Armor and Blood

by Dennis E. Showalter

  5 A major offensive to recapture the city of Kharkov For Kharkov’s genesis and outcome, David M. Glantz, Kharkov 1942: Anatomy of a Military Disaster Through Soviet Eyes (Shepperton, UK: Ian Allan Publishing, 1998), synergizes a Soviet staff study with the editor’s consistently perceptive comments. Hans Doerr, “Der Ausgang der Schlacht um Charkow im Frühjahr 1942,” Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau 4, no. 1 (January 1954): 9–18, much more cursory, is by the then chief of staff of a corps heavily involved in the battle.

  6 Ivan was still no match for Hitler’s panzers The persistent and often cited German pattern of underrating its Soviet opponent is highlighted in this context by Christian Hartmann, Halder: Generalstabschef Hitlers, 1938–1942 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1991), pp. 318–319.

  7 Not mere counterattacks David M. Glantz offers the best account in any language: “Forgotten Battles of the German-Soviet War (1941–1945),” part 7, “The Summer Campaign, 12 May–8 November 1942: Voronezh, July 1942,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 14, no. 3 (2001): 150–220.

  8 Increasing division and diversion For a relatively brief overview of the development of the Stalingrad operation, see Wegner, “War Against the Soviet Union,” in The Global War, pp. 958–990. David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April–August 1942 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), and Armageddon in Stalingrad: September–November 1942 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), go deeper into the details. Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942–1943 (London: Penguin Books, 1998), antedates the academic titans but is no less intellectually worthy—and a less demanding introduction for general readers.

  9 Operation Mars David M. Glantz is definitive on this little-known operation, analyzing Rzhev in Zhukov’s Greatest Defeat: The Red Army’s Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999).

  10 First step in restoring the maneuver warfare For Manstein’s decision making, see his memoir Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler’s Most Brilliant General (London: Methuen & Co., 1958), pp. 297–303. Mungo Melvin, Manstein: Hitler’s Greatest General (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010), pp. 287–307, is the most balanced analysis. The best critical treatment is Heinz Magenheimer, Stalingrad (Selent, Germany: Pour le Mérite–Verlag für Militärgeschichte, 2007).

  11 Encouraged Stavka to go a stage further David M. Glantz, After Stalingrad: The Red Army’s Winter Offensive, 1942–43 (Solihull, UK: Helion & Co., 2009), presents the Soviet perspective. Dana V. Sadarananda, Beyond Stalingrad: Manstein and the Operations of Army Group Don (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1990), is economical for the other side of the front. Eberhard Schwarz, Die Stabilisierung der Ostfront nach Stalingrad: Mansteins Gegenschlag zwischen Donez und Dnjeper im Frühjahr 1943 (Göttingen: Muster-Schmidt, 1985), is based on the records of Manstein’s army group. Robert M. Citino, The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012), pp. 41–74, is excellent on “the limits of command” in the context of Manstein’s counterstroke.

  12 “Miracle” … “genius” Melvin, Manstein, pp. 344–346, summarizes Manstein’s performance from the perspective of a general officer and an accomplished historian.

  13 Process of recovering from two disconnects For the Red Army’s internal dynamic, see Roger R. Reese, Stalin’s Reluctant Soldiers: A Social History of the Red Army, 1925–1941 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996), and Red Commanders: A Social History of the Soviet Army Officer Corps, 1918–1991 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), pp. 12–134. Mark von Hagen, Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship: The Red Army and the Soviet Socialist State, 1917–1930 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), covers the ideological aspects; David R. Stone, Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926–1933 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), is excellent on the nearly disastrous distorting effects of excessive military production.

  14 Ripple effects David M. Glantz, Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), is once again the best beginning for these developments.

  15 War was not a contingency Richard W. Harrison, The Russian Way of War: Operational Art, 1904–1940 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001), is the best presentation of this process. Mary R. Habeck, Storm of Steel: The Development of Armor Doctrine in Germany and the Soviet Union, 1919–1939 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), is an excellent comparative analysis from a technical perspective. Sally W. Stoecker, Forging Stalin’s Army: Marshal Tukhachevsky and the Politics of Military Innovation (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), addresses the high-level infighting when the stakes were literally mortal.

  16 Rebuilding virtually from the ground up Steven J. Zaloga and Leland S. Ness, Red Army Handbook 1939–1945 (Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1998), is good for the details of reorganization and rearmament.

  17 Depended on perspective Boris Gorbachevsky, Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier’s War on the Eastern Front, 1942–1945, trans. and ed. Stuart Britton (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), pp. 108–113.

  18 “Into the chopping machine” Ibid., p. 130.

  19 Eviscerated in a matter of weeks On this point, cf. David Porter, Soviet Tank Units, 1939–45 (London: Amber Books, 2009), and Steven J. Zaloga and James Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War Two (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1984).

  20 Unpleasant tactical surprises See, for example, the reports from this period abstracted in Thomas L. Jentz, ed., Panzertruppen: The Complete Guide to the Creation & Combat Employment of Germany’s Tank Force, 1933–1942, vol. 2 (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1996), pp. 21–46.

  21 Four hundred thousand tankers Among many examples, cf. Dmitriy Loza, Commanding the Red Army’s Sherman Tanks: The World War II Memoirs of Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitriy Loza, trans. and ed. James F. Gebhardt (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), and Evgeni Bessonov, Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army (London: Greenhill, 2005). Both are from a later period than that covered in this book—but not many tanker veterans of the earlier years seem to have survived to record their experiences. Artem Drabkin and Oleg Sheremet, T-34 in Action: Soviet Tank Troops in WWII (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2008), synthesizes the stories of eleven tankers—again all but one from the war’s later period.

  22 Given the right catalyst This was increasingly provided by an emerging cadre of talented leaders. See Richard N. Armstrong, Red Army Tank Commanders: The Armored Guards (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1994).

  23 Guns had been important Chris Bellamy, Red God of War: Soviet Artillery and Rocket Forces (London: Brassey’s, 1986). Petr Mikhin, Guns Against the Reich: Memoirs of an Artillery Officer on the Eastern Front (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2010), begins at Rzhev and takes its narrator through Stalingrad and Kursk.

  24 Russia’s people behaved heroically Nina Tumarkin, The Living & the Dead: The Rise & Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia (New York: Basic Books, 1994).

  25 Hope that their sacrifices Catherine Merridale, Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939–1945 (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), and Roger R. Reese, Why Stalin’s Soldiers Fought: The Red Army’s Military Effectiveness in World War II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), combine to present the Soviet soldiers’ human dimensions.

  26 Gorbachevsky … recalls a postwar discussion Gorbachevsky, Through the Maelstrom, p. 376.

  27 Best understood in terms of synergies On the wider links between army and party, the best overview is Manfred Messerschmidt, “The Wehrmacht and the Volksgemeinschaft,” Journal of Contemporary History 18, no. 4 (1983): 719–744. On the military aspects, cf. Robert M. Citino, The Path to Blitzkrieg: Doctrine and Training in the German Army, 1920–1939 (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999), and James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992).r />
  28 Soldiers were confident Stephen G. Fritz, Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995), and Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), retain their place as standards. On the issue of participation, see particularly Thomas Kühne, Belonging and Genocide: Hitler’s Community, 1918–1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 95–136.

  29 “Band of brothers” Roger Beaumont, “On the Wehrmacht Mystique,” Military Review 66, no. 6 (July 1986): 45–56.

  30 Mastery demanded study and reflection Dennis E. Showalter, “Prussian-German Operational Art, 1740–1943,” in The Evolution of Operational Art: From Napoleon to the Present, ed. John Andreas Olsen and Martin van Creveld (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 35–63. The quotation is from pp. 35–36. The meme of war as an art form is a major theme of Robert M. Citino, The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005). The panzer arm is discussed specifically in Dennis E. Showalter, Hitler’s Panzers: The Lightning Attacks That Revolutionized Warfare (New York: Berkley Caliber, 2009).

  31 Product of improvisation Wilhelm Deist, “The Rearmament of the Wehrmacht,” in Diest et al., Germany and the Second World War, vol. 1, The Build-up of German Aggression, trans. Ewald Osers et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 373–540.

  32 Deconstruct the concept of blitzkrieg Cf. Karl-Heinz Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West, trans. J. T. Greenwood (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005), and from a broader perspective, Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (London: Allen Lane, 2006).

  33 Chronic shortage of staff officers The problem of staff overwork is a central theme of Geoffrey P. Megargee, Inside Hitler’s High Command (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000).

  34 A matrix of “hardness” The concept is best demonstrated in Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer, Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying: The Secret WWII Transcripts of German POWs, trans. Jefferson Chase (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).

  CHAPTER II: PREPARATIONS

  1 “Made a balls of it” Quoted in Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), p. 410.

  2 His most embarrassing Ken Ford, The Mareth Line, 1943: The End in Africa (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2012), is a good introduction to this sequence of operations.

  3 Last half million warm bodies Bernd Wegner, “Grundprobleme der deutschen Kriegführung nach Stalingrad,” in Frieser et al., Ostfront, pp. 3–41.

  4 Postwar historians in general Alfred Zins, Die Operation Zitadelle: Die militärgeschichtliche Diskussion und ihre Niederschlag im öffentlichen Bewusstsein als didaktisches Problem (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1986).

  5 Negotiating a Russo-German peace Bernd Wegner, “Bündnispolitik und Friedensfrage,” in Frieser et al., Ostfront, pp. 42–60.

  6 Hitler’s iron determination Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2008), pp. 391–497.

  7 Wait until 1944 Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, trans. Constantine Fitzgibbon (New York: Dutton, 1952), pp. 306–307.

  8 Manstein’s answer was elastic defense Erich von Manstein, Verlorene Siege (Bonn: Athenäum Verlag, 1955), pp. 473–483. The English version’s treatment of Kursk is one-fifth the length of the the German and far more anodyne. Cf. Melvin, Manstein, pp. 349–355.

  9 Operations Order No. 5 Ernst Klink, Das Gesetz des Handelns: Die Operation “Zitadelle,” 1943 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1966), pp. 277–278.

  10 Lacked the strength to participate Bodo Scheurig, Alfred Jodl: Gehorsam und Verhängnis (Schnellbach: Verlag Bublies, 1999), pp. 225–226.

  11 “So capable and soldierly a person as Manstein” Guderian, Panzer Leader, p. 302.

  12 Minor surgery Alexander Stahlberg, Bounden Duty: The Memoirs of a German Officer, 1932–45, trans. Patricia Crampton (London: Brassey’s, 1990), p. 295.

  13 Manstein’s absence cleared Zeitzler’s field Mark Healy, Zitadelle: The German Offensive Against the Kursk Salient, 4–17 July 1943 (Stroud, UK: History Press, 2008), pp. 45–47. The text of Operations Order No. 6, essentially Zeitzler’s work, is in Klink, Gesetz des Handelns, pp. 292–294.

  14 Point calls for explanation Showalter, Hitler’s Panzers, pp. 224–238, offers an overview of the German panzers in the first half of 1943. Cf. Richard L. DiNardo, Germany’s Panzer Arm (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997), pp. 11–20, and Thomas L. Jentz, Germany’s Panther Tank: The Quest for Combat Supremacy (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1995).

  15 “The Tiger was all muscle” Showalter, Hitler’s Panzers, p. 232.

  16 A preferable alternative Melvin, Manstein, p. 357.

  17 Model is best remembered as a tactician Steven H. Newton, Hitler’s Commander: Field Marshal Walther Model—Hitler’s Favorite General (New York: Da Capo Press, 2006), is the best analysis in English of Model as a commander. Walter Görlitz, Model: Strategie der Defensive (Wiesbaden: Limes, 1975), downplays its subject’s Nazi sympathies.

  18 One-on-one meeting Healy, Zitadelle, pp. 79–80.

  19 Conference in Munich Manstein, Verlorene Siege, pp. 488–491, and Guderian, Panzer Leader, pp. 306–308, are firsthand accounts, both predictably self-serving. The best analysis is Citino, The Wehrmacht Retreats, pp. 121–126.

  20 Well-developed approach to dealing with the senior officers Helmut Heiber and David Glantz, eds., Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences, 1942–1945 (New York: Enigma, 2003), is the basic source for the Führer’s approach in the war’s final years.

  21 Postponed the operation Frieser et al., Ostfront, p. 76.

  22 Elite Grossdeutschland Division Michael Sharpe and Brian L. Davis, Grossdeutschland: Guderian’s Eastern Front Elite (Hersham, UK: Ian Allan Publishing, 2001), is an economical overview. Hans-Joachim Jung, The History of Panzerregiment “Grossdeutschland,” trans. David Johnston (Winnipeg: J. J. Fedorowicz, 2000), is part of a subgenre of English-language publishing on the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS: narrowly focused on tactics and war stories, for practical purposes blind and deaf to the Third Reich’s criminal aspects, but useful within its limits for its narrative of armored combat in Russia.

  23 SS Panzer Corps Redesignated II SS Panzer Corps just before Citadel, it was also widely referred to without the new number. For its recent operational background, see George M. Nipe Jr., Last Victory in Russia: The SS-Panzerkorps and Manstein’s Kharkov Counteroffensive, February-March 1943 (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2000).

  24 Hoth had an ample supply of it Hoth has kept snugly beyond the increasingly unsympathetic spotlight cast on senior Wehrmacht commanders. He has no biography and despite having served six years of a fifteen-year sentence for war crimes is a marginal presence even in Johannes Hürter’s Hitlers Heerführer: Die deutschen Oberbefehlshaber im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941/1942 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007)—a work focusing as much and more on its subjects’ criminal behavior as their military performance.

  25 Came … with a string attached Frieser et al., Ostfront, p. 142.

  26 Fewer than four hundred recruits and convalescents Steven H. Newton, “Ninth Army and the ‘Numbers Game’: A Fatal Delay?,” in Kursk: The German View, trans. and ed. Steven H. Newton (New York: Da Capo Press, 2002), pp. 371–380.

  27 Panzer divisions were ready for another battle Friedrich von Mellenthin, Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War (New York: Ballantine Books, 1971), p. 215.

  28 One particular ballerina Gerd Schmückle, Ohne Pauken und Trompeten: Erinnerungen an Krieg und Frieden (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1982), pp. 68–74.

  29 Soviet victories … had not been won in isolation David M. Glantz, “Prelude to Kursk: Soviet Strategic Operations, February–March 1943,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 8, no. 1 (1995): 1–35, and “Soviet Military Strategy During
the Second Period of War (November 1942–December 1943): A Reappraisal,” Journal of Military History 60, no 1 (1996): 115–150. Cf. A. M. Vasilevsky, A Lifelong Cause (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981), pp. 273–279.

  30 Relief of Leningrad David M. Glantz, The Battle for Leningrad, 1941–1944 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002).

  31 Contacts between the respective diplomats Ingeborg Fleischhauer, Die Chance des Sonderfriedens: Deutsch-sowjetische Geheimgespräche 1941–1945 (Berlin: Siedler, 1986), contextualizes this still-open issue.

  32 Stalin sent Zhukov down from Leningrad G. K. Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections, vol. 2 (Moscow: Progress Publishers 1985), pp. 145–148.

  33 Running a spy ring Cf. Timothy P. Mulligan, “Spies, Ciphers and ‘Zitadelle’: Intelligence and the Battle of Kursk, 1943,” Journal of Contemporary History 22, no. 2 (1987): 236–260; and in much more detail, David M. Glantz, The Role of Intelligence in Soviet Military Strategy in World War II (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1990), pp. 172–283.

  34 On April 8 he sent a message In David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, The Battle of Kursk (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), pp. 361–362.

  35 Zhukov and Vasilevsky entered Stalin’s study For further information on the April 12 meeting and subsequent Soviet planning, see Healy, Zitadelle, pp. 51–53, 61–63.

  36 Most formidable large-scale defensive system The most complete analysis in English is—predictably—David M. Glantz, CSI Report No. 11: Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk, July 1943 (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1986). Glantz and House, Battle of Kursk, pp. 63–78, is briefer and clearer.

  37 Partisan operations Leonid Grenkevich, The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941–1944, ed. David M. Glantz (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1999), contextualizes the irregulars’ contributions to Citadel.

  38 Operational zone of the Central Front Glantz and House, Battle of Kursk, pp. 58–60, 299–306.