CHAPTER 16
During 1942 the Red Army was rebuilt under new leadership, including officers imprisoned during the Tukhachevsky purge who were released to replace the Stalinist yes-men who had led the Army to defeat in 1941. Britain agreed to divert some American supplies and equipment due to her under Lend-Lease and in 1941–42 the Royal Navy fought twenty-one convoys through icy seas to north Russia. The struggle between the Nazi and Soviet regimes reached its climax when a German thrust towards the Caucasus oilfields led to the battle of Stalingrad (August 1942–February 1943). Including all operations along the flanks of the salient, the Germans and their allies suffered some 800,000–900,000 casualties and the Soviets approximately a million. The last German effort to regain the initiative, at Kursk in July 1943, destroyed such a large proportion of German armour and ground-attack aircraft that they never recovered. In an offensive second only in size to Barbarossa three years earlier, on 22 June 1944 the Soviets launched Operation Bagration on the Byelorussian front, where the Germans had thinned their line to send units to counter the Allied landings in Normandy. The Soviet advance was halted at the outskirts of "Warsaw in August–September while the Germans crushed a heroic uprising by the Polish Home Army. Stalin refused to permit Allied aircraft to stage through Soviet-held territory in order to drop supplies to the Polish patriots and the advancing Red Army – admittedly over-extended at the end of its offensive – did not support the Poles, who suffered heavy losses. The Soviets did not enter the ruins of Warsaw until January 1945, when they launched the final offensive that took them to Berlin.
The Eastern Front claimed the lives of over five million Germans and their allies, including perhaps a quarter of a million Soviet citizens who joined them, plus 10 million Soviet soldiers and as many civilians, although even today these figures remain a matter of dispute. Stalin had probably killed at least as many more, in purges or as a result of hasty 'collectivisation' in the 1930s, and Russia has arguably never really recovered from this double genocide. Both world wars were conflicts, on a gigantic scale, of economic and industrial as well as military strength. In neither would Germany be defeated until the heart had been ripped out of her Army. In the First World War this occurred chiefly on the Western Front, as too many French, British and Dominion war memorials testify. In the Second, it occurred chiefly (though of course not exclusively) on the Eastern Front, and it was the Red Army that paid the exorbitant price.
ALBERT SPEER
Hitler's Armaments Minister
Already in 1942 there was important group of officers, which later on belonging to the plot of 20 July, opposed to Hitler's military policies in Russia. That meant they wanted to think about defence policy, to build small fortifications along the Russian line, to build the defence as strong as possible and not waste the tanks . . . and so on in a long offensive. On both sides only a few were still in action and those few were fighting each other, but all the other tanks, thousands of them, were lying lost somewhere in Russia and couldn't be transported back any more. The idea of the generals was if those tanks could be spared for defence, approximately five times more Russians would be necessary to launch successful attacks than the defender has. And the losses for the man who is leading the offensive in warfare is much higher than those of the defence, as long as the defence doesn't break down. The estimation was that Russia couldn't afford to attack because in the long time they would be exhausted before they are winning back the whole country. This was the idea of the generals, and I think it proved to be the right idea.
COLONEL GENERAL NIKOLAI LOMOV
Deputy Head of Operations, Red Army General Staff Throughout the period of the war and especially in 1943–45, most indicative were the great number of troops in the Soviet Army. The number did not fall below six million people – that is in the active Army – who were deployed on the Soviet–German front from the Barents to the Black Sea. So, of these six million people, in spring and summer in the four Ukrainian Fronts [in the Soviet Army an Army Group was a 'Front'] there were about two and a half million people. It goes without saying that these forces were backed with the requisite equipment – tanks, planes, etc. In 1941 at the beginning of the war there were about two thousand tanks, then already in 1944 there were twelve thousand tanks, modern tanks, T-34s, and self-propelled artillery platforms. Our artillery was also in very good order. It must be said that the German defence was very strong and a very high density of artillery was required to break through this defence – this density reached more than two hundred pieces of artillery per kilometre of the front.
PRIVATE ALBRECHT SCHIMPF
German Army
In Russia there were no signposts to mark the way, no streets like in Western Europe, and to find our way we had to set the frozen bodies of horses along the snow roads to find the way during the snowdrifts. Certainly it was a very macabre sight but it was only to find the roads because there were no points to find, no house, no cottage, no tree, always wasteland, snow and snow.
CAPTAIN EKKEHARD MAURER
Infantry, German Army
The Russian soldier was a very robust and hardy soldier, well used to those climatic conditions. Sometimes we got terribly angry because for instance we had to leave behind or just drop our arms, machine guns or what have you because they didn't work any more, and the Russians just grabbed them, we saw sometimes, put some winter oil on them and used them against us. The Russian soldier was also probably more prepared for man-to-man fighting – most of those divisions actually were composed of Asiatic people. Our soldiers being Western European people did not like this man-to-man fighting so much, they were more relying on our automatic weapons, on using their brains.
MAJOR HANS HINRICHS
Engineer, German Army
We were attacked by a Soviet company in the early morning at approximately thirty-five degrees below zero. This company attack was repulsed and the Soviet soldiers remained motionless about ten hours lying in the snow and in the evening they attacked again with the same spirit.
OLGA RYBAKOVA
Leningrad housewife
Well, naturally, we felt very depressed when we heard about the suburbs of our city being taken by the Fascist troops. But still we thought and we hoped that all these defeats would be only temporary, just as they were a hundred and forty years ago when we had the invasion of Napoleon troops.
ALBERT SPEER
During my visit to Kiev I was of the same opinion as the generals with whom I was together quite often, that the whole movement of partisans in Russia who just started this time was caused by the treatment of the population. Even Goebbels, it's well known at this time, he was for better treatment of Ukrainians, mainly because he thought if they get some, if the situation is eased and they get some national pride, then possibly they could be won over even to fight the Stalin system. There was one very old church which was blown up, but I was told that there was, it was an explosion of some munitions magazine I found out later, that it was done by the gauleiter who was in charge of the Ukraine.
PRIVATE SCHIMPF
I think the war is very cruel, but which war is without cruelty? And it was especially cruel if the Russian soldiers they are drunken when they attacked. One night I had to make a counter-thrust to win back the position of another company and we found the chief of this company badly wounded and upon him a drunken Russian soldier cutting off the face.
OLGA RYBAKOVA
The most terrible time was December 1941 because I think until August we had commercial shops so we could buy something and it was a great help for us. We even could buy caviare, but then the commercial shops were closed. The blockade began. And in September–October it was still passable, although already in October a great friend of my mother died. It was the first death that we heard of. But in November it was began to be cold and the rations were shortened, became less and less food, and the end of November, December and January were most tragical times. Firstly it was cold – minus forty – then the famine, the hunger began to be felt and people began to starve and die from cold and undernourishment. Most deaths came when the end of February and March. When I went to the shops to receive the ration for my family and for some friends living in my house, when I went on the way there I found I had to pass dead bodies and then on my way back some more bodies were lying – if I passed on the way there two bodies, on the way back there were four.
ANTHONY EDEN
British Foreign Minister
They were very difficult about it and there were endless discussions and arguments. Churchill went very boldly on that visit himself to Moscow to try and explain matters to Stalin and had a very tough time of it and in October 1943, when we had our first Three Power Conference in Moscow, I asked Churchill to let me have [Chief Staff Officer to the Prime Minister General Sir Hastings] Ismay with me with the authority of the Chiefs of Staff to put the whole position to the Russians, because I was quite sure that the moment we got to Moscow they wouldn't want to discuss whatever thing we were supposed to discuss, but would say, 'What about the Second Front?' – which is exactly what happened. Ismay and his American colleague, US Military Attaché General Dean, did a great job and that, I think, did a great deal to disabuse the Russians of some of their suspicions. After all we were there several weeks and during that time the explanations were pretty well continuous, not only at the conference table but in private conversations and at meals. After that the Russians became more understanding, but they were always apprehensive if we were going to postpone the date a little and Molotov or Stalin would say, 'Let's not change the dates.' It was natural; they were sustaining pretty heavy casualties themselves. They were tough and difficult and there was a period when Winston stopped sending personal messages altogether because he thought that it wasn't any good. But you expect that sort of thing to happen. I think considering what one knows of the characteristics of the three countries, their forms of government, their way of life and everything about them, the fact that we managed to keep the alliance at all in reasonable shape was quite commendable.
MAJOR GORONWY REES
Combined Operations Staff Officer and D-Day planner
Curiously enough, and this was a thing that afterwards I really remember, I now remember with a kind of horror, one of my great friends of that time was [Soviet spy] Guy Burgess, and I used to see him a great deal during the whole of this operation. And afterwards I wondered why on earth, you know, how absolutely terrible, I could quite easily have given him some indication as to what was going on.*38
TOSHIKAZU KASE
Japanese diplomat
The success of Nazi Germany in the European theatre affected the younger officers until before Stalingrad, which coincided with the first defeat the Japanese Army suffered. Many young officers became disillusioned with the German military efforts after Stalingrad.
PRIVATE WILHELM HOFFMAN
Sixth Army at Stalingrad, diary entries
11 September: Our battalion is fighting in the suburbs of Stalingrad. Firing is going on all the time. Wherever you look is fire and flames. Russian cannon and machine guns are firing out of the burning city – fanatics! 16 September: Our battalion plus tanks is attacking the grain elevator. The battalion is suffering heavy losses. The elevator is occupied not by men but by devils no bullets or flames can destroy. 18 September: Fighting is going on inside the elevator. If all the buildings of Stalingrad are defended like this none of our soldiers will get back to Germany. 22 September.Russian resistance in the elevator has been broken. Our troops are advancing towards the Volga. We found only about forty Russians dead in the elevator. 26 October: Who would have thought, three months ago, that instead of the joy of victory we would have to endure such sacrifices and torture, the end of which is nowhere in sight. The soldiers are calling Stalingrad the mass grave of the Wehrmacht.
PRIVATE ANTON BOSNIK
Russian defender at Stalingrad, extract from a letter
We moved back occupying one building after another, turning them to strongholds. A soldier would crawl out of an occupied position only when the ground was on fire beneath him and his clothes were smouldering.
ALBERT SPEER
My brother was in Stalingrad and personally I tried everything to bring him out by plane. The man in charge of the whole air forces around Stalingrad promised me to do his utmost to find him but he couldn't be found any more. Göring's assurance that he could supply the besieged city from the air was just one of this things which happened quite often in Hitler's surrounding. People were afraid telling the absolute truth and they wanted to please him with something which was cheering him up, and Goring saw Hitler in a desolate, depressive mood so he made his promise possibly without asking his generals before.
LIEUTENANT REINER
Fourth Panzer Army at Stalingrad, extract from a letter
Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke, a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those very hot, noisy, bloody nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee from this hell. The hardest stone cannot bear it for long. Only men endure.
ADOLF HITLER
After-dinner speech, Munich, 8 November 1943
I wanted to get to the Volga, at a particular point where stands a certain town that bears the name of Stalin himself. I wanted to take the place and we've done it. We've got it, really, except for a few enemy positions still holding out. Now people say why don't they finish the job more quickly? Well, I prefer to do the job with quite small groups. Time is of no consequence at all.
GRAND ADMIRAL KARL DÖNITZ
Chief of the German Navy
The defeat of the Battle of Stalingrad made to a high degree the whole of our situation much worse. It was clear that we still could not hope to win the war against Russia. By such a victory Hitler had hoped to make our possession upon the European continent so strong that British sea power could not see any advantage in pursuing the war against us. He hoped that in the circumstances we would get a good peace with our enemies in the West too.
COLONEL IVAN CHISTYAKOV
158th Guards Artillery Regiment
The special thing about Kursk was the number of troops involved, more than two million people, fifty thousand tanks altogether, about ten thousand aeroplanes, weapons, mortars – everything was bring prepared for the battle of the third summer. We should congratulate our Party organisations, our political workers and our officers. They prepare the troops very thoroughly to resist the German attack, explaining the new techniques and equipment of the enemy and what our government had given us. At Kursk the Soviet troops displayed great heroism as you would never find in any other army. No capitalist army will find such heroism as our Soviet soldiers showed. The heroic advances of our troops were very great, it was mass heroism. Lenin said that Soviet people would produce not one hero but hundreds of thousands and this true. The people who we freed greeted us everywhere with salt and bread as their saviours from this Fascist slavery.
MAJOR GENERAL WALTHER WARLIMONT
Deputy Chief of Wehrmacht Operations
Hitler at that time used to speak of a large gap which had remained there – gradually there was more gap than front and eventually more front than gap but that took all the time until the end of September. Then the Russians followed this breakthrough into three large bridgeheads and particularly at Bryansk, which became the starting place for the winter offensive. On the northern part of the front the Russians penetrated into the Balkan states and approached the frontier of East Prussia where Hitler had his headquarters. Things developed in the south where the Russians had penetrated Romania, the main source of the German petrol supply, and opened the way further to the west into Hungary and to Bulgaria thus endangering the whole of the German troops in the south-east – two hundred thousand men. In the fall of 1944 they followed into Hungary and came close to Budapest and on the main front they pursued their success further on to the German frontier. In the north the advance led to the German Army Group being enclosed leaving almost twenty-eight divisions in Poland and never could break out until the end of the war. The Russians' winter offensive penetrated deeply into Germany no more than about fifty kilometres east of Berlin and in the south approached Vienna.
COLONEL GENERAL LOMOV
The Soviet High Command was expecting to begin the attack in the second half of January and were making all the necessary preparations – equipment, supplies, troops. But, as is well known, in December 1944 the German Command made an attack against the Anglo-American forces in the Ardennes. In connection with this and related complications Churchill turned to Stalin with a request for help from Soviet forces in this difficult situation. The Soviet High Command replied that the attack would be speeded up and in fact the operation which has been prepared for later actually began on 12th of January. This had a very positive effect on the position of the Anglo-American troops and the Germans were forced to stop their attacks and in the Ardennes the situation stabilised. It was a successful operation in spite of the fact that the Soviet forces had to attack earlier than intended.
MAJOR GENERAL WARLIMONT
The effect on morale is hardly to be esteemed by me because at that time I was at the headquarters in East Prussia which General Jodl compared between a concentration camp and a monastery. The immediate strategic situation was much more important. Hitler had special inclination to save Hungary much more than our own country so he was inclined to send the few reserves he still had. We had to assemble them in Hungary. Another important consequence was that the Greek armies in the south-east were about to be separated from any possibility to retreat to Germany. At the beginning Hitler was prepared to give the permission to other retreating movements from there. These were endangered by warfare in Yugoslavia, which made it still more difficult to come through.
GENERAL ALEXEI ANTONOV
Red Army Chief of Staff
Our Red Army started in the direction of Berlin. Fifth Guards Army was commanded by me, very lucky, we were the main group that advanced to Berlin. Beginning in January, interesting events shows the good feelings of our Soviet government and of the English troops. In Ardennes, difficult situation for the English Army, Churchill asked Stalin to speed up the attack by the Red Army to help the English attack from the west. We received the order for a forced march, virtually running night and day, to prepare attack. We were lucky to be ready by 14th January to Warsaw and then onwards to the Oder attacks and counter-attacks south of Warsaw. But we overcame these blows. Twenty heroes of the Soviet Union, soldiers and officers.
MAJOR GENERAL WARLIMONT
The main reason for keeping the German Army in Finland has been thrown away already in later 1943 when the siege of Leningrad had to open up because we couldn't hold it any more. So the Russians had free access from that time. This retreat was much easier than on other fronts because it had already been prepared. Defence under Marshal Mannerheim remained friendly to the Germans and they support the retreat wherever they could. Hitler tried to impede the retreat by demanding that we had to keep up the occupation of the area. Speer came in and told Hitler that it wasn't necessary, that there were enough stores of nickel in Germany, and so this impediment was set aside also.
Z T BOKIEWICZ
Polish Home Army, Warsaw uprising of August–September 1944 The German troops were in completely chaotic retreat and when you went into one of the main streets of Warsaw, which ran from east to west, you could see the German Army retreating with all their belongings and the units were mixed. The soldiers had on their faces – they were afraid and they were completely dishevelled and in a terrible state. The Russian Army was approaching Warsaw and we could hear the gunfire in the distance and then they stopped and it was a great surprise to us because they were so near. In fact during the second part of the uprising they were just across the river and there was some contact with their units. They were the units of the Polish Army, which was part of the Russian Army, and General Zygmunt Berling of that Army sent some observers and one of the battalions was actually landed on our side and took part in the fighting, but because the soldiers were recruited in Poland a few weeks before they were inexperienced in street fighting and they were almost completely annihilated.
ALICJA IWANSKA
Student involved in the Warsaw uprising
I feel that Poland was betrayed by the Allies, that the Allies behaved in an opportunistic way towards Poland. Most of us feel that way, that they could have taken more chances themselves in order not to betray their Allies. So naturally we got extremely disappointed, but there is something in the Polish national character, you know, we're just optimistic and we do not give up friends so easily. So we feel that we still have friends among those Allies and that one day they would help us during some other peace negotiations, in some other situations where it may be easier for them to help us or maybe if they would decide to take more chances.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL HASSO-ECCARD FREIHERR VON MANTEUFFEL
Commander of Panzer Grenadier Division 'Grossdeutchland' February– September 1944
After the landing to north France and absolute Allied air supervision not only on the front line west of the Rhine but over the whole of Germany, there was no doubt that the fortress of Germany lay open. Lack of personnel, material replacement of all kinds, the lack of tanks – it was impossible to replace the heavy losses. There we have no operational reserves on the front of the battle theatres and no battle theatres. The weakness of the Italian alliance became public; my doubts were increased by the setback of the attack of my own Army [to break through to troops trapped in Kurland] in September 1944. In four days three tank brigades were wiped out because they were absolutely unprepared for such an attack. The defeat was catastrophic both on material terms and had an effect on morale. The losses could not be made up, so was unable to keep arms filled, to reinforce exhausted attacking forces. Before the beginning of the offensive the morale of the German attacking forces was as high as could be expected, and this compensated for comparative weakness in weapons and in armour and manpower. After the defeat, we could not go on fighting at all.
WILLY FELDHEIM
Hitler Youth
I was a member of the Hitler Youth and in 1945 I was fifteen years old. As the Russians came through Poland to the border I felt I had to do something because the Russians are coming and this is my homeland. And so I went back to the military training camp and there, after maybe two weeks, came a commission of Army and SS and asked for Hitler Youths to form a special force anti-tank brigade and we would shoot tanks with a kind of bazooka, a small one. Mostly we had to go backwards, we had to go back and then we came in the Berlin area. It was early in the morning and we had to hold this area of very small gardens and wooden houses, we had to defend this line. I had the right corner with three other guys and had to go back to my battalion chief for some ammunition and I was very close to the wooden house and about thirty or forty metres from the street and I hear a very, very big noise and four Russian tanks were coming with Russian infantry on top. I saw some of our young boys, they jumped out of their holes and they were shooting to the tanks and destroyed one of the tanks, and others were shooting with their guns and killed all the Russian soldiers. And the Russians must have been in a sweet factory because they had all their arms full of sweets and chocolates. They were falling on the street and all the little boys – because everybody in our unit was fifteen or sixteen – they were running on to the street for the chocolate and the sweets.
MAJOR GENERAL SIEGFRIED WESTPHAL
Chief of Staff to Commander in Chief West
The German soldier was exhausted, he had only one desire, to end the war, but he was willing to fight further on because to cover the rear of the Eastern Front.
DR STEPHEN AMBROSE
American historian
There was a great celebration at Torgau where they met, dancing and embracing, exchanging of gifts – very happy times. The United States during the war had been propagandised into seeing Russia as a democracy, a land of freedom-lovers with essentially broad social aims about the same as those of the West, which seemed to make sense since they were clearly an enemy of the Nazis and we were an enemy of the Nazis, thus it appeared we had a great deal in common. The leaders, especially the British leaders, and most especially Churchill, never agreed with this view, but this was the view of most of the ordinary soldiers and the citizenry of the United States. I don't know how people felt in Britain about the Russians during the war, but in the United States we had the attitude that it would be quite possible to get along with the Russians after the war in the creation of a better world. The vacuum in central Europe had been filled by Russia and American and, to a certain extent, British troops, and we could now decide the fate of Europe, create a Europe that would no longer disturb the peace but which would be dedicated to democracy and material progress, a better life for everyone.
SECOND LIEUTENANT WILLIAM ROBERTSON
US Army
Everybody was very happy and a good deal of celebration was going on right at the river bank. There must have been a platoon of Russian troops came forward; they had schnapps and we toasted each other's success, we toasted everybody else's success. The Russians were overjoyed, we also; there was handshaking and back-slapping and exchange of souvenirs. I have a Russian watch and somebody else's wedding band and I lost my watch, I lost all sorts of insignia from my uniform. I have a Russian cap ornament as well, a lot of this. The Russians were fascinated – by this time they'd gone across to the west side of the Elbe, wandering through the town – they were fascinated with the Jeep. They would commandeer vehicles as they were going so they had a motley type of equipment, and they were very interested in the Jeep, so at that point we thought it would be best to take some of them back with us to establish a meeting at noon the next day for our regimental and divisional commanders to meet.
GENERAL ANTONOV
We were full of feelings. Our first feelings were ones of vexation for the German people. We saw destroyed towns, destroyed streets, squares, white flags in the windows, we thought how awful a disgrace and tragedy the Fascists had inflicted on the German people. We walked and thought about the unhappiness the Soviet people had delivered us from, having defeated the Fascist Germany under the leadership of the Leninist Communist Party. On 9th May in the sports area of Treptow Park the Commanders of the Corps took part in the victory demonstration. After all we had suffered in the preceding four years, it is written in detail in my memoirs. It is a good thing that people write down in books what they suffered at the hands of the Fascist aggression.
DR AMBROSE
The war ends on 8th May and within two months the Soviets gave up more than two-thirds of the city to the British and Americans and of course gave up a part of the city to the French. So the first thing they did was to live up to their agreement that Berlin would be a tripartite occupation and, eventually, four powers. I think the thing that stands out was that the Russians lived up to their agreement to let the West into Berlin after they had paid the price in blood for capturing it. Most estimates are a hundred thousand casualties to take the city. The Americans hadn't gone as far into the zones that had been assigned to the Russians as the Russians had come into zones assigned to the West. The Russians had to do more pulling back than the West did. Eisenhower at the very end of the war refused Churchill, who wanted 'to shake hands with the Russians as far into the east as possible' in order to use territory that was taken in Germany and that was already assigned to the Russians for trading purposes.