Operation Barbarossa: Barbarossa Unleashed (Part 5)

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. Want to be the one who's always in the know about the game, the scores, the plays? 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.

1:44Al Murray: this episode is brought to you by refund club now if there is one eternal lesson of history it's that paperwork matters the forgotten agreement the line in the ledger often that's where the story changes and there's a paper trail that could rewrite your own history if you financed a car in the uk between 2007 and 2021 with lenders like blackhorse or barclays you could be owed money. Yeah, the check takes about 60 seconds. I ran my details and a couple of old agreements popped out without needing any relic registration numbers. And it's completely free to check. You only pay a fee if your claim is successful.

2:20Al Murray: How about that? The Financial Conduct Authority confirmed that millions of UK drivers were hit with hidden commissions. And if you finance more than one car since 2007, each could be a separate claim, with the average payout at£829 a pop. It all adds up. If you're a driver in the UK, visit refundclub.co.uk slash whw. That's refundclub.co.uk slash whw for your free check.

2:53Al Murray: It was not far to the rollbahn, where an indescribable sight met our eyes. One burnt out Russian tank after another, some with great shell holes, some destroyed by our aircraft in low-level attacks. On that morning alone, we saw the tanks of at least a full-armoured division. In addition, there were guns of every calibre, field kitchens and other military equipment. It was really difficult to take it all in. And that was the recollections of Gefreiter Richard Freiherr von Rosen, I'm rolling all the R's there for you all, who's a gunner in a Panzer III, part of 2nd Platoon, 1st Company, 35th Panzer Regiment, 4th Panzer Division, 24th Panzer Corps.

3:36Al Murray: There you go. That's basically his email address under General Mayer, Geyer von Schreppenberg, who some of you may remember. This whole episode, this whole series, by the way, is just full of German names. You go, oh yeah, him. Yeah, well, it's a small world, the German command. Well, it really is, is the truth of it. These guys are part of the southern thrust of Army Group Centre. So welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray. and james holland and we we gave you four episodes was it jim of the gathering the gathering clouds four episodes of gathering storm of gathering storm before barbarossa but we started our very first episode didn't we we started with rickard von rosen and he's a returning character and and here he is again i think at the end of our last four-part series we left him didn't we on the eve the Barbarossa.

4:29Yeah.

4:29Al Murray: And now Barbarossa has begun. Someone blew a whistle somewhere, basically, and off it went. Him and his lads in the first company, 35th Panzer Regiment, they're all very, everyone is very, very excited. Morale's up, they're itching to get cracking. There's the rumble of distant artillery in the aircraft, in the skies, giving them confidence. And they're all ready to rock and roll, really. And their first task is to cross the River Bug, which is 150 metres wide. It's effectively the barrier at the border. You know, everyone coming up to their start lines and all that sort of stuff takes its time and is difficult.

5:03Al Murray: And there's big fuel and ammo dumps. But up they come. They've got to secure the crossings over the bunk first so they can break out. And this is the infantry and pioneers and engineers doing all this stuff. And their first company are ordered to move at around one o 'clock in the afternoon. They're leading with the panzer companies only. This is very interesting. They're doing this, which includes the tanks and echelons behind. and and in the if if you listen to our band of brothers british band above the series you'll know that the you know sherwood rangers yomer you operate with an a echelon and a b echelon which are the different the different stagings for the for the armor and in the in the wehrmacht it's the gefecht tross tross ein and tross zwei which is basically echelon a echelon b it's all intense and purposes it's all intense purposes tross ein includes a you know repair unit um field kitchen ammunition and radios um and trost zwei is a wheeled echelon with motor with a motor pool so you know provisions clothing dispatch riders medics it's basically it's but i mean you know they've come to the same conclusion about how to do this there's only one way there's only really one way and as they go forward there are stops for congestion and um uh he sees a couple of lightly wounded germans who say watch out this fumpy ground as the side of the rollbahn because don't forget what's in front of them.

6:23A huge geographical area of swampland known as...

6:27Al Murray: The Bibbit Marschies. The Bibbit Marschies. But the point is, is the way the Germans are doing this is that the panzers have priorities. They're the spearhead of the panzer division, aren't they? So these panzer divisions are the point... This is the absolute point of the spear, Richard von Rosen, isn't it? He's in Panzer Group 2, which is Guderian's lot. Right, okay. So this is our old friend Guderian. Ah, yes. who said logistics is the ball and chain of armoured warfare, the silly so-and-so. Other military experts involved in Operation Barbarossa aren't saying such things like that, particularly as the weeks continue.

7:04Anyway, well, I'm getting ahead of myself. So there's a makeshift bridge already over the bug, and this has been made by the pioneers. I mean, an amazing effort to get 150 metres across. This is a pontoon bridge. They have to wait an hour because there's repairs to the bridge, which are needed off the immense weight of traffic. I mean, you can just imagine it, can't you? They finally cross around 4.30 p.m. on the 22nd of June. So they're finally on Soviet soil. They have a glug of cognac, pat themselves on the back, probably slap a thigh, and on they go, taking great care not to bog down. Everyone is very mindful.

7:44This is marshy ground. Don't veer off the road, basically. Yeah. And they see no Russians at all. Absolutely none. But plenty of abandoned Russian equipment. They halt after five kilometers to allow for the 2nd Battalion HQ to catch up. Number one company is now given three extra Panzer IVs. And they're all told to get ready to advance to the town of Korbyn. I'm told to expect enemy resistance as well.

8:09Al Murray: At first, we crossed open country. Behind the hedge, I saw my first dead Russians. The sight of it never gave me pleasure to the extent that I had imagined it would earlier. We assumed that the enemy would be positioned behind every clump of woodland and found it incomprehensible that he had not prepared his defence in those areas of territory ideal for it." Why haven't they? Because the Red Army is on the move up. It's moving forward. It's in the process of moving forward. Do you remember there was supposed to be ready by 20th of July? Yeah. And theirs is an offensive doctrine anyway. They don't really have a defensive doctrine.

8:42Al Murray: It's not the attitude in the Red Army. They do have the Stalin line on the original Soviet border, but they're ahead of the Soviet border because they've had all these buffer states that they've absorbed in the summer of 1940, you know, the Baltic states and Romania and all the rest of it. So that's why. They're in constant radio contact. Every panzer has a receiver, and most have a transmitter too. And this is obviously absolutely key to their successes so far in the war, this ability to communicate. The convoy follows a woodland trail through thick forest. They see absolutely nothing. Night falls, but they keep going, take it in turns to catnap.

9:20In the darkness, the commander has to give steering instructions to the driver. I mean, you can imagine it, kind of, the pine forests, the darkness, the sound of the engines ahead. Around midnight, they reach the main Brest-Litovsk roll barn. which is uh and brest of tops is a major kind of border city in belarusia um and this is the main road leading eastwards from the city fortress they passed around to the kind of the south of brest of tops and joined the roll barn due east which is one of the reasons why they're all being so cautious about don't veering off the trail because it's not the full-on prippet marches at this part but but it's still fairly kind of fairly fairly boggy yeah and they finally reached the um the roll barn to corbin at around 2 30 a.m on june the 21st right that's real progress in in a in a

10:13Al Murray: day and they they're struck by the fact that it's not a like an outer barn it's a compacted dirt road that they're entering somewhere quite different to modern germany aren't they you know the villages are really really simple they're basic homesteads with a central open pulpit for addressing the populace interestingly the people um uh are quite uh well disposed to the uh to the germans as they arrive you know they're cheering and offering eggs and butter and stuff i mean i probably would cheer arriving troops jim i don't know about you on balance on balance i think it's probably the sensible thing to do to offer eggs and butter well pragmatism is the better is the better source of value yeah possibly um uh but you could you but but it's also interesting that that happens and that and that because after all it's not like the soviet union has has been on a you know 20 year charm offensive with its own peoples is it i mean this is the thing not remotely not remotely and by nine o 'clock that morning they can see the distant houses of corbyn across the flat open landscape this is the great these great big open spaces that are part of the terrain von rosen is a bit miffed because uh third panzer division go to corbyn first but there's still no opposition that the red army aren't putting up a fight done at all yeah it's extraordinary isn't it done at all they stop they need petrol and fon rose and he goes for sort of a nosy doesn't he to to have a look at what's going on he sees various various what he regards as shady type staring at him and realizes he hasn't brought his pistol with him so rushes back to the his panzer yeah he just suddenly feels oh i'm a bit exposed here yeah maybe it's not so sensible yeah yeah maybe i shouldn't be wandering alone through the back streets of corbyn having invaded having invaded yes and just got there that morning comes across some of his fellow troops breaking into a street kiosk and gets some cigarettes and soap which he takes back for the lads in his tank because it's going well they've got to keep going is the other thing yeah yeah yeah but but but isn't it interesting i mean they're doing what all tank crews do when they stop they're having a brew getting the food on and suddenly the order comes on to kind of, you know, off they go.

12:16So they cross to the suburbs to a Soviet fuel depot at the railway goods yards. They fill up, but of course it takes time because it's, you know, it's pouring it into a jerry can, pouring the jerry can into, you know, and so on. But anyway, by the evening, 3rd Panzer Division is ahead again, and it's in action on the edge of Corbyn, on the far side of Corbyn. But 4th Panzer Division is able to bypass them, get around it and rejoin the roll barn. and von Rosen and his company are now in the vanguard. They're absolutely thrilled about this. They stop for the night about 10 kilometers beyond the town in Yetmore Woods.

12:51And von Rosen finds a barn there, a sort of abandoned barn with some straw in it, grabs a load and settles down by the tank engine, which is warm because it gets cold at night, even though it's warm in the day. Ravai is then at 4 a.m. and 10 minutes later, they're moving out. There's absolutely no hanging around. Washing, coffee, shaving, forget that. We've got to get on. They're all absolutely dusty as hell because these are all dirt roads. There's lots of vehicles. There's unprecedented amounts of vehicles going on these dirt roads. And, of course, the dust is absolutely horrific. They're dusty as hell.

13:24He reckons they all look like pigs. The uniforms, he says, are no longer black but filthy grey. But to a certain extent, we're jumping the gun here with our account of Richard von Rosen's experience because we've talked about planning disagreements between Hitler and the OKH, the overcommander here um the germ the army general staff and what is it that they finally settle on what is the plan for barbara rossa and of course how does richard von rosen fit into this

13:55Al Murray: we need to answer this yeah we do we absolutely do this is the thing hitler wants hitler wants to uh clear up the baltic to take leningradst petersburg in the north and then sweep into Ukraine in the south and that Moscow is a secondary objective. And I think this is really interesting. They never can make their minds up about this. And one of the, I mean, one of the core problems is Hitler actually never can make his mind up and changes his mind on a sixpence, prevaricates, sets people against each other to come up with different options and all this sort of thing. Because Franz Halder and his planners believe that Moscow should be the prime aim rather than what Hitler wants.

14:34Al Murray: It's interesting, isn't it? Because they've not reached the stage where So Hitler, if Hitler says it absolutely happens, there is, you know, you might call it creative tension here. It's very, very odd because, well, because I think it's quite odd because I think Hitler has made it absolutely clear that it's the Baltic States, it's Leningrad and it's Ukraine because this is really about getting supplies. It's absolutely about destroying the Red Army, but it's also about getting supplies. And it's also about just annihilating the Red Army within the first 500 kilometers. So there you've already got a conflict because what is it?

15:11Is the number one priority to destroy the Red Army within 500 kilometers or is the priority to get to the Baltic States and get to Leningrad and get into Ukraine? You know, which one is it? But the bottom line is the main effort is in the center, which suggests you're driving towards Moscow. German forces divide into three army groups. Army Group North, which is heading in towards Baltic and Leningrad. Army Group South, which is heading into Ukraine, and Army Group Center, which is comfortably the largest. And that's, you know, Moscow is in a straight line from eastwards from the center, effectively.

15:44So they don't know what their plan is, and it speaks to me. I don't know what you think about this. It speaks to me of a lack of clarity, a lack of resolution at the very top. yep the the the hero the army how are you know overseen from a planning point of view by france general franz halder is at odds with the nazi high command and with um and with hitler and on and at the moment that barbarossa starts they have not resolved this yes and there's a kind of

16:17Al Murray: there's a kind of sense of well we'll worry about that later let's just smash the red army and then then everything else will just fall into place. Everything will fall into place. So what it means is the emphasis, the emphasis on complete destruction, annihilation of the Red Army within 500 kilometres of their start point is absolutely key to the entire plan. And if they don't achieve that, this is going to start to unravel very quickly if they're not careful. Yeah, then the things they're hoping will come up later won't come up, basically. And the core problem is it's taking on the biggest army in the world, the largest military machine and infrastructure in the world.

17:02Al Murray: So isn't this interesting, though? Yeah. Isn't this interesting? Because the way Barbarossa is painted is this is the largest military invasion, largest military operation of all time. There's no other greater military force that's invading. Maybe not, but the one they're up against is kind of ten times the size. Yeah. Well, certainly five times the size. And in certain parts, 20 times the size. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a society that is geared to this, you know, if Germans, you regard German as militaristic if you want, the Soviet Union is completely militarized. You know, its industry, the way it's ordered, the way it works is completely militarized, isn't it, is the thing.

17:42Al Murray: So the Russians, you know, the Soviets don't have this, you know, the Germans spend a fair chunk of the war trying not to bring in rationing and trying not to bring about, you know, politically trying not to admit that they're in a total war situation, you know, because they can do this. They can pull this off. Whereas the Soviet society is absolutely geared to doing whatever its government wants and just will. There's that element too, isn't it? That's not in the German reckoning. They think, ah, it'll be fine. We're the best at this. And this taps into overconfidence and hubris and racial superiority and all sorts of things.

18:20And, you know, after all, in 1940, Germany faced France that was on paper militarily stronger than the Wehrmacht. And that's even before you add Britain, Netherlands and Belgium, and they still won in six weeks. So they're kind of, you know, just thinking, well, how hard can it be? But the Red Army, I mean, the Red Army Air Force, the VVS, is on a different scale of enormity altogether. And, of course, this is on a vastly bigger geographical front than anything they've come up against in in in france yeah there's the huge possibility they're biting off

18:52Al Murray: more than they can chew basically um and because the front i mean the front is enormous isn't it the soviet front is is absolutely gigantic and and because i think so often this story is looked at from the the german perspective as you say you know the biggest army in the world ever the greatest assault of all time this many tanks but so we we should actually rather than talk about Army Group Centre and Army Group North and Army Group South. What are the Soviet arrangements? Because there are no fronts at this point. Fronts come later. And a front means an army group in Red Army speak. What we've got is districts that they're organised into the Leningrad Military District, then the Baltic Special Military District, which runs from Riga.

19:39Al Murray: You've got the River Davina running down from Riga, running south-east. And that's another key German objective. Yeah, it runs southeast into Belarus. And that will mutate into the Northwest Front. Then there's the Western Special Military District, which will eventually become the Western Front. It's interesting to talk about this war as a Western Front as well, isn't it? Rather than it's the Eastern Front. Immediately, different perspective. And this includes the Bialystok Salient, which is a bulge around 100 miles deep, which then curves back towards brest litovsk which is a fortress town where which is after all the scene of the russian surrender in march 1918 and another reason the germans think they're going to win is that they beat them last time you know they beat them last time here in the same place yeah yeah exactly but also bialystok bialystok is is was in poland yeah so so you know this is this is a this is a bulge that's that's in former polish territory and this is where army group center is opposite basically.

20:43Running west through Smolensk is the river Dneipa, which is 50 miles west of a city and then turns south and runs almost due south to Kiev, as it was then called, along the eastern edge of the Pripet marches. So there are all these rivers which they're going to have to come up against. And then south of Brest-Litovsk is the Red Army's Kiev special military district, which is going to become the southwest front. And to the west of Lviv, former Lemberg, is another west bulging salient. So these salients are never a great idea because, of course, they're just extending your frontier. Yeah, you're offering flanks up.

21:22Rather than a straight line, you've got to go round. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can be outflanked, exactly. Then south of the Kiev Special Military District is the Odessa Military District on the Black Sea. And this area of Ukraine is where the Red Army is strongest. Of course, this is because they're getting ready to be able to thrust southeastwards into Romania. This is the plan. I think there's too much debate and discussion over kind of, you know, Stalin was just moving up all his forces. He didn't have any plans to invade Germany. Yes, he did. He was supposed to be ready by the third week of July.

21:59Whether he actually chose to go for it at that point is a moot point. But that was what the military buildup of the Red Army was working towards, was that.

22:10Al Murray: Yes. An offensive. Was carrying on tidying up these buffer states. And anyway, you've got a great big army like that. It can't be sat around. You need to be moving it up. You need to have things for it to do, don't you? Exactly. Or what is it? It's the sort of the point. So there's Army Group South is facing this strongest concentration of Soviet forces. And this is Field Marshal Geert von Hunstead, who's, you know, if the Second World War were a drama, he's a recurring guest star. He's in episodes one, three, seven, and nine.

22:47Al Murray: Not all of them. Not in all of them. And he makes a surprise return, having been sacked at various points. And of course, Army Group South is so enormous because the front's so huge. It's split into, again, is split into two groups itself. So just the dilution that's going on in the German setup is interesting. And the dilution of, again, you know, concentration of force, which is what it should be all about. So there's North grouping and Southern grouping. North grouping has 6th Army, 17th Army, 1st Panzer gripper in it. That's 797 ,000 men. I mean, this is still, these numbers. Well, the point about this is, is you've got three army groups, North Army Group, Central Army Group, South.

23:34But Army Group South is effectively two army groups because the Southern grouping is also a group of armies. The Northern group is South Avenue. A panzer group is an army. That's three armies. So that is a group of armies. But when you're splitting it up like that, you're splitting it. So yes, you have concentration of force. I mean, 800 ,000 men by anyone's reckoning is a decent concentration of force. It's not 2 million men. You know, it's not all quite what it seems. I suppose that's what I'm really trying to say. The Kiev Special MD is under the command of Colonel General Mikhail Krippanos.

24:11And Krippanos has his headquarters in Kiev and is expecting this to be the main thrust of the German attack. So he's got five armies and a sick bombing behind. Because although Sarnia is going, the Germans won't do it, they won't do it, they wouldn't dare. Everyone else recognizes that this is happening. and their intelligence is that army group south is whopping and this is the most likely place they're going to attack because why wouldn't they yeah because otherwise you're going to run into the private marches and if you're german the most obvious route seems to be to go into ukraine and take the black sea ports and get that and get to the caucasus and get the bread basket of ukraine and blah blah blah and you know what they're right in that yeah you know that is the most obvious route to go.

24:54Al Murray: Yeah, well, if they're not going to go to Moscow, because after all, the Germans don't know what they're trying to do. And the fact that the Soviets have, in a way, a clearer idea is interesting in itself, isn't it? You've also got the Romanians in the mix here. Facing Odessa, you've the southern grouping of Army Group South, which is the German 11th Army and the Romanian 3rd and 4th Armies. So this is part of the pan-European... Another group of armies. Another group of armies, right? But this is the pan-European crusade, of course, to take on Bolshevism that the Romanians have been tickled into.

25:26Al Murray: Runsted's plan is to send the northern grouping eastwards to reach the Dnieper, south of Kiev, by which time the river is flowing southeastwards. And the intention is to prevent the Red Army from falling back to the river and using it as a shoulder, basically. And then the southern grouping is ready to stop the Red Army thrust into Romania and protect the Pleistee oil fields. And, you know, after all, petrochemicals, as we outlined in our first couple of episodes in the build up to Barbarossa, a huge part of the story here, actually. Access to fuel. The Odessa Military District is only just forming up when, for whatever it's preparing to do, when the southern grouping makes its move.

26:06Al Murray: I mean, there's lots of moving parts on there, Jim. Well, there is. And then there's Army Group North, which is, you know, the one that's supposed to be going to the Baltic States and to Leningrad. But Leningrad is one way and the Baltic states are another way. So what you're going to do is you're going to be splitting your forces again. So you split army groups south into two. You're splitting your army group north into two as well, effectively. This is commanded by Field Marshal Ritter von Lieb. It's 18th Army, 16th Army and 4th Panzer Group. So it's smaller, 641 ,000 men. It's still a decent number.

26:37Wow. So Lieb's task is to capture the Baltic ports, of course, overrun Soviet gains from the previous June, i.e. the Baltic. and then push on to Leningrad. And the aim of this is to deny the Soviet Navy of any Baltic bases, but also to hoover up the huge industrial complexes in and around Leningrad, which are considerable, by the way. Yeah. And so they've got to reach the river Davina, which runs in a kind of sort of south-eastly direction. And once they've got there, 4th Panzer Group and 16th Army are going to push on to Leningrad, while the 18th Army is going to clear the rest of Estonia and the Baltic coast.

27:09So, yes, you're splitting of forces, And that, I would argue, is leaving quite a lot to one army. But anyway, there's also the Finnish front, which we shouldn't forget because Finland borders the Soviet Union basically near Leningrad. This is obviously a subsidiary and Germanised, but the Finns still have two armies and the Germans also have troops on hand from Norway. So, you know, just under half a million in all of which 150 ,000 are Finns, 250 ,000 are German. Commanding the Leningrad military district is Lieutenant General Markian Popov. He's got around 426 ,000 men. So slightly more than the German and Finns.

27:51So, you know, your whole kind of rule of thumb, three to one advantage in manpower at the point of attack, not really happening, is it? And I would argue that the three million men that the Germans amassed for this huge time is nowhere near enough for the task they've given them. No. I mean, nowhere near. No.

28:06Al Murray: And no matter how well it might go, is the thing. Which is one of the reasons why Stalin is so disbelieving about all the evidence, which is absolutely piling up in the weeks before the launch of Barbarossa, that the Germans are going to launch such an attack because it just seems insane to him. Doesn't make any sense. But that's also because he's got a very inflated opinion of this huge military might that he's amassed since 1928. Yeah. Anyway. So panic begins to descend on the Kremlin as Barbarossa gets underway. And you've Marshal Smeon Timoshenko, who's the People's Commissar for Defence, and General Gorgiz Zhukov, who's the Chief of Staff of the Red Army.

28:46Al Murray: They're absolutely convinced, aren't they, that the intelligence is telling them that this thing's coming. And Stalin, nah, don't believe it. and on the 16th of June, Stalin is told of an imminent attack from a spy who's at the Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin. They've got someone inside Berlin and Stalin, what does Stalin say, Jim? Tell the source and the staff of the German Air Force to fuck his mother. There we go. There's not much diplomatic softening there, is there? Yeah, and Timoshenko, he's making moves. He's moving troops up in anticipation of this attack. But on the 18th of June, Stalin says to him, if you're going to provoke the Germans on the frontier by moving troops there without our permission, then heads will roll.

29:27Mark my words. I.e. yours, Timoshenko.

29:30Al Murray: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and this is a bloke who does roll heads as well. This isn't a cutesy turn of phrase, is it? Well, he doesn't roll heads, he just shoots them. Well, yeah, yeah, but exactly. But what it doesn't mean is he's not going to get his pension or something or whatever. Yes, it doesn't mean, you know, sent in disgrace to his dacha. No, no. Your head will actually roll. And the thing is, I mean, this is one of the reasons for a lot of the outcome that follows, isn't it? The railway's up to the border and all the roads are teeming with vehicles and troops. And they've got vast tank parks and dumps of stuff and there's new airfields.

30:09Al Murray: And the airfields are not yet properly camouflaged. Because they're going to attack in July. They're getting ready for the third week of July. They're not getting ready for now. So this is all happening kind of a month early. And offering themselves up rather to the Germans because, again, they're not in a defensive posture. And everyone basically knows something's afoot, but Stalin won't authorise a full response. You're playing with fire if you want to go behind his back on that. And so they're preparing for their own offensive that they've been cooking up since May. And the expectation is the Red Army and the VVS, the Air Force, will be able to attack on the 25th of July.

30:44Al Murray: So this is a vulnerable moment, actually, for the Soviets, because they're getting ready for something else. They don't do defence, and their eggs are all in this one basket. Well, they're all gathering at the border to make a nice juicy target. They're planning for their own operations. But as you say, the danger is that Germans attack first and catch them with their trousers. But I think it's really important to understand that this has been the big mystery. Why was Stalin so misbelieving of the evidence? Why does he dismiss it? And it's because he simply can't believe that Hitler's numerically, massively inferior forces would risk attacking.

31:28But the problem with this is that like Hitler, Stalin doesn't have a military background. He hasn't been to staff college. He hasn't commanded armies and fields. He doesn't really understand logistics. Yeah. And it's also the problem that Churchill has later on in the war, that they look at figures and they interpret them as massive power rather than thinking, well, OK, how many are actually fully trained and committed and well, well, officered and well commanded? And are our logistic trains up to it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They just look at the figures. And that's that's the issue. Anyway, the first moves, of course, are by the Germans, and it's ahead of Barbarossa.

32:12So I think in an echo of the Polish invasion, Regiment 800, the Brandenburgers, who are special forces, I suppose, and they're mostly trained with, they're mostly Russian speakers, Germans, dressed in Red Army NKVD uniforms because at the border, the border guards and border security and the construction battalions are all NKVD rather than Red Army. And the main aim of these Brandenburgers, this Regiment 800, is to cut communications, ensure the bridges can't be demolished and spread false orders and disinformation. And it's got to be said, it works an absolute dream. Yeah.

32:48Al Murray: And the Soviets are very dependent on telephones. They don't really trust the radio. It was like a repeat of the French in 1940s. The Brandenburgers cut all the phone lines to a 50-kilometre depth, which is amazing. Yeah, yeah. And so Soviet Fourth Army, they try and alert their subordinate formations of an incoming attack, but they can't get through to them. Operator, operator. Yeah, exactly. And this means that the entire front, which is 1800 kilometres, the Germans have broken their communications chain completely. And there's only the last eight kilometres from the border are where telephone cables are dug in.

33:34Al Murray: But the rest are on telegraph poles, so completely vulnerable. And this saves you having to do any radio jamming, doesn't it? It leaves your own radio comms free to air, right? That you've not got a cluttered up radio space. Exactly. But what it does mean is you've got this situation where the border is controlled by the NKVD, you know, to a depth of 25 to 80 kilometres behind. That's where the Red Army divisions are. They're not any closer than that. And obviously, there's inter-service rivalry and tension between the NKVD and the Red Army, because the Red Army are soldiers and the NKVD are secret intelligence, effectively.

34:15And so there's always going to be that natural suspicion, isn't there, that the NKVD are going to dob in the Red Army and the Red Army are kind of paying them lip service only and stuff. So it's interesting that Kripenos works in Ukraine in what had been the Kiev military district, which immediately becomes the southwest front on the launch of Barbarossa. He gets on better with his NKVD fellows than others. And the coordination, the cooperation on that front is much, much better than it is on the, you know, in the western front and in the northern, in the Baltic front. Also, what's amazing is these two German conscripts.

34:55Al Murray: Yeah, who are communists. Because after all, Germany was chock full of communists in the, you know, 30s and 40s. And they slipped through the lines or make their way over rivers to warn the Germans that it's coming. One reaches at the NKVD lines at around nine o 'clock on the 21st of June. Another one, an hour before Barbarossa begins. Both Timoshenko and Zhukov at the Kremlin are with Stalin from 8.50 the night of the 21st of June. By which time, you know, they've got plenty of evidence to say, look, there is an imminent attack. And they bung in the first deserter's report, you know, to say, look, here it's actually happening.

35:41Al Murray: Stalin still doesn't believe him. Still not sure. Timoshenko wants to issue an immediate directive ordering the army into action, but Stalin resists. No, we're not doing that. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? It is amazing. And because of the way things turn out, it's sort of even more amazing because had the Red Army acquitted itself better in these opening phases, we wouldn't be looking at this, I think, quite so, it wouldn't seem to mean so much, right? It's fair to say, I think, that Stalin is an alpha male. and and i think it's fair to say that he just doesn't want to back down on this this is stalin's hubris yeah he just cannot believe that germany would do this because to him it makes no sense and because he's always paranoid because he's always suspicious you know someone coming in and saying something he you know he he cherry picks the intelligence that he wants to believe that fits his own view yeah rather than just carte blanche accepting everything because he's a naturally deeply suspicious and mistrusting person and what he's also not going to do is agree in a meeting straight away he's going to go you go away come back and then maybe i've changed my mind he's not they're not going to be able to bounce him into making a decision here and now are they that that that is not how it works no and of course you know so what happens is there's a compromise and compromises and a very good one so timoshenko and zukov leave the kremlin leave starland at 10 20 p.m with a watered down orders later termed NKO Order No.

37:061, which is finally released at half past midnight, so within the first 30 minutes of the 22nd of June. And this warns all airfields and air crews to be at combat readiness for troops to occupy all fire points, but to not open fire or attack across the border without special permission. It's only reaching the frontline units about an hour before H hour. In other words, the order was to be at combat readiness without provoking the Germans. but you know this is a bit something and nothing isn't it and the worry is of course is that from a from an airfield point of view you've got all your guys sat on the ground waiting to be destroyed by the luftwafel anyway zukov rings stalin at half past midnight to tell him of this second second deserter that's come in and starlet and orders the german to be interrogated and shot

37:54Al Murray: meanwhile the airfields are full of crews on readiness but not allowed not allowed to take off i mean like a great big fat sitting duck um we're gonna we're gonna take a break and look at the opening moves of barbarossa shortly when when finally we're gonna get this thing underway

38:15are you looking for support in your weight management journey zep bound terzepatide may be able to help zep bound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. ZepBound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram 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.

38:55Don'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. Tell 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.

39:26Taking ZepBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbounds.lily.com.

39:50Al Murray: Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland. We've promised you that Operation Barbarossa is going to begin. We've teased you. We've nudged and nerdled you to this point. So here we go, Jim. The opening moves. Well, it comes from the Soviet Navy. So the commander-in-chief of the Soviet fleet, Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov, he goes to see Zhukov just after midnight on the 22nd of June. And our Zhukov, if use of weapons is authorised, which, you know, because the directive is, as we've said, NKO order number one. is incredibly woolly. And Zhukov just goes, yes.

40:27And so Kuznetsov goes back down to his own headquarters and issues orders for all fleets and naval bases to be ready in the state one, which is the highest alert state and ready to fire at any moment. This goes out at 2.40 a.m. Soviet time, which is 1.40 a.m. German time. The Germans are kind of one hour ahead. Reaches the shore batteries and warships much more quickly than orders to land forces because, of course, their telephone lines haven't been cut because they're further inland. Yeah. And then the first air attacks by the Luftwaffe are launched at three o 'clock, so four o 'clock Soviet time, and the German artillery opens up with its opening barrage at 3.15 a.m.

41:06Anyway, reports from the naval base at Sebastopol announce that there's incoming enemy bombers at 3.17 a.m. I mean, can you believe it? Yeah. All that way. And the Soviet Navy is ordered to immediately open fire, So the Soviet Navy, the first part of the Soviet troops to open fire on the Germans. Anyway, at sunrise, the Luftwaffe hit 66 VVS Red Army Air Force airfields. And for those who don't know, the VVS means Vreno Vozdushni Sili, most of which are in the Western areas, which is where the Red Army Aircrew and Aircraft are waiting on standby. In other words, they are, you know, as we said before the break, you know, they are sitting ducks.

41:53And bombs and lead also raining down on Brest-Litovsk, on Pialystok, on Minsk, on Lvov, on Kiev, on Zytomir, and even Sevastopol, as we mentioned. And 1 ,817 BVS aircraft are destroyed almost, you know, within the opening hours. 1 ,498 of them on the ground. 322 fighters and flak. And just to put that in some context, the worst day for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, 15th of August, where they lose 76. You know, the worst day for the Luftwaffe in the entire war is the 10th of May 1940, where they lose 352. On day one, the VVS loses 1 ,817.

42:39Al Murray: Yeah. And then at half past three in the morning, the Germans all the way along the Soviet border begin moving off and heading east. So should we start with Army Group Centre then? Because, I mean, there are lots of moving parts, as we've outlined. And von Rosen, who we opened the episode with, he's experiencing what he's seeing. It's not the Red Army not putting up a fight as such. It's the Red Army just being in complete chaos, being in complete organisational disarray. And they've been caught because of the way they've been deployed, because of what they're preparing for, and because the Germans have disrupted their communications completely.

43:18Al Murray: They've just got their trousers right around their ankles from north to south. And in Belarus, in Belarusia, as is at the time, von Box Army Group Centre, they crack on clinically, efficiently, very fast, using their all-arms operational and tactical slickness with their panzer divisions. Here's some blitzkrieg if this is what you want, right? Close air support for the Luftwaffe, tactical air support. and they have made, they've made... Great comms. Great comms. It's all, everything, everything working. Everyone fresh as well is the other thing. And they're 60 to 70 kilometers into the Soviet Union by the end of the first day, which is quite, quite a leap, isn't it?

44:00Al Murray: Army Group North under von Lieb, it's the same for them. They've reached the Davina River we were talking about before the Red Army has figured out what's going on. And the Davina is very wide. I mean, these rivers, these rivers in this part of the world, you know, they're they're serious obstacles aren't they 700 to 1300 yards wide yeah so that's you know that's that's a third to kind of you know two three-fifths of a mile wide isn't yeah it's big and that the germans in crossing this river amazingly they lose only three blokes killed in action and 14 wounded as they get across and this is six panzer division in this in the vanguard here and the luftfalfa do a really really great job keeping the red army and the red air force at bay because they're closer to the border because they're at Königsberg.

44:46Al Murray: So they've got shorter hops. Which means they've got more time in the air, et cetera, et cetera. Exactly. And more sorties in a day as well. And here the Red Air Force lose 920 out of 1 ,080 combat aircraft. In the first three days. In the first three days. That's a proper kicking, isn't it? So there is some opposition, particularly Breast of Tops, which is this fortress. It's a 19th century walled fortress. It's a kind of sort of Vauban kind of vibe. You know the thing. There's lots of water around it. this huge great earthworks and sort of thick walls. And it's stormed by the German 45th Infantry Division, but beaten back by seven battalions of the 6th Aral Red Banner and 42nd Rifle Divisions and elements of the 17th NKVD Border Guards Detachment.

45:28So around 3 ,500 men in all, which to me doesn't sound like very many. No. Anyway, here the Red Army do stand their ground. And although resistance in the city collapses by the 24th of June, the fortress itself holds out fights on well into july even though most of the fortress is overrun on the 30th of june and there are some um red army men that keep fighting until the third week of july and one of the heroes and he's one of the kind of the great legends of the great patriotic war is major peter gavrilov who's commander of the 44th rifle regiment of the 46th division and he and one other nkvd officer managed to hide from the german troops along with 12 other russians um until the 20th of july and amazingly way he's taken prisoner by the by the germans he does survive the war incredible and isn't probably then shot by stalin either wow um so you know there is some resistance but but the the main you know that's a distraction and it is an infantry a german infantry division which is is is attacking brest and itovs um and while they're doing that those panzer groups are sweeping either side of Brest and just careering off.

46:36So third panzer group in the north, which is under General Hoth, the second panzer group to the south, which is under Guderian. So panzer group, Guderian panzer group, Hoth, as they're also known as. And Hoth's third panzer group sweeps into Vilnius on the 23rd of June. So just, you know, the second day. And General Pavlov, who is commanding the Western Front, orders a counter-stroke north into the flank of the 3rd Panzer Group at Grodno. But he's way too slow because by the time they get there, 3rd Panzer Group has already hurtled past us now 100 kilometres east, that's 60 miles. Wow. You know, leaving the follow-up infantry and artillery to shoot up the oncoming and lightly armed Red Army mechanised forces, which Pavlov has sent, and they're just completely destroyed because they're not on the roads.

47:27They're going across the kind of marshy bit and straight into a field of German anti-tank guns and so on. And so with Holt's forces hurtling towards Minsk and with the counterfast already on 50 % casualties, Pavlov thinks, yikes, you know, this isn't working, and orders his forces to withdraw to a defensive position. But this just means they're now surrounded in a giant encirclement because Panzer Group Guderian is aping what Hote is doing to the north, to the south. And of course, at the same time, the Luftwaffe is hammering the Red Army in the Bialystok pocket. Everything Pavlov tries is just getting smashed.

48:11And the reason the Luftwaffe are able to run amok is because, of course, they've destroyed the VVS. You know, all VVS forces close to the border are kaput. You know, when you're getting 972 out of 1080 of your aircraft, you haven't got much of an air force left. Yeah, yeah. So you've got the twin disasters facing the Red Army of no air support and very poor comms. Yeah. Where have we heard that before? You know, it is a repeat of the French mistakes of 1940. For quite different reasons, though, but it's the same effect. For quite different reasons. But the outcome is the same.

48:47Al Murray: Yeah. By the 28th of June, Kuderian and Hoth's panzer groups, they've met and they've completed this great encirclement. They've got four Soviet armies in the vice. And Pavlov, of course, is arrested for having failed sometime between the 1st and 6th of July. and he's shot on the 22nd of July, along with his chief of staff, his chief of comms, Major General Alexander Korobkov, who's the 4th Army commander. So there's some poor Ankaraje Les Otres going on in the Soviet setup there, isn't there? You just have to try harder, lads. And then, of course, because there are all these different German thrusts, there's Army Group North and the Baltic states.

49:38Al Murray: And this is Felt Marshal von Lieb. And they are met by enthusiastic civilians, welcoming them as liberators. Because don't forget the Baltic states were independent until the previous June. Those people are reading the Germans wrong. Let's have no illusions about that. But it's interesting that that's their initial reaction. In Lithuania, the Soviets are already into their thing of deporting people, politically decapitating the place. And there's armed revolt coming anyway. and you've got the resistance movement the lithuania activist front the laf they immediately with the arrival of the germans spring into action they occupy government buildings they set up a radio station they announced the formation of a new government on the 24th of june yeah good luck with that yeah got ahead of themselves there haven't they um perhaps a little bit yeah this is germans you're nazis you're dealing exactly and then there are similar similar uprisings and rebellions in latvia and estonia meanwhile von lieb's forces crash onwards the red army tries launching a counter attack just amazing against fourth panzer group and this is smack smashed and on the 25th of june so three days in eight and 11th armies of the red army they both withdraw um uh to the divina uh to get out get out of the way basically and they're meant to meet up the 21st uh mechanized corps and two further armies but they're too slow exactly so the idea is you you fall back to divina you organize yourselves and then you do a counterattack again, you know, when you kind of, you know, got your balance back.

51:07Yeah. But they don't get their balance because they're too slow to move and too slow to coordinate. Yeah. And General Eric von Manstein's 56th Panzer Corps reaches the Davina 1st and gets across. Yes. So this forces the entire Soviet Northwestern Front to completely abandon the river defenses. And on the 29th of June, Stavka, which is the military high command, orders it to withdraw to the Stalin line on the approaches to Leningrad. Yeah.

51:32Al Murray: I mean, can you believe it? Yeah. These opening bit moves are absolutely amazing, aren't they? This is why it's held up as this dazzling moment. And this is part of the sort of German war machine mythic story, isn't it? What happens in these opening weeks of Barbarossa? It's fair to say, isn't it? It's why people are so beguiled by the German way of war. Yeah, but I would say, as with the fall of France, it's 50 % German operational brilliant. and tactical skill and 50 % Red Army ineptitude, just as it was 50 % skill on the Germans in France and 50 % French ineptitude. It's not the overwhelming dazzlingness of the Germans that's winning.

52:20It's a cock-up. And again, it is because the Red Army is planning to invade their own offensive operations to begin on the 25th of July, so a month hence, and they're not ready. You know, they're building up but they're not ready. So they're concentrated without being ready for combat. That's the problem. So they're in a mass which makes them an easy target and they've got, their comms is absolutely dreadful and the Air Force is destroyed. Yeah. And so that then means that your spearheads can run amok because they can go fast and scythe through the countryside which is now empty because they've gone through the crust and the crust is where they're heavy.

53:00you know that this is this is why the germans are going well it's great because we'll just annihilate them at the front because they know the red army is at the front so if you can get through that crust there's nothing nothing behind which is which is why von rosen is is is advancing and and not seeing anyone to start off with you know when he when when he advances it's interesting

53:21Al Murray: this isn't it because because people in this sort of when discussing this kind of stuff there's the idea of the OODA loop right that you you have your observe orient side act loop a command loop right but the and that the idea is you stay in your loop and you keep going and you get inside the other side's loop but basically the Soviets are caught up caught in their cock-up loop that's so well but German OODA loop aside there is a cock-up loop here that the Soviets simply cannot escape from and the everything they do is compounded by the rotten situation they're already in and then And then any alteration is further compounded by, you know, the poor decision making that preceded it.

53:58Al Murray: And they can't escape their cock-up loop. And the cock-up loop is almost entirely, falls almost entirely at the feet of Stalin. Yes. It is entirely his fault. Yes. You know, well, we'll get on to this in a minute. You know, the blame for this catastrophe really does, I think, fall squarely on his shoulders. Anyway, what about the Southern Front? Because there's that as well going on. So there's tougher fighting on the Ukrainian front, where Krippanos is actually quite good, and obviously where the Red Army is strongest, and through where, of course, Stalin is planning to attack if they do so at the end of July or in the later part of the summer.

54:35And von Rundstedt's army group south only advances 15 to 17 miles on day one. The VVS here only loses 340 out of 1 ,760 aircrafts. Right, okay. It's still pretty bad, but it's not quite the wholesale slaughter of further north. And the Soviet Southwestern Front was, as we mentioned, the spearhead of all Soviet offensive plans. So the Galicia-Livov pocket contains five armies, 64 divisions, including 24 tank and mechanized divisions. So 960 ,000 men, which is nearly 300 ,000 more than on the Belarusian Front. They also have 12 ,600 artillery pieces and 4 ,800 tanks, which is more than the German forces along the entire front.

55:27And that's just in the Galicia-Livov salient. That's just one bit of the front. The Red Army has superiority over the entire German front. Yeah, yeah. And in total on the Ukrainian front, there's 1.4 million Red Army troops with 8 ,069 tanks and 26 ,580 artillery pieces and 4 ,696 warplanes. You've got to get with the scale, people. I mean, this is in a different league, isn't it?

55:58Al Murray: And the numbers throughout the Nazi-Soviet war, which is, I think, a better name for it than the Eastern Front, in a way, the numbers are always boggling, aren't they? Giant amounts of people and stuff. Absolutely boggling. But what I think where the figures are most boggling is on the Russian side, even at this stage of the war, rather than on the German side. Yeah, absolutely. And the way we've traditionally painted this is the other way around, I would say. But anyway, one of the accusations is that Stalin loses a pot. He goes into his shell. He can't think straight. He has panic attacks and seems kind of broken by this shattering development.

56:39and this is one of the great myths needs to be examined um you know was he really a rabbit in headlights and drinking himself into a stupor and capable of leading or is that not quite the right

56:51Al Murray: story but it doesn't really come from the most reliable source it comes from khrushchev dakita khrushchev when he takes over in 1956 after stalin's died he that he does a lot of peddling to distance himself and the regime from stalin so he's gonna slag him off isn't he and and and he He says, who played Khrushchev in? Steve Buscemi. All right, okay. Bob Hoskins plays him in Stalingrad, doesn't he? Stalin thought he was the end. After this, Stalin, for a long time, did not do it, military operations and seeks to do anything whatsoever. The myth is that he sends Beria, who's head of the NKVD, out to offer peace feelers to Hitler.

57:28Al Murray: But this isn't the case, is it, Jim? No, absolutely not. So, you know, we now have access to all. There has, in the brief window, which you get into the Kremlin archives, historians look through the logbooks and it shows that Stalin worked through the day on the 22nd of June with his first meeting with Molotov, Beria, Zhukov and Timoshenko at 5.45am. The NKO directive number two, the first one was issued at half past midnight, was issued at 7.15am, authorizing all commanders to destroy enemy forces. He didn't personally address Soviet people that day, but he did approve Molotov's public address.

58:02Further meetings throughout the day and the next war cabinet at 3.30 a.m. on the 23rd of June. And later that day on the 23rd of June, Stalin works through to 1.25 a.m. on the 24th of June and establishes a new Red Army command, the Stavka, which is chaired by Defense Commissar Marshal Tymoshenko, but of which Stalin is also part. On the 24th of June, he convenes war cabinets between 4.20 and 9.30 p.m. And then again on the 25th of June from midnight to 6.30 a.m. So I don't think you can accuse him of slacking, can you? No. Stalin is also the sole signature of the Politburo resolution to accelerate construction of KVs, T-34s, and T-50 tanks.

58:43And, you know, everything points at Stalin being at his desk more or less around the clock. And that he's totally, totally, totally on it. Yeah. But it is largely his fault. If you're going to be an autocratic dictator and rule the roost on absolutely everything, when things go tits up, you've got to also not be surprised if people are pointing the finger at you. And, you know, he is instrumental in the weak defense. He doesn't act on the advice of Zhukov and Tymoshenko. You know, in many ways, he'd erase the zone of buffer states between the USSR and Germany by signing the Molotov-Rivertron Pact on the 23rd of August 1939.

59:23because by invading Poland, the Baltic States, and Romania, this means the border is that much further westwards. Yeah, yeah. So there's less distance for the Germans to go to get to the Soviet border.

59:35Al Murray: Yeah, exactly. But the real problem of that is that the old defences along the old border, the old Stalin line, which is the original Soviet border, are now defunct, which is fine if you're going to launch the offensive yourself. But if you're in a defensive role, that's a problem because you no longer have any border defenses. What you've now got is vast airfields and tank parks, which have been built on his assistance, for their own Soviet Red Army offensive, but not to defend the border. You know, it's also Stalin who's insisted on prioritizing the procurement of light bombers and medium bombers and heavy tanks over defensive fighters and anti-tank guns and AA guns.

1:00:14You know, because light bombers, medium bombers and heavy tanks are parts of your offensive arm rather than your defensive arm. There's just not enough defensive weapons. Yeah. It is also Stalin, who had insisted on invading six neighbours between 1939 and 1941. It was also his decision to attack Finland, which had unquestionably encouraged Hitler to attack far earlier than he'd originally planned. I mean, you know, the invasion of Finland and Romania had actually badly backfired. because both countries were now fighting against the Soviet Union when they wouldn't be. Yeah. You know, they're bolstering the German attacking force.

1:00:52Yeah. So Stalin's attempt to blackmail Hitler and use the economic leverage as a battering ram over the four-power pack, which we talked about in the first four episodes of this Barbarossa series, you know, it's unquestionably also come back to hit him. So, you know, Stalin and the Soviet Union are now facing the onslaught because Stalin had cornered Hitler into a situation where, you know, as we discussed in the first part of this series, invasion is the Führer's only real choice. And the final straw has been Stalin's backing of the British-backed coup in Belgrade, in which he unequivocally worked against his ally and broke the terms of the treaty.

1:01:35You know, in the first part of this series, we were kind of sort of going, isn't Stalin smart? You know, he's done all this and isn't he clever? And, you know, he's done this around the back door while Germany hasn't been looking and created this strategic situation for a dilemma for Hitler, which he unquestionably is the case. But now that their front is crumbling, it's not looking quite so smart. Depends on which perspective you're looking at it. Although what you could say is actually it's a really smart move because what it's done is it's forced it with the attack earlier, which he can never win, at least to his earlier defeat.

1:02:06Al Murray: That's a bit of a reach right now, isn't it? Because after all, it's also Stalin who'd insisted on all the new airfield construction by the NKVD along the border, you know, within a few minutes flying distance to the border. Which, yes, you're a few minutes flying distance from the border, but that means you're a few minutes flying distance from the border. You make it much easier for the Germans to locate the airfields in the first place and then strike them. Well, put it this way. It's not like flying from Germany to Dunkirk, is it? No. And there's tank parks and petrol stations, lots of fuel, lovely juicy fuel near the border.

1:02:41Al Murray: Pretty much undefended by the time the Germans make their move. And also, as we've described, you've got these salients which are front loaded around Bielostock and Lvov. And this means that Bielostock is basically encircled and rounded up in less than a week by Army Group Centre. Those troops are there because that's the posture Stalin's put them in. You know, rounded up by third Panzer Group and second Panzer Group by Hoth and Guderian. It is firmly on him, isn't it? Completely, 100%. Yeah. And he's still talking about an offensive operation into Romania and into Hungary and Bulgaria. So, you know, which is why he then sends Zhukov off, because General Kripenos is in command of, you know, what had been the Kiev MD, which becomes the Southwestern Front.

1:03:33But on the night of the 22nd of June, Stalin then issues NKO directive number three, which is, while maintaining a solid hold of the stake boundary, adjoining Hungary, concentrate attacks by the forces of the 5th and 6th armies in the general direction of Lublin. Capture Lublin by the end of the day on the 24th of June. Krippinov keeps his command of the Southwest Front, but Zhukov is to lead this counterattack. Far from being shattered by Barbarossa on the first day, Stalin is actually ordering the Southwestern Front to spearhead an attack. You know, and part of this attack also includes bombing Romania and the Prestiophils, which they do, and also Bucharest, which is actually bombed on the 25th of June.

1:04:13Right. So, you know, Red Army bombers are going off and attacking this.

1:04:17Al Murray: So it's not a passive headless chicken posture at all. It doesn't solve his immediate problems. No, of course it doesn't. But it also, it betrays the, you know, the fact that they are, he's still thinking in terms of his offensive operations rather than the great disaster that Hitler's betrayed him and he's been caught with his trousers down. That's absolutely spot on. But the other thing is, again, like Hitler, he doesn't really understand military affairs. So everyone's been working towards this date of the 25th of July to launch an offensive, if they're going to do it. You know, it hasn't been decided, but that's what they're aiming towards.

1:04:53Now he's suddenly having to do it immediately. You know, Zhukov is being sent packed off to Ukraine and told, get on with it. But you can't just click your fingers and just mount an offensive because it takes time, of course. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't go very well because many of the new T-34s and KVs get stuck on bridges which haven't been prepared for their weight. They collapse underneath them. And also, they're attacked by Ukrainian nationalist guerrillas in their thousands. You know, which is amazing. So Major General Konstantin Rokossovsky, remember him? Yeah, yeah. At this stage, he's only a Major General and he's commanding the 9th Mechanized Corps and fights the Germans rather than the guerrillas.

1:05:35But he's only got light tanks and his troops, they're just absolutely hammered by the Luftwaffe. They make absolutely no ground whatsoever. So there's fierce fighting around Lviv for nearly a week. And although Soviet bombers continue to pound Pleistocene and book arrest well into July, it's just not enough. And they are being beaten and the Red Army's casualties are absolutely horrific. There's a lack of radio comms, lack of coordination of forces alongside insufficient air defence. It means that despite the vast numbers, Red Army and VVS, as we said, like France before, are beaten in penny packets in detail and horribly outmaneuvered by the more mobile and far better coordinated German forces.

1:06:15Al Murray: And on the 30th of June, so we're eight days into this, Shukov and Kripenos order a retreat to the old pre-1939 Ukrainian border, which is a withdrawal of 125 miles. And they do succeed in avoiding encirclement. So their losses are nowhere near as bad as everywhere else because Kripenos is pretty good at his job and gets his chaps out of the mess they've been landed in. It is interesting, this is only really at the end of June when it's clear how it's going that Stalin becomes despondent. It's also clear that he just doesn't believe it. I mean, you know, Stalin's many things. He's also ideological, isn't he?

1:06:57Al Murray: He believes that the Soviet, you know, Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist way of doing things is the best way of doing things. And it's being completely traduced. Challenged. And challenged. Traduced is absolutely the word. You know, by events and by a system that he regards as corrupt and antithetical to his own. So that can't have been an easy pill to swallow. Not at all. Not when you've got such huge, overwhelming material advantage. And I mean, let's have a look at this. You know, in aircraft, there's a seven to one advantage. In artillery at the front, there's a five to one advantage. That's just at the front.

1:07:35Yeah. Overall artillery advantage, 20.5 to 1. They've got bigger, better tanks than the Germans. And from Stalin's point of view, this has to count for something, surely. And this is why he's so prone. He really believes that mass would matter. But on the 28th of June, he learns that the 4th Army, the Soviet 4th Army, has been annihilated and a further four armies encircled by Army Group Centre. And this, you know, he is truly shocked that the vaunted war machine, which he'd taken 13 years to build up with all the latest foreign and domestic technology, you know, the Christie suspension and so on and so forth, and with his vast scale, had been so swiftly and effortlessly, it seems, crushed.

1:08:22So he steals himself to address the nation on the 3rd of July, by which time the strategic situation is, from a Soviet point of view,

1:08:30Al Murray: very very bleak indeed yes because i mean you know that they're along a front of 1200 miles um and six major rivers the germans have advanced all the way along the front they've got over the bug they got over the neem the divina the beretzina the goran and the sluk they're running rampant aren't they and the bug and the divina in particular these enormous rivers gigantic you know uh continental rivers on the on the 3rd of july general franz halder writes in his diary and then this is really interesting that he thinks this at this stage the objective of shattering the bulk of the russian army in front of the divina and denipa has been accomplished if defeat of the red army is objective number one they think they've done it already within a fortnight and And the truth is, all those gains that Stalin and the Red Army had made in 1939 to 1940, which had taken months and months, have been lost within a matter of days.

1:09:32So that means that there'd been pyrrhic gains at the absolute best way of looking at it. On the other hand, Churchill has declared for the USSR, and President FDR has also announced that the lend-lease would extend to the Soviet Union. But of course, none of this particular is going to reach the Eastern Front for any time too soon. I mean, certainly not for weeks and more likely months. So there is absolutely no question at the end of June that Stalin and the Soviet Union are absolutely on the brink. And the Stavka and the Soviet leadership is definitely struggling to work out what to do. And a part of this is trying to align Stalin's total misapprehension and realization that he'd got it completely wrong without having to admit it.

1:10:18and align that into a kind of coherent future plan. That's one thing. An evacuation committee for Moscow is established on the 23rd of June, while on the 27th of June, secret orders are drawn up to start shipping crucial factories to the east of the Urals, which is 500 miles further east beyond Moscow. And the same resolution is also ordered the evacuation of state diamond fund and Kremlin treasures. And again, on the same day, 27th of June, a further Politburo resolution signed by Timoshenko for the Stavka orders a scorched earth campaign across the European Soviet Union as the Red Army falls back.

1:10:59And Timoshenko orders all valuable property or materials or food stocks, all bread on the vine, which cannot be exported intact. anything which might be used by the enemy must be reduced to total disrepair that is destroyed annihilated burned and i think it's fair to say it was to prove a very consequential order but

1:11:26Al Murray: it's all about to get even worse which is the story we'll be telling in our next episode the thing is um you can have too much winning and we will see in the next episode the big cracks that start to appear in the german advance and the problems they are storing up for themselves in in making the progress they've had they have um join us in our next episode if you want to hear that right now then go to the we have ways of making you talk patreon become a member join in there's audiobooks uh ticket offers live streams um and the benefits of membership of a club of which you would rather be a member because you can talk about T-34s and the other person listening won't glaze over.

1:12:09Al Murray: You'll be in good company. We will see you for the next episode. Cheerio. Cheerio.

1:12:21Cheerio.

1:12:32The great game. The strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess our Prime Minister. With high confidence it was Russian.

1:12:46Al Murray: Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. The man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. You've got to ask yourself, do you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing! We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today. And disseminated into an operation order. Or frago. Or a frago that says to... Kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Gaulhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my soldier, are you? Sergeant Tom McDuff. Duffy!

1:13:30An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller.

1:13:40Al Murray: We have two times friendly key. Where Britain plays its strongest hand. He's the best. Against its strongest foe. Don't do it, Duffy! Bear Hunt. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

1:14:00Thank you.