June 22, 1941
"OPERATION BARBAROSSA"

By Vivian Bird

Following the collapse of the USSR, Kremlin military archives were finally opened, their secrets exposed to the world. And within them lie refutation of half-century old dogma regarding history's most consuming clash of arms.

Due to earlier historical writings on World War II and more than a half-century of media input, it has been widely believed that "Operation Barbarossa," the German attack upon Soviet Russia in June, 1941, was an act of blatant aggression against a country ill-prepared for a major war.

Cited heretofore as evidence of this alleged Soviet unpreparedness were the late 1930s blood purges of the Soviet general staff and officer corps. Stalin had eliminated such experienced and competent military chiefs as Marshals Tukachevsky, Blucher and Yegorov. What remained of the Red Army leadership was thought to command a poorly trained and equipped mass lacking substantial fighting potential.

In reality, however, as more and more evidence from former Soviet archives comes to light, along with recent research by Western experts, the very opposite has proven to be true. The Soviets, prior to June 1941, were merely biding their time for the most favorable moment to launch a massive attack upon the West. Moscow had concluded that Hitler, after his 1940 victory over France, would soon be involved in a costly invasion of England.

Regarding the eventual clash between Germany and Russia, it is important to note an autumn, 1939 meeting between Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. This event occurred after the signing of the world-stunning Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact between the two countries. In Berlin the Russian bluntly informed his host that the Soviet Union intended to invade Finland if the Finns did not agree unreservedly to the immediate ceding of Karelia (one of the richest Finnish provinces) as well as a wide area opposite Leningrad.

Hitler responded to this with fury, telling Molotov that Germany would not welcome any such Soviet move. He told the foreign minister that such an eventuality would interfere with Germany's iron ore and other Finnish imports. Molotov, however, merely shrugged his shoulders and refused to budge from this stated intention. The two parted on acrimonious terms.

When, toward the close of 1939, the Soviets did attack Finland, the Finns reacted with great gallantry and skill under their commander, Marshal Karl Gustav Mannerheim. They inflicted terrible losses upon an enemy whose soldiers appeared inexperienced and ill-equipped. This further compounded the impression in Germany and elsewhere of a Russian military machine not superior to that fielded by Czar Nicholas in World War I. Germany supplied the Finns with consignments of rifles while Britain considered sending a volunteer force or even declaring war on Russia.

A half-hearted British mission was sent to Finland, headed by future Prime Minister Harold MacMillan. But this effort came to naught, arriving just as the Finns were about to capitulate. They had held out against overwhelming might from Nov. 30, 1939 to March 12, 1940. The Helsinki government was forced into a humiliating peace, while ceding the territories mentioned. The great majority of Finnish people in these areas abandoned their homes and trekked into other parts of their country rather than endure Soviet rule.

The brief Russo-Finnish war confirmed that the Soviets harbored no scruples relative to aggressively extending their territory. By their actions they clearly conveyed that they were not at all concerned with German interests or what Germany or the world thought. Next, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia were annexed in a sudden Soviet move. This despite the traditional links of these small countries to Germany.

Moscow's aggression was to continue during 1940, as the Soviets annexed the Romanian provinces of Bukovina and Bessarabia. They were now dangerously close to the Romanian oil fields at Ploesti, the principal source of German oil supplies. As a counter measure German troops were dispatched to Romania's borders. And Germany entered into an alliance with that country as well as with Bulgaria and Hungary - countries also feeling threatened by Soviet expansionist aims.

In 1941 Russia showed renewed interest in Yugoslavia, and plotted to install a pro-Soviet government after ousting one friendly to Germany. Hitler reacted with speed, launching the operation known as Vergeltung ("Retaliation") and quickly occupied the whole of Yugoslavia. This was followed by German occupation of Greece after Italy's invasion of that country, during which Mussolini's army was thoroughly outfought by inferior Greek forces. The Soviet threat to the Balkan-Mediterranean area was thereby forestalled. But Hitler's now-set "Barbarossa" operation was postponed by the necessity of bailing out Il Duce's legions.

Toward the end of 1940 Hitler had received Adolf Galland, a top Luftwaffe fighter pilot and general who would become a national hero. The Führer told Galland that the sustained bombing of Britain (the "Battle of Britain") had been merely a feint to convince the Soviets that he was preoccupied in the West. If true, to any extent, it was certainly a most determined and quite costly ploy. The time had come, Hitler told the pilot, to end the Soviet menace once and for all. The attack would take place in May of 1941 - in June at the latest. To wait longer would risk fighting in a Russian winter before the Red Army was mopped up.

No one knew better than Hitler the dangers of fighting a war on two fronts. But no one could foretell the ultimate outcome and consequences. It remained his fervent if vain hope that Britain would agree to an honorable peace, in the best interests of both powers. He concluded that the ever-present Soviet threat left Germany no alternative but to confront it militarily, even if the British still refused to see where their true interests lay - in the destruction of communism.

Most but certainly not all within Hitler's circle felt the necessity for a preventive attack to eliminate an enemy now dangerously close to Germany's borders as well as those of her aforementioned eastern allies. The Finns were also willing to ally with Germany in order to regain their provinces so recently stolen by brute force.

It has been claimed that Stalin ignored repeated warnings by Churchill and Roosevelt that Germany was planning an attack on Soviet Russia. It has been theorized that the communist dictator chose to ignore them because he was convinced it was a tactical trick on the part of the British and American governments. Perhaps Stalin's suspicions were not so ill-considered, given that every British and American interest lay in the destruction of the Soviet Union and the passing of the communist menace.

From this many have concluded that the true interests of America, Britain and Western civilization were sacrificed in favor of the westward designs of the Soviet Union. Although Churchill was inherently anti-communist while Roosevelt was not, both men (and their influential backers) held to an irreversible disdain for Germany and a pulsing hatred of Hitler.

Now-available evidence of Soviet aggressive intentions toward Europe in 1940-1941 confirms that large concentrations of Soviet troops were aligned along the entire border with the West. German secret service reports to Field MarshaI Keitel at the high command concluded that, from 1940 to the beginning of 1941, six German border divisions faced no fewer than 207 Soviet divisions and 63 motorized brigades. However, Soviet archives now reveal the actual Red Army frontal strength at 257 divisions, 88 of which were being readied for westward deployment. The Germans may have been aware that there was considerable ongoing reorganization and re-equipping among the potential Soviet offensive forces. Undoubtedly such knowledge would have compounded Germany's sense of immediacy.

When "Operation Barbarossa" was launched June 22, Wehrmacht ground strength consisted of 157 infantry and 80 Panzer divisions. Hitler had allocated 3,050,000 men, 75 percent of his field strength, to this momentous task. From their staging areas, Finland and Romania moved into battle as "Barbarossa" commenced. The Finns contributed 500,000 men in 14 divisions and the Romanians another 150,000 in 14 under-strength divisions with fighting qualities about on a par with those of the Italian army.

Ranged against 13,300 Soviet aircraft were 2,510 Luftwaffe planes. According to the latest figures the Soviets had 14,700 tanks ready for action against 3,648 on the German side. However, prior to the introduction of the Soviet's formidable T-34 tank in December, 1941 German tanks were vastly superior. At this time the Soviet air force had more warplanes than the rest of the world's air forces combined. But a large portion of them were obsolete. Most astounding was the Soviet superiority in combat-ready artillery pieces; 115,900 as against Germany's 7,146. And of course the Red Army was the world's largest military machine.

But even allowing for marked inferiority in several categories, the Soviet Union still had pointed westward a most formidable striking force. In fact the poor performance of many Red Army units following Germany's attack has been attributed by military analysts to their offensive posture; they were not keyed to fighting a war to defend their soil. This may be worth reflecting upon, given subsequent Soviet claims of unpreparedness.

The Soviet offensive posture at the time Germany attacked, with its great frontal massing of troops, largely explains how it was possible for Germany's armored and infantry units to accomplish the unthinkable.

During the first weeks of their assault, they annihilated entire Soviet armies. Within the first four months they took 3.5 million Soviet prisoners. The superb training and high morale of these German soldiers, led by competent generals, had achieved these incredible early victories.

In December 1941, after advancing to within 15 miles of Moscow (the spires of the Kremlin were sighted by a few reconnaissance units), the Germans were halted. They were in no condition to exploit their proximity to Bolshevism's seat of power. They had been driven almost beyond human endurance, lacked winter clothing and faced one of the most bitter winters in a century. They lacked anti-freezing fluids for their weapons and vehicles. And Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was welcomed by Stalin as well as by a joyous Churchill. It insured Japanese preoccupation with the Pacific theater and freed some 750,000 well trained troops. Many of these were sped by rail to the Moscow front that December.

Like the Finns before them, the German soldiers found themselves overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. Stalin ruthlessly and cynically sacrificed seemingly endless hordes of Russians in his determination to prevail in the titanic struggle. No one knows the near-exact totals of how many Soviet citizens died. Most estimates place the number between 20 and 25 million. In March, 1990 the chief of staff of the Russian army, Gen. M.A. Moiseyev, released casualty figures for all WWII Soviet military forces of 8,509,000 dead and 18,000,000 wounded. Regarding the desperate December, 1941 defense of Moscow, Gen. Moiseyev's report showed a loss of 1,500,000 Red Army dead. Possibly as staggering as the latter figure is the realization that German troops fighting in such adverse circumstances could have exacted such a toll.

However, total Soviet losses may have been almost double those generally accepted. John Erickson, an Edinburgh University scholar, is an expert on the Soviet armed forces. In August 1994, following an exhaustive year-long examination of formerly secret Soviet records, Erickson published findings that conclude WWII civilian and military casualties totaled some 49 million. The Soviet Union's population in 1940 was 164 million. Thus Erickson estimates that nearly a third of the USSR's population perished in the four year conflict.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent access to hitherto secret political and military archives, the mass of evidence more than confirms that "Barbarossa" was a German preventive attack. This has completely confounded the long-maintained assertions of most historians in the West. One of the most important gatherings of evidence is provided in a book published in 1991 by the former Soviet Colonel Valeri Danilov. He came to the conclusion that - if not Stalin himself - then at least the leadership of the Red Army had planned a first strike against the German Reich.

Apart from the mass of substantiated data on the planned Soviet attack contained in books such as that by the former Soviet officer "Suvarov" in his Icebreaker, other valuable contributions to ascertaining the truth about "Operation Barbarossa" have appeared in recent times. One of the first to provide evidence was the social scientist and historian Ernst Topitsch of Graz, Austria. His 1985 book Stalin's War was widely read and has since been reissued. Because of this book Topitsch was accused of "glorification of the German Reich" in journals such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Subsequently such journals were obliged to recant, as more and more evidence from former Soviet sources comes to light, confirming Topitsch's assertions.

The incredible Russo-German struggle of 1941-1945 was the greatest and most encompassing conflict in the annals of warfare. It will be studied, written about and discussed for as long as literate people walk the earth. But now, a half century after this unequaled saga of bravery, horror and suffering has passed, solid and most important truths regarding "Operation Barbarossa" are open to the light. And the often darkly-intentioned rantings of so many pro-Soviet academics at Oxford, Cambridge and elsewhere have been exposed for what they are.

Source: The Barnes Review
(Dezember 1994)