‘All my resources are exhausted. I ordered to hold to the last, but there is no certainty that the line will be held.’
As his XXXXVIIth Rifle Corps attempted to withdraw to the River Ola, the general declared 10 hours later:
‘The only means of fighting is the medium tank detachment. Manpower has lost its meaning on the given route. We have no means of support at our disposal… It is necessary to cover the Mogilev, Bobruisk Highway using front forces, since there are no units at all on this direction.’(3)
In by far the worst situation were hapless Soviet units cut off in ever-shrinking pockets. Kesselschlacht – the German term for pocket fighting – was apt. A Kessel (cauldron) was quite literally boiled until life within was extinguished. It was a methodical, slow operation causing terrible casualties to both sides. Tank soldier Alexander Golikow wrote to his wife, while he was engaged in fighting around Rowno against German Army Group North units:
‘‘Dear Tonetschka!
I don’t know whether you will be able to read these lines, but I do know, for certain, this will be my last letter to you. A bitter and deadly battle is being fought at this very moment. Our tank has been knocked out and all around us are the Fascists. We have tried to beat off their attacks the whole day. The road to Ostrov is covered with bodies in green uniforms… Two of us – Pawel Abramow and I, remain. You will know him, I have written about him. We do not expect to be rescued. We are soldiers and have no fear of dying for our homeland.’(4)
Once the initial Panzer screen was thrown around an intended pocket, Soviet units would march and counter-march within, attempting to get out. Lack of intelligence and nothing to brief to soldiers made this phase seem particularly aimless to those trapped inside. J. Jewtuchewitsch’s unit was moved from Leningrad to engage the German Army Group North advance in July.
‘They put us on lorries and propelled us in a completely different direction… We have been moving for a few days now from place to place. Sometimes we look for the battalion, they on occasion us… During one such move we covered a 94km stretch.’
Uncertainty was all-pervasive. Jewtuchewitsch remembered driving through the streets of Leningrad with civilians dolefully following their passage, ‘uncertainty in all eyes, unease about us and we also about ourselves’.(5) Major Jurij Krymov serving on the Soviet West Front confessed similar reservations to his wife. ‘It is now 19 days since I have heard anything from you or the others’. Newspapers were unavailable, only radio. He had no idea how his wife was living in Moscow and was not optimistic. ‘Due to the war and the need for women to work (because here there seem to be a lot) I am beginning to be concerned for your welfare,’ he wrote. Conditions inside cut-off pockets quickly deteriorated. Alexander Golikow continued the letter to his wife:
‘I am sitting in a misshapen tank shot through with holes. The heat is unbearable and I am thirsty. There is not a single drop of water. Your picture is lying on my lap. As I look into your blue eyes I feel better – you are with me… I have thought of you since the first day of the war. When will I return to you and press your head to my breast? Perhaps never.’(6)
Krymov complained, ‘it is not so much the danger or the risk of losing one’s life, rather the absence of the most elementary things’. Everyday life was burdensome:
‘We go without water for days and eat badly and irregularly, having to sleep in defensive positions that one previously would have thought unthinkable. It was all down to filth, heat and the strain.’(7)
Soldiers completely unaware of the real situation had no option but to follow orders. German soldiers dismissed this as a ‘herd mentality’, which often led to mass suicide attacks against their positions. Confusion bred doubt feeding on fear. Russian officers offering a course of action, a solution, or order from chaos would appeal to soldiers faced with no visible alternatives. Survival drove men to attempt the bizarre. They were simply human beings worn out by tension and physical exertion. Konstantin Simonov, a Russian war correspondent, described the difficulties officers had to band men together into companies and battalions after they had first been disorientated by the shock of the German invasion and then under constant air attack since it began. ‘Nobody knew one another,’ he said, ‘and with the best will in the world, it was difficult for people either to give or take orders’. He had not eaten or drunk for two days. ‘My eyes were drooping from tiredness and hunger,’ and his face ‘was burned to a shining iridescence by the sun’.(8) Dimitrij Wolkogonow, a Soviet Lieutenant, described how:
‘On the radio it was given out that our army was resisting bitterly in some region, and then suddenly a day later we heard that the German Army had already penetrated 50–70km further eastward. And I must further say that it was not only the simple soldier who had no clear impression of what was going on in these pockets, characterising the war at this stage, because there was no clear picture in the STAVKA High Command. Stalin constantly demanded new situation reports, but nothing could be usefully reported.’(9)
The outcome was predictable. Soviet Engineer Colonel Il’ya Starinov believed early offensives taken against the German attack were counter-productive and ‘produced negligible results. But the losses inflicted on our troops were extraordinarily heavy’. He concluded, ‘the unjustifiable attempts to go over to the offensive at a time when we should have been organising our defences only exacerbated a situation that was already bad.’(10) All available news was negative. 17-year-old Sinauda Lischakowa was living in at Vitebsk when the Germans marched in. As a fledgling partisan she had access to a radio. The radio news from Moscow was most distressing at that time,’ she stated. ‘The Germans were already saying then, in 1941, repeatedly: “Moscow Kaputt. Stalin Kaputt. The war will soon be over,” but naturally we did not believe it.’(11)
Desperate measures were ordered by officers to try and escape encirclement, because they were acutely aware of the consequences of failure. Commissar ‘dual authority’ was restored to Red Army units on 16 July. On 27 July an order sentencing nine senior officers to death was read out to all officers and men. The condemned included the Signals Officer of the Western Front, blamed for the catastrophic breakdown of communications, and the commanders of the hapless Third and Fourth Armies as also the commanders of the 30th and 60th Rifle Divisions. Engineer Colonel Starinov himself was briefly placed under arrest while he was supervising a bridge demolition across the River Dnieper on the Minsk highway. He was not surprised. Mistakes were not tolerated. Despair and confusion reigned among Western Front staff as, he said, ‘the arrests took the ground right out from beneath people’s feet. No one could be sure of living to see the next day.’ The nihilistic ordeal of the 1937 state-conducted purges remained all-pervasive. ‘Even strong-willed experienced officers,’ Starinov explained, ‘who had never cracked in the toughest situations, completely lost their self-control, at the appearance of people in the green garrison caps of the NKVD (Secret Police).’(12) Men fought on in hopeless circumstances as a consequence. Alexander Golikow further wrote to his wife:
‘Our tank shook with the impact of enemy shots, but we were still alive. We have no more shells and are short of bullets. Pawel is shooting at the enemy with the turret machine gun while I “take a breather” and chat with you [ie to a photograph]. I know this will be the last time. I would like a long chat but time is too short… It is good to die when you know somewhere there is a person who will think “It is good to have been loved”.’(13)
It became quickly apparent to the Russian population, reeling from the surprise of the invasion, that the war was going badly. German correspondent Paul Kohl retraced the invasion route to Moscow 40 years after the attack. During his investigative historical tour in 1985 he was questioned by a 70-year-old woman in Gross Prussy, south-west of Minsk: ‘Why did the Germans do this? We had a non-aggression pact with you. Why did you invade us?’(14) Surprise characterised the responses of the Russian people he met who had experienced the war, along the former invasion route. Alevtina M
ichailowna Burdenko heard war had been declared in a radio broadcast. Thereafter she had enormous difficulties returning to her home town at Baranowa, some 210km east of Brest-Litovsk. Every train was attacked from the air, and any still running were reserved for military transport. She managed to board a train three days later but the locomotive and a number of carriages were destroyed during a strafing attack, and ‘many passengers were killed’. The only remaining option was to walk home to her village, which she did, ‘constantly shot at by low-flying aircraft’. The village, however, had been overrun by the Wehrmacht on 25 June.
‘When I arrived in Baranowa in the evening, the town was full of German soldiers – the jack-boots, the sentry posts – all over there were control points. My husband was no longer there when I got home! Taken away! I never saw him again!’(15)
The town of Sluzk, further east, was occupied the following day. Sonja Davidowna declared:
‘On the same day they marched in they announced strict laws. All Communists and Komsomol members were to report without delay in order to be registered. Whoever went in could naturally bid life “Adieu”. Anyone supplying provisions to Soviet soldiers or partisans was immediately shot. A curfew was imposed. Anyone found on the streets after 18.00 without an identity pass was immediately executed.’(16)
Minsk, the capital of Belorussia, was occupied on 28 June, seven days after the invasion. Its fall was preceded by savage air raids. When W. F. Romanowskij emerged from his cellar shelter he was confronted with a horrific scene.
‘What a sight! Burning houses, debris and ruins. Bodies lay in the streets all around. People tried to flee the town during the bombardment but were not able to get out quickly enough, because the streets had been blocked with debris. Those caught in the open were annihilated by low-flying German aircraft.’
When the Germans marched in, the city had 245,000 inhabitants. Three years later only 40,000 remained and the town was 80% destroyed. A strict curfew was imposed from the start, as also were measures against supporting ‘political commissars’, the ‘Red Army’ and ‘saboteurs’. Romanowskij described how life in the occupied city took on a totally different hue.
‘There were SS and police patrols day and night with sudden house searches. People were arrested on the slightest pretext, disappearing into Gestapo cellars and then whisked off to be shot. An atmosphere of constant fear reigned in the city.’(17)
The Jewish Minsk ghetto was established in a district to the west of the city on 19 July, encapsulating the area where most Jews had been living at the time of the invasion. Two days before, the Germans had driven into the settlement of Kirowski, south-west of Mogilev on the Smolensk road. ‘It was very interesting for us children,’ remarked Georgia Terenkerwa – 10 years old at the time – who saw ‘sparkling helmets and the uniform shoulder straps’ and ‘officers in their open saloon cars’. Within two hours the initial wave of soldiers had passed through. ‘At midday they came again.’ These newly arrived soldiers were of a totally different type.
‘We had six children in the family. There was a hollow disbelief in the village as they began to shoot people. Nobody took it on board to flee. Everyone was surprised. I remember it all precisely. I was in front of the school as the Fascists started killing our neighbours. Shortly before it began, I had even seen in front of our house – it was about 100m away – my mother was standing gossiping with our neighbour’s wife. Then the soldiers came, forced their way into the house and then I heard the shots. I do not know how it was I managed to survive.’(18)
Surprise at the stunning extent of early German advances was universal. Panzer vanguards entered Russian towns while trams still ran. German motorised units were even cheered by civilians as they drove through, mistakenly believed to be their own troops. Wera Kulagina visited Vitebsk, which was occupied by Panzergruppe 3 on 9 July, coming from a neighbouring village accompanied by her elder sister. ‘As we arrived,’ she said, we ‘noticed the mood in the town was a lot more oppressive and uneasy than that before in the village.’ They looked around. ‘The town was blazing and the streets empty of people.’ The reason soon became apparent. ‘Only the Germans moved about undisturbed and freely through the town, like conquerors.’ Fear was all-pervasive. ‘We felt something was not right here.’ As the bridge across the River Dvina had been blown up, Wera Kulagina’s sister would not be able to go back to work. They quickly retraced their steps to the village. The inhabitants were totally oblivious to what had been going on nearby.
‘When we got back to the village and reached my mother, the Germans had yet to pass through. She did not believe us. As we told her we had already seen the Germans on the Dvina she would not take it in. She could not comprehend that the town was occupied.’(19)
Stalin began to emerge from the apparent initial paralysis imposed by the shock of the attack on his country and populace. He addressed the nation by radio on 3 July. His listeners found the speech to be extraordinary. Stalin spoke in an entirely unprecedented tone and manner, precisely encapsulating the atmosphere and emotional appeal needed to explain this crisis. One civilian, Boris Preobazhensky, recalled its dramatic impact long after the war.
‘The first thing we heard was the clinking of a glass against the jug, and then water was poured into the glass. You could hear it so clearly. The water poured out. Stalin took a gulp and then he began to speak: “Comrades, citizens, brothers and sisters,” those first few words brought us so close to him, as though it were our own father speaking.’(20)
This paternal appeal struck a sentimental chord with the Soviet people, unused to being addressed in such a manner by their leader. Stalin, while understating territorial losses, admitted the gravity of the situation, declaring: ‘a serious threat hangs over our country’. Advantage had been lost to the Germans because the Non-Aggression Pact had been ‘perfidiously violated’. The enemy was ‘cruel and merciless’, Stalin claimed, but there could ‘be for whimperers and cowards’. State production would be put on a war footing. ‘The Red Army and Navy and the whole Soviet people must fight for every inch of Soviet soil, fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages.’
The famous ‘scorched-earth’ instruction was issued alongside an order to prosecute ‘partisan war’ in the rear of the enemy.(21) Measures described included the State Defence Committee set up to deal with the rapid mobilisation of all the country’s resources. It was realised that the existing state machinery was inappropriate to prosecute the war effectively. On 10 July Stalin combined the formal title of Head of Government with the post of Supreme Commander, which the Supreme Soviet formalised on 7 August. The State Defence Committee (GKO) included Stalin, Voroshilov, Beria, Molotov (Foreign Affairs) and Stalin’s party deputy, Malenkow The STAVKA (High Command) was subordinated to it, having also been reorganised to include Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov from the party and an army element including Timoshenko, Budenny, Shaposhnikov and Zhukov. The General Staff, extended to oversee all branches of the armed forces, was subordinated to the STAVKA on 8 August. Stalin, in so doing, elevated himself to all the highest appointments in the Soviet state, party and army. Victory or defeat rested on his shoulders alone.
Similarly on the same date three Soviet Fronts were established: North-west, nominally under Voroshilov, West under Timoshenko and South-west under Budenny. These corresponded to the three German Army Groups attacking them. The measure further rationalised the command of reinforcements and supplies that GKO was mobilising for defence.
This defence was already in a parlous state. German OKH assessed on 8 July that it had eliminated 89 of 164 identified Russian rifle divisions and 20 of 29 tank divisions. It concluded, ‘the enemy is no longer in a position to organise a continuous front, not even behind strong terrain features.’(22) The Soviet plan appeared to be to counterattack incessantly to keep the German advance as far to the west as possible and thereby slow progress by inflicting heavy casualties.
Stalin’s toneless admittance of great but not insurmou
ntable problems to his population on 3 July suggested not weakness but great strength. The bitter truth, though understated, was out. At least the Soviet people felt that their feet, despite apparent imbalances, were firmly on the ground. The resolve of the Soviet population was stiffened. ‘Every night Moscow is subjected to air raids,’ wrote Ina Konstantinova on 5 August. ‘The enemy troops are coming closer and closer. How awful! But never mind, they will soon be stopped.’(23)
The grandiose heroism that permeates the official Soviet ‘Great Patriotic War’ version of events is out of place to students of history at the beginning of the 21st century, accustomed to the grainy realism of immediate on-the-spot TV news reportage. There was then a strong perception of duty reinforced by nationalism which could be drawn upon – a feature still evident in European conflict today. Soviet infantry machine gunner Timofei Dombrowski explained, ‘yes, it was our duty to defend the Motherland… there was also patriotism, and we were in a very serious position.’ His view as a soldier was uncomplicated. Russia had not started the war, and up until this moment his battles had been fought to stay alive. ‘We had to defend ourselves,’ he said. ‘We had not been the attackers, and we were permanently surrounded.’(24)
War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 Page 26