How terrible was the eastern front of the European battlefield
in World War II? In order to kill the Russians with a single blow, Hitler concentrated unprecedented forces: more than 150 German divisions, plus the armies of Italy, Romania, Hungary, Finland, and other vassal countries, with a total strength of nearly 5.5 million men, more than 4,300 tanks, and 5,000 aircraft, which were divided into three army groups. It will launch attacks on the Soviet Union from the north, central and south at the same time. In the early morning of June 22,
1941, Operation Barbarossa was officially launched.
The German army advanced on a front of about 1500 kilometers from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
The German Air Force bombed the important cities, transportation hubs, military strongholds and mobilized Soviet troops in the western part of the Soviet Union. (1) “Barbarossa” On November 16, 1941, fierce fighting broke out near the city of Volokolamsk, northwest of Moscow. The
German 4th Panzer Group launched a powerful attack on the Soviet position with 300 tanks. The 316th Infantry Division of the Soviet Red Army, which was stationed
there, was caught in a deadly battle.
At the Dubosekovo railway station, 28 soldiers of the 1075th Regiment, led by political instructor Klochkov Diev, met the German tank group with Molotov cocktails and grenades, and finally all of them were killed. Before
leading his men in a desperate charge, Klochkov issued his famous call: “Russia is big, but there is no place to retreat. Behind us is Moscow!” In the autumn and winter of 2008, Russia really had no way out. The destruction of the Soviet Union occupied a crucial place
in Hitler’s expansionist plans. The European order
he envisioned included three major elements: German domination of Europe; sufficient “living space” for the Germanic peoples; and the “liquidation” of the Jews. The realization of
these three goals must be based on the premise of destroying the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union is a huge political body in Europe and the main obstacle to Germany’s domination of Europe. With its boundless land and rich natural resources,
it was the ideal “living space” for the Germanic people; not only did a large number of Jews live in this land, but the Soviet regime itself was regarded by Hitler as a “huge conspiracy” for Jews to rule the world through Communist ideology.
Without invading the Soviet Union, none of Hitler’s goals could be achieved.
It is no exaggeration to say that wiping the Soviet Union off the map of Europe was one of Hitler’s “life ideals,” the ultimate goal of establishing a new European order.
In order to achieve this goal, in December 1940, Hitler issued Directive No.21, later known as the “Barbarossa Plan”, which stipulated that “Soviet Russia should be defeated in a rapid campaign”.
Since the outbreak of the Second World War, the average period of German conquest of a country in Europe has been measured in “weeks”: blitzing Poland, 5 weeks; capturing Norway, 8 weeks; conquering the Netherlands, 5 days; defeating Belgium, 2 and a half weeks; sweeping France, 6 weeks.. The most exaggerated is for Denmark: it took only four hours from the time the German army crossed the Danish border to the time the Danish government announced its surrender.
Now, Hitler still wants to use the magic weapon of “Blitzkrieg” to deal with the Russians.
Considering the vast territory and strong military strength of the Soviet Union, he scheduled the war against the Soviet Union for five months, and the German army could return triumphantly before the winter of 1941. “When Barbarossa begins,”
Hitler told his generals triumphantly, “the whole world will be shocked and speechless!”! In the early morning of June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa was officially launched. On the first day of the
war, the Soviet Army lost 1200 aircraft, of which more than 800 were destroyed on the ground before they could take off.
The Germans used their skillful pincer movement to constantly encircle the Soviets.
By September, after the battles of Minsk, Smolensk and Kiev, the number of Soviet prisoners alone exceeded 2 million. More than half of the most economically developed and densely populated part of Europe in the
Soviet Union had been occupied by the German army, which accounted for nearly half of the country’s total population and half of its industrial and agricultural production. The
German advance was so rapid that even some generals who were conservative about attacking the Soviet Union were optimistic. Haarde, chief of the general staff of the
German army, wrote in his diary: The campaign against Russia was won in fourteen days. It is not too much to
say so.
Hitler was even more overjoyed. He once said to his subordinates, Now all we have to do is kick the door, and the whole broken house will fall down.
With this kick, he kicked Moscow.
(2) “Typhoon” Moscow is located in the central part of the Russian Plain, the center of the European part of the Soviet Union, and is the capital and largest city of the Soviet Union.
In 1939, the city had a population of more than 4 million.
The city’s political, economic, cultural and transportation status is unmatched by any other city.
In the eyes of the Soviets, Moscow is the symbol of Russia and the Soviet Union. The
Germans believed that if Moscow was occupied, it could not only destroy the Soviet Union’s will to resist, but also cut off the communication between the north and the south of the Soviet Union, and even divide the Soviet Union into several unrelated parts.
In that case, the collapse of the Red Empire is just around the corner. Stalin, the head of the Soviet Union, knew more about the importance of
Moscow than Hitler. After the outbreak of
the Soviet-German War, Britain and the United States, contrary to their anti-Soviet and anti-Communist norms, announced that they would do their best to assist the Soviet Union.
On the evening of the German attack, Churchill made a radio address to the nation (and to the Soviet Union): Any individual or nation that fights against the Nazi Reich will receive our assistance.
Any individual or country that follows Hitler’s lead is our enemy.
…… That’s our policy. That’s our manifesto.
On the basis of the foregoing, we will render all the assistance we can to Russia and the Russian people.
Stalin knew in his heart that Britain and the United States were aiding the Soviet Union out of their own interests.
Their calculations were shrewd: the Soviet Red Army was the only force that could deliver a substantial blow to Germany at a time when Britain was trapped on the island of Britain and the United States had not yet entered the war. If the Soviet Red Army kills one more German
today, it will kill many fewer British or Americans in the future.
Of course, regardless of the motives of Britain and the United States, if the material aid they promised to the Soviet Union could be fulfilled, it would indeed play a timely role.
But this must require the Red Army to withstand the German attack, otherwise, if the Red Army continues to retreat in defeat, even Moscow will be lost, and the British and American aid will be more than lip service.
The reason is simple: wouldn’t that be aiding Hitler?
So, Moscow must hold! One wants to take Moscow at all costs, the other wants to hold Moscow at all costs. The two huge war machines of
Germany and the Soviet Union will collide at the gates of Moscow! On September 30, 1941, the German Army Group Center, commanded by Field Marshal von Bock, launched an unprecedented attack on Moscow, code-named Typhoon.
The Germans knew that this war was probably not only the end of the Soviet-German war, but also the end of the European war, so they assembled a strong force of 1.8 million people, 1700 tanks and 1390 combat aircraft, and three of the four armored groups of the German army on the eastern front were concentrated in the direction of Moscow. Determined to win! At the beginning of the attack, the Germans were on a roll. In early
October, they encircled two Soviet units in the Vyazma and Bryansk regions.
The Germans claimed to have taken 650,000 prisoners, as well as 5,000 artillery pieces and 1,200 tanks.
By the end of October, the German vanguard had advanced to about 50 kilometers from Moscow. The door of
Moscow has been opened to them! The publicity of Nazi Germany couldn’t wait to announce the news.
Hitler’s press spokesman, Otto Dietrich, told the world at a news conference that there was nothing but a “vacuum” between the German army and Moscow. The
Nazi party newspaper, the People’s Observer, declared that the great moment had come and that the Bolsheviks had come to an end militarily! Hitler himself joined in the chorus, announcing his “historic victory” to the German people in a routine speech: “Today I declare, I declare without reservation, that the enemies of the East have been defeated, and that they can no longer stand up!” The Germans rejoiced too soon. Just then
, the two generals who had saved Russia from danger many times in history finally appeared on the battlefield.
(3) Mud and Winter The first one is General Mud.
Unlike the road conditions in Western European countries, there are few asphalt roads in the Soviet Union, most of which are sandy and dirt roads.
Even under normal conditions, these roads are poor and not suitable for large-scale troop movements.
But if it’s dry weather, it’s barely passable, just let the soldiers eat more dust.
But when the Soviet Union’s autumn rain season arrived in October, as scheduled, the German nightmare began. Continuous
autumn rains caused rivers to burst their banks, turning large areas into mushy swamps, and all the roads soon became unrecognizable as the surrounding farmland because of the lack of solid roadbed.
These muddy roads, which creak when stepped on, make it difficult for Germans to move.
In the mud of the ocean, all wheeled vehicles in Germany can not run, only tracked vehicles can slowly and laboriously drag other vehicles or artillery forward, but because the clutch and engine are overwhelmed, many vehicles break down frequently. The 10th Panzer Division,
part of the 4th Panzer Group, had 50 tanks that broke down without firing a single shot, 35 of which were lost in just three days.
In the mud, the most miserable fate is those mules and horses that transport baggage.
Because the traction vehicles could not move, they became the main force of transportation, struggling in knee-deep mud, and eventually often fell down and died by the roadside due to excessive fatigue. The
mud not only held back the German attack, but also prevented supplies from the rear from reaching the front in time.
German divisions were scattered over hundreds of miles of terrain, and fuel, ammunition, and rations were scarce. Many German troops on the
front line had no bread to eat for many days, so they had to raise money on the spot, looking for food that had not been burned by the Soviet Army, or digging potatoes in the surrounding fields to satisfy their hunger, like a group of blind people.
The roads are unusable. How about the railways? There are many railway lines in the European part of the
Soviet Union, but the fatal thing is that the gauge of the Soviet railway (1.524 meters) is different from that of Germany (1.435 meters), so it is necessary to change the broad gauge of the Soviet railway into the narrow gauge of Western Europe in order to use it, which will delay a lot of time, and also make the sections that can be used often overloaded, coupled with guerrillas. Rail transport has become super unreliable.
After the war, few survivors of the German war on the eastern front did not curse the mud of Russia in their memoirs or interviews.
Just as they were about to March into Moscow, they were stuck in the mud, which was very annoying.
Fortunately, the mud is only temporary. When the autumn rainy season in the Soviet Union is over and the weather clears up and the road hardens, the Germans will be able to walk like flying, right?
Sadly, it will be worse.
Because the “Muddy” general is only a vanguard officer, his exit means that the main general behind him is going to show his power, that is, the “Winter” general. It is no exaggeration to describe the cold of the
Russian winter as “horrible.”.
According to the recollections of General Rouse, commander of the German 6th Armored Division, the severe winter in the European part of Russia in 1941-1942 was once in a century. In early
December, when his troops advanced to within 14 kilometers of Moscow and 24 hours from the Kremlin, the temperature plunged to -34 degrees Celsius.
In the northwest of Moscow, the average temperature in January 1942, the lowest temperature in the whole Soviet-German war, also appeared in the same area, -52 degrees Celsius on January 26! The German army was not prepared for a long battle at all, and everything was based on the idea of a decisive victory before winter.
So they basically started the “typhoon” battle in summer clothes.
In order to raise winter clothes for the troops, the German publicity machine was running at full speed.
On December 20, Nazi publicity Minister Goebbels called for a nationwide collection of winter clothes and winter supplies as a “Christmas gift from the German people to the soldiers on the Eastern Front”. The response from the
German home front was enthusiastic, and by mid-January 1942, 2 million volunteers had raised 6.7 million items in various places.
But these supplies are far from being able to quench the thirst of the present, and it will take time to deliver them to the front-line soldiers. As to whether they can be used, they can only hit the big luck.
The military’s emergency issue of warm clothing is also the overcoat, sweater, belt and hat worn in the German winter, which is better than nothing in the Russian cold.
So the front-line troops at all levels had to find their own way.
Several divisions spontaneously organized clothing shops in nearby towns, requisitioned (largely synonymous with looting) fur coats and felt boots from local people, and even stripped warm clothes from Red Army corpses.
Even so, the German supply of winter clothing can only meet a small part of the demand. The
cold weather brings pain, frustration and suffering.
Because of poor diet and eating cold food, some people vomit after meals, and some people get stomach trouble. Not only did
the troops not receive camouflage overalls and winter clothes, but many of them did not even have underwear or strong boots.
Soldiers should go out in groups of at least two so that they can observe each other for signs of frostbite. As long as the
wounded fell down, they would die, not because of their injuries, but because of shock and frostbite caused by blood loss.
Frostbite was almost a more formidable enemy than Soviets. In early
December, the German 3rd Infantry Division advanced into the Narov Minsk area, struggling with the Soviets and the bitter cold.
All the soldiers had to go back inside for an hour after spending an hour outside in the -30 degrees Celsius cold at night, so that their bodies could warm up and their blood could flow again.
The division’s 3rd Battalion lost 80 men, 1 & # x2F; 3 of the battalion’s total, and 58 of the 80 men were disabled by excessive fatigue or frostbite in the open air. After the war,
an Italian journalist recalled that he saw German troops returning from the Eastern Front in a coffee shop in Warsaw and found that they all looked strange, but he could not tell what was wrong for a moment.
Then he suddenly realized that the people standing in front of him had no eyelids.
He realized at once that this was the result of the frightening cold. He had seen thousands of frostbitten soldiers at Minsk station
before: some had their limbs frozen off, some had their ears, noses, fingers frozen off.. Now these people are frozen off the eyelids, because after freezing, the eyelids are just a piece of dead skin, which will fall off at any time.
He looked at the soldiers without eyelids and felt terrible! The cold destroyed not only the bodies of German soldiers, but also their equipment.
Vehicles and guns had to be dug up bit by bit in the frozen ground around them before they could be fired, and many of them were damaged and unusable in trying to pull them out of the frozen ground.
If the cold-proof cover is not added, the engine of the vehicle will be frozen in the course of driving.
When stopping a truck or tank, a fire must be lit under the engine to prevent freezing. The liquid in the
gun’s retreating auxiliary engine has solidified. Machine guns and automatic rifles are out of commission
for the same reason.
The only thing that can be used is the mortar. The lenses of the
optical sight and telescope were blurred and lost their function.
Tracked vehicles without anti-skid devices will slip on the ice and can not move forward.
German tanks had narrow tracks and poor tactical maneuverability in soft snow.
The German army has just struggled out of the sticky “enthusiasm” of the “muddy” general and frozen in the coldness of the “cold winter” general! It seems that the German army was defeated by these two generals?
This view is very wrong. At best, the severity of
nature delayed the German army’s progress, and in the war, “the decisive factor is people, not things.”.
(4) The cruelty of the Soviet-German war between the people and the commander is extremely rare in the history of human war, which is determined by the nature of the war.
Long before the war began, Hitler told his men that the war “cannot be fought in a chivalrous way.”.
The struggle is one of ideology and racial distinction, and it must be waged with unprecedented, ruthless severity.
According to his vision, after the Soviet Union was destroyed, its territory would be turned into several prefectures, whose main function was to “feed the German people.” The local agricultural products could only be supplied to Germany, while the industrial areas and cities of the Soviet Union would be razed, and the industrial population there would not be able to get food supply.
As a result, millions of people will starve to death.
Later, Hitler summed up Germany’s policy in the Soviet-occupied areas as “ruling it, managing it, and extracting it.”. These policies were faithfully implemented by the
German bureaucracy at all levels.
In the German-occupied areas, tens of millions of tons of grain, potatoes, meat and tens of millions of livestock were transported to Germany, and a large number of laborers, including millions of Soviet prisoners of war, were arbitrarily driven to engage in heavy manual labor as slaves.
Germany’s policy toward these Slavs, who were regarded as “inferior races,” was to beat them to death, starve them to death, and enslave them.
The end result will be the largest genocide in history.
Such a policy is actually very foolish, and it will drive the Russians into a desperate situation and rise up against them.
As one German official put it in the report: Our policy has forced the Bolshevists and the Russian nationalists to form a United front against us. The
Russians are fighting today with unparalleled bravery and self-sacrifice precisely to win recognition of their human dignity.
Even some former opponents of the Soviet regime would join the ranks. Guderian, commander of the
German Panzer Corps, met an old tsarist general in Oryol. His words left a deep impression on Guderian: If you had come here twenty years earlier, we would have welcomed you warmly, but now it is too late.
Now we are just on the right track, and you have come to force us to go back another twenty years, so we have to start all over again.
Now we are fighting for Russia, and for that reason, we will unite.
As for those young people who were born after the October Revolution and had a strong sense of identity with the Soviet regime and the Bolsheviks, they were the main force in resisting the German army.
They can not only join the Red Army in large numbers, but also form guerrillas behind enemy lines to carry out various harassment and sabotage activities.
Year-old Soviet girl accused of setting fire to a stable. Zoya’s last words before
the execution were: “You can’t hang all 190 million of us!” Indeed, the Soviet Union’s huge human resources, coupled with the Soviet regime’s ability to mobilize, enabled them to stagger up and continue fighting even after the massive bleeding caused by the defeat in the early part of the war, which the Germans did not understand enough. Haarde, Chief of the General Staff of the
German Army, admitted in his diary: We have not only underestimated the economic and transport power of the Russian giants, but also, and above all, underestimated their military power.
We initially calculated that the enemy had about 200 divisions, but now we have identified 360 divisions.
As soon as a dozen divisions were wiped out, the Russians threw in a dozen more. On October 9,
1941, when the German army began to sink into the mud of autumn rain, Stalin decided to merge the remnants of the Western Front Army and the Reserve Front Army, which had been defeated in the Battle of Vyazma-Bryansk, into a new Western Front Army. A new commander was appointed to the force: Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov.
“Tall in stature, with a huge face and small eyes, he is a typical polar bear.” “He is silent and seldom smiles. He is known at first sight as a thoughtful and resolute person.”.
This is the impression of Zhukov by General Li Zongren of China.
At that time, the cavalry general was sent by Stalin to China, which was struggling to resist Japan, as a military adviser.
Li Zongren’s feeling was not wrong. He was indeed a general with amazing perseverance and courage. In the Nomonhan Incident in 1939, he concentrated superior forces and firepower to attack the Japanese Kwantung Army, which not only stabilized the situation in the Far East of the Soviet Union, but also boosted the morale of the Red Army.
Stalin trusted him, and after the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, he often played the role of a fire captain and was sent to the most difficult and dangerous places to save the war.
This time, Stalin recalled him from the Leningrad Front to defend Moscow.
In hindsight, Zhukov’s iron will and precise control of the war situation were one of the decisive factors for Moscow to turn the corner.
On November 15, the German army, suffering from severe cold, summoned up its courage and launched a final offensive against Moscow. By December 2, the Germans were
breaking through the Soviet lines, rushing to Khimki on the Moscow River, only 10 kilometers from Moscow, where they could almost see the spire of the Kremlin from a high place! During those most dangerous days, Zhukov received a phone call from Stalin. “Do you believe we can hold Moscow?”
He asked in an unusual tone?
I am asking you this question with pain in my heart, and I hope you will answer it honestly as a Communist Party member.
Stalin’s original name was Josef Veselionovich Dzhugashvili.
“Stalin” was the pseudonym he gave himself, meaning “steel.”.
Now, the heart of “steel” seems to be undergoing some subtle changes. Without hesitation
, Zhukov replied: There is no doubt that we can hold Moscow.
But at least two more army groups and 200 more tanks were needed.
With a satisfactory answer, Stalin’s tone became normal.
He began to discuss with Zhukov the details of mobilizing reinforcements.
Zhukov was by no means fooling Stalin. His confidence came from his judgment of the enemy’s situation.
He had a premonition that the strength of the German army was at the end of its strength, while he was constantly being reinforced. Although these troops were formed temporarily, lacked actual combat experience and equipment, they were fresh troops compared with the hungry and cold German army. As expected
by Zhukov, the German army that rushed to Khimki was blocked by a “motley crew.”. A large number of workers’troops in
Moscow were speeding to the front line by various means of transportation-taxis and cars. The 258th Reconnaissance Battalion of the
German Army saw that the situation was not good and hurried to take the thirty-six stratagems. At the critical moment in
Moscow, the Supreme Commander of the Soviet Union also played its due role. In the early days of
the Soviet-German War, Stalin, who was unprepared for the sudden outbreak of the war, was at a loss and was greatly shocked psychologically. At noon on the day of the start of the war
on June 22, it was Foreign Minister Molotov, not the Supreme Leader, who made a radio address to the Soviet people.
Later, he was shocked by the news that the Soviet army was losing ground.
He was furious with his subordinates: “Lenin left us a great legacy, but we, his successors, made a mess of it!” “Steel” was, after all, “steel,” and he quickly emerged from his bewilderment into the role he was supposed to play, which may have played a pivotal role in the defense of Moscow.
As the German army approached Moscow, on October 15, the Soviet government decided to withdraw some party and government organs and diplomatic missions to Kuybyshev.
In the next month and a half, the Soviets moved nearly 500 large factories, more than 1 million skilled workers and scientific researchers, as well as a large number of organs, theatres and museums from Moscow to the east.
A great capital has almost become an empty city. Factories, warehouses, offices and electrical equipment that could
not be evacuated were also prepared to be blown up if the Germans broke through the Soviet line.
Clearly, the Soviets were preparing for the worst. The city of
Moscow was once in a state of panic, people rushed to the railway station, rumors spread in the city, and looting occurred from time to time.
Moscow is on the verge of collapse! In order to ensure the safety of the supreme leader, his special train and plane are on standby at any time. On October 17,
1941, Moscow publicly announced that Comrade Stalin remained in Moscow. Not only did
Stalin stay, but he also made another extraordinary decision: to hold the annual October Revolution Day parade as scheduled.
It was undoubtedly an extremely risky decision, but he also knew what signals would be sent to the world — the Soviet people, his allies, and even his enemies — by continuing such a parade at this critical moment.
On November 6, Stalin first held a celebration meeting of the October Revolution at Mayakovsky Station of the Moscow Metro and delivered a speech. The climax of the
celebration came the next day, November 7. At eight o’clock
that morning, the entire Red Square was filled with Red Army phalanxes, which stood still in the bitter cold wind.
After the old Soviet Marshal Budyonny finished his review, Stalin appeared at the Lenin Mausoleum and began perhaps the most important public speech of his life.
In his speech, Stalin issued a call to the listening soldiers: “The whole world is watching you, because it is you who can wipe out the German invading army that burned, killed, and looted.”. The enslaved people of
Europe see you as their liberators. Do not fail your mission.
He concluded his speech with the following words: Let the names of our great ancestors — Alexander Nevsky, Dimitri Donskoy, Kuzma Minin, Dimitri Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov, Mikhail Kutuzov — inspire you in this war. Let the banner of victory of the great Lenin guide you! After the speech, the troops under review held a parade.
They marched directly from Red Square to the front line with irregular but firm steps.
Later, Molotov was asked how the war situation would have changed if Stalin had left Moscow.
Molotov’s answer was brief: Moscow will be destroyed in a moment. On December 5,
1941, on the front line of thousands of kilometers around Moscow, the once flamboyant German Army Group Center stopped attacking on all fronts.
Since the Typhoon offensive was launched, they have lost nearly 200,000 men, more than 800 aircraft, and more than 700 tanks and self-propelled artillery, but the result has been nothing. “I am at the end of my tether,” Marshal
von Bock told Chief of the General Staff Haarde in a telephone call.
But it’s not over yet. The
very next day, Zhukov’s Western Front launched a massive counteroffensive against the Germans! The Germans had suffered heavy casualties and exhaustion in previous battles, and could not resist the Soviet offensive at all, so they had to fight and retreat to the rear winter positions.
Many of the Germans had been so discouraged by fatigue and fierce Soviet pursuit that they even shouted to their officers, “Why don’t you kill us?”?
It doesn’t matter who kills us now! In early January 1942, the Soviet counteroffensive ended.
By this time, they had pushed the Germans back 100 to 150 kilometers to the west.
Moscow was saved, and no German (except prisoners of war) ever saw the city again during the war, even from a distance.
After the war, a German general named Blumentritt, who had participated in the Soviet-German War, recalled and reflected on the Battle of Moscow as follows: The Battle of Moscow was the first great defeat of Germany on land during the Second World War.
It marked the collapse of the lightning tactics that Hitler and his Wehrmacht used to win stunning victories in Poland, France, and the Balkans.
But the enemy we are fighting now is much stronger than any we have ever faced in the past. It is impossible to win easily
in the vast and boundless east. Many of
our leaders have greatly underestimated this new enemy.
This was partly due to ignorance: some of them knew nothing about the Russian people and soldiers. Several of
our senior officials in charge had never fought in the East, having spent the whole of the First World War on the Western Front, completely unaware of the difficulties caused by the terrain and the tenacity of the Russians. The
German Blitzkrieg ended at the gates of Moscow.
. Focus on not getting lost ~
