Operation Barbarossa: Winning To Death (Part 8)

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3:10Al Murray: Frau Mollier used harsh terms. She said Hitler is a blockhead. In fact, the war is harder than the Germans had foreseen. The advance continues, but it is slow and harassed by the very vigorous Soviet counterattacks. Colonel Amé and General Squero, who made a report on the military situation today, believe that the Russians will succeed in maintaining a front even during the winter. If this is true, Germany has started a hemorrhage that will have incalculable consequences. And that, Jim, of course... Count Gagliazzo Ciano. It's an incredibly prescient entry in Ciano's diary, which I don't know if anyone's ever read it, but they're just brilliant because, you know, he's a reluctant warmonger and he was against Italy going to war in the first place And he is also, of course, Mussolini's son-in-law.

4:00And he is also, of course, executed by the Italians at German insistence.

4:05Al Murray: That quote is from the 18th of July, 1941. Not even a month into this, into the Barbarossa adventure. So welcome to episode eight of our Barbarossa series. Winning oneself to death is the title of this. Set the scene, James, with the Smolensk pocket. Well, yes. So Smolensk, the city in Belarus, or Belarusia as it then was, has fallen on the 15th of July, which is a great victory. And it's fallen to Guderian's Panzer Group Guderian. Panzer Group 2, or more informally, Panzer Group Guderian, you remember, in Army Group Centre. And we're going to be focusing largely on Army Group Centre because it is the progress of Army Group Centre, which is the largest of the German army groups by far.

4:50It has two of the panzer groups, which are the spearheads of these three groups. You've got Army Group South, Army Group North, Army Group Centre. It's got two of the four that are available leading the charge. and you know in the original plan this was the army group that was going to basically see the destruction of the absolute hard core of the red army what they'd been doing as we were discussing in the in the in the episode before last before we did the wilhelm puller is that it's it's all well and good that they're making this huge progress and they are capturing cities and they're going down these roads but these are little kind of fingers of that of bite so there's lots of little sort of prongs going into Soviet Union, but it's not joined up.

5:33Guderian's forces have taken Smolensk, and then they've just charged onwards. And what you get is a massive pocket north of, sort of north-east, north-west of the, and to the east of Smolensk. The front is by no means cohesive. Still in the Smolensk pocket, get this, are the Soviet 20th, 16th and 19th armies. So that's three armies. It's a huge force. And they're now fighting absolutely furiously and tying down plenty of Hoth and Guderian's troops. So Hoth is Panzer Group 3, or Panzer Group Hoth, more informally, and Guderian's troops. And it just can't be ignored. You can't bypass that. You've got to turn and face it.

6:19And obviously the Red Army is better placed to rapidly reinforce this front than the Germans are because they've got shorter lines of supply. You know, all their territory is Soviet, whereas the Germans have now got these fingers, these prongs going into the Soviet Union, which are not sort of, you know, not conjoined. And German planning had also assumed that they'd captured plenty of Soviet locomotives and rolling stock, but this isn't really the case because most have either been moved east by the Soviets or they've been destroyed. And what's more, Soviet locomotives are much larger. so for a larger loading gauge of course because you we've talked already about the fact that the soviet loading gauge the width of the railway is wider than that of the european one so they can take more coal and they have greater water capacity than the standard reichsbahn the german railway train which is known as the kriegs lock which can do 50 miles an hour forward 50 miles back it's the kriegs lock the standard german workhorse and this means that not only do the germans have to narrow the railway lines, they also have to establish more water stops and coal dumps, all of which, of course, then uses up precious resources of all of the gross transport town, which is, you know, the army of the Wehrmacht transport system, and takes more time and adds to the rapidly increasing stretch lines of communication.

7:40I mean, I don't know about you, Al, but just thinking about this is making my head hurt. And you can see, can't you, how this hubristic assumption before Barbarossa that we're just going to wipe them out because we're better than them and we're going to smash them completely within 500 kilometers and it's going to be a cakewalk is now coming home to roost in a very very dramatic way because the lines of supply are stretched motorized divisions are rapidly in decline both from battle and wear and tear and discordant deployment each of each of these panzer spearheads is problematic because it means they're fanning over a wide area in which they're no longer mutually supporting.

8:21And that is denuding them of the all-important concentration of force, the Schwerpunkt, as the Germans call it.

8:29Al Murray: And these tentacles are not uncontested either, are they? They've expanded massively into the Soviet Union. But you've still got loads of Russian stragglers, Soviet stragglers, all sorts of people. So the rear that the Germans are trying to create isn't necessarily safe, is it? Is the other thing. As well as being overstretched, it's not safe either. So they're basically, the problem is, is they've advanced too brilliant. They've been too brilliant. They've been too dazzling, Jim. They're smash and grab Bavaganskrieg style, which has worked well in France. in the Soviet Union under the different, completely different conditions, has had this weird effect of creating what looks on the map.

9:20Al Murray: If you're looking at this on a map and you're a panzer commander, you're thinking, well, look at this. We've beaten everything we did in France. Within a month, we've excelled ourselves here. And that's how they see it. Rather than thinking, oh my God, we're completely overstretched here. We're surely going to culminate any second. The losses are colossal. How can we keep this together? They're Guderian, basically, and Hurt, although some people might call him Hoth. He's the one, you know, the ice planet German general. But basically, Guderian and Hurt, they believe their own success, don't they?

9:53That rather than going, hang on a minute,

9:55Al Murray: what's our actual situation here? They're looking at the great big arrows on the maps and thinking they're making military history, essentially. They're high on their own supply, aren't they? Well, they're trying to relive France, aren't they? They're trying to relive France, But what they're failing to understand is that France is much smaller and the more sophisticated infrastructure of France is what enables them to achieve what they do achieve. And the barriers to this are just too huge. We can post this up, but you and I have got the benefit right now of looking at a situation map at 2300 hours, so 11 p.m.

10:26on the 22nd of July 1941. It's quite hard to make sense of it, isn't it? So there's an almost sort of continuous, sort of continuous line to the northeast of Smolensk.

10:37Al Murray: They look like free-roaming amoebas, the formations on this. It looks like... Such a good description. There's another sort of reasonable bit of line, front line, immediately south of Smolensk, by about sort of 75 miles, something like that. Yeah. 100 miles south of Smolensk. then at yelniar you can see this is gadarin's lead formations and um that is the 46 panzer corps which we'll return to later on in the in the in the episode and it's completely isolated isn't it yeah there's there's troops to this there's russian troops to their you know red army troops to their rear there's little pockets all over the place i mean it is an absolute mess.

11:19And what you're not getting is any sense of clear cohesion whatsoever. There's no kind of, you know, clear line where the ground and territory behind it is completely secure in the hands. And I think it's worth just talking through the two panzer corps of army group central and talking about what they're doing. So panzer group HOT, panzer group three, one of its panzer corps so you have the group which is effectively a large panzer army is divided into into corps it's got three corps within it panzer corps within it and 57 panzer corps is heading off far to the northeast to a place called valiki luci von bock who is the commander in chief of army group center is getting increasingly concerned that in these individual Panzer Corps, which are not divisions, are becoming too weak to operate alone.

12:16But these anxieties are not being met with any kind of coherent action. So instead, 57 Panzer Corps, under General Adolf Friedrich Kunzen, is getting into massive trouble at Veliki-Luki, which is 235 kilometres north of Smolensk. So that's about 150 miles, right? I mean, that's a long way. and is veering into Army Group North's patch. So striking at Veliki-Luki is not entirely insane because it's a keen nodal point. What we mean by that is it's a crossroads, it's a rail hub, you know, it's a significant urban centre. So it's a sort of transport hub. And that would give Army Group Centre a whopping 300 kilometre frontage in addition to the 500 kilometres from the border.

13:08And the town is strategically important, but it's not worth the potential loss of two divisions, 19 Panzer and 14 Motorized Division IV. I mean, it's just not. And not at this critical stage where you've still got the Smolensk pocket. It's like, deal with one thing first, get your front sorted out, then move forward. And it's at this moment that the second wave of Soviet forces, all of which have been discounted before the invasion by the Germans, start to kick in because the new 29th army is forming up just to the east of Veliki-Luki. What had at first seemed to hope like a bold forward operation now seems insane folly.

13:48Yeah. So just to get to Veliki-Luki, because it's 35 kilometres from Smolensk, requires all resources of the 57 Panzer Corps with absolutely no wriggle room at all. And what this basically means is truckage. You know, this is transport. and the ability to maintain the effort with the forward supply of fuel, the forward supply of ammunition. And just to remind everyone, okay, so at this stage, you're not talking Tiger tanks and Panthers, you're talking Panzer 3s and Stugs and Panzer 2s and a handful of Panzer 4s. But these tanks use a heck of a lot of fuel, particularly when they're in combat. So 19th Panzer Division is going all out for the town.

14:32It's just spurning off down the road, kind of taking a very sort of narrow finger either side of this road. I mean, it is absolutely, you know, 30 Corps in 1944 on the way to Arnhem. Yeah. While the 14th Motorised Division is stretched out protecting the corridor, but it's just too thin. You know, and it's just, it can't do it. And by the 19th of July, the 14th Motorised Division is being attacked all along the way, while its own material is completely worn out. And that's the words of 14th Motor Division War Diary.

15:04Al Murray: Well, but what's interesting about this, Jim, because the Red Army then attack and they break through the German line in multiple places, forcing 19th Panzer Division to fall back to help out. And you have here in the notes a Klaus Fitz quote, right? The diminishing force of the attack is one of the strategist's main concerns. His awareness of it will determine the accuracy of his estimate. In each case, the options open to him. Now, if Klaus Fitz has said that, they all know this. The Prussian military school that's supposedly the envy of the world, right, that everyone's copied and that everyone attributes, you know, Prussian militarism to and so on.

15:42Al Murray: They all know this. They all know about his principle of, you know, strategic elastic, where the closer you are to your home base, the easier it is to fight. The further away you're at greater stretch and it's more difficult, right? They all know this. So what the bloody hell's going on for them to ignore? Well, you know what I mean? There is a kind of mystery in all this, I think. It's kind of threefold. So the first thing is that right at the top of the kind of old school Prussian elites, the von Rundstedts, the Box, you know, the von Liebes, all these types, who played such a critical role in the Blitzkrieg era, you know, the Fall of France, Poland, Balkans, all the rest of it.

16:23They were very sceptical about this sort of rapid panzer deployment. You know, panzer divisions, which, as we've said many, many times over, are not just panzers, they're an all-armed motorised outfit in an army that is predominantly not motorised. So that's the USP. They were very sceptical about it, and their scepticism was confounded because they've had this great victory. Whereas people like Hote and Guderian, who were the advocates of this panzer warfare, there, Guderian especially, but Holt also, you know, he was, Holt had one of the, one of the Panzer Corps that was driving Army Group A, the main bulk of the Panzers in the, in the Blitzkrieg in France.

17:04They've now doubled down on it because it was successful. They're like, yeah, we can freaking do this. So, so you've got these two strands, you've got, you've got the old school skeptics who are now kind of completely won over. And then you've got the people who were already, who were the pioneers, taking it on to another level. And they've just started to completely believe their hype. Then you add into it, and this is the third element of this problem, their racial superiority and their military superiority in their own minds, and the woeful lack of planning and the planning to fit your own intentions rather than the reality that we saw with Paulus and Gail Thomas and all the rest of it.

17:45What you've got is a perfect storm. And they've also, their heads have been turned by those early days of the campaign where they're absolutely running rampant. And we've explained in previous episodes why that was so. So they've just got ahead of themselves. And the problem is, Al, is that now they're there, they're so deep in, they can't go back because this is all about driving forward. And you can't retreat, you can't consolidate because the whole USB is about constantly driving, pushing forward. But what works in France, what works in the Balkans, isn't going to work here because your enemy, in this case, the Red Army, has infinitesimal numbers of manpower compared to them.

18:30And the distances are just too huge and the infrastructure is so backward. And they are not realising that yet, although the penny is starting to drop and they're stuck. They can't, they can't, you can't wheel back. You can't go forward. What do you do? It's just, it's, it's a nightmare of their own making.

18:48Al Murray: There's also the political dimension as well, which is this kind of victory they imagine would deliver a political outcome that the Soviet government will go, you know what? Ain't worth it and fold. But the problem is they're not dealing with a government like the French government, which thinks it's not worth it, or the British government, which thinks let's get the hell out of here. They're dealing with the Soviet government that's because of the revolution. And that probably, you know, a big factor of this is because their own cruelty and appalling treatment of their own population. There's no way that the Soviet government is going to go, you know what, let's do a deal.

19:23Al Murray: Because they have such resources at their disposal. And also they are so hard, they're as hard baked in as the Nazi government in their position. They're never going to get a political decision out of this, are they? And no one is operating, thinking about the political element here at all, are they? And, you know, if war is politics, you know, diplomacy by other means, right? Again, back to Klaus Fitz, they've all forgotten that as well. There's no political outcome on offer here like there might be in France. You know, if you'd got 500 kilometres into France, the French government's going to, yeah, fine, OK, we give up, right?

19:58Al Murray: Because it's a democracy that's answerable to its population. that there's something else at work at the Soviet Union that's never going, never, ever going to happen. And none of them are thinking about that. None of them seem to have that in mind. Unlike Charno, as we started, he gets it. The only way they could do this differently is to do chunks. So you have this huge effort. You get to the Dnieper and the Davina and you stop and you then harness the local population. and yes you can want to annihilate communism so you do that so you do you you politicize them and you do political training but you also show generosity to the places you've done you you start bringing infrastructure you improve the roads you improve their lives you harness the locals that you've taken over onto your side then you're increasing your own population your own workforce in your own i mean and then you do that for a bit and then you know you hope that you've got enough to be able to hold that line on a river, should be pretty defensible.

20:59And then you do another chunk, you know, some months or even, dare I say, the following summer.

21:04Al Murray: You can't win completely against Stalin. You're going to have to kill him, aren't you? Not the Red Army. But at this stage, in the third week of July 1941, they're not accepting this, although they're starting to think, you can see it, they're starting to think, yikes. This isn't quite working. Anyway, let's have a look at it, Because we've only just done one Panzer Corps when that's on the way up to Veliki-Luki. And we need to look at what Seven Panzer is doing, you know, which, of course, is Rommel's old Panzer. And in Panzer Group Hote, it was also Panzer Corps Hote back in 1940. And on the same day that Smolensk falls on the 15th of July, Seven Panzer is surging ahead and taking the main Moscow Smolensk railroad and highway at Yartsevo.

21:53This is potentially a decisive game, but the area to the south of this is not secure because Yatsevo is 40 miles beyond Smolensk. Yet again, the leading panzer troops are out on a limb. And Karl Fuchs is a tank gunner in 7 Panzer. And he noted, we are now positioned outside the city of Smolensk and have penetrated the highly acclaimed Stalin lines. I would imagine that within eight to 10 days, this campaign will be over. Giddiness at success is still kind of ruling the route. But don't forget, you know, he's writing that on the 15th of July.

22:33Al Murray: 7th Panzer then ordered to thrust south to try and close the pocket from the north. Within 7th Panzer, it's Hans von Lück. Great friend of the show, I think we can say that. Sort of the good German. He spun a good line after the war anyway. And he's the adjutant at divisional headquarters. And von Lug had been apprehensive before the invasion began. And he says, The Euro mountains, which are nearly 2 ,000 miles away, were merely the end of the European part. We were not actually afraid, but neither were we sure what our attitude should be towards an opponent whose strength and potential were unknown to us and whose mentality was completely alien.

23:06Al Murray: He starts Barbarossa. Von Lug starts Barbarossa as the adjutant with 7th Panzer Division headquarters. And it's his birthday on the 15th of July, the day they capture Yat Saver. So happy birthday, Hans, with that. And that evening, him and some of his officers, they climb a hill, only a thousand yards from the Soviet lines, and they set up a table and have a great big dinner and a meal that basically underlines how cocky and confident they are, really. They think this is all going very well. Yes, and also it's ostentatious in it saying, we have fine dining because we're sophisticated and slick.

23:41You Russians are scum in a kind of hole in the ground. That's basically what it's saying, isn't it?

23:46Al Murray: Yes, but that's what he means when he says their mentality is completely alien. What he means is they're not as good as us. But over the days that follow, the battle continues without very much progress. So, yeah, they capture Yatsevo, but the Soviets aren't throwing in the towel, which is to the point we were making earlier. The battles at Yatsevo lasted longer than we would have liked. The Blitzkrieg seemed to be over. They don't really succeed with their southern thrust to try and close the pocket, mainly because the Soviets are putting them under pressure from the east. The 7th Panzer offer a good microcosm of the problems that the problems that Army Group Center are experiencing.

24:20Al Murray: Because they're so spread, they're so dispersed, whatever they do, they're creating a hole in their own line or a flank, offering a flank to the Soviets. And it shows that when you've got limited resources, both Hoth and Guderian are too exposed. And the marching infantry, of course, are still foot-slogging their way from the border and can't catch them up and help. So let's talk of von Schreffenberg's 24th Panzer Corps. Yeah, remember him from Normandy. Things are not going particularly well for Panzer Group Guderian either, is the truth of it, following the fall of Smolensk. You know, numerous places where leading panzers are dangerously overreaching.

24:59So now far to the south of Smolensk is Schreffenberg's Panzer Corps. And this obviously includes the 4th Panzer Division of Richard von Rosen, who we've been sort of following right from the very start of our first episode, won't we? And von Rosen was noticing, as they all are, that resistance is stiffening. So not only are they now trying to hold off the relentless Red Army attacks, they're also trying to keep their roll barn, their line of supply, open. You know, this is the problem. They've got these roads coming down, which they're using, and then the Russians are coming in round the back and just sort of pecking at them.

25:30And it makes it very difficult because, of course, supply troops are famously under-armed. So they're going around in trucks, which makes them very, very easy meat, of course. You know, typically the troops and, you know, maybe a few cannons and machine guns and stuff. But basically, it's small-armed stuff. So that's not enough. And von Rosen and his comrades have been told they were going to pause for a refit. But despite having only five functioning panzers left, were told on the evening of the 17th of July that they had to make ready for battle again. No information was forthcoming as to why.

26:03We had been promised several days rest here. Later, we discovered that the Russians had recaptured the robot in Arreia and surrounded the panzer pioneers who had camped on it. And there you have, in a nutshell, the entire problem with this kind of charging finger prongs.

26:17Al Murray: You know what this is reminding me of, Jim? And I'm sure anyone who listened to our series about the Ardennes, about the Ardennes offensive, it's like that. It's just reminding me of that. This thing of, well, we'll speed forward. Then what? Well, that was when you get to Moscow with your one, you know, with your one Opel Blitz and a Kubelwagen. Exactly. Exactly. It's exactly like that. So they move off at seven in the evening with three company in the lead. All route, they have to cross back over a bridge that's since first crossed. And it's been zeroed by Red Army artillery every time a panzer approaches it.

26:52Al Murray: Of course it has. Of course it has. Because it's the idea that they're not fighting the French. Let's just put it that way. They're not fighting the French here. That's the important thing to remember. As we came to realise, in the fighting around the Poposk bridges, the struggle was now becoming fiercer. Part of this impression is obviously because when they first entered the Soviet Union, they zoom off because there's no one in front of them. But now the Red Army knows exactly what's going on and they can, you know. And, you know, the bottom line is that the forward units of Panzer Group Guderian are now facing a further three Red Armies.

27:24So, you know, under Timoshenko, in addition to the three armies in the Smolensk pocket. So they're now up against the 21st, 13th and 4th, as well as the 16th, 19th and 20th. Yeah. So six armies they're facing here. And this is just the lead elements of these panzer groups at this stage. So, you know, as we were saying, there's no clear front at all. and another argument over deployment is now developing because two army was now following and von Schreppenberg asked for two armies 12 corps to be hurriedly sent to his aid and General Maximilian von Weix the two army commander wanted to send most of his forces south and strike with Schreppenberg at a town to the south called Gommel but Bock ordered Weix to keep heading northeast towards the Smelensk Pocket because Bok knows that rather than swanning off far to the south, what you really need to do is get rid of this pocket as quickly as possible.

28:24But instead, Weich's orders to Corse South and just so completely ignores Bok's orders, who, after all, is the field marshal in charge of the army group. And Bok, understandably, is incensed when he finds out and then countermands the orders. So it's a complete mess. And Bok believes that the Red Army strength is exaggerated, but he's back several hundred miles and disregarding the intelligence. and only on the 21st of July, the day after von Rosen and 4th Panzer Division had hurried back to try and rescue the situation at the bridges, at the Propoisk bridges, that Bock changes his orders again, noting in his diary, the situation facing 24 Panzer Corps on the southern wing was so threatening that I had to order two army to restore it.

29:07But you could say, why is 24 Panzer Corps 100 miles south of Smolensk? what's wrong with being 30 miles south of smolensk yeah yeah yeah but then there is the the main drive of good guderian's um panzer group which is the drive on yelnyar and yelnyar is is is a high it's a town on a sort of high ground about 75 miles further east from smolensk and yelnyar is going to become a place of total carnage. This is a name which is going to go down in the annals, and it is going to see Panzer Group Guderian almost, but not quite, broken.

29:53Al Murray: Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely crazy, this, isn't it? So he sends off von Feitinghoff's 46th Panzer Corps, even though there are three rare armies, Soviet armies, in the Smolensk pocket still. Which basically means behind them. Behind them, in their rear. It is insane because under no circumstances are your rear areas remotely secure. But Guderian thinks, no, fortune favours the brave. You know, it's time to be bold. Clots of the clerkin and all that. And interestingly, Bock sort of is pushing back on this. He says, we should only secure one, the front first. You know, on the 18th of July, he tells Kluger, 4th Army, who's coming up behind, that, you know, we've got to close this pocket as soon as possible.

30:35Al Murray: And on the 19th, the following day, Bock asks Guderian to act on the audience of three days earlier to close the ring around Smolensk. You know, could you please, we need to tidy all this up. And then Kluger gets in a strop with Bock for meddling. I mean, you know, I find all this very interesting as well. One of the aspects of the interesting is, you know, we talked about the German approach to orders, ask for a tactic, you just do what you need to do, crack on. At the top, no one thinks that. They're all going, I want to do what I want to do and shut up. Do you know what all this is reminding me of?

31:04It's reminding me of the desert generals at war in the summer of 1942. You know, this is Tobruk and the Gazala line and everyone bitching behind each other's back and complaining and, you know, and getting stroppy about one core commander to another core commander and all this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And why are they all getting across with each other? Because it's all starting to go pear-shaped.

31:29Al Murray: Guderian had been trying to close the gap, but it wasn't going very well for him. Because he hasn't got enough, has he? Because he sent most of his forces off to Yel-Ni-Ar. And he's been doing this with the depleted 18th Panzer Division, which is driving north of Yel-Ni-Ar to Dorogobush. But 18th Panzer is down to 25 % of his panzer strength and 60 % manpower. He's also lost 1 ,300 trucks since the start of the campaign. These are all absolutely wildly precious resources. And he's ordered them to close the pocket without offering any reinforcements and with their tail vulnerable because the tail is because there's no safe rear.

32:05Al Murray: And in effect, by sending 18th Panzer Northeast to Dorogabusch, he's trying to close one pocket but opens another one because there's not they're spreading the butter too thin on the toast. And Guderian won't. He's not willing to use his Panzer divisions in static and defensive roles. Kluger is furious at this decision and immediately countermands Guderian by ordering 18th Panzer back to hold the line east of the city. So they then can't go to Doric Abyshe. So poor old 18th Panzer, which has got almost no panzers left, is just going, you know, what do you want me to do? But either option is bad and either option is stretching them too far.

32:46So Guderian now sends part of the 10th Panzer, which is currently on a drive to Jelg Njar to Dorogabush instead. But all you're doing is you're splitting up your forces. You're denuding that concentrated force. You know, if you're splitting up 10 panzer, that means that 10 panzer is not operating at max strength. And it's already not at max strength because it's been attrited on its way, on its way in this vast distance. So these are really, really bad decisions by people that absolutely should know better and who have, you know, their arrogance, hubris, and believing their hype is sort of getting the better of them.

33:22So 10 panzer is struggling really badly at Jelnya. So the commander says to von Weitinghoff that his division could do one or other of the missions, but not both. And Weitinghoff just goes, forget that, just get on with it. Guderian then changes his mind and orders Jelnya to be the main objective, not Dorogabusch. And by this time, it's five whole days since 7 panzer had reached Yartsevo. But since then, the Smolensk pocket is still not closed. and vast numbers of Red Army troops are escaping eastwards. So Bock notes in his diary, at the moment there is only one pocket on the army group's front, and it has a hole.

34:03Ho, ho, ho. But I mean, you know, it's sort of black humour. You know, Bock is not amused at all.

34:09Al Murray: Despite this, Guderian carries on pressing at Yel-N-Yar, does capture the town, and then starts talking about going further east. Like, you know, roll on. It's going well. Right from the beginning of Barbarossa, there has been a muddle and a lot of indecision about which way to go. And that has filtered its way all the way down across the board, isn't it? That the indecision that Barbarossa was characterized in terms of what's its objective, Leningrad, Moscow, Ukraine, we don't know, right? So no wonder the generals feel they can change their minds and do what they like, because the whole thing hasn't been gripped from the beginning.

34:47Al Murray: This is why they're able to get away with it, is that the entire command structure is corrupted from the top down. Bok sends a staff officer to tell Guderian that, you know, pushing east further is not important. What we need to do is close the pocket, actually. They haven't foreseen any of this because the big idea is that they will have shattered all remaining Soviet resistance in the second phase of the operations east of the Great Rivers. Yeah, but they haven't done that. It's just not happened. No. And not only are Red Army forces in the pocket still fighting, but more are appearing. It's not the French army.

35:20Al Murray: They're not throwing in the towel. And Bock on the 20th of July says, repeated attacks on the elements of Panzer Group 2 from the east, southeast and south. Panzer Group 3-2 has not only been attacked from inside the pocket, all from Smolensk and West, but from the east and northeast as well. I don't know about you, but that sounds to me like they're surrounded.

35:39Al Murray: Do you know what I mean? I mean... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Boggs' diary is absolutely fascinating. It's published and you can get an English translation as I've got, which is a nice big fat book. And it is amazing. You know, he puts in these incredibly dry, kind of wry comments in his diary. And it's clear that he's absolutely tearing his hair out, trying to manage the situation. He's got Hitler on one side and the army. He's got Haldun Braukic on another. He's got Keitel breathing down his neck. And he's got all these, you know, he's got Kluger and Guderian at loggerheads. It's, you know, Hope running off to Veliki-Luki.

36:14You know, it's just completely uncontrollable. But suddenly there are setbacks all along this totally disconnected front from, you know, if you look at it all. I mean, we've just been through them. But you think about, you know, von Schreppenberg is struggling to the south as he's fighting towards Rosalvo and Gommel. and then Veedenhof's panzers at Jelnia, seven panzer to 57 panzer corps at Veliki-Luki, the stiffening of resistance, the counter punches, the assaults on rear and the roll barns and the rapidly diminishing numbers of panzers, all are a taste of what is to come. But this stubborn tendency to underestimate the enemy continues.

37:00It's kind of hard-baked into German minds from the very top to the bottom. And now a worrying concern is that they're being too slow to learn the lessons. And all that blitzkrieg success, plus the relentless brainwashing, is badly undermining the efforts. You know, they're deep, deep into the Soviet Union on a mission that has to succeed, but which is clearly, by the 20th of July, 1941, unravelling. And there's a Vofan SS general, Max Simon, who ends up commanding 16th Panzer in Italy. He says, very soon we had to admit that we were up against a very different adversary from the one we had expected.

37:41And I believe that this underestimation was one of the reasons for the unfortunate course which the campaign in Russia took. And it's about to get a whole load worse.

37:53Al Murray: So we're going to take a break now. I love the way that we're talking about Barbarossa falling apart and getting a whole lot worse. And we're only really a month into it. You know, a month into it. For the connoisseur of the historiography, this is not the way this is normally told. We will see you after the break.

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40:54Al Murray: Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk. And Jim promised us before the break that things are about to get worse. So let's go, Jim. Let's make it worse. And we need to go to the other side of the hill, really, don't we? Just to find out why. Far from facing the final throws of the Red Army, Stavka, which you may remember from one of the early episodes, is the sort of combined general staff, really, in Moscow, is about to throw in a load more new armies. It's the high command, basically. So, yes, that means they're poorly trained, but mass is massively starting to count against a Wehrmacht that is rapidly getting short of mass.

41:34That's the truth. And under Stalin's direction, Stavger has decided to mount a major counteroffensive by sending in four new armies, the 29th, the 30th, the 24th, and the 28th.

41:47Al Murray: Not one army, not two armies, not three armies, James. There's four. Four bloody armies. It's amazing. How many armies does Britain have in North Africa at this point? Well, kind of one. Kind of. Not a great big fat one like a Soviet one. Anyway. You've got the three armies facing von Schreppenberg. You've got three armies in the pocket and you've got another four. My reckoning adds up to ten. Anyway, Stalin places them under Timoshenko. So Timoshenko had been a central command in Moscow, but is now commanding the Western Front. And Stalin says,

42:35In other words, punch back with as many men as you can. Zhukov, who is the chief of the general staff, now plans a series of simultaneous concentric blows against army group center from each of the four new armies. so the germans don't know it but they've already reached the high point of the barbarossa offensive and that's you know i'm just saying it right there and then they've got victories to come sure what's the point what's the point what's the point well because they haven't got any choice because if they if they just stand idle stalin's gonna get you know the red army's gonna get bigger and bigger and they're gonna counter punch and the germans are gonna lose so they've got to keep going is the truth of it but at this point great enemy of the show um adolf hitler starts to wade

43:16Al Murray: in and starts to meddle what you need now jim is a is a is an intervention for a self-styled military genius that's what we need that's exactly what you want that's what you want into into this confusing situation what you need is some clarity of thought so anyway so he delivers not one but two directives yeah i mean you know so he he's now at his east prussia um headquarters at rastenberg the wolf schancer or the wolf's lair and he is about weighed in with, from what this moment onwards, is going to be increasing interference. His sort of push and pull that he's already had on Halder has had enough of an effect in the conception of Barbarossa.

43:58Al Murray: But basically, he doesn't trust the army's senior commanders, and there's been this unresolved, different strategic outlook between him and Halder. He's an autocrat. He's a dictator. He doesn't trust anyone. Of course he doesn't. Yeah. That's how dictators behave. They're the genius. They're the only right ones. You know, my way is the best way. It's the only way. I'm the master of everything. I'm the cleverest person on the planet. And he'd been consistent about prioritizing Ukraine in Leningrad. But Howda wanted, you know, thought that Army Group Centre would make the drive on Moscow and so on.

44:31And the thing is, Howda's done that anyway.

44:34Al Murray: It's quite clear that Hitler wasn't aware of OKH's scheming, of Howda's scheming. So now he's thinking about diverting panzer groups the way that he'd always wanted. Hitler's now trying to get what he wants out of the campaign. Now that they're a month in, and really now is not the time for someone to, I mean, it's all going badly anyway, but now's not the time for meddling, as you said. And on the 19th of July, and I love the way he issues two directives here. The 19th of July, he issues war directive number 33, 33, which orders Panzergruppe Hutt North to help Army Group North on the drive to Leningrad.

45:11Al Murray: And then he orders Guderian South to help crush the fortress city of Kiev. And there are only two infantry divisions to continue the march on Moscow. Two divisions. And four days later, after Braukic has gone to see him to try and talk him out of this, you know, siphoning off these Panzer groups from Army Group C, Hitler then issues directive number 33A. My final word, is it being amended? Yes, I mean, I should say that the number 33A is signed by Keitel, but obviously Keitel is Hitler's mouthpiece and it is Hitler. It's the same, but it's got more specific instructions for Panzer Group 3 for Hoth to come under the command of Army Group North and for Panzer Group 2 to go to Army Group South.

45:52Al Murray: And it says, After mopping up our operations around Smolensk and on the southern flank, Army Group Centre, whose infantry formations drawn from both its armies are strong enough for the purpose, will defeat such enemy forces as remain between Smolensk and Moscow by advancing on the left flank, if possible. It will then capture Moscow. That first line, after mopping up operations around Smolensk. OK, these are not mopping up operations. These are against 10 Red Armies. Red Army armies. I mean, you know, there's nothing mopping up about it at all. And, you know, at the same time, your spearheads, which are supposed to do, you know, 90 % of the fighting, are absolutely screwed.

46:36So, you know, what is so interesting about directive number 33 and 33A is their total disconnect from reality. I mean, the delusional appreciation of the situation is quite remarkable. remarkable. But of course, 33A, having very specific, you know, in 33, it doesn't, it says, you know, send some, you know, we can divert some, some panzer groups North and South. Now it's saying, I want them to go and come under the command of Army Group North and Army Group South. You know, it's much more specific. So this means an end to von Braukitsch and Halder's plan for Moscow. So Halder visits Hitler on the 23rd of July and tries one more time to persuade him to focus on Moscow, but Hitler's not for budging.

47:19And the problem was the infantry divisions alone are not enough to take Moscow. They're not enough to do anything, to be honest, because they're largely on foot. And there's these huge armies, you know, because it's so much, the task is so much more than mopping up. So suddenly, having had this great kind of confidence, they've gone from the highs to the lows, and Halder and Braukic are in total despair, is they really did believe that striking at Moscow was the best means to destroy the Soviet Union. So if they're not going to, they feel that let's all go all out for Moscow, topple Moscow, and then we can deal with the rest of Ukraine.

47:57Then we can deal with oil fields. Then we can deal with Leningrad, et cetera. But diverting, you know, the main thrust of the effort should all go in one giant thrust towards Moscow. And I've got to say, I'm kind of in their camp on this. I mean, I think the whole thing is batshit crazy, obviously, and was never going to work. But I mean, you know, this would have given them the best chance, I suspect. And also, because once you get past the Privet Marshes, the kind of road is sort of, it's not clear exactly, but it gets a lot easier. You know, going up into Leningrad, the terrain is problematic.

48:27You know, going down into Ukraine, you've got the Dnieper, which is enormous. But Hitler's decision now prompts huge disputes as the news of these directives starts to filter through. And of course, panzer group gudarian is now in real real trouble with a help with difficulties of then having to pivot south and the logistical complications of doing that you know you're all in on on on yel niar and suddenly and on the southern flank where you're battling just to survive and suddenly you've got to kind of organize yourself pull back get get yourself into gear and move for a drive south it's just it's it's not easy and and the you know his men are absolutely exhausted because they've been at this since the 22nd of June, 21st, 22nd of June.

49:09And the casualties are absolutely horrendous, aren't they? I mean, it's incredible.

49:12Al Murray: Yeah. 830 officers in Panzer Group 2 alone, 562 in Holtz Group, and Panzer Group Guderian, that's a total casualties of 15 ,228 in Holtz, lost 10 ,509 men. I mean, these are big numbers, aren't they? Well, they are in precious spearheads. Exactly. And we've been saying over and over again, the supply situation has been difficult, but it's completely critical now. They're running out of ammo because it's got to come up from supply depots, 440k to the rear, and on supply lines that are not safe. So the 10th Panzer War Diary notes on the 21st of July, in spite of all efforts by the Corps in the coming days, there will be no oil for the Panzers.

49:54Al Murray: So the munition situation is also strained. In particular, artillery shells must be used sparingly. So all the problems that are coming home to roost, aren't they? and laying great big fat difficult eggs. So do you remember that 10 panzer is the one that's been split into two and is trying to go to the Roga-Busch and also go to Yelnya? And it's also at the same time as it's trying to do that, it's already been denuded quite a long way. And now it's being told that artillery shells have to be used sparingly. I mean, what the heck? So Barbarossa is only a month old and already the leading panzer divisions are struggling to function.

50:28OK, not win, function. So on the 22nd of July, 18 Panzer Division is given 30 new Panzer 3s and 4s, which brings it back up to 20 % strength. So before that, it was below 20%. On the same day, 17th Panzer and 4th Panzer Divisions are operating at 40 and 35 % strength. Panzer Group HOT's total panzers are as follows on the 21st of July. Under repair, 31%. Combat ready, 42%. total losses 27 and can i just point out that that you know we mentioned this when we were doing all our casino um series but but 30 to 35 percent of any unit in any western army would basically be

51:16Al Murray: considered that you can no longer function at all and the thing is is the red army in the meantime as is getting stronger and beginning to dominate and as we said there's four armies on their way and i think it's really interesting isn't it because the culture at the very top is to point finger, blame, bully, dominate, argue, rather than work in sort of, you know, consensus or in a collegiate style. Well, if that's how it is at the top, that's going to seep down, isn't it? It's going to be how people are operating lower. So all the commanders in army group centre now start blaming one another.

51:50Al Murray: Hote blames Guderian for not closing the Splint's pocket. Guderian blames Kluger for interfering and overriding his orders. Kluger blames everything on Bock. Bock loads Kluger. it's it's a perfect circle big time it's just an absolute mess and in the meantime despite all their efficient deficiencies the panzer and motorized divisions are remain bound to the front enduring the daily grind of relentless battle and hardening of the strategic stalemate that's gripping the whole army group so it's not surprising at all that without the ability to concentrate and deal decisively with the enemy the most these motorized and panzer units of army group center finding themselves embroiled in ever more costly struggles which are just constantly eroding their strength in an inescapable war of attrition i mean i mean this is about as bad as it gets and just to just to really stress the point these units are the creme de la creme this is the elite this is the spearhead this is the the main fighting effort of the wehrmacht So you denude them.

52:51What are you left with? And that's the problem. Meanwhile, you've got the Soviet counter-strike because the enemy has a vote and there's now lots of armies and they're beginning. And this begins on the 23rd of July. It's badly coordinated because they're rushed to the front and they're not coordinated. And a lot of these troops are new and they're not properly trained and all the rest of it. But they've got immense firepower and it begins as a sort of blunt hammering of the front rather than a massive coordinated blow. But it's still grinding down those panzer divisions and motorized divisions yet further.

53:25In the narrative of Barbarossa, Tymoshenko's counterattack has been seen as a failure. But you can't really say that because it is stopping army groups center dead in its tracks. And in a war where speed of movement is everything and where those leading panzer units are absolutely the creme de la creme, Anything you can do to blunt that and to destroy even a portion of it is going to pay dividends later on down the line. Instead of pausing and gathering for the next stage and moving south and north, the panzer groups are forced frantically to firefight. They can't move south because they can't organise themselves because they're engaged.

54:04You can't disengage very easily.

54:07Al Murray: And in Jelnya, which is where Guderian has bitten off his chunk to the east of Stamlansk, it's really, really, really, really brutal fighting. Haid Ruel, who's a soldier in the Second SS das Reich, notes, The gunners, working like fury, finally beat off the Russian tank attacks. But these then were renewed in greater strength. And then our motorcycle battalion came under heavy pressure. We were smothered in a drum gunfire such as we had never experienced before. Because of the severe losses which it had sustained, the motorcycle battalion had to be taken out of the line and was replaced by an East Prussian engineer battalion.

54:43Al Murray: With the help of that formation, we stemmed the Russian advance, albeit only temporarily, for soon ammunition for the guns began to run out and we were only allowed to fire at certain specified targets. I mean, that's not great, is it? I mean, it sounds like an absolute mess, doesn't it? I mean, this is reminiscent of, you know, beleaguered Hitler-Ugang, You know, SS Hitler, you can division, you know, Epsom, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Or something. I mean, it's this kind of language. Helmut Gunter, who is also in the SS Das Wright notes, now it was clear to every one of us that this Russia would be a very hard nut to crack.

55:23If some of us had not already lost it, then here in the Yelnya bend, we lost the fragile innocence of youth. There is this sense of breaking this elite force that had caused so much damage in the Blitzkrieg years. This is it, isn't it? So the Datschreich is actually hammered at Yelniar, and so too the Grossdeutschland division. 18th Panzer is trying to be in two different places at once. Panzer Group Guderian is buckling badly under the strain of relentless Red Army attacks. And also, the Russians aren't only introducing KV-1s and KV-2s, these huge tanks and the and the forward sloping armour of the T-34 tanks, all of which are bigger and more effective than most of the German tanks.

56:10But they're now introducing the famous, infamous Katyusha rockets, which are now entering the battlefield. And each one of these Katyusha rocket systems is capable of living 320, 132 millimetre rockets in a 10-second barrage. And when it first enters onto the battlefield, it is a massive shock to the Germans. And one German soldier noted that it was the most terrible and shocking thing I have ever encountered. I mean, can you imagine coming up against that for the first time? You're not going to know what's here, are you?

56:45Al Murray: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, particularly as you've been told, the enemy's crap endlessly. I mean, this is the thing. Yeah. You know, they're not really going to put up a fight. And Hitler is also, while this is all going on, And he's instructing his generals to give up on large encirclements and carry out smaller ones instead. Thanks, boss. Cheers now. That's really helpful. Yeah, and Holden's getting depressed. And by the 26th of July, it's clear that things aren't working out, are they? No, and he says, If striking at small local enemy concentrations becomes our sole objective, the campaign will resolve itself into a series of minor successes, which will advance our front only slowly by steps pursuing such a policy would eliminate tactical risks and enable us to close the gaps between the army groups the result would be that we use up our strength expanding the front in width at the expense of depth and end up in positional warfare yep that's exactly what's going to happen um but you have made your rod and you know yes Yeah, yeah, exactly.

58:22Al Murray: Which strikes me as probably the right thing to do. If you need a political decision, which you do, right? Because after all, that's why you're doing it. Anyway, so on the 27th of July, Yodel then speaks to Hitler in favour of going to Moscow too. But he's told, don't be ridiculous. Nein, that is not happening. By this time, Hitler's not sleeping well. Oh dear. He's not sleeping well. And he's feeling torn between political and economic objectives. And he thinks that by now, they should be in Moscow. They should have taken Ukraine, Crimea, Leningrad. And that, you know, by the 15th of August, the whole thing, you know, they will have taken those by the 15th of August.

59:01Al Murray: By the end, by the beginning of October, it all ought to be over. But this is obvious, even to Hitler, that this isn't going to happen. Blitzkrieg has had the, you know, the air has come out of the balloon. I think it's very interesting this, because Hitler's career has always been about momentum. His political career was always about pushing forward, probing, pushing forward momentum, relying on the tumble of events to get him to the next place and gambling. And you can't do this in warfare. Things don't operate like that. They appeared to in France, but they don't really know why they won in France.

59:36Al Murray: And so by the end of July, he's dithering and he's aware that this victory is slipping from his grasp, but he doesn't know what to do. So there's another big conference on the 28th of July. After which Halder, as played by James Holland, currently appearing in the Chichester Theatre as a friend's halder, he wrote to his wife and really sums it up. He is playing Vorlod again and proposing such absurd ideas that he is putting in question everything our splendid operations have won so far. The Russian won't simply go away like the French. Then he has been operationally beaten. He has to be killed, one at a time, in a country that is half forest and marsh.

1:00:20This takes time, and Hitler's nerves won't stand it. Every few days I have to go there. Hours of empty talk with the result that there is only one man who knows how to wage wars. I am on the brink of despair, because I can predict exactly where this nonsense will end. If I didn't have my faith in God and my self-assurance, I'd be like Brockitsch, who is at the end of his tether and hides behind his rank so as not to betray his inner helplessness. Well, I would venture that the tone has changed somewhat, wouldn't you?

1:00:51Al Murray: Yeah, yeah. He must be regretting not having got his pistol out when he had the opportunity. Good he could have done it, November 1939. So it's all very well. The day before this conference, the Svelin's pocket is finally closed. But it means, but at the same time, Guderian's forces are having this life and death struggle of the Yelnya salient. And Bock holds a conference with his senior commanders to discuss what they're going to do next. And the divergence, as a result, the divergence of his panzer groups. Guderian blows a gasket, throws a shoe, can't believe what he's hearing. His men are barely containing the relentless onslaughts where they are.

1:01:28Al Murray: So moving on. And let's not forget they're where they are because of him, because of his decisions. Well, yes, but this is the first time he hears about this split from Directive 33 and 33A, you see. So this is all news to him. So suddenly you've got this situation where five weeks into a war that's supposed to be the decisive blitzkrieg campaign to secure control of all Europe and crush the communist hordes. The immense, gargantuan demands and the scale of the conflict, all of which I think we've laid out were entirely predictable, are coming home to roost. And the point of the spear has been severely blunted, and the senior commanders are all fighting one another rather than the Red Army.

1:02:09And the Wehrmacht on the eastern front has become a busted flush. Let's just say it. That is what it's become. It's best men and officers are dead or maimed. It's tanks battered, blackened, and broken. But we are going to leave this series here at the very end of July 1941. 1841. But needless to say, there's plenty to come on the Eastern Front and we will be returning with this, won't we?

1:02:35Al Murray: We're returning because after all, we're only really a month into it. It's fantastic, isn't it? But when you start looking like this, in this sort of putting aside the sort of standard narrative and then, not because we're trying to be cussed, but because why did the Germans fail in fighting the Soviet Union? Well, here's why this initial, the entire project and the fact that the way it was schemed, the way it was laid out, the way there was no actual decided central objective. There's nothing like embarking on a thing like this without actually knowing what your central objective is to cause you loads of problems.

1:03:12Al Murray: You know, look at the other side. The Allies chop and change and do, you know, do compromise and think, actually, no, we can't go to France this year. We'll go to, you know, for instance, we'll go to North Africa instead. and then they chop and change and they decide where they're, you know, but they follow their strategic momentum, but they know what they are planning to do next. They have clear objectives that are clearly laid out that they observe and pursue in a way, none of it's clear. So no wonder that this thing's a disaster. And I think that's the thing that's really leaping out and also their opponent.

1:03:51Al Murray: When we talked about unconditional surrender, you know, when we were looking at the end of the war, Jim, we said that, you know, unconditional surrender fits the Nazis as an opponent for the allies because you can't negotiate with them. They're going to go down swinging, whatever. So the allies have cut their political understanding to the cloth that's offered them. Hitler simply doesn't understand and the Germans don't understand that they've left a political component out of this completely. They're not fighting a democracy who's not got the stomach for it. They're fighting the most ruthless dictatorship on the planet that leaves them for dust, right?

1:04:27In terms of ruthlessness. That's a brilliant summary and exactly where we are. But as we know with the Eastern Front War, there's plenty to come. And so we're going to be returning with this, as Barbarossa merges into Operation Typhoon and the Midnight Snow in Moscow.

1:04:49Al Murray: Well, thanks for listening, everyone. And in fact, thanks to everyone who's signed up as a result of this series. We know that many people have joined as members in order to gobble this up as quickly as they possibly can. And that's what you get from membership. You get to listen to this ad-free. If you become a patron on our We Have Ways of Aki Talk patron, you get this ad-free, you get audio books, you get other tidbits, you get live casts and ticket and merch offers. It's been fantastic to do, Jim. We're one month into Barbarossa. If we carry on with the Eastern Front campaign, doing eight episodes a month.

1:05:17We might get there by 2031.

1:05:19Al Murray: Exactly. This podcast will never end. It's as simple as that. Thanks for listening, everybody. Good. We'll see you soon. Cheerio. Cheerio.

1:05:39on that flight with 350 passengers on board. The great game. Strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess our Prime Minister. With high confidence it was Russian.

1:05:59Al Murray: Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. You've got to ask yourself if 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. A Frago that says to kill the President of Russia. Yes. New from Goalhanger Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my soldier, are you? Sergeant Tom McDuff, Duffy An audio drama journey like no other Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller 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!

1:07:02Bear Hunt Available now wherever you get your podcasts.