War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (19 page)

Damage inflicted on completely unprepared Russian airfields was enormous. Soviet pilots and ground crews had been asleep under canvas when the first attacks swept in. Aircraft were not camouflaged and stood in densely packed rows at border airfields. Bomber squadrons were not stationed in depth within the hinterland and were mostly unprotected by flak. When they finally rose in swarms to do battle, their ponderous non-tactical and unprotected formations were savaged by attacking German fighter wings. JG3, commanded by Major Günther Lutzow, shot down 27 attacking Soviet bombers in 15 minutes, without losing a single aircraft.
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As a consequence, senior army and Luftwaffe generals were euphoric in the first week of the campaign. Generalmajor Hoffmann von Waldau, Chief of the
Führungsabteilung
of the Luftwaffe General Staff, claimed ‘full tactical surprise’ had been achieved, reckoning on ‘battle-winning success’. This view was shared by General der Flieger Frhr von Richthofen, the commander of the VIIIth Fliegerkorps in Kesselring’s Luftflotte 2, who believed at the end of June that the mass of the Red Army’s attack armies had been annihilated. Two weeks later he stated, ‘the way to Moscow was open.’ Eight days, he felt, was all that was required.
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Premature as this comment may have been, air supremacy was assured. The Soviet Air Force, however, was not totally destroyed, although it had been dealt a crushing blow. Most of the aircrew baling out from stricken bombers did so over their own territory. They would live to fight another day, as also the crews of machines destroyed on the ground, who could be reintroduced into the air battle at a later stage. Only 30% of the European Red Air Force had been located by the Luftwaffe during the planning and reconnaissance phase. Its overall assessment of potential was out by one half. Nine days after the pre-emptive strike Generalmajor Hoffmann von Waldau told the Army Chief of Staff, Halder:

‘The air force has greatly underestimated the enemy’s numerical strength. It is quite evident that the Russians initially had more than 8,000 planes. Half of this number has probably already been shot down or destroyed on the ground, so numerically we are now equal with the Russians.’
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He privately confided to his diary on 3 July that the surprise attack had hit a massive Russian deployment. The high numbers previously dismissed as propaganda now required careful reassessment. ‘The matériel quality is also better than expected,’ von Waldau admitted. Continued success was dependent upon maintaining the current massive Russian attrition rate with ‘minimal own losses’. But a sinister development was already apparent: ‘The bitterness and extent of mass resistance has exceeded all we had imagined.’
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The first indication of this was when Soviet pilot Sub-Lieutenant Dimitri Kokorev of the 124th Fighter Regiment deliberately rammed a Messerschmitt Bf110 during a dogfight over Kobrin. He had run out of ammunition. Both aircraft spiralled earthwards. Near Zholkva another Polikarpov I-16 pilot, Lieutenant I. Ivanov, directed his propeller into the tail of a German Heinkel He111 bomber. Kokorev was to survive; Ivanov did not. Nine Russian pilots reportedly resorted to suicidal ramming tactics on the first day. One exasperated Luftwaffe Oberst declared: ‘Soviet pilots were fatalists, fighting without any hope of success or confidence in their own abilities and driven only by their own fanaticism or by fear of the commissars.’
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The Germans were winning the air battle, but their opponents, despite the one-sided nature of the dogfights, could still be unpredictably lethal.

The Luftwaffe had the Russian tiger by the tail. Mass resistance tinged with an element of fanaticism was pitted against a tactically deadly but smaller foe. Only by constantly achieving the same level of crippling losses could the Luftwaffe expect to win. ‘Success is axiomatic to inflicting very high casualties relative to minimal own losses,’ von Waldau calculated, ‘but first greater numbers need to be annihilated’.
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German control of the air was complete by dusk on the first day. From now onwards Luftwaffe units concentrated on supporting the ground advance.

Arnold Döring flying with KG53 was strafing and bombing the roads north-east of Brest-Litovsk leading toward Kobrin. His comments encapsulated the Luftwaffe’s new intent. ‘In order to leave the road intact for our own advance,’ he said, ‘we dropped the bombs only at the side of the road.’ Their target was massed enemy columns of tanks, motorised columns with horse-drawn carts and artillery in between, ‘all frantically making their way east’. The result was pandemonium.

‘Our bombs fell by the side of the tanks, guns, between vehicles and panic-stricken Russians running in all directions. It was total panic down there – nobody could even think of firing back. The effect of the incendiary and splinter bombs was awesome. With a target like this there are no misses. Tanks were turned over or stood in flames, guns with their towing vehicles blocked the road, while between them horses thrashing around multiplied the panic.’
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‘As the men marched the dust rose until we were all covered in a light yellow coating,’ remarked Leutnant Heinrich Haape with Infantry Regiment 18, part of Army Group Centre. ‘Men and vehicles assumed ghostly outlines in the dust-laden air.’
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Steady progress had been achieved during this, the longest period of daylight in the year. ‘Our divisions on the entire offensive front,’ noted General Franz Halder, ‘have forced back the enemy by an average of 10-12km. This has opened the path for our armour.’
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Hoepner’s Panzergruppe 4 had captured two bridges across the River Dubysa intact in Army Group North’s sector. Units were achieving penetrations averaging 20km.
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General Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2 in the centre made startling progress: 17th Panzer Division covered 18km; 18th Panzer to its right drove 66km north of Brest-Litovsk. South of the town, 3rd Panzer Division penetrated 36km, 4th Panzer 39km and the 1st Cavalry Division 24km.

The pace had been hectic. Robert Rupp wrote in his diary after crossing the River Bug: ‘Further drive at speed into the darkness. Dust often so thick that one could hardly see the vehicle in front any more.’
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The vanguard of XIIth Army Corps, the detachment ‘Stolzmann’, reached the Bereza Kartuska area one day later, an advance of 100km.
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Hoth’s Panzergruppe 3 forced the River Neman near Olita and Merkine scattering enemy resistance. It created full operational freedom of movement in so doing; there was no tangible enemy line in front of it. Hoth was poised to break out. Further south, von Kleist’s Panzergruppe 1, part of Army Group South, was approaching the River Styr; patrols were already across the River Prut. The frontier crust appeared broken. All bridges on the Bug and other river frontiers were captured intact. Halder concluded:

‘Tactical surprise of the enemy has apparently been achieved along the entire line. Troops were caught in their quarters, planes on the airfields were covered up, and … enemy groups faced with unexpected developments at the front enquired at the HQ in the rear what they should do.’

The OKW report for 22 June reported an ‘overall impression that the enemy, after having overcome initial surprise, took up the battle’. Chief of Staff Halder likewise concurred; ‘After the first shock,’ he wrote, ‘the enemy has turned to fight.’
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Infantry following up the main border-breaching assaults were beginning to feel the consequence of this. In Army Group Centre, III/IR18, numbering some 800 men, was fired upon by a Soviet rearguard. It consisted merely of a Soviet Commissar and four soldiers, who aggressively defended a hastily improvised position in the midst of a cornfield. German casualties were negligible. ‘I didn’t expect that,’ battalion commander Major Neuhoff confided shakily to his medical officer, Leutnant Haape. ‘Sheer suicide to attack a battalion at close quarters with five men.’

It left an uncomfortable feeling of insecurity. Veterans of the previous French campaign the year before were accustomed to enemy surrender once they were outmanoeuvred. These tactics were unfamiliar. ‘We were to learn that those small groups of Russians would constitute our greatest danger,’ declared Haape. High-standing corn provided ideal cover for small stay-behind groups, prepared to fight on, even after the main body of Russian forces had been pushed back. ‘As a rule they were fanatically led by Soviet commissars and we never knew when we should come under their fire.’ German units were subjected to nuisance raids the entire day. Haape’s battalion was ambushed twice in the morning. A Hauptmann from a neighbouring unit admitted later the same day: ‘That’s happening all over the countryside’. Exasperated, he complained: ‘These swine build up ammunition dumps in the cornfields and then wait until our main columns pass before they start sniping.’
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By contrast the German general staff was not too displeased at this Soviet tendency to turn and fight. ‘There are no indications of an attempted disengagement,’ Halder reported. The Russian command organisation ‘is too ponderous to effect swift operational regrouping in reaction to our attack, and so the Russians will have to accept battle in the disposition in which they were deployed’. The aim was to destroy the Russian armies as far west as possible. Halder’s diary entries exude a certain smug confidence. The plan was working. ‘Army groups are pursuing their original objectives,’ he noted. ‘Nor is there any reason for a change. OKH has no occasion to issue any orders.’
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The campaign was developing satisfactorily.

Blitzkrieg for the ordinary soldier at the front, however, was not fitting this tidy conception of order and progress. At the end of this interminably long summer’s day Leutnant Haape was taxed by the grim task of providing assistance to the injured who had already fallen in the apparently faultless execution of the task. Progress at troop level was not so obvious. Faced now as a medical officer with the onerous task of clearing up the physical and psychological carnage, Haape felt exasperated, even indignant. He remonstrated:

‘In how many fields and woods and ditches were German soldiers dying, waiting for help that would not come – or that would be too late when it did arrive? Surely, I thought, the army could have made better arrangements to deal with the hellish mix of confusion, terror and despair that was left behind by the relentless forward march of our storm troops. The organisation of the fighting troops and the paraphernalia of war seemed to have been worked out with amazing precision, but there appeared to have been a criminal disregard of the necessities behind front line troops. Surely it would even have been better to advance more slowly if it would have given us time to find and treat our wounded and bury our dead.’
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The victors had suffered in the process. Even less compassion was expended on the vanquished as the first 24 hours of a conflict that was to last nearly four years drew to a close.

The home fronts… Victory will be ours! Germany

Outwardly, Sunday 22 June appeared a normal day in the Reich. Some 95,000 voices roared appreciation at a thrilling football cup final being played out at the Berlin Olympic Stadium. Many Germans, ignoring the distraction of world events, immersed themselves in an exciting game of football, the highlights of which were replayed in German cinemas the following week. Rapid Wien, the first
Ostmark
(non-German) team to play in a German final since the Austrian
Anschluss,
met the defending champions and favourites FC Schalke 04. The German team, leading 3–0 at the 70-minute point, lost 3–4 in the final few minutes to a suddenly resurgent Austrian team. It was a breathtaking performance and totally unexpected result. National reverses in wartime had been rare until now. Theirs was different.

Reportage of sporting conflicts was preferable to listening to the depressing news broadcast across the Reich hours before. Goebbels’ radio speech shocked the German nation. One housewife in Hausberge Porta wrote:

‘Ja, and then I switched on the radio and heard – “the most recent news report from the Eastern Front” – and joined the ranks of those already deeply disturbed in Germany. Turning on the radio early this morning and completely unprepared to listen to the Führer’s proclamation left me totally speechless.’
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Another gentleman, Herr F. M. living in Neuwied declared:

‘When I heard the National Anthem played with Goebbels on the radio this morning I thought some good news was going to be reported. But, on the contrary, it was the opposite … Now one can understand the previously incomprehensible – why the army was in the East. Both of us will face some different weeks. You soldiers will have to fight and hold while we at home need to wait and hope. Once again we live in troublesome and uncertain times.’
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Distractions beyond football matches were concentrating minds. Charlotte von der Schulenburg’s husband, already at the front, had left her alone at home with four young children, aged between four months and six years old to support. Domestic pressures were building up. She pointed out:

‘One must remember in those days that people needed ration and clothing cards. It was already becoming a problem. There were only a few vegetables and a little fruit, and that was already coming from the garden.’
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