The German Army on the Eastern Front: An Inner View of the Ostheer’s Experiences of War

370 Pages·2018·3.48 MB·English

by  Jeff Rutherford

The German Army on the Eastern Front
An Inner View of the Ostheer’s Experiences of
War
Jeff Rutherford and Adrian E. Wettstein
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 Combat on the Eastern Front
Chapter 2 Command and Leadership in the Ostheer
Chapter 3 The German Army in the East as a Fighting Machine:
Tactics, Weapons and Organization
Chapter 4 Supplying the German Eastern Army
Chapter 5 The Occupied Rear: Pacification, Exploitation and
Mobilization
Chapter 6 Sustaining the German Army in the East –
Replacements and Training
Chapter 7 The German Army’s Understanding of the War in the
East: Ideology and Motivations
Conclusion
Appendix A Glossary
Appendix B Organization of a German Infantry Division Staff
Appendix C Table of units and their size
Appendix D Table of ranks
Notes
Introduction
For the English-speaking world, the German army of the Second
World War is generally viewed through the prism of war against the
Western Allies. The brilliance and audacity of German panzer
commanders and their troops led to the shocking defeat of French and
British forces in 1940, while the Africa Corps proved extremely
vexing to British forces in North Africa. Even after defeats at El
Alamein, Tunis, Salerno, and on the Normandy beaches, the German
army mounted a tenacious defence – symbolized by the battle of the
hedgerows in Normandy, the defence of the Gothic Line, Arnhem and
the Hürtgen Forest – that precipitously slowed the Allied advance and,
as the Battle of the Bulge illustrated, it still possessed the striking
power to mount an offensive that threatened Allied positions. By the
end of the war, however, the German army was a mere shell of the
force that had conquered continental Europe. Certainly Allied actions
– both on the battlefield and in the air and at sea – contributed to this
state of affairs. Much more important in the grinding away of the
German army’s combat power and efficiency, however, was the war
against the Soviet Union’s Red Army.
From the beginning of the invasion on 22 June 1941 until the end of
the war on 8 May 1945, the German army deployed the majority of its
troops in the eastern theatre of war. As a result, this became not only
the most decisive conflict of the Second World War, but also the
largest in terms of size, scale, and totality. While the Sino-Japanese
war approached the German-Soviet clash in terms of violence and
breadth, the totality of the latter struggle was far and away the greatest
of the Second World War. Modern industrialized war on the scale of
the war in the East – millions of men deployed at the front, well-
equipped with cutting-edge weaponry, on a front that stretched from
the Arctic Circle to the Caucasus mountains – could only be
undertaken by two countries who possessed the robust state structures
needed to fuel such a war. This war was also given a much more
ferocious edge than the one fought between the Germans and the
Western Allies. In the east, Nazi ideological beliefs structured the
manner in which Germany prosecuted the war and the racism that
animated the Nazi state gave the war against the Soviet Union a brutal
sheen that stretched from the highest levels of command down to the
ordinary soldiers, and it was one that was reciprocated by Soviet state
and society.
The German-Soviet war was essential in defeating Germany, the
strongest of the Axis powers. While one cannot uncouple this theatre
from the Allied war against Germany as a whole, it was here where
the German army lost its backbone as continuous massive losses
depleted the German manpower pool, decreasing the quality of
officers and men alike. The Luftwaffe also suffered greatly in the
East, and the use of trainer crews and flight teachers during the winter
crises of 1941/42 and 1942/43 to fly supplies to encircled forces
proved catastrophic to the German pilot training program. Of course,
Anglo-American supply of the Soviet Union with weapons and goods
of all kinds was essential for the Soviet war effort. Tanks and aircraft
filled Soviet production gaps, especially in 1941/42, while other
goods such as shoes helped in the mobilization effort of 1943/44.
Furthermore, Western Allied aid allowed the Soviets to concentrate
their production on fewer goods. It is doubtful that Soviet industry
could have produced more than 100,000 tanks in the war, if it had to
divert resources to – for example – locomotives and trucks, goods
delivered en masse by the Western Allies. The Western Allies’ war
effort additionally forced the Germans to devote considerable
resources to the U-boat war, coastal and air defence in the west and in
the skies over the Reich. Air defence of Germany alone included no
fewer than 1,400 batteries of anti-aircraft guns and searchlights at the
end of 1942, with many more stationed in France, Norway or in the
Mediterranean. The men and material devoted to these tasks could
therefore not be utilized in the East. These caveats aside, the bulk of
the German army’s fighting took place in the east and it was in this
theatre that the army was ultimately destroyed.
Adolf Hitler and the German military leadership planned Operation
Barbarossa – the invasion of the Soviet Union – as a short campaign,
consciously designed to build upon the previous rapid, mobile
operations in Poland, France and the Balkans. While many issues,
including, most problematically, the primary strategic goal of the
campaign, were not fully decided, the belief that the German offensive
would achieve its goals in eight to twelve weeks notably led to a
neglect of planning for logistics and replacements. Intelligence on the
Soviet Union was criminally negligent and the military leadership
completely underestimated the vastness of the theatre of operations
and its terrain. In expectation of civilian authorities swiftly taking
control of the conquered Soviet territories following the brief
campaign, a military occupation policy was also not fully developed.
When this short campaign failed to defeat the Soviet Union and losses
in men and material increased to an unprecedented level, the army
was forced to adapt in real time. In spite of these attempts to modify
its practices, the German army never fully recovered from the losses
of 1941, due largely to the scarcity of reserves in both men and
material. While the crisis in the replacement system was overcome in
1942, a growing manpower shortage plagued the Germans for the
remainder of the war. The issue of low-level leadership also became a
nagging and eventually debilitating problem. In combination, these
elements led to a steady decrease in German combat power, only