‘We have dreamed for a long time of doing something like this to the Bolshevists. Our feeling is not one of hatred, so much as utter contempt. It is a genuine satisfaction for us to be able to trample the Bolshevists in the mud where they belong.’(2)
A Luftwaffe Unteroffizier based at Lyon wrote home the day following the invasion. His pragmatic comments are tinged with similar racist overtones. ‘Yesterday we stood close to the map and thought through all the possible contingencies we could face.’ Identifying the problems, they mockingly concluded: ‘It would be better if we’re never stationed with the General Staff.’ Weltanschauung still jaded the NCO’s reasoning process. ‘Everything that belongs to Jewry stands on one front against us. The Marxists fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the big financiers as was the case in Germany in 1933.’ Surprise at the invasion announcement was tinged with a degree of quiet optimism. ‘Who would have thought that now we would be up against the Russians,’ he declared, ‘but if I recall correctly, the Führer has always done the best he could.’(3)
The efficacy of this statement was borne out by an increasing realisation of the success of the pre-emptive air strike. Flights of gull-winged Stuka dive-bombers were at that moment peeling off, sirens wailing into the attack. Junkers Ju87B Stukas were the main providers of close air support to the army. Leutnant Hans Rudel had by the evening of the first day ‘been out over the enemy lines four times in the area between Grodno and Volkovysk.’ His targets were large numbers of tanks together with supply columns that the Russians were bringing up to the front. ‘We bomb tanks, Flak artillery and ammunition dumps supplying the tanks and infantry,’ he wrote.(4)
War correspondent Hans Schaller described the cockpit view of just such a dive-bombing attack. Observing a Stuka flight below, he described how:
‘They are just changing their course. I cannot hear them above the noise of my own machine; they seem to be flying quietly and noiselessly above the landscape like sharp-eyed birds of prey, eager to claim their victim. One of the dive-bombers is already leaving the formation! The machine tilts to one side, begins to dive and plunges down through a milky wall of cloud towards the objective, hurtles down steeper and steeper. Stands on its head, dives almost perpendicularly and now the tension of the pilot has reached its climax.’(5)
This mode of attack, although not precision bombing, was the most accurate that technology could achieve at the time. Pilots laboured under uncomfortable G-force pressures varying from 4g to 12g for one to six seconds depending how the pilot levelled from his dive.(6) Hauptmann Robert Oleinic, a Stuka training instructor, explained:
‘A dive speed of 480kph placed enormous strain on the system. The dive brake set at this speed prevented the machine from breaking up in the air, enabling the pilot to get it under control again. The pressure while levelling out was so intense that pilots occasionally experienced a temporary misting sensation that could last a few seconds. That meant for a moment he blacked out.’(7)
Leutnant Rudel commented on the cumulative physical strain dive-bombing had upon Stuka pilots during the opening weeks of the Russian campaign. Take-off was at 03.00 hours in the first few days with the final landing often after 22.00 hours. ‘Every spare minute,’ he stated, ‘we stretch out underneath an aeroplane and instantly fall asleep.’ When scrambled, ‘we hop to it without even knowing where it is from’. Prolonged stress caused them to go about their business ‘as though in our dreams’.(8)
Soviet Air Force reports were soon referring to impending catastrophe. Third Army Air Force commander informed his Western Front higher command that:
‘At 04.00 hours on 22 June 1941 the enemy attacked our airfields simultaneously. The whole of the 16th Bomber Regiment was put out of action. The 122nd Fighter Regiment suffered heavily, the 127th Fighter Regiment to a lesser extent.’
A paralysis of command and control developed. Frantic requests for information were despatched. The report continued:
‘I request that you report where the 122nd and 127th Fighter Regiments have been transferred and give us their call signs and wave numbers. I request that you reinforce us with fighters for the fight against the air enemy.’(9)
Fourth Soviet Army reported similar setbacks. ‘The enemy is dominant in the air; our aviation regiments are suffering great losses [of 30–40%].’(10)
The staff of the Soviet Tenth Army was told by the 9th Air Division that by 10.29 hours all its fighters at Minsk had been destroyed. At 10.57 hours, 28 minutes later, the 126th Fighter Regiment in the same division asked permission to destroy its logistic stocks at Bielsk and retreat so as to evade likely capture. Bielsk, the staff ominously noted, was 25km inside the border.(11)
Soviet Air Force units were mauled as they took-off from runways. At Bug near Brest-Litovsk a single Soviet fighter squadron attempting to ‘scramble’ was bombed while still in motion on the ground. Flaming wrecks skidded into each other in a fiery mêlée and were left to burn out on the airfield boundaries. Reckless courage displayed by Soviet bomber crews to stem the onslaught was to no avail. ‘It seemed to me almost a crime to allow these floundering aircraft to be attacked in tactically impossible formations,’ commented Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring commanding Luftflotte 2. On the second day he described how ‘one flight after another came in innocently at regular intervals, as easy prey for our fighters’. His final caustic comment was: ‘It was sheer “infanticide”.’(12)
Hauptmann Herbert Pabst from Stuka Geschwader 77 saw a Soviet air raid on his base shortly after returning from a sortie. Black mushrooms of smoke suddenly burst up from the airfield boundaries with no warning. Six twin-engined enemy machines could be observed making a wide curving turn away, heading for home. Simultaneously two or three minute dots, German fighters, were sighted converging rapidly.
‘As the first one fired, thin threads of smoke seemed to join it to the bomber. Turning ponderously to the side, the big bird flashed silver, then plunged vertically downwards with its engines screaming. As it crashed a huge sheet of flame shot upwards. The second bomber became a glare of red, exploded as it dived, and only the bits came floating down like great autumnal leaves. The third turned over backwards on fire. A similar fate befell the rest, the last falling in a village and burning for an hour. Six columns of smoke rose from the horizon. All six had been shot down!’
Pabst added: ‘They went on coming the whole afternoon’, but all were knocked out. ‘From our airfield alone we saw 21 crash and not one got away.’(13)
The German pre-emptive air strike hit 31 airfields during the early morning hours of 22 June. Sorties thereafter were directed against suspected Soviet staff headquarters, barracks, artillery and bunker positions and oil depots. Defending Soviet fighters tended to keep their distance, turning away after an initial burst of fire. Leutnant Rudel was clear the Russian ‘Rata’ J15 was inferior to the German Bf109s. Whenever they appeared, ‘they are shot down like flies,’ he reported. Heinz Knoke claimed on 22 June there was ‘no sign of the Russian Air Force the entire day’. Therefore, ‘we are able to do our work without encountering opposition’.(14) The reason was clear. By the end of the first morning the Soviets had lost 890 aircraft, of which 222 were shot down in the air by fighters and Flak and 668 destroyed on the ground. Only 18 German aircraft failed to land after the initial attacks. By that night the Soviets had lost 1,811 aircraft: 1,489 on the ground and 322 shot down. German losses rose to only 35.(15)
Between 23 and 26 June the number of Soviet airfields attacked reached 123. By the end of the month 4,614 Soviet aircraft were destroyed at a cost of 330 German. Of these 1,438 were lost in the air and 3,176 caught on the ground. Total Luftwaffe air supremacy had been achieved. Generalfeldmarschall Kesselring recalled the ‘reports of enemy aircraft destroyed in the air or on the ground totalled 2,500; a figure which the Reichsmarschall [Goering] at first refused to believe!’ Pilot reports by the very nature of the mêlée of air combat were prone to exaggeration. ‘But when [Goering] checked up after our ad
vance, he told us our claim was 200 or 300 less than the actual figure.’(16) In fact the claims had been underassessed by some 1,814 aircraft.
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.(17) 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.(18)
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.’(19)
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.’(20)
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.’(21) 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’.(22) 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.’(23)
Dusk… 22 June 1941
‘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.’(1) 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.’(2) 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.(3) 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.’(4) The vanguard of XIIth Army Corps, the detachment ‘Stolzmann’, reached the Bereza Kartuska area one day later, an advance of 100km.(5) 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.’(6)
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 ide
al 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.’(7)
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.’(8) 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:
War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 Page 14