Barbarossa In Ukraine: Stagnation (Part 3)

0:02Al Murray: Thank you for listening to We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com slash we have ways.

0:25Al Murray: This episode is brought to you by WISE. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee, and what might be hidden away in the small print. Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas, or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate, an easy transfer, and no surprises along the way. WISE keeps things simple. Wise is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than 160 countries and with over 40 currencies. Most transfers arrive instantly. Wise uses the mid-market exchange rate, like the one you see on Google, with no markups or hidden fees.

1:06Al Murray: So when money needs to move, you can see the rate, know the fee and get on with it. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees by downloading the Wise app today. Be smart, get wise, T's and C's apply.

1:46milligram injection. ZepBound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if ZepBound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop ZEPBound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems.

2:22Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking ZEPBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. Want to be the one who's always in the know about the game, the scores, the plays?

2:54Al Murray: Here's a tip, the Apple Sports app. Just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules. And when your team scores, it shows up right on your iPhone lock screen, making it easy to check in anytime. So rule the group chat and download Apple Sports for free on the App Store or find it on your new iPhone.

3:23Without any considerable armoured support, we were reduced to trench warfare along the Desna, which made very heavy demands on the troops. The Russians attacked violently and over and over again succeeded in breaking through our thinly held lines. Tank units had to be called in to make good the damage. This taught us that in modern warfare, infantry requires armoured support not only in the attack but also in the defence. Then I say our lines were thin. This is not an understatement. Divisions were assigned sectors almost 20 miles wide. Furthermore, in view of the heavy casualties already suffered in the course of the campaign, these divisions were usually understrength and tactical verdurbs were non-existent.

4:14And that, of course, was General Gunther Blumentritt, who was the chief of staff of 4th Army, stuck in the centre of the line in army group centres one unit that hasn't been moved shifted north or south that's not the story is it oh that's not the story we know and love of german domination on the eastern front in the summer of

4:32Al Murray: 1941 it absolutely isn't welcome everyone to we have ways to make you talk with me al murray and james holland for episode three of our series barbarossa the road to kiev although i think it should possibly be called the road to perdition really yeah it's much and this is the story of the german war effort all over is no matter how good a start you might get off to because if you've caught everyone with their trousers down it then lands you in an in a series of increasingly um um untenable situations that you you're only getting yourself in in the mire um absolutely and in this episode we're going to basically be looking at two weeks so this is the last week of august the first week of september 1941 and frank and and let's be plain about it we are telling it from the soviet side of things but this is this whole series largely being from the german perspective we we make we're not claiming to be other anything else other than that um yeah this two weeks is a crisis point this this is where it is absolutely going down the swanee big time yeah i mean it is a total mess the whole campaign strategically operationally less so tactically but certainly operationally and strategically yeah it's it's going to pot as we shall see at the end of the last episode, Army Group North was poised about to strike for Leningrad and Guderian and his merry band were about to launch their strike southwards that after all, that he'd had to be furor persuaded to undergo.

5:59Al Murray: And just as his army has changed direction completely, so has he. Well, his proper strike south, though, is von Schweppenberg's 24 Panzer Corps have been pushing southwards anyway and have been in constant combat since the fall of Smolensk on the 15th of July. But we're going to leave. we're going to park Guderian for now we're going to Liga his forces for the moment and look north first oh we go north well their ongoing offensive is supported heavily by Luftflotte too remember him Kesselring and all that yes you know this is in the days when Kesselring was just a lowly field marshal in the Luftwaffe not the all conquering head honcho in Italy also with the additional weight of von Richtofen's Fliegerkor 8 who attached to them and on the 15th of august it's a luftwaffe that really really does um play a key part in helping 18th army captured novgorod and on the 28th of august they also take talin um so that is the baltic states wrapped up at that point so that's not bad going really and the loss of talin of course is extremely bad news for the soviets you've only taken it the year before so you know in the summer in june 1940 this is when the soviet um red army was was sweeping into the baltic states anyway the red banner baltic fleet has been encircled at talon but not allowed to evacuate until the city fell again this is sort of you know starling going no no one should leave so 67 vessels then try to break out but only 33 make it so the other 34 are sunk in the harbor by a combination of air attack torpedoes and gunfire or mines i mean that's a diving opportunity isn't it that's quite something isn't it but as we see here jim right later on in the war hit Hitler does this thing of, you know, you're not a step back.

7:44Al Murray: You've got to hang on regardless. Has he not been offered a series of lessons of how that works out for you by the Soviets in 1941? Yes. And Al, do you think Hitler's going to learn these lessons and take note of them and store them away for future? Well, you go tell him. But no. Or is he going to have maniacal festings? He insists maniacally that festings should be maintained at all opportunities. I think we know where that one goes. But isn't that interesting that here is a series of prime examples of how that doesn't work. And now you have to maintain a fluid reserve and all that sort of thing, rather than this sort of these sort of pimples of resistance.

8:24Al Murray: Anyway, it just just popped into my mind as you as you laid that out, the disaster that enveloped the Soviets with that policy. yeah anyway so on the 23rd of august and it's interesting this when in doubt reorganize starlin or the stavka splits the northern front into two exactly right um uh the leningrad and the karelian fronts um and four days later voroshloff's northwestern strategic direction which sounds like a terrible indie band or some experimental electronic dance band they're also dissolved. North-western strategic direction there, with their record that went to number 43. They also dissolved, and the Stavka took over direct control of Leningrad, the Corellian, and North-western front.

9:06Al Murray: So, you know, alright, we'll reorganise then. So this means everyone, all eyes are on... We'll reorganise and we'll take greater control. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because that's the problem, greater control. All eyes in the north are on Leningrad, obviously, which was formerly St. Petersburg, and is now St. Petersburg again. And then it was Petrograd for 1914. And then Leningrad after Lenin died in 1924. Germans are determined to basically smash Leningrad up, aren't they? It's obviously, it's got that symbolic tinge, isn't it, in Hitler's mind because of the politics of it. And the first long range shell lands on the city on the 1st of September.

9:45Al Murray: And by the 8th of September, Germans had captured Schlisselberg on the southern shore of Lake Lagoda, which is the huge lake to the east of the city. this now means effectively leningrad's cut off from the soviet union from the south and the east from the seaward side and by the fins to the north so it's on it's under siege yes because the northern side of leila goda is finland have you been to um leningst petersburg jim no i never have have you yeah i have yeah we were we went about 10 12 years ago i think and and went on the train from moscow but basically you wake up inst petersburg sort of 10 miles outside and it's it's refined all these horrible horrible refineries and you know giant squalid uh uh factories and petrochemical works or that's what that's what they appeared to be what's it like in the center if it's like anywhere it's kind of like it's like prague on steroids if it's like anything the hermitage is spectacular okay enormous bridges you go down to the yeah you go down to the bit that's you know reclaimed marsh wherever we went inevitably we went to the military museum went around went around the whole thing none of which is in english which is kind of interesting that you know it's all there's no concession at all the possibility anyone who might speak english might go i mean that's fine but it but it but because it's all in cyrillic it's it's got that sort of alienating quality um and the only bit that had any english in it was an exhibition about the the ak-47 there was a special exhibition about the ak-47 with all of that video of old mr kalashnikov toasting himself for um how successful he was an interesting place and we were there on navy day the day we left was navy day um uh which was a huge bean feast in the city and loads of people wearing their grandparents or relatives medals and you know some some destroyer or something had come up into the up into the city so quite quite interesting i'll recommend it to anyone when uh hostilities have ceased of course well yes i mean you know um hopefully i'll be looked on a little bit more kindly in future years and be able to return to marlussia of course you can't go i can't go yeah so holder general holder chief of staff of the of the army of the okh the hero says on the 5th of september in his diary goes our objective has been achieved will become a subsidiary theater of operations so it's agreed that they're not going to waste their time in fibula fighting in a built-up area they're going to just besiege it and starve them out um no point getting joined drawn into costly urban fighting i mean you know that actually is is quite sensible um the germans are expecting this to happen you know the surrender to happen fairly swiftly but there is also a sort of vague sense of opportunity lost as well i think you know 41 panzer core 120 20 kilometers so what's that like 75 80 miles isn't it from leningrad by late july and general hopner had suggested an all uh an all fight for us to take it but but obviously you know it's the same old problem the supply chain simply couldn't can support it so the idea is shelved and and you know then they're going to besiege it instead but by the 11th of september there are now 452 000 red army troops on the leningrad front with two thirds deployed around the south of the city and you know they're now facing similar numbers of germans but obviously as you know the the three to one minimum rule for attackers that you should have three times as many as those defending when you're attacking and now the the leningrad front is just at the end of uh end of the second week of september is given to zhukov who switched from the reserve front on the 9th of september um which is obviously the day after the siege began that's where we're at with leningrad um and we can just sort of park that for the moment because this isn't the main event on this series the main event is very much in the center still and what is going on in the south in ukraine so it's time to turn back there and hitler's plans in circle of kiev which you know has to be said at the end of august is not going very well but um we need to recap a little bit i think but but he's a military genius jim we were talking a lot about triangles and salience weren't we in in uh in the previous episode of yes exactly exactly what the germans are trying to nip off and how zhukov had the intuition that this is what was coming but even before the germans late august encirclement campaign begins.

14:00Al Murray: Kripenos' southwest front were already half encircled anyway because of this triangular salient which Kiev sits in at the apex, sort of like a beak. The southeast of the city, the Dnieper winds its way southeast and the Germans still weren't across it. So they're being pressed, but they are being pressed to the north and the south. Weich's second army, northeast of Kiev and then Guderian's second panzer corps. And to the south, you have Reichenauer's 6th Army, Stubnegels, 17th Army. It's one of my favourite names. And then Van Kleist's Panzer Group 1. So there's lots of moving parts. When you read that menu out, it's pretty obvious what the Germans are up to, isn't it?

14:41Al Murray: But Stalin, though, is still insistent on protecting both Moscow and saving Kiev. To the south, General Everhard von Mackensen is driving his 3rd Panzer Corps hard down to Neprateputeputeputep. here is false teeth time again dnepropetrovsk dnepropetrovsk which is a long way to south the southeast of the city which the ukrainians have now just called dnepro yeah yeah much more sensibly much more much more well uh thoughtfully for us um it's very good of them that's why i'm on their side they've made the names easier um and stalin thinks this this this move on uh dnepropetrovsk is where the problem is, isn't he?

15:26Rather than anything else. By the way, do you remember Eberhard von Mackensen from Anzio? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's constantly falling out with Kesselring. Yeah. He's commander of the 14th army until Kesselring sacks him. Yeah, yeah. So all these guys, you know, Lemelson, Vatinghoff, they get around.

15:44Al Murray: Do you think von Mackensen's from an old Scottish family that went to Prussia at some point? It sounds like he could be. Hey, the name's Eberhard. Eberhard von Mackensen. I'm a hard for Markinson. Okay. Now, listen. Yeah, get you. No, but he wouldn't. He'd talk like this, wouldn't he? A very sort of, just a light Edinburgh brogue. That's right. If my chance could please move on to the proper test, or please, that'd be nice. Everything's better in 3rd Panzer Corps. Let's talk about Kiev. And where it is. Because it sits on the Dnieper, and in 1941, most of it's on the western bank of the river.

16:19Al Murray: Like Stalingrad, in fact. And it's a big city for the time and for the Soviet Union. It's 850 ,000 people. It's got a railway network which links the east and west. So this is worth taking. And it had been an impregnable fortress city during the Russian Civil War. And so Stalin isn't going to give it up now. It's deeply symbolic, isn't it? It's symbolic of Soviet power over Ukraine, isn't it? That Ukraine as a part of the Soviet Empire, isn't it? And the third largest city in the Soviet Union. And this means, because it's got a railhead and because it's where it is, it's an important concentration centre for the Red Army and for Krippinos' front.

16:57Al Murray: So, you know, it makes sense not to want to lose it. And there's an outer defensive zone which is being created to the west of the city on the River Erpen, while the people's militia and barricades are set up, established in the city. And there is an NKVD man in charge whose name is Nikita Khrushchev. Interestingly enough. And he's first secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party. And they've also got, there's three rifle divisions. There's a tank regiment, an airborne brigade, an NKVD motorized force, two anti-tank battalions, 29 ,000 militia. So there's a fair chunk of blokes there to defend the place.

17:40Al Murray: but the germans are going to encircle it rather they don't they don't they know they don't want to try and dash themselves on the rocks of the city they want to encircle it first and proceed from there don't they yeah yeah absolutely but but you know the problem with the encirclement of course is that it involves vast distances instead you know which the germans are really not at all suited to for to fulfilling this rapid advance is also not helped by the scorched earth policy which has been ordered by stalin generally speaking i mean the scorched earth policy is a bit hit and miss and it tends to be more effective the further east you go um ukrainians generally are not terribly keen on carrying out the order because you know scorched earth means blowing up the bridges join the roads which then means you know your own means of communications are are trouts which then means you're facing yet another famine so you know do you like the sound of that no thanks uh and also by the way we're quite keen on having the germans in rather than the pesky russians so it's a bit hit and miss but having said that all the rail bridges over the denipa river at chikasi kremenchug uh denepro petrovsk and zaporizhia are all destroyed and the factories in the cities have been abandoned and destroyed as well the results of the scorched earth policy really are felt most by the germans in terms of logistics and it definitely does make their lives harder there's no question about it there's less to plunder um and means that more has to be carried of course including not least bridging which as we know and you've just been doing this deep dive into market garden engineering and bridging takes up an awful lot of logistical space in terms of trucks and movability and oil and fuel and blah blah blah and you have to prioritize it as well you have to bring it forward so you you you you know immediately whatever whatever plans or schedule you've got you need to you know you need to either be flexible enough to do that or change what you're doing so it's a it's a it's a real demand on your operational flexibility but the the main furthest thrust so if you think of the of the denipa river sort of going backwards um sat in a southeast direction that means to get to it you've got to do this big sweep to the southeast and that's being spearheaded by by von mackinson as we've already mentioned with his third panzer corps which of course is part of von kleiss panzer group one now remember there's four panzer groups panzer group one in arm group south two and three in arm group center and four in arm group north and that is it for your for your your major spearheading panzer frost anyway they had reached dnepro petrovsk on the 17th of august after having a pretty clear run i mean the the the constraints are more of logistics and just distance rather than and you know terrible roads and all the rest of it and too much dust and running out of fuel and running out of parts then it is opposition from the red army but once they get to dinette propitrovsk there the red army resists furiously and drags third panzer corps into a kind of one of those sort of awful ghastly bitter attritional kind of urban fights however part of the 13th panzer division does manage to get across the dnieper on the 25th of august everything happens on the 25th of august but creating a bridgehead of course So getting across is one thing, maintaining it and expanding it is quite another.

20:59Yep. And instead of giving 3rd Panzer Corps the rest it desperately needs, because it's going to be part of this encirclement operation, it's now drawn into an attritional fight for a city and a bridgehead of, you know, in the big scheme of things at this moment, of limited strategic value. You know, this is a hell of a long way from Kiev. you know it's 300 kilometers or something you know what's that 200 miles from from kiev that's a that's a long way south but jim this is what happened though you know that that is a

21:32Al Murray: microcosm of of the barbarossa campaign right there they they break out they go a long way because they're not resisted then they they think that's victory and then they do bump into the soviets and it's bloody and when the soviets elect to fight it's bloody and difficult and horrible and they're stuck and that's like that's that's this inner this whole thing in a micro microcosm they can't resist driving on when there's no one resist when there's no one resisting them they end up 300 kilometers out of out of shape absolutely and this will be repeated again and we'll come on to this because this this is you've absolutely hit the nail on the head they can't resist it they cannot resist the urge to just keep going even when they shouldn't when they should just go right that'll do so you know the problem is is on the you know at the moment where Guderian is just about to start his drive south, Kleist Panzer Group 1, a hell of a long way from offering anything to this planned encirclement, because the thrust of Panzer Group 1, von Kleist Panzer Group 1, is now at Danepropetrovsk, being sucked into this bridgehead on the eastern bank, which it doesn't really need.

22:41At this town, 1st Panzer Group has fired a staggering 40 ,000 tonnes of artillery shells by the 6th of september and what does that speak of that speaks of very very tough heavy fighting yeah and saying okay we're going to put all our artillery on the western bank which is going to fire into eastern bank and that that's we're going to use that as a false multiplier yeah because our our men in this bridgehead are having a really really tough time of it that's what it says to me 100 you know and one of the one of the divisions involved in in this operation the 60th motorized infantry division its supply lines are now between 200 and 500 kilometers away i mean that's just ridiculous you know these are the demands of third panzer corps and and both runsted von runsted the commander of army group south and von kleist the commander of army group of panzer group one are seriously worrying whether it could manage any further operations at all for the time being you know they desperately desperately need this time out of the line for for r &r for refit and replenishment and they're just not getting it and on the 25th of august the quartermaster of army group south notes for the intended replenishment period of 10 days it is necessary that the panzerkorp is provided with 14 supply trains a day but this is horrendously wishful thinking because the entire army group is only getting 12 trains a day and that's on a good day and very often it's only receiving half of these so where one panzer group is going to get 14 is just ridiculous and the problem is that now the bridgehead at dinette pro petrovsk is sucking up much of what supplies they do have so von runch dead is not in favor of expanding the bridgehead at all but i actually think it's a much more sensible idea would just be to pull back over the other side and kind of you know hold the town and kind of be grateful for what you've got but he feels he needs to kind of refer it to the okh so So he says, do you want to be runched, Ed?

24:39Yes, why not?

24:40Al Murray: The commander of the army group advises that the bridgehead not be held because it would lead to a disproportionately large demand on strength and munitions, which would delay the replenishment of the Panzer Group. Halder isn't persuaded, is he? This is the problem, is that, you know, these sorts of voices of protest get nowhere, don't they? And Halder, Halder, by this point, and Halder's been on quite the journey, hasn't he? Halder, by this point, is now completely enthralled to Hitler's idea that will will do the trick, that the power of the will will win the campaign for them, which is just so silly.

25:16Al Murray: And when you consider that supposedly the Prussian military class is the educated military class, they've had a military academy since the post-Napoleonic times. They supposedly all understand how it works. For them to all be dazzled over power by Hitler is not brilliant, is it? I mean, it's a terrible, terrible decision, isn't it? I mean, I think that's really blindingly obvious to me that this is not a good idea. Same day, 25th of August, 1941, same day that 13th Panzer Division is getting across the Dnipro-Petrovsk, Guderian's second Panzer Group is finally getting going on its thrust, which it's already been doing anyway, but just not full out.

25:55But he's only really doing this with 24th Panzer Corps and Lemelson's 47th Panzer Corps because von Wietinghoff's 46th Panzer Corps is still on the central front. Guderian's in a grump already because he doesn't feel he's doing it with the right amount. And von Schreppenberg's 24th Panzer Group start without any time at all for arrest and maintenance, having been at the spearhead of the whole thing since the 21st of June. No break whatsoever.

26:23Al Murray: Yes, Guderian's Panzer Group is weak, but the Red Army is in disarray because, again, you know they're they're they're going through these paroxysms of reorganization along with the fact that they they you know there's an arse and elbow problem um at the stavka isn't there um and they disband the um central front that um uh the stavka disbands the central plant front and places all its units under erimenko and his briansk front so erimenko now commands the third 13th 21st and 50th armies but is now solely responsible for having to deal with most of army group center including guderian so he's got quite a lot on his plate hasn't he only 50th army um of that of that portfolio of commands is in any kind of uh fighting shape um but erimenko is then ordered by uh shepochnikov to place the 50th army on the right so the northern side in other words looking to cover the moscow possibility yes and covering the bit where the center of army group center is still you know this is fourth and ninth armies in the in the center yeah because they're they're hung up on this idea of the stavka's hung up on the stalin he's hung up the idea of mosca um uh which means moving away from where the the germans you know are actually trying to concentrate that what they have of a schwerpunkt to the southwest um this means that eromenka's attacks on guderian's um left his eastern flank will be much will be much weaker than they could and should have been because you know uh gudarian is vulnerable and it's not so much the red army that's gudarian's problem it's the terrible roads the shortages of supply um because after all that when you know we keep coming to this they're not metalled roads they're tracks they've all been they've all been churned up they're dusty they're a quagmire every every heavy tank you send over any any country road like this degrades the road damages the road just not designed for this i mean that's the point yes it's for it's for horse and cart isn't it and the and the yeah spearheads are also running into lots and lots of um small streams which they can't go which they can't skirt around they can't flank around so that this means that they've got to reinforce bridges but because the bridges can't take the traffic obviously this means this means having the stuff to do that or the engineer to do that and the delay so it's bad roads bad bridges um the troops are exhausted they're at the end of their supply lines um all of this means that gadarian's drive south is far from guaranteed to be a success you also have the desna river which runs north to south which then turns west 90 degrees and which is in the way of panzer group two and this is a really good natural obstacle if you're defending and should should and could offer you a very good shoulder if you're trying to keep um guderian out but there's obviously there's a there's a however coming because of the sheer state of disarray in the red army but there's this thing we keep coming to this don't we that the things that appear to be dazzling german moments are very often you know clod hopping um uh moments of incompetence on their parts of their opponents the gazala line battle you know the gazala stakes in 1942 you know that that give the germans what they need and they'll take it you know so leading 24 panzer corps is third panzer division and on the 25th of august they're approaching novgorod seversky which is a town on the desna the germans think they they they they seem to think that the bridge has been destroyed but it hasn't it's still there so and this is the red army just not able to tie its own boot laces at this point you know that they're inept so there's a dash of good luck and swift action on the part of um two junior officers in Third Panzer who grabbed the bridge early intact on the 26th.

30:15Al Murray: Sliding doors. Sliding doors, but the Red Army's door is probably jammed, is the thing, and won't slide. Yes. You know what I mean, right? The Third Panzer War Diary reads, Given the wide riverbed and swampy banks, the bridge, with a length of 800 metres, spanned an otherwise almost impossible object, I mean, obstacle. I mean, that's a big, big bloody water obstacle. 800 metres that's nearly a kilometre like over half a mile and Guderian says this bridge is as good as a whole division there you go so he's now secured the bridge which means that Modell now has to hold on to it and so tries to rapidly expand the bridgehead to a depth of kind of 8 kilometres which is what just under 5 miles isn't it the next day 27th of August they face furious counter-attacks and also assaults from the air and they are forced to give just a little bit of ground but the bridgehead does hold the problem though of course is pumping enough troops and supplies into it to keep it both open and then then you know use it as a launch pad to push on again and following behind the panzer divisions were the motorized infantry divisions including 10th motorized infantry division which is struggling to reach them and the war diary of the 10th motorized infantry division goes aside from earlier fallouts 30 of the remaining trucks are sitting mit some form of damage on the road north of Surash.

31:40As a result of the catastrophic oil shortage from which the majority of this damage streams, there will be even more trucks lost. Consequently, the battalions in front sometimes consist of just five platoons and are often without heavy weapons. The division will reach the Desna in some cases on foot and almost without heavy weapons.

32:01Al Murray: I mean, that's not great, is it? no that's that's a shit show right there because because the germans usp better training better kit you know better ability and do how to think with agility lightness of foot to get in there smash the enemy before they know what's coming it's kind of hard to do that if you've only got a handful of platoons with no mitt no heavy weapons i mean well they're relying on whim and wigger aren't they and they don't have the whim or the wigger so to speak no and obviously they're And of course, they're short of oil. Four Panzer Division is so short of oil on the 29th of August, it can only field 15 tanks that day, which is smaller than a single British squadron.

32:44Al Murray: It's wear and tear. High tempo operations like this, it's about wear and tear, isn't it? You know, cracked axles. The day before the 28th of August, Halder records 38 ,000 trucks lost since the beginning of the campaign. Those who recall the first episode was about the, you know, the ill-fated transportation plan that was enacted to try and sort out trucks. Adolf von Schell. Exactly. Here, he failed to grip that. And here's the fruits of a campaign anyway. So combine those two things, they're really up the swanee. 50 % of these trucks of the 38 ,000 lost are in the panzer groups. So by now, Guderian's second panzer group is operating at 45 % strength of tanks.

33:25Al Murray: Von Kleist's first panzer group at 50%. The total losses of armoured fighting vehicles is now at 1 ,488 by the end of August with just 96 replacements. German industry is not keeping a pace. I mean, it's amazing, isn't it? So Guderian, is he happy? No, poor old Guderian. He's in a right sulk, isn't he? It's tough being a genius, isn't it? Anyway, General Paulus visits him on the 27th of August. Paulus, of course, we will remember from Stalingrad. But at this time, he's the senior quartermaster at the OKH, the Oberkommando der Gere, the army and guderian demands reinforcements and warns of a 75 kilometer gap so once i about 40 miles between his forces of weix's second army and it's not joined up and and you know they're on it's it's it's all going horribly wrong and guderian demands that that two of weix's motor corps plus one the first cavalry division be handed over to his command in in two panzer group and also demands return of the 46th panzer corps um under waisinghoff which is still in the central part of the centre front uh army group centre and paulus thinks well yeah you know you're right you know we can this is hopeless situation i'll do what i can i'm the same night gadarian also harris is box chief of staff but there aren't any troops to spare you know the only consolation that the bock is prepared to concede to gadarian is pushing the first cavalry division closer to schweppenberg's right flank gadarian's not a happy bunny and gadarian is terribly guilty of thinking that he's the only show in town you know forgetting that that of of what else is going on and that's what we're going to be looking at in a minute but the but the truth is the same that has been plaguing them since the fall of smolensk you know they've bitten off more than they can chew you know the advance has only been going on for three days against feeble i mean truly feeble red army uh um opposition and already von schreppenberg is suggesting that it might not be possible to even go on at all eventually and with huge regret um and huge misgivings uh von bock agrees to send the gross deutschland regiment which is a is a not elite exactly but but you know one of the one of the better notch infantry regiments guderian of course is rather than being saying thank you my senior commander for helping me out is is very very unimpressed and goes it is a drop by drop method of reinforcement well he's right but what do you what do you do i mean yeah what else can you do and the main reason bot can't send anything anything else is because his center in army group center is getting absolutely hammered we're going to take a a short break now and we're going to um see what the red army are up to in the center because although they although they've they've offered disarray so far when they do get uh to grips with the Germans, they can be quite effective.

36:14Al Murray: We'll see you in a tick.

36:42much you could save. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions eligible. Savings not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. See Experian.com for details. Is your home wish list just sitting in your cart? Well, get ready to hit checkout because Wayday at Wayfair starts October 24th with up to 80 % off everything home. That new sofa, the rug you've been eyeing, the upgrades you've been putting off, they could all be way less during Wayday. It's Wayfair's biggest sale of the year. So make your list and mark your calendar. Shop Wayday starting October 24th for up to 80 % off everything home at Wayfair.com.

37:18Al Murray: Wayfair, every style, every home.

37:25Al Murray: Welcome back to We Have Ways to Make You Talk with me, Almarion James Holland. The Road to Perdition, episode 3 or 11, depending on how you like your apples. The Red Army is hammering the centre, as you said, Jim, just before the break. Since the second week in August, both Zhukov's Reserve Front and Timoshenko's Western Front have been putting in repeated assaults on Box Centre. And they're not letting up on this because, after all, this is where the Stavka thinks the big threat is, isn't it? Lots of Red Army soldiers are killed, but they are grinding down Box 4th Army and 9th Army so badly that it's mutating, metastasising into a full-blown crisis.

38:04Al Murray: and even on the 15th of august halder as ventriloquized here by james holland notes the front of the army group with its 40 divisions over 730 kilometers is so strained that moving to a determined defense entails far-reaching considerations which have not been thought through in detail the present deposition and line organization is in no way suited for a sustained defense yep he's absolutely spot on so um maybe you could ease things by not having a bridge head over at Dnepropetrovsk but just just just saying so Hoth's panzer group three and ninth army have already handed over um where they are to 39th panzer corps um um to army group north right and 57th panzer corps are also still to the northeast around Veliki-Luki so Hoth's force forces are badly under strength they're getting smashed up anyway and this is this is why as you said the cupboards bare Bok cannot offer Guderian anything to help he can't do it he's got everything committed he's got no reserve um for defending smolensk so the possibility that they might need to fall back um is at least present isn't it it's a distinct possibility the stavka stalin and let's be honest now i mean you know it's not a committee is it um they've they've ordered they've ordered a renewed effort in the center so on the 25th of august um and it's a funny this is a fateful day if we were to do our sort of um dates top trump's game 25th of august is high on the high on that list isn't it because lots happens on on this day well it's day paris falls of course in 1944 plus it's on this day it's its own trifecta on the eastern front the red army launches its first three-pronged attack which is um erimenko timoshenko and zhukov all putting in big attacks on the same day colossal cracks the western front they've been ordered to retake smolensk the reserve front which is zhukov to eliminate yelnia salient and to capture rozelf and the brihansk front they've got to destroy Kudarian's drive south.

40:00Al Murray: The fact is, is whatever the Germans are thinking of doing, the Soviets are going to disrupt it. And it's Zhukov and the Elnia salient, it's Zhukov, funnily enough, who's having the most effect, isn't it? This is kind of like a bit First World War, but Western Front First World War, not the Russian experience of it. You have this horrible, shattered, blighted landscape. Each attack preceded by an enormous artillery barrage and then great big human wave infantry attacks. After one attack of the 6th Army Corps, there are at least 3 ,000 Red Army dead in front of their positions. Jesus. Gunter von Schäven, who's a soldier in these battles, he says, The last few days have placed a heavy burden on me.

40:41Al Murray: One cannot comprehend the annihilation of so much life. The desperate and vile breakthrough attempts of the Russians hit, surprisingly to us, in the middle of our front with panzers, infantry and Cossacks. I am too shattered to grasp it all. Although they are getting mown down in their thousands on the Red Army side, the Germans are suffering too. There's thousands of Germans getting killed as well. And they're even being, and he refers to Cossacks there, they're even being attacked by Russian cavalry on horses who are wielding swords and towing heavy machine guns. Which is fantastic. This is crazy stuff, isn't it?

41:16It's hard to get your head around, isn't it?

41:18Al Murray: Yeah, yeah, it is, yeah. And the thing is, the German infantry divisions are exhausted. that it's not as bad as say at monte casino a few years later um uh but you know we're talking about 1941 aren't we when supposedly the germans are running rampant 161st infantry division they've lost 2 000 men and 57 officers in eight days that's quite a lot exactly and officers with experience and all that you know gone by the end and training by the end of august bock is warning halder that ninth army is in danger of collapse which would mean pulling back fourth army as well And he's really worried that they might have to give up Smolensk.

41:53Al Murray: It's not just the fighting, but it's the cumulative effect. We've looked at big numbers on the Soviet side, but the Germans have less to play with. As we always keep coming back to, they're reliant on the pointy end to do the work. But the Soviet Union is too big for that, for just the pointy end to do the fighting. They've lost, by the 26th of August, they've lost 441 ,000 men, which is 11.67 % of their entire army. It's a one in ten, essentially, casualty rate of the entire army in the east. Yeah, and of course, the problem is that that figure, that percentage is far, far higher amongst the lead infantry and, of course, the panzer units.

42:37Because that's the entire army. yeah so that includes your clerks and your bottle washers and your truck drivers by the end of august only 217 000 replacements have arrived leaving a deficit of 197 000 this leaves just 46 000 men left in the replacement army so obviously it doesn't take a genius to realize that the losses are already completely unsustainable and the german army in the east the ost here is already by this point in terminal decline and this is the beginning of september 1941 you have a deficit of 197 but you've only got 46 000 left so there's also inevitably because of the sort of grinding nature of the battle and the and the lack of hygiene and the difficulties of operating in this vast expanse of swamps and rivers and marshes there's lots of sickness because vermin become rife because you can't clean enough because you can't get enough to the front so you can't get enough uniforms replaced you can't get enough shower units and everyone's just constantly in the line so you're getting more and more dirty which means you're getting lice especially mosquitoes are absolutely horrific one one soldier writes the flies and mosquitoes are a plague and i wonder what these blood-sucking pests lived on before we came along we wear nets over our helmets but the beasts work their way up the sleeves and inside the collar to halt is to be covered in a mass of these terrible biting insects and the inevitable flies i mean it does sound absolutely filthy you know so there's rising numbers of cases of malaria dysentery especially and of course typhus and typhus and typhus is a byproduct of all the lice you know and those those sickness figures aren't really included in the casualties the casualties we're talking about are you know wounded missing and and dead it's also i think worth mentioning the uh that the allies that the germans have here who of course they're looking after spectacularly well and actually ending up being more of a sort of hindrance and a help um but particularly uh uh of the romanians and um and the hungarians so army group south is bolstered by the romanian fourth army um which is only too happy to come in and and strike into the soviet union after the soviet union had gone in and struck them in 1940 um and again in in early part of 1941 um and they begin besieging odessa so they're right on the southern flank from the 3rd to the 25th of august they batter away at odessa um but but even though they've got six times the manpower and six times the artillery power they're still struggling to to make much headway and they then pause on the 25th of august um and renew their attack again on the 28th but they're using old out-of-date tactics and suffering as a result and interestingly it's it's at odessa that the female soviet sniper mila pavichenko notches up 180 kills apparently and becomes known as the bolshevik valkyrie and between the 28th of august and 11th september romanians lose 31 552 and since the 5th of august a total of 58 859 and they still don't manage to break through the city which they're sort of besieging and again it's just turning into a sort of horror story in the town itself of sort of urban fighting by the 11th of september the red army has also managed to land reinforcements so odessa doesn't finally fall until the 16th of october by which time the romanians have suffered nearly 100 000 yeah it's quite a lot isn't it for a small country small army yeah there's a complication as well isn't it that the hungarians and the romanians hate each other so yes you know and you have the hungarians on the

46:05Al Murray: romanian flank so they're not they're not getting a lot along they're the jam in the some the sandwich of romanians and panzer group kleist the hungarians lose 25 of what the romanians lose and the Hungarians are repeatedly being asked to be bailed out by the Germans. And the Germans, they want their allies to get on with what they need to be getting on with rather than needing rescuing the whole time. And they're brought into the line south of Dnipro-Prachovsk. And pretty soon they say they're exhausted and needing help. But given actually the German army is exhausted and I imagine they're not received sympathetically after all.

46:42Al Murray: And they have to be reinforced by the 16th Motorised Infantry Division from Wietersheim's 14th Panzer Corps. So again, they're robbing Peter to pay Paul and the Germans turn up. They pretty much know what they're doing and their allies are poorly trained and not massively motivated. So they might say, we need you to hold this and they don't. Or we need you to put in the salt here and they can't pull it off. So they can't rely on them. But it's all right because the Italians are coming. Yes, that's right. The Coppo de Setezioni Italiano in Russia, who are a small edition, but they're the third ally now in the line, ready to rock and roll and be helpful.

47:17Al Murray: We rejoin our Scottish friend, Mark and since Bridgehead over the Denica. Hi, Yvonne Mark. It's an increasingly dourer situation. But obviously it's just turning into a massive headache, which is entirely of the OKHs and Halder's making. 198th Infantry Division, which is new to the front, is diverted straight into the Bridgehead to join much of the 13th and 14th Panzer Divisions. But not only is the Bridgehead still to be held, but on holder's order it's got to be expanded as well god so on the 2nd of of september a renewed operation begins um and they do manage to increase the bridgehead by a depth of five kilometers and and 11 kilometers wide you know with the help of the of the luftwaffe which after all that's what the luftwaffe is there to do but but von runstead realizes that denet pro petrovsk is attracting ever stiffening opposition so now orders sixth army which is reich now up in the north bit and 17th army next in and also the rest of klyst's panzer group to try and cross the dneipa in as many places as possible but obviously this is it's not a very easy proposition with the limited bridging that's come forward but on the 31st of august the 52nd army corps in stulp nagel's 17th army does manage to get across at derievka which is just south of kremenchuk which is when And Kleist decides this should become the launch place for the eventual drive north to meet Guderian's forces.

48:45So they've had a little bit of good fortune there. And this means that Kleist's overworked gross transport traum is ordered to get as many machines back into action ASAP. But again, before little chance to rest and refit. And do you think the quartermaster of Panzer Group 1 is happy about this? Quartermasters are never happy, though, Jim. I think it's fair to say. But yeah, no, that is fair to say. but he's especially not happy isn't he or he's unhappy to put it another way

49:13Al Murray: yeah he says as a result of the short amount of times the yielding tonnage is extremely low however the work done will ensure that the fallout rates in trucks are somewhat reduced in the days ahead he's doing what he can here i'm doing what i can here a force of bone yeah exactly uh all that tanks trucks men are by this stage just all being ground down by the incessant cycle of destructive repetition so there's a culture of of rapidly following every success with next the next drive to prevent the enemy from regaining balance you know this is exactly what you were saying earlier on so you know at yelnia at dinette propietrovsk and so on all along the front they're doing it over and over again this this we've got to go for we've got to push forward you know we can't can't pull back in any way whatsoever and on the 30th of august the german soldier conrad yara writes to her friends here we often ask ourselves what will happen when the operational possibilities have been reached and then the winter comes the annihilation of bolshevism still seems a long way away and end of the war is less and less foreseeable well he's bang on the money there isn't he well and in the center where the soviets applying pressure interestingly I mean, it's and it's not long after the Gross Deutschland division has been sent elsewhere.

50:36The Jelni assailant begins to buckle and the Red Army actually get through.

50:40Al Murray: They penetrate 10 kilometres between 10th Panzer Division and 267 Infantry Division. Even with this going on, with this crisis developing in the centre, Guderian is still asking for more blokes and more men. And right now, please, if you don't mind, I'm a genius. And after all, in total, Guderian only has he only has the equivalent of half a division's worth of tanks. So, which isn't enough. And he isn't, and he's struggling. So that's why he's asking for help. But Army Group Centre is also really, really in the mire as well. It's being smashed up in the first week of September. But amazingly, Bock relents and assigns Second SS des Reich to Guderian, which is a peculiar decision, isn't it?

51:23Al Murray: Guderian, I suppose, has the blessing of the Führer. So maybe he's able to lean on that and go, you know, i've been sent sent sent on this offensive mission by the fuhrer so you're going to have to give me what i want the thing is is these static battles because that because they aren't dramatic sweeps across a map and great lunges tend to get um ignored don't they they do a little bit it's just not part of the narrative which is all one way one way one way driving with the uh with the germans but it's not like that at all and you know the german units facing this on store becoming massively worn down you know with sort of companies reporting they've only got 20 men left or 15 or 30 or whatever and on the 2nd of september bog realizes enough is enough at yelnia and he goes the divisions deployed there are being bled white as tide passes after several conversations with kluger i decided to order the salient abandoned you're not supposed to go backwards yeah i mean this is this is a massive massive deal and halder accepts this decision but this is let's be honest now this is a this is a clear and terrible indictment of german command and leadership essentially the absence of of strategic thought in the whole thing they're making up as they go along and and and none of it's working jelniar's captured unnecessarily in the first place there was no point to that and then defended at ludicrous cost by guderian yeah by guderian exactly by the great genius and by early september there are now 14 german divisions on the eastern front with more than 4 000 casualties apiece and a further 40 divisions have lost at least 3 000 men and another 30 divisions have 2 000 dead they're being properly properly uh crushed or smashed up in the in the process the retreat is dressed up as a planned withdrawal but the soviets see it as a victory and it's zhukov of course um who's done this um zhukov who's been shuffled off and you know kicked out of the decision-making part of the Soviet war effort is getting the results.

53:21Al Murray: Yep. You have Franz Frisch, who's an artilleryman and one of those who's falling back. And he says, I remember well the retreat from the Yelien line. We had nearly exhausted our supplies of artillery ammunition and did not provide the proper counter-battery support of infantry. As such, our battery received a constant amount of Soviet artillery fire and casualties. I remember we did not receive a resupply of shells until days later when the front settled. It was pitch dark and we tried to make it back to the main front line. Every tractor with its gun, every soldier was on his own. I mean, that's a pretty pathetic image, isn't it?

54:00I mean, the truth sends the word. I mean... Yes. And, you know, manpower is becoming a major, major problem on the 5th of September. But Halder notes that officer casualties now at approximately 200 a day. officers you know which take you know three years to train loss is also huge for the red army of course you know zukov loses 31 853 at yelnia in about two weeks of fighting so that's around one third of those committed but still this is very much a fillet for the soviets and on the 7th september zukov issues a pronouncement after relenting and bitter battles brave units of our 24th army have achieved a great victory in the yelnia region german forces have been dealt a crushing blow well that's a bit more like it isn't it for the for the red army yeah you know stalin's pretty happy with this but you know guderian is still in big trouble he's going absolutely nowhere and because he always wants to push further and further he has ordered lemelson to send 47th Panzer Corps.

55:05So you've got 27th Panzer Corps under Treppenberg. They're in the sort of, you know, the main frost. And then on the left-hand flank, the eastern flank, you've got Lemelson's 47th Panzer Corps. And he orders him to go across the Desner. Well, this is just insane because the obvious course was for Lemelson to use the protection of the Desner's north-south flow to protect his flank. So it goes, you know, it goes down and then cuts westwards. instead he sends him across um and the reason he sends him across is because he thinks that the red army is massing on the eastern side and wants to get in there and wipe that out first before it can develop into something but but instead of wiping out the red army there they instead slap into erimenko's forces who are indeed passing for the late august offensive but they wouldn't have got very far if they've got to get across the across the desna so the red army troops obviously you know we know that they're not much cop but there's still plenty of them and there's plenty of soviet ground attack aircraft on hand and there's also plenty of soviet tanks and plenty of soviet artillery so guderian is then ordered to pull them back but he just completely ignores the order and when hitler gets to hear about it he expresses his displeasure prompting guderian to then give a long-winded written explanation you know he'd be worried about the great length of his flanks the bad employment of vike's second army at someone else's fault and felt it was vital to attack the russians while you know massing on the east bank felt exposed with a lack of reinforcements and the lack of support from army group center from bock it's everyone else's fault bock is absolutely livid and approaches von brauchich who's the commander in chief of the army at this stage still um about having gadarian sacked and von brauchich thinks this is a bad idea because gadarian is very popular of his men and you know he's a he's a hero figure but hitler is unimpressed and issues direct orders on the 5th of september for lemmerson's panzers to return to the west bank which actually is is is the right decision but you know i mean what the heck what what is he

57:01Al Murray: thinking well he isn't thinking i think that's what it comes down to it's because you've arrogance at the core of the way they're making their decisions this idea of german superiority but also you know this is the paradox isn't it that there are great limitations on what they can actually achieve deep inside the soviet union that you know they're well past their culmination point they're well well past where they can actually sustain what they're trying what they're doing and they but they don't know what they do they haven't you know what's the objective that right from the start of this campaign it's not been clear what the objective is and they've mistaken they've mistaken soviet disarray for them getting it right themselves that you know that rather than yes the soviets are in disarray they are incompetent but that doesn't mean that they are competent themselves because we've seen as a long long list of incompetent decisions and and poor decision making you know best outlined by what guderian's just done it's also clear the soviets are getting their act together gradually you know the first 10 days of barbarossa it's 300 000 red army troops go in the bag but the first 10 days of guderian's drive south it's only 30 000 so that so the soviets are starting to box much cleverer and not offer up and for all sorts of different reasons but then they're just not proving a pushover they were which means by the second week of September, it looks like the grand encirclement might fail despite Stalin's best efforts to ensure that the Germans succeed at this point.

58:29Al Murray: And you've got the bridgehead at Dnepropotrovsk, which is sucking in way too much German effort. Hungarians are hopeless. Kleist's panzer group still hasn't got the vehicles it needs, and oil and fuel. And the Elnia salient has been abandoned because of Zhukov's onslaught. And Guderian is not getting very far very fast and is making terrible decisions as he goes so what will happen next find out in our next episode and the easiest way easiest way to find that is to go straight to our patreon become a patreon member where lots of stuff is is waiting for you including a bonus episode that will go with this series where we look at one man's war as he uh experiences being on the sharp end of this phase of barbarossa thanks everyone for listening we'll see you again very soon.

59:15Al Murray: Cheerio. Cheerio.

59:26Al Murray: Hello, Goalhanger History listeners. This is Marina Hyde and Richard Osman from The Rest is Entertainment. Hello, everybody. Every Thursday and Friday, we are reacting to the pop culture phenomenon that is the Celebrity Traitors. We'll be on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts, and Marina and I are digging into all the castles twists and turns, giving our expert opinion on what should happen next. Now, which historical figure do we think would be the greatest traitor? It's tempting to think of an actual traitor. Yeah. A Guy Fawkes or a Kim Philby. But then all of those are traitors who got caught.

59:56Philby had a great run, though. He did have a great run. I think he could probably see off, you know, Joanne. Yes, maybe. And probably sort of where he ended up in Moscow is probably roughly like where the contestants have to spend every night as well. So maybe there's some sort of equivalence. So if you're watching Celebrity Traitors, don't forget to tune into our reaction episodes every Thursday and Friday night at 10pm. Find us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:00:41and see how much you could save. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions eligible. Savings not guaranteed.

1:00:46Al Murray: Paid membership with connected payment account required. See Experian.com for details. Experian. Is your home wish list just sitting in your cart? Well, get ready to hit checkout because Wayday at Wayfair starts October 24th with up to 80 % off everything home. That new sofa, the rug you've been eyeing, the upgrades you've been putting off, they could all be way less during Wayday. It's Wayfair's biggest sale of the year. So make your list and mark your calendar. Shop Wayday starting October 24th for up to 80 % off everything home at Wayfair.com.