Barbarossa - Part 1

The story of Barbarossa has to be told but it only adds to the oceans of ink already written about Hitler's colossal hubris and his complete lack of understanding of what was involved. Even as the invasion evolved and the reports of difficulties of terrain, logistics, weather came pouring in, he still persisted in effectively ensuring his ultimate defeat. It is here that can be most clearly seen the obsessive madness that seems to have driven him most of his life and, now, he has the power to attempt to fulfill those obsessions. Unfortunately for him, he does not have the ability. Mein Kampf's grandiose vision of a triumphant Germany invading Russia, "an empire ripe for dissolution" and bringing "the end of Jewish domination in Russia" would not be fulfilled.

As noted earlier, Hitler had been contemplating the invasion since the end of July (and, probably, since the signing of the pact with Russia) but neither he, nor any one else up to this time, had any idea what it really meant to fill in the detail of broad brush strokes such as 'the First Army Group will attack from the north through Finland while the Second will cross into Russia south of the Pripet Marshes and then swing north to encircle the enemy near Smolensk". The logistics almost defied description, the numbers of men and machines involved were so enormous. At Minsk, for example, an encirclement left the Germans with 300,000 men as prisoners of war. Then there was the question of the sheer size of Russia. If pitched battles did not favour the Russians, they simply faded away in the night, leaving German commanders the perilous choice of following them or of waiting to receive orders for their next step forward. The whole scenario of invading Russia was fraught with imponderables.

Hitler, however, was determined, and had been more than piqued when Russia took the opportunity of their pact to annex Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as 2 provinces of Romania; the latter was far too close to home, as Hitler needed every drop of oil he could get out of Romania's oilfields. The irritating British would be left alone until the Russian had been taken care of. Hitler had convinced himself that they only continued because they thought that the Russians would come to support them, therefore he should knock Russia out and the British would give up! (This at a time when Russia was supposed to be Germany's ally!) He at first set the invasion for the Autumn of 1940 but even his toady, Keitel, protested that there was no way that the army could be moved en bloc from west to east in time. Hitler then set May 1941 and the general staff based their plans on that. This only left 5 months before winter set in again in Russia but, as Hitler gave the Russians only 3 months before they surrendered, this would be sufficient! Of course, preparations for such an invasion could not go unnoticed and Russian voices were soon raised at German troop movements in Finland, and further concentrations in Poland. Hitler also had to contend with Hungary and Bulgaria both of whom also wanted parts of Romania. Things, in fact, became so fractious that Hitler sent Ribbentrop, his Foreign Minister, and Ciano, that of Italy, to Vienna where they met the ministers from Romania and Hungary. The mission was to ensure that all parties in the area knew of Hitler's intentions and agreed to abide by them. After considerable bullying, both Hungary and Romania signed the agreement which also included the cession of a large slice of Romania to Hungary; Hitler then guaranteed the rest of Romania's territory, in the same cynical way that he had done with Czechoslovakia.

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