. (Nik Cornish at www.Stavka.org.uk)
Lieutenant General M.M. Popov was a highly regarded general commanding the prestigious Leningrad Military District. He served as operational commander at Leningrad under the figurehead Voroshilov until Zhukov’s arrival. (David Glantz)
On the Soviet side, Kuznetsov had failed to manage a coherent defense anywhere. Therefore the German forces threatened Leningrad from unexpected directions, south and southeast. Three days into Barbarossa, General Popov noted the advantages of defending his city along the Luga River. Increasingly Soviet defensive efforts centered on improvised ad hoc formations such as the LOG. Their countermoves at the Velikaya River, Soltsy, Staraya Russa, Luga, and central Estonia all contributed to the Soviet leaders’ death-by-a-thousand-cuts defensive strategy.
Army Group Center continued to enjoy good fortune into Barbarossa’s second phase. In the Minsk battles it had destroyed the Soviet forces’ first echelon defenses trying to implement DP 41 and then at Smolensk did the same to the second echelon. In between these two battles Second and Third Panzer Groups overcame the Dvina–Dnepr River line. Guderian managed to keep his group massed, something Hoth could not do. The ad hoc Fourth Panzer Army failed due to an unsuitable commander and vague purpose. Also, by mid-summer von Bock’s men, in exposed salients and at the end of their logistical umbilical cords, were suffering badly under the flurry of Soviet wrath.
Although the unrealistic prewar plans to launch an immediate counteroffensive into Germany were quickly forgotten, the Soviet desire to counterattack, somewhere, remained. Red Army countermeasures had mixed results. Objectively they cost tremendous numbers of Soviet men and equipment and ultimately did not seem to halt the blitzkrieg or even slow it appreciably. Subjectively, however, they caused the German considerable losses plus, critically, used up the one commodity that the Ostheer never had enough of, time. German delays in reducing the Kessels, getting supplies forward and even making decisions took a toll on the entire campaign.
Von Rundstedt’s panzers broke through the Stalin Line at Novgorod-Volynskiy on July 7. German indecision over Kiev, however, meant that the Uman Kessel would not be closed for another month. When von Kleist eventually turned south, Soviet operational surprise was complete. Ultimately the southern Kessel represented a victory within the German High Command of those like Hitler who wanted a smaller, more certain pocket at Uman over those, like Halder, who wanted a potentially larger one near Kirovograd. Von Rundstedt expertly maneuvered his meager forces against widely separated objectives, always keeping his center strong. Nevertheless, Kirponos avoided the total destruction of the Southwest Front and kept Army Group South behind schedule thereby allowing Stavka to shift forces to the critical Smolensk theater.
Hungarian–Rumanian Conflict
The borderlands in southeastern Europe had been unsettled for many centuries preceding World War II. Most notably, during the early modern period, it saw the frequently changing frontier between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires. With the decline of the Turks and the rise of nationalism the region truly became a fracture zone. In an almost colonial fashion boundaries had been drawn along rivers, ridgelines, or the limits of advance of armies with little regard for ethnic or linguistic considerations.
Following World War I, the Treaty of Trianon signed in 1920 between the Allies and Hungary split the multi-ethnic country, formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into several nations. Over 7 million people, 31 percent of them ethnic Hungarians, and 72 percent of Hungary’s territory (some of it resource rich) were transferred to Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Yugoslavia.
The Hungarians considered the treaty a national humiliation and its provisions dominated their public life and political culture during the interwar years. After Admiral Horthy, Hungary’s regent, established close relations with Hitler, he was able to regain a part of southern Czechoslovakia with the First Vienna Award in November 1938 and Carpathian Ruthenia from Rumania in 1939. This was not enough. More important was Trianon’s assignment of Transylvania to Rumania.
The 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact only complicated the problem. In June 1940 the Soviet Union took back Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, two areas incorporated into Rumania after World War I. Rumania was already in a dramatically weakened position following the defeat of its principal patron, France. These two factors exposed Rumania’s vulnerabilities and prompted Hungary to seek a resolution to the Transylvania question. The Hungarian government began direct negotiations with Rumania on August 16, 1940 without success. Rumania therefore asked Italy and Germany, both of which wanted stability in the region, to arbitrate the dispute.
Hitler did not see Rumania as an ally at this point and the Fascist take over of that country was still weeks in the future. By supporting the concept of Greater Hungary Hitler hoped to win it over as a future ally. Foreign Ministers von Ribbentrop of Germany and Ciano of Italy met, and in what became known as the Second Vienna Award, on August 30 returned to Hungary 16,600 square miles of northern Transylvania. Historian Keith Hitchins noted, “Far from settling matters, the Second Vienna Award exacerbated relations between Hungary and Romania. It did not solve the nationality problem by separating all Magyars from all Romanians.”1
After the award, Rumania was given only 14 days to evacuate the territories. The Rumanian government committed atrocities on the Hungarian population, while Hungary retaliated after annexing the new territory. Rumania’s shame was complete on September 6 when it lost Dobrudja to Bulgaria in a separate treaty. On the following day King Carol II abdicated, ushering in the Fascist National Legionary State. Rumania and Hungary kept large security forces on their mutual border and almost came to blows right in the middle of World War II! Indeed, it has been said that the Hungarians and Rumanians would have preferred to kill each other rather than their common Soviet enemies. The German leadership had to take care to keep armies of their two allies separated by their own units or those of the Italians. The Allies nullified the Second Vienna Award in September 1944 and in 1947 the Treaty of Paris confirmed the Hungary and Rumania borders set by Treaty of Trianon.
1 Hitchins, Rumania, p.486.
General Hoth credits Kirponos’ resistance in the border region for denying von Rundstedt the same initial breakthroughs enjoyed by Army Groups North and Center. The battles around Rovno and Dubno held up von Rundstedt at least one week. This hard-won delay represented a double-edged sword, however: once the frontier battles concluded, little organized opposition stood in the way of Army Group South. In addition, Soviet prewar offensive doctrine had succeeded in fixing Red Army forces too far forward, leaving untrained armor at the mercy of the panzers and making an effective withdrawal difficult. Formations defending along the Kiev axis proved inadequate to hold von Kleist while elements further south counterattacked into Rumania in accordance with prewar “Red Folder” plans. The unexpected severity of Luftwaffe interdiction of Ukrainian industry upset Zhukov’s plans for coordinated operational-level counteroffensives. With minor interruptions Axis forces advanced east. But even then the Red Army possessed considerable powers of resistance.
It is unsurprising that in a campaign as vast and complex as Barbarossa, the combatants had to make numerous alterations to their plans, organization, operations, and in many other areas. The German leaders moved from a mood of celebration to the hard work of deciding what to do next. But despite this obvious need, after Smolensk neither Hitler, OKW, OKH, nor commanders in the field could agree on the next logical move. From before mid-July to beyond mid-August a colossal power struggle hamstrung the Wehrmacht senior leadership, until the Führer imposed his will on the generals in late August. Meanwhile, major developments occurred to the north and south, while both armies prepared for the ultimate battle for Moscow.
Barely a month into Barbarossa most of the prewar Red Army had ceased to exist. However, while the Red Army foundered, the Soviet state reacted decisively. It immediately mobilized new forces, and evacuated significant portions of its economy and industry beyond the Nazis’ reach, while Stalin reorganized the national leadership for a war of attrition.
Many Soviet reinforcements from all across the USSR arrived on trains and often went directly to the fighting, occasionally very close by. The quality of their training and leadership was uneven, but these reinforcements were essential for plugging holes in the Soviet lines. (Elukka)
24 Creveld, Supplying War, p.162.