War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (7 page)

‘This drill – Ach! inhuman at times – was designed to break our pride, to make those young soldiers as malleable as possible so that they would follow any order later on.’
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The decision to invade Russia was not likely, therefore, to generate anything more than superficial discussion, as also their personal moral conduct in that campaign. Leutnant Hubert Becker explained:

‘We didn’t understand the Russian campaign from the beginning, nobody did. But it was an order, and orders must be followed to the best of my ability as a soldier. I am an instrument of the State and I must do my duty.’

Discipline was ingrained. The corruption of values implicit upon acceptance of the Commissar Order was not a subject open for discussion. Many soldiers would agree with Hubert Becker’s opinion voiced after the war. They knew of no alternative.

‘We never felt that the soldier was being misused. We felt as German soldiers, we were serving our country, defending our country, no matter where. Nobody wanted such an action, nobody wanted a campaign, because we knew from our parents and the descriptions of World War 1 what it would entail. They used to say, “If this happens again, it will be fatal.” Then one day I was told I had to march. And opposition to this? That didn’t happen!’
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Faith in the Führer motivated German soldiers poised to invade Russia. The oath of the soldier
‘Ich schwöre
…’ was made to Adolf Hitler first, then God and the Fatherland. Henry Metelmann recalled after swearing the oath, ‘we had become real soldiers in every conceivable sense.’ Metelmann’s background and experience was representative of millions of German soldiers waiting on the ‘Barbarossa’ start-line. ‘We were brought up to love our Führer, who was to me like a second God, and when we were told about his great love for us, the German nation, I was often close to tears,’ he wrote. Disillusionment would follow, but in 1941 Hitler was at the height of his powers. Idealism and gratitude for seemingly positive achievements sustained popularity despite setbacks to come. Metelmann recalled with some affection what he felt the Nazis had delivered:

‘Where before we seldom had a decent football to play with, the Hitler Youth provided us with decent sports equipment, and previously out-of-bounds gymnasiums, swimming pools and even stadiums were now open to us. Never in my life had I been on a real holiday – father was much too poor for such an extravagance. Now under Hitler, for very little money I could go to lovely camps in the mountains, by the rivers or near the sea.’
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The Weimar Republic proclaimed in 1918 had borne the burdens of a lost war. It was for many of its citizens simply a way-station for something better. Values such as thrift and hard work had been made irrelevant by inflation. Martin Koller, a Luftwaffe pilot, pointed out: ‘My mother told me, when I was born [in 1923] a bottle of milk cost a billion marks.’
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The economy, characterised by high unemployment, low profits and negative balances of payment through the 1920s, appeared to be saved by the advent of the Führer. Bernhard Schmitt, an Alsatian, summed up the feelings of many Germans who voted for Hitler when he said:

‘In 1933–34 Hitler came to power like a knight to the rescue; we thought nothing better could happen to Germany once we saw what he was doing to fight unemployment, corruption and so on.’
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Even Inge Aicher-Scholl, later to lose a brother and sister to the state, said:

‘Hitler, or so we heard, wanted to bring greatness, fortune and prosperity to this Fatherland. He wanted to see that everyone had work and bread, that every German become a free, happy and independent person. We thought that was wonderful, and we wanted to do everything we could to contribute.’
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Even when events turned sour, Hitler’s soldiers continued to believe in him. Otto Kumm, serving in the Waffen SS, admitted: ‘Sure, we had some second thoughts at the end of the western campaign in 1940, when we let the British get away, but these didn’t last long.’ Nobody questioned the higher leadership; indeed, the Führer’s soldiers believed in him. Kumm’s doubts ‘were superficial and didn’t cause us to question Hitler or his genius’.
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The German army on the eve of ‘Barbarossa’ was confident in itself and its Führer. Grenadier Georg Buchwald stated: ‘we had done well in France’,
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an impression shared by Hauptmann Klaus von Bismarck, who opined: ‘We were highly impressed with ourselves – our vitality, our strength and our discipline.’
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Victory over France had also changed sentiments back home. Herbert Mittelstadt, a 14-year-old, was astounded to hear his mother refer to ‘our wonderful Führer’ after the French victory. In his view, ‘despite her various and special religious beliefs she must have pondered the matter over a period, that all would turn out positive, and that the war could be won.’ His father had spent three years at the front in World War 1, and had ‘probably always suffered a little with the trauma of the defeat’.
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Stefan Thomas, a medic and social democrat, was approached by an old veteran political campaigner who admitted that perhaps they were ‘in the wrong party’. Thomas had cause to reflect: ‘my father had lain three long years in the mud of Champagne before Verdun in World War 1, and now in 1940, one saw France fall apart in a three to four weeks’ Blitzkrieg.’
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This confidence was reflected in the cameraderie and demeanour of the soldiers. As in all armies,
‘Thema Eins’
(theme one) was women. Events, therefore, worked to their advantage. Panzer NCO Hans Becker remembered the ‘magical’ effect war decorations had on the girls.

‘They loved to be seen out with an old campaigner, and what did it matter if his pay stretched no further than one evening a week at a local dance hall or cinema!’
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Landser
jargon, ‘soldier talk’, adapted tactical military expressions to describe their relationships with women.
Annäherung,
the approach to an objective, was to ‘trap a bird’.
Ranrobben,
to ‘get stuck in now’, ‘frontal attack’ and ‘emergency landings’ provided graphic conventional military descriptions of developing relations with the opposite sex.

Wehrmacht soldiers had never had it so good. One Panzer NCO dressed in black uniform, on losing his girlfriend’s ring in a cinema, had his money refunded on explaining his predicament to the manager. The latter, acutely embarrassed, apologised on behalf of the teller who had mistaken his black uniform for the Hitler Youth! Unteroffizier Jürgen E., apprehended by an attractive girl on home leave, was enticed to join her in a flat. Hardly believing his luck he shyly followed. On entry the lights came on, and he found to his astonishment that he had been ‘captured’ by the young lady for a party. She won the competition she was engaged in, and the young NCO was awarded the prize within weeks. The lady became his wife.

Two signallers, Karl Heinz Krause and Hanns Karl Kubiak, based in eastern Prussia, were despatched to Berlin to pick up spare radio parts required for the forthcoming Russian campaign. Krause struck up an amorous relationship with a young cook named Bertha. Kubiak was persuaded to write romantic letters on behalf of the less than literate Krause, in exchange for a share of the resulting food parcels, regularly despatched by the cook. Even when both were subsequently wounded in Russia, Krause kept the relationship going to ensure the continuity of much appreciated resupplies, claiming he had received wounds to both hands. Bertha thankfully continued to be compassionate. Soldiers, as ever, made the most of opportunities between life and death.
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Conquering France in six weeks had been a military achievement of some magnitude, but in a number of respects the campaign had been unique. Many allied divisions were obliged to undergo their baptism of fire in mobile situations for which they were unprepared. General von Kluge’s Fourth Army campaign evaluation, coolly detached, admitted victory had transpired under special circumstances. Factors such as the poor morale of the French Army, complete German air superiority, exceptionally favourable weather and the double surprise of the employment of massed tanks and aircraft all conspired to produce resounding success.
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German tactical principles were particularly sound.
Auftragstaktik,
a philosophy of mission directives giving subordinates maximum freedom of action in pursuing clearly identified tasks, enabled initiatives, once grasped, to be retained. General Erich von Manstein, a corps commander, similarly assessed that success was due to the enemy’s inability to defeat German tanks. The lesson to derive for the future was that other nations would similarly mass their tanks, motorise their infantry and aggressively use their air forces to support ground combat.
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There would be no more cheap victories. After the painful initial ordeal of combat, many French divisions fought well after Dunkirk, even against hopeless odds. By the end of the campaign in the West the German Army had lost one quarter of its total tank strength – 683 tanks were lost – and 26,455 men were killed, 111,640 wounded and 16,659 missing in action.
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It had not been a total walk-over.

The German Army officer corps meanwhile had retained a healthy respect for the Red Army. If the experience of World War 1 was any indication, a fight with the Russian Army would be a serious affair. Its soldiers had always demonstrated innate combat toughness with the ability to endure great hardship. Their tactical doctrine, not dissimilar from the German, was aggressive. Von Kluge’s assessment was that, although his Fourth Army motorised forces had performed well in France, they were not tough enough for Russia. They needed to be more aggressive in the attack.
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On 20 March 1941, he directed that training should concentrate on hardening the soldiers, since in Russia they would be without even the simplest comforts. Men and horses had to practise longdistance marches, be prepared to cope with chemical and biological weapons, and anticipate assaults, when they came, to consist of several and deep waves of infantry supported by tanks and artillery. German infantry weapon co-ordination would have to improve if ever they were to defeat such attacks. Soldiers needed to be tougher to cope with the inevitability of close combat and overcome their present aversion to fighting at night. The Russians, described as ‘children of nature’, revelled in night combat. Despite shortcomings, the Red Army was better equipped than the Wehrmacht’s previous victims. German soldiers would have to copy the Spanish and Finnish infantry precedents of attacking tanks with explosive charges. The coming war would not be conducted on roads as in the West; limitless space and massive forest areas would need to be reconnoitered and cleared. German headquarters staffs would now be vulnerable. Normal security precautions would not suffice. Headquarters personnel should become familiar with their side-arms and expect to use them.
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For some, it was a daunting prospect.

As successful as the German Army had been, its hasty expansion had resulted in organisational problems and insufficient training. Overall fighting ability appeared to have even declined. This was reflected in low marksmanship standards, a disinclination for close combat, night and forest fighting, and reluctance to exercise and bivouac in the field and dig entrenchments.
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Hitler’s policy of spending lavish sums of money on military barracks had softened his soldiers. Accommodation demonstrated just how much the German soldier of 1939 was spoiled and pampered compared to his 1914 counterpart. Modernised versions of these barracks are still in use today.

The infantry, although unable to set the pace of the coming campaign – which would be the task of the motorised formations – still constituted the bulk of the fighting power of the German Army. Only it could fix and destroy the pockets of resistance planned to be surrounded and held by the motorised formations until they caught up. Yet the German infantry was badly in need of a period of reform and consolidation following a series of conflicting demobilisations and reconstitutions. Lessons from the French campaign had been clear. More motorisation and effective reconnaissance units were urgently required. The pace of the campaign had been much influenced by the speed of infantry marching on foot. Infantry divisions spearheading advances in France created ad hoc motorised advanced battalions by pressing captured vehicles, including civilian, into service.

A more effective anti-tank gun was required to replace the 37mm ‘door-knocker’, so called because of its inability to penetrate allied tanks, as well as better use of artillery and artillery observation units. The reorganisation of the German infantry arm was now a conceivable option if captured French equipment was used. In the midst of the French campaign, Hitler officially directed the army to reduce in strength to 120 divisions, while concurrently expanding its mobile element to 20 Panzer and 10 motorised divisions.
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The resulting demobilisation provided the army with a reserve supply of weapons and equipment. Ten weeks later Hitler reversed the decision, calling for an expansion up to 180 divisions, to pursue the Russian campaign. With only 11 months remaining to the invasion, time and energy were devoted to creating new units and operational planning. Any hopes of modernisation – motorising infantry and artillery, introducing new weapons and standardising tables of organisation and equipment – were gone.