OSPREY Campaign PUBLISHING O p e r a t i on Barbarossa 1941 (1) Army Group South Robert Kirchubel • Illustrated by Howard Gerrard OSPREY Campaign • I29 PUBLISHING O p e r a t i on Barbarossa 1941 (1) Army Group South Robert Kirchubel • Illustrated by Howard Gerrard Series editor Lee Johnson • Consultant editor David G Chandler First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Osprey Publishing. Elms Court. Author's note Chapel Way, Botley. Oxford OX2 9LP. United Kingdom. Email: [email protected] This book is written to the glory of God. The author wishes to thank the following for their contributions to its success: О 2003 Osprey Publishing Ltd. my wife Linda and sons Erich, Mason and Marc for their All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study. forbearance; friends Gary Komar and Joe Wilson for their research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright. Designs and editorial assistance; the ladies at the Inter-Library Loan Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a Department of the San Joaquin County Library; and my retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, superiors at the California National Guard for their support. electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise. without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be Artist's note addressed to the Publishers. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Readers may care to note that the original paintings from which the color plates in this book were prepared are ISBN 1 84176 697 6 available for private sale. All reproduction copyright whatsoever is retained by the Publishers. All enquiries Editor Lee Johnson should be addressed to: Design: The Black Spot Index by David Worthington Howard Gerrard Maps by The Map Studio 11 Oaks Road, 3D bird's-eye views by John Plumer Battlescene artwork by Howard Gerrard Tenterden, Originated by The Electronic Page Company, Cwmbran, UK Kent Printed in China through World Print Ltd. TN30 6RD UK 0304 05 06 07 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 The Publishers regret that they can enter into no For a catalog of all books published by Osprey Military correspondence upon this matter, and Aviation please contact: Osprey Direct USA. c/o MBI Publishing, P.O. Box 1, 729 Prospect Ave, Osceola. Wl 54020. USA E-mail: [email protected] Osprey Direct UK. P.O. Box 140. Wellingborough, Northants, NN6 2FA, UK E-mail: [email protected] www.оspreypublishing.com KEY TO MILITARY SYMBOLS CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 7 Origins of the campaign CHRONOLOGY 12 OPPOSING PLANS 14 German plans • Soviet plans OPPOSING COMMANDERS 19 German commanders • Soviet commanders OPPOSING ARMIES 23 Army Group South • Soviet Forces OPERATION BARBAROSSA 32 Frontier battle • Uman and the flanks • Kiev The Crimea • Kharkov to Rostov CONCLUSIONS 87 THE BATTLEFIELD TODAY 93 BIBLIOGRAPHY 94 INDEX 95 Stalin Line & Soviet delenses WWI German & pre-1939 Polish defenses 0 100 miles 0 200 km 6 INTRODUCTION N azi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Operation Barbarossa, has no equal in military history. By nearly any measure - numbers of combatants involved, physical scope, hatred and ruination - the Nazi—Soviet War was immense. The German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler achieved strategic, operational and tactical surprise against an amply forewarned Josef Stalin. Rapacious Panzer Groups, supported overhead by the Luftwaffe, recorded daily advances of 30 and 40 miles. The bulk of the Wehrmacht marched on foot behind, closing off pockets of many hundreds of thousands of Red Army captives. Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels demurred at showing the German people maps of the USSR while some Germans wondered if prior to launching Barbarossa Hitler had even seen such a map. While the Soviet Union's immense landmass was obvious to anyone looking at a globe of the earth, the resilience of the Communist government, the toughness of the Red Army soldier and the ultimate wisdom of its leadership's conduct of the war came as an unexpected shock to the invaders and many observers. The Germans' initial opinion that they need only "kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down" was not unreasonable given the collapse of the Tsarist and Provisional governments at the end of the Great War. From the very start the vicious border battles demonstrated to the Wehrmacht in the field, if not to its leaders behind, that Barbarossa would not be as easy as previous campaigns, Many Soviet soldiers, cut off behind the advancing enemy in huge encirclements did not give up but either fought to the death or joined civilian partisan bands. By the time Hopeful prewar Soviet poster boasts "The borders of the USSR protect all the Soviet people." Even after the Wehrmacht had overrun most of Europe the Blitzkrieg's violence came as a shock to the USSR. the first freezing weather hit in October the Wehrmacht was greatly weakened and still far from achieving most of its objectives. Not just Hitler, but also his professional military staff, were almost un animous in their rosy view of the invasion's projected results. Barbarossa's ultimate outcome was far from clear at any point during the summer of 1941. The Wehrmacht's "Blitzkrieg" - the combination of flexible mission- style orders, mechanization, airpower and communications - won victory after victory. Having vanquished the French, the world's "best army", the year before, Germany had unshakeable confidence in her armed forces, bordering on arrogance. The Soviet military did not exhibit signs of total collapse, however, nor did an alternative to the Communist system present itself. First Hitler then Stalin called for a total war of extermination and national survival. Interestingly, only in the two dictators' minds did the political and military strategy of either country coalesce. The war on the Eastern Front, and it might be argued Barbarossa itself, sealed the fate of Hitler's Third Reich and determined the outcome of World War II. At 0100hrs on Sunday, 22 June 1941 Army Group South issued codeword "Wotan", indicating Barbarossa would begin as planned in little more than two hours. The German Army's senior officer, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, commanded 461/ divisions along a front of more than 2 800 miles. His headquarters, under Chief of Staff General of Infantry Georg von Sodenstern, had proved itself in France. Von Rundstedt managed the Reich's version of coalition warfare, with Hungarian, Italian, Rumanian and Slovakian formations under command. With the largest operational area of any Army Group, yet only one Panzer group, his men had four difficult tasks: Destroying Red Army units to their front; capturing the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and the Dnepr River crossings; seizing the Donets Basin (Donbas), and opening the route to the Caucasus oil region. Of the three army groups, von Rundstedt's came closest to accomplishing its assigned missions. Facing Army Group South were the Kiev Special Military District and Odessa Military District, which at the start of the war became the Southwest and Southern Fronts respectively. Commanded by Lieutenant General M.P. Kirponos, the Southwest Front especially was well led, had some of the Red Army's best equipment and other benefits accrued from Stalin's belief that the south would be the Germans' main theater. Along the Black Sea coast Lieutenant General I.V. Tyulenev commanded the new Southern Front (originally the 9th Independent Army). Taking liberties with Stalin's orders not to make provocative gestures, both Military Districts had coordinated with NKVD Border troops and dispersed their aircraft. Soviet forces under their command offered a more skillful defense of the frontier than did the fronts facing Army Groups North and Center. Counterattacking as Red Army assets allowed and withdrawing to successive defense lines, they put von Rundstedt behind schedule. Only when robbed of any operational freedom by Stalin's orders did true disaster hit Soviet defenders south of the Rokitno Marshes. Finally, in mid-September, and only with the cooperation of Army Group Center, von Rundstedt's forces achieved dramatic success. In the encirclement at Kiev, 8 two-thirds of a million Soviet troops surrendered in history's greatest single military victory. For the first and only time in World War II German forces in the field outnumbered those of the USSR. Stalin's high command somehow plugged the resulting massive gap and resistance stiffened once again. Meanwhile, Hitler bled off mechanized forces from Army Group South for the attack on Moscow, German logistics foundered in the Ukrainian steppes, weather once more delayed von Rundstedt's advance and his troops reached the limit of their endurance. By November, the Donets River in the north, temporary possession of Rostov in the center and the siege lines around Sevastopol in the Crimea represented Army Group South's high water mark. Soon after the Soviets counterattacked along the entire front. By then, however, none of the senior commanders remained in their posts - Hitler had accepted von Rundstedt's resignation, Kirponos died at Kiev and Tyulenev went to the rear severely wounded. ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN Hitler had two main reasons for launching Barbarossa: to carry out threats he had made since writing Mein Kampf and to remove any remaining British hope of continental assistance in the war. In the first case, a basic tenet of Nazism held that the vast lands to Germany's east were its for colonization and economic exploitation. Although Greater Germany was not overpopulated in 1941, Hitler sought Lebensraum (space to live) for the German people in the east. Similarly, Hitler thought Britain required "one demonstration of our military might" to acknowledge German dominance of the continent. On 9 January 1941 the Fuhrer said, "After Russia's destruction Germany would be unassailable." Likewise, he made fuzzy linkages between the "Jewish-Anglo-Saxon warmongers" and the "Jewish rulers of Bolshevik-Muscovite Russia." Both factors combined to push Hitler toward a violent confrontation with the Soviet Union. The hitherto victorious Wehrmacht could translate his windy bombast into action. Hitler saw the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty of 23 August 1939 as merely a disposable "tactical maneuver." Stalin was able, however, to control the flow of certain materials important to Germany's war effort. By the summer of 1940 a dangerous situation had developed: the USSR's industries required many of the same materials for the Red Army's rearmament program that Germany required. Hitler could not force Stalin to act as Germany's long-term supplier and it was against this background that Soviet Foreign Minister V.M. Molotov visited Berlin from 12 to 13 November 1940. At this point Nazi-Soviet relations hit rock bottom as Molotov flexed Soviet economic muscle and Hitler sensed impending blackmail. Historians have linked the Fuhrer's final decision to launch Barbarossa with Molotov's visit. In addition to lacking certain key natural resources, for which it was at least partly dependent on the Soviet Union, Germany had other weaknesses, which Hitler sought to offset to some degree with the Tripartite Treaty of 27 September 1940. Intended to build an anti-Soviet coalition and warn the US to keep out of Europe, the Pact of Steel only gave "the image of Axis solidarity" (Erickson/Dilks, p.87). Hither did not, however, include his more senior Italian and Japanese allies in Barbarossa's planning, preferring instead to rely on his smaller eastern European allies. 9 Slovakia, grateful for independence from the Czechs, signed on early as a German ally. The defeat of France, her traditional patron, and her fear of Russia, pushed Rumania into the German fold. Ultimately she contributed more forces to Barbarossa than any other Axis partner. In recognition of German assistance in regaining territory lost in 1920, Hungary contributed a small contingent to Barbarossa. By the summer of 1941 all of continental Europe, with the exception of the USSR, was Axis, Axis-occupied or neutral. However, the Soviet Union appeared finally to be awakening to the danger of its isolation. The United States stood securely beyond Hitler's reach. Between the outbreak of war and June 1941 the weaknesses and failings of her opponents had concealed the shortcomings of Germany's own military forces. The assumption, validated in previous campaigns, was that Blitzkrieg would only face an enemy's forces in being and that no opportunity would be given for the enemy to recover or rebuild. German victories preceding Barbarossa undermined any legitimate German military opposition to Hitler. With his military and political position assured, Barbarossa was carried out according to the Fuhrer's wishes. Army Group South's plunge into the great agricultural and industrial El Dorado of the Ukraine would satisfy all of the Third Reich's desires. ** ** ** According to the Soviet interpretation of the Great War's beginnings, Russia had been tricked into attacking Imperial Germany in support of the western capitalists and had come out the big loser in 1918. Optimally Stalin would join any subsequent war only after comprehensive peacetime preparations and on his own terms. This meant waiting out the "self- laceration of capitalism and its fascist afterbirth (Nazism)" on the Western Front, But Germany's lightning victory in the summer of 1940 wrecked that hope. In June 1941 the USSR was weaker, relatively, than its Tsarist prede cessor had been in August 1914. Stalin's ruthless purges had decapitated its military in 1937-38, the five-year plans were losing momentum and by 1941 any potential continental allies had succumbed to the German steamroller. However, paramilitary organizations had trained over 13,000,000 snipers, radiotelephone operators, horsemen, vehicle drivers, pilots and parachutists. The Red Army grew to 5,000,000 men by the eve of Barbarossa. Significantly, the efforts of the Second and Third Five-Year Plans, which focused on heavy industry, were concentrated in the eastern regions of the USSR so that by 1940 37 percent of its steel, 35 percent of its coal and 25 percent of its energy production came from areas the Germans never reached. In line with the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop non- aggression pact of 28 September 1939 and exploiting Germany's distraction with war in the west, Stalin stole a march on Hitler in 1940, occupying the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and Rumanian Bessarabia. In this instance, as well as at Khalkin-Gol in 1939, in the occupation of eastern Poland in September 19391, and in his war 10 1 See Campaign 107: Polahd 1939 - The birth of Blitzkrieg. against Finland in the winter of 1939/40 Stalin showed no hesitation in using the Soviet military. He levered economic power as well and, in seeking Stalin's help to circumvent the British naval blockade, Hitler became dependent on a very dangerous commercial partner. Stalin knew Hitler could not field his huge army without Soviet resources. On the eve of war with Germany, however, the Soviet military was not in good shape. Like Mussolini's Fascist Italy, the Red Army had modernized too early, and by 1941 much of its equipment was effectively obsolete. In the early 1930s the Red Army had been at the forefront of mechanized warfare doctrine but nearly a decade later its attitudes were reactionary. During the Great Purge Stalin arrested and tried 9,506 army and air force officers (most were executed) and expelled a further 14,684 from service (although subsequently he reinstated many). The purges hit the higher ranks worst. The victims also tended to be the most experienced and farsighted of the Red Army's officer corps. The continuing executions and political interference from the kommissars undermined the morale of the remnants. The 1939-40 land-grab in eastern Europe pushed the Soviet frontier further west but deployed the army in unfamiliar terrain and left behind the old frontier fortifications. The lessons of Germany's Blitzkrieg victories were not effectively digested and applied to the Red Army's situation and fear of provoking Hitler further limited corrective action. The key issue is not whether the USSR noticed Nazi preparations, but what it did with information received. Soviet generals informed Stalin of Hitler's 31 July 1940 meeting within days. Soviet rail passengers traveling through occupied Poland could not but see and report the massive military buildup. Numerous Luftwaffe reconnaissance planes crashed inside the USSR, their camera film full of photos of Soviet military facilities. Stalin's diplomats and spies, the British and others flooded Soviet intelligence agencies with detailed information of Germany's ongoing preparations. Stalin made three critical errors of judgment that led directly to his nation's strategic, operational and tactical surprise. He believed, or perhaps chose to, that Germany was too dependent on Soviet resources to attack. He was further convinced that Hitler would not attack while the Anglo-American maritime powers remained intact on Germany's Atlantic flank and also that any invasion would be preceded by an ultimatum as had occurred with Czechoslovakia, Poland and indeed at the beginning of World War I. Nazi Germany had its "Fuhrer Prinzip" and the USSR its "cult of personality." Institutional forces in each country and their respective philosophies contributed directly to the nature of Barbarossa. Approximately half an hour after German preparatory air and artillery fire began General G.K. Zhukov called the dictator with news of the attack. He asked "Did you understand what I said, Comrade Stalin?" Silence. "Comrade Stalin, do you understand?" At last Stalin understood. 11