June - July 1941
Eastern Front
While the Soviet Union would later deny it in later years, it and Germany had been extremely close ever since the days of the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact. From the joint parades in Polish streets to the numerous trade agreements and even a negotiation of a Soviet entry into the Axis pact, the two countries enjoyed warm relations. However, with growing German appetite in the East, these relations had somewhat cooled, but Stalin, in Moscow, did not fear anything.
The Germans were already fighting a war against the British Empire, still hadn’t kicked the Allied powers from Europe, and had lost almost all of their fighting navy in the opening months of the war. Besides, the Soviet army was the largest and best in the world, and sheer numbers would easily defeat any German invasion. To prove this point, the difficulty in which Germany had in defeating the Low Countries, Norway, France or even Greece were testament to this. No, Stalin was so confident that when German soldiers defected to the Soviets warning them of the invasion, they were executed!
However, on the other side, things had been ramping up to this moment for a long time. The invasion of the Soviet Union had been planned by the Germans ever since the fall of France, and nothing would stop them from putting them in motion. And while certain officials warned of the sheer titanic effort this would require, Hitler brushed them off. The Soviets would not take long to fall. “One good kick and the whole rotten structure would come falling down”, was the prevalent mood. And then, the addition of many fertile territories such as the Ukraine would do a lot of good to the German economy, under blockade by Britain. Not to mention the Baku oil fields… [1]
And, of course, there was the sense of needing to do a crusade. Against the Jews, the Slavs, the barbarians living in the eastern border. These populations would have to be eradicated, displaced or killed, and replaced with German colonies and administrators, so that they could feed and work for the Master Race [2]. And the economists who pointed out that occupying these territories would be a burden to the Reich were, of course, dismissed as foolish or even downright traitorous [3].
To achieve this massive endeavour, Germany had to call on all its available divisions. The Luftwaffe was ordered to focus solely on Barbarossa, turning away from the Greek front where reinforcements could’ve maybe broken the aerial stalemate with the Allies. In addition, Germany would receive the support of its Allies: Finns to the north, Slovakia and Hungary and Romania in Army Group South. The latter were included in Barbarossa in order to make up for German losses in France and divisions that needed to be placed on the Greek front.
On June 22nd, 1941, the Germans finally put their plan into motion. Before the first tanks had even crossed the border, swarms of German aircraft wandered into Soviet airspace, alongside a few Hungarian and Romanian Bf-109s. Completely taken by surprise, the Soviet air force was absolutely dismantled. The few patrols that managed to take off were hacked to pieces by the Germans, though they fought hard and with the energy of despair each time. The VVS, reacting late, ordered their units to react against the Axis air forces almost as individual aircraft, without coordination. The results were devastating. By the end of the day, the Soviet Union had lost almost three thousand aircraft, against a mere thirty to forty for the attackers. And that number would continue to climb in the following days…
On the ground, it was much of the same. Completely taken by surprise, the Red Army was swept out of the field on every axis of attack. Contrarily to what some may think, though, the Red Army did not completely rout. Rather, it stood its ground, and even counter-attacked in some instances. For example, at Raisenai, in Lithuania, the troops of the 6th and 4th Panzer Divisions were faced with an armored assault that caught them off-guard. The Red Army had deployed over 700 tanks to drive a wedge in the German forces, with some KV heavy tanks even managing to reach the German rear! It must be said that the Germans themselves were surprised by the robustness of the KVs, which proved a match for a lot of their own Panzers. This did not mean that they were invulnerable, as the tanks were eventually destroyed, but at the cost of valuable time for the German armor. The local pyrrhic success at Raisenai could not be exploited as the German troops threatened an encirclement, forcing the tanks to withdraw to Kaunas after leaving as many as three quarters of their armored vehicles on the field.
In the Baltic area, though, was a man with a plan. Erwin Rommel had been reprimanded for his hot-headedness in France, but he was now looking at ways to redeem himself. Launched at the head of his Baltischer Korps, the general was assigned under the 4th Panzer Army, alongside Von Manstein and Reinhardt. With two Panzer Divisions under his command, the general flanked Kaunas and Vilnius, outrunning and outmanoeuvring the Soviet 11th Army of general Morozov. Rommel’s actions managed to trap the Soviet 11th Army under the Dvina River, where Von Manstein had managed to establish a bridgehead. The encirclement of the Soviet 11th Army along the Drina would prove disastrous for the Soviets, who would lose a major fighting force that would be needed for the fights around Leningrad [4].
In the meantime, the 4th Panzer Army continued to dash along the Baltic states, welcomed by a quite generally friendly population. Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian flags were brought out…until they were burnt down and replaced with the swastika flag. Manstein, Reinhardt and Rommel were thus free to run straight towards Leningrad without much opposition. At the end of the month of July, the German Panzers were within reach of Leningrad, but needed to rest. In essence however, Ostland had been conquered, and Novgorod had fallen [5].
In the centre, while things were going well, it was not exactly going as well as expected. Of course, most of Belarussia had been wiped clean. Brest had been completely encircled, allowing for the annihilation of the Soviet forces there. While Soviet propaganda would boast the feats of the “hero fortress” after the war, stating that it had held for 32 days, in reality it only held for a week. And in the meantime, German forces were already driving deep into Belarussian territory, in two large pincers that threatened to envelop the entire Soviet device. And these pincers would soon close at the end of the month, trapping about half a million soldiers near Minsk and Białystok. On June 26th and 28th, these two cities fell. The Soviet 3rd, 10th and 13th armies had ceased to exist. However, this came at a high cost for the Germans who had to mop up these encirclements, and who had to rest before resuming offensive operations.
These losses were not much of a consolation for the head of the Belarussian Front, general Pavlov. Accused of having withdrawn without giving battle, and for having attended a comedy in Kiev rather than commanding at the front, he was executed along with his chief of staff and his head of communications.
The week delay in the resumption of offensive operations had frustrated the German generals, but by July, they were once again on their way towards Smolensk, which could be used as a bridgehead towards Moscow. Mogilev was encircled by the SS
Das Reich Division, but fierce resistance at Smolensk blunted the until then unstoppable German advance. Not to mention the stubborn resistance of the encircled troops at Mogilev, who refused to bend under the German pressure. Soviet counter-offensives to re-establish a link with the city failed, but so did Heinz Guderian’s frontal attacks on the city. At the cost of high casualties, the 17th Panzer Division did break into the city, but without the fanfare that it previously had in Minsk or Vitebsk. This time, there was brutal house to house fighting, and while the Germans emerged victorious, they failed to establish a bridgehead on the Desna. A pause was thus ordered, with Guderian wishing to drive east over the Dniepr towards Vyazma. However, in the Ukraine, things were not going as well, and Hitler would order Guderian to divert his forces southwards. Something that Guderian never truly forgave him for…but the delay in carrying out these orders would also cost his Panzers dearly… [6]
In the Ukraine, things were not going as well as elsewhere for the Germans. While the Front commander, Mikhail Kirponos, was just as shocked about the German invasion as elsewhere, and without clear intelligence on the enemy forces, he was also more resourceful than his northern colleague, Pavlov. After the initial shock, Kirponos, under the orders of the STAVKA, counter-attacked along the front. These counter-attacks were launched at the corps level, but were at least partially organised and had specific objectives. Despite this, they failed one after the other, as their forces were annihilated by the German, but also Hungarian and Romanian forces. However, Kirponos did encounter local success, with some divisions wreaking havoc on the German rear, which forced the offensive to slow down and Soviet infantry to withdraw. T-34 and KV tanks proved deadly, and delayed the German advance for almost a week, so much so that the Hungarians were called to plug in the gaps in the shocked German lines in certain cases.
Despite the Soviet armoured forces being shattered, STAVKA commander Zhukov ordered Kirponos to strike again, with the forces he had. Kirponos vigorously objected, saying that this attack would destabilize the whole front, but had to comply. In the end, these attacks would just gnaw at the Soviets even further. This failure prompted Kirponos to be removed as Front commander and replaced by Semyon Budyonny. This one was completely ineffective, and when the German Panzers broke out towards Uman, reacted with no real cohesion or plan. Instead, he let the Germans and Hungarians run towards the south, and encircle three more Soviet armies. The Soviets attempted to break out, but were met with failure. Von Rundstedt had managed to outsmart Budyonny and move his Panzers on his rear faster than he could redeploy reinforcements. Commanders of the encircled divisions asked to break out towards the southeast, but were met with rebuttals wishing for them to break out towards the east, where the German lines were strongest. Instead, the German-Hungarian Panzers ground the Soviet units down, though a good chunk would resist until August, delaying the German advance.
Kirponos, for his part, had taken charge of the defense of Kiev. The city was put under a state of siege, ready to receive the German attack. With the charge on Uman, though, the Panzers were busy at work elsewhere, and Kirponos’ preparations of the city had made the Germans wary. Indeed, Von Rundstedt noticed that the defenses of the city were galvanized and that sending troops would be akin to leading lambs to the slaughter. Kiev could not be assaulted, and one of the initial objectives of Barbarossa was finally checked. The Soviets thus had time to protect the flank of the Ukrainian city, around Gomel and along the Dniepr.
Zhukov, seeing the German advance, advised Stalin to retreat to the Dniepr, thus past Kiev. When confronted with the possibility of abandoning the city to the Germans without a fight, Stalin rebuked Zhukov. Frustrated, the latter dared Stalin to send him to a frontline unit if he did not consider his advice valid. Though he escaped the front, Zhukov was demoted and sent to the reserves, leaving general Shaposhnikov in command as chief of the Red Army.
Despite these misgivings, Kirponos did his best in Kiev. Taking advantage of the German fatigue, he blocked an attempt at creating a bridgehead on the Dniepr to the south of the city, and managed to hold Korosten with the help of Vlasov’s 37th Army. Suddenly, the Germans became much warier of the threat Kiev posed to their position. A dagger ready to strike at the heart of their device, but also a golden opportunity to encircle more than a million Soviet troops… [7]
Finally, at the very south of the device, the Romanians launched their offensive. Aiming to retake Bessarabia, the forces of the Romanian 3rd and 4th Armies rushed towards Chernivtsi, capturing it on July 5th, despite fierce opposition from the Soviets. Here, the Romanians were less supported by the Luftwaffe, which also had to cover Greece, and thus mostly relied on their aircraft, which had been modernized with German help (Bf109, Ju 87...). Supported by the Germans of the 11th Army, the Romanians used their German-made Panzers to good effect: with their own sweeping strike, they rushed to Chisinau, then the Dniestr, shocking the Soviets with their fast breakthrough. The Romanians managed to obtain a bridgehead on the Dniestr, and seized Tiraspol. The Romanians aimed to cut off Odessa, but with the difficult terrain and almost omnipresent marshes, the advance stalled.
In the meantime, the Soviet 9th Army had trouble withdrawing in the Danube, where the Romanian gunboats dueled against the Soviet ones...but with increased pressure from the sea and air, the Soviets did not have time to properly withdraw in the Delta. With the breakthrough along the Dniestr, the 9th Army was ordered to bunk down in Odessa, but facing harassment from sea and air, only half of the 9th Army made it there. As a result, the Odessa Military District was essentially wiped out. The 9th Army was annihilated on the banks of the Black Sea and the rest of it would eventually make a last stand at Odessa, while the 12th and 18th Army would be encircled in the Uman pockets, further north. The 9th Army would fight along with a token force called the “Coastal Army” would manage to resist in Odessa, and would make the Romanians pay as they entered the city. Savage urban fighting ensued for two long months, but the city was doomed. The sacrifice of the Soviet defenders was valiant, but in the end only delayed the inevitable, and the city would fall to the Romanians on September 26th, 1941.
And it was not only on land that the Romanians were winning, but also at sea. On June 26th, the Soviets organized a raid on the Romanian port of Constanța, but was met with abject failure. The Soviet force, comprising of the cruiser
Voroshilov and four destroyers, shelled the port, before being attacked by…Romanian destroyers. The destroyers, along with fire from coastal batteries, pushed the Soviets into a minefield, which the
Moskva ran into head first. The vessel quickly sank, forcing the rest to withdraw. But the Romanians were not done, as while an air battle was going on, a formation of Romanian Ju 87 pursued the Soviet fleet with cover provided by Romanian Air Force IAR-80s. Not used to bombing ships, the Romanians missed most of their shots, but were helped since the
Voroshilov had to reduce speed because of damage done by one of the mines. The cruiser, struck by four bombs, sunk around noon, with most of its crew recovered by the Soviet destroyers.
This was not the only Romanian naval victory, as a few days later, the Soviet submarine
Shch-206 would be sunk by the old torpedo boat
Năluca. On August 15th, the Romanian submarine
Delfinul would sink the old Soviet destroyer
Dzerzhinsky which carried supplies into Odessa
. Despite some heavy losses, the Romanian Army had commended itself well in Bessarabia and southern Ukraine, and helped the Germans achieve their objectives in the south. They would thus be redeployed towards Nikolayev (today Mykolaiv) for the upcoming invasion of Crimea [8].
In conclusion, Barbarossa had succeeded beyond the Germans’ wildest dreams. But the operation was not over, and it would now be time for them to rush even further east.
[1] No one dared to mention that the Germans wouldn’t have the necessary tools to repair the devastated oil fields even if they did come to take them.
[2] This plan was known as the infamous “Generalplan Ost”. The goal was no less than the genocide of more than sixty million people.
[3] For fear of Hitler’s wrath, many reports, notably by general Thomas, were falsified to present things according to Hitler’s way. The initial reports, though, did not look good for the German economy, even if the Ukraine and the Baku oil fields were seized without damage…
[4] OTL Manstein and Reinhardt failed to encircle large numbers of Soviet troops due to the 11th Army’s hasty retreat. Not the case here as Rommel outmaneuvers them.
[5] So things here are actually going better for the Germans. No Soviet 11th Army means no counter-attack at Soltsy, and the Soviets cannot defend Leningrad as well as they did in OTL. Rommel’s force essentially stands in for an 8th Panzer weakened after losses in the Battle of France.
[6] Things go about as OTL for the Germans until Smolensk. A bloodier battle means that the 10th Panzer Division, already bled on the Western Front, cannot break out on the Desna and the Germans are now vulnerable to a Soviet counter-attack on Smolensk city rather than the outskirts.
[7] Things go slightly better for the Soviets than OTL on this front, with slightly more effective Soviet counter-attacks due to a less prevalent Luftwaffe and the prevention of a bridgehead on the Dniepr. Kiev is still threatened, but the Germans haven’t reached Korosten yet. Uman still happens, but because of the delay of the Panzers and the Romanians focused on the south, the Soviets can save some troops beyond the Dniepr which they lost in pockets in OTL.
[8] Minor nations do better here. Romania beefed up with more modern tanks and aircraft means a more decisive victory along the Dniestr means that the 9th Army cannot withdraw all of its forces in time and less defenders are present in Odessa. As a result it falls a little sooner than OTL, but the Romanians also suffer more casualties.