Hitler's inner circle, including the leading figures of the main headquarters of the armed forces, could not fail to learn certain lessons from the failure of the "blitzkrieg" that occurred on the Eastern Front. The collapse of Operation Typhoon in the Battle of Moscow cost the Nazis especially heavy losses in people, weapons and military equipment. It was noted above that fascist Germany managed to make up for these losses, but the combat effectiveness of its army decreased. The certificate of the headquarters of the operational leadership of the OKW dated June 6, 1942 stated: “The combat effectiveness of the armed forces as a whole is lower than in the spring of 1941, which is due to the impossibility of fully ensuring their replenishment with people and materiel” ( "Top secret! Only for command!”: The strategy of Nazi Germany in the war against the USSR: Documents and materials. M., 1967. S. 367.). At the same time, the number and combat effectiveness of many formations of the Soviet Armed Forces increased.
With all their arrogance, the Nazi rulers and strategists were forced to take all this into account. Therefore, continuing to maintain confidence in the superiority of the forces of the German army and striving to achieve victory over the USSR, they no longer dared to conduct an offensive simultaneously along the entire length of the Soviet-German front.
What goals did the Nazis set for themselves for 1942, more precisely, for the spring and summer of this year, when it was planned to launch a new offensive? Despite the apparent clarity of the issue, it requires detailed consideration. Let us turn first of all to the testimonies of those who were close to the preparation of a new offensive, knew about it or even took a direct part in it.
Undoubtedly interesting in this regard are the statements of Colonel General Walter Warlimont, the former deputy chief of staff of the operational leadership of the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW). He reports in some detail about some of the facts of the planning of the campaign, the implementation of which led the Nazis to the catastrophe on the Volga. In his book “In the Supreme Headquarters of the Wehrmacht. 1939-1945" Warlimont ( Warlimont W. Im Hauptquartier der deutschen Wehrmacht, 1939-1945. Frankfurt am Main, 1962.), in particular, he writes: “Even during the period of the greatest strain of forces in the struggle to repel the offensive of the Soviet troops, the confidence in the headquarters of the German armed forces did not weaken for a minute that in the East it would be possible to seize the initiative again, at least no later than the end of winter” ( Ibid. S. 238.). On January 3, 1942, Hitler, in a conversation with the Japanese ambassador, announced his firm decision, “as soon as the weather is favorable for this, to resume the offensive in the direction of the Caucasus. This direction is the most important. It is necessary to go to the oil fields, as well as to Iran and Iraq ... Of course, he, in addition, will do everything to destroy Moscow and Leningrad "( Ibid.).
Elsewhere, Warlimont notes that in January - March 1942, the plan for the summer campaign was in general terms ready. On March 20, Goebbels wrote in his diary: “The Fuhrer again has a completely clear plan for the spring and summer. His goal is the Caucasus, Leningrad and Moscow ... An offensive with devastating blows in certain areas ”( Ibid. S. 241.).
It is noteworthy that the Caucasus, Moscow and Leningrad appear in Warlimont's statements in both cases. But there is no evidence that in the process of discussing the concept of the campaign, it was originally planned to resume the offensive simultaneously in all three strategic directions, and only later - when calculating the available possibilities - did the specific contours of the plan begin to change their outlines significantly. It is quite obvious that the Nazis could no longer prepare the second edition of the Barbarossa plan. Despite this, Hitler announced on March 15 that during the summer of 1942 the Russian army would be completely destroyed ( Tippelskirch K. History of the Second World War. M., 1956. S. 229.). It can be assumed that such a statement was made for propaganda purposes, was demagogic and went beyond the real strategy. But there was something else here as well. Adventurist in its essence, Hitler's policy could not be based on deep foresight and calculation. All this fully affected the formation of the strategic plan, and then the development of a specific plan of operations in 1942. Difficult problems arose before the creators of the fascist strategy. The question of how to attack and even whether to attack at all on the Eastern Front became more and more difficult for the Nazi generals. Warlimont writes the following on this subject: “Halder ... for a long time studied the question of whether we should finally go on the defensive in the East, since a second offensive is beyond our strength. But it is absolutely impossible to talk about this with Hitler. And what can all this lead to? If we give the Russians a breather and the American threat intensifies, then we will give the initiative to the enemy and we will never be able to regain it. Thus, we have no choice but to once again attempt an offensive despite all doubts ”( Warlimont W. Op. cit. S. 239.).
So, there was no longer confidence in the success of the offensive - the miscalculation of the Barbarossa plan in relation to the assessment of the forces of the Soviet Union was obvious. Nevertheless, the need for a new offensive was recognized by both Hitler and the German generals. The Wehrmacht command continued to strive for the main goal - to defeat the Red Army before the Anglo-American troops began hostilities on the European continent. The Nazis had no doubt that the second front, at least in 1942, would not be opened. And although the prospects for a war against the USSR were looming for some people completely differently than a year ago, the time factor could not be overlooked. There was complete unanimity in this.
“In the spring of 1942,” writes G. Guderian, “the question arose before the German high command in what form to continue the war: to attack or defend. Going on the defensive would be an admission of our own defeat in the 1941 campaign and would deprive us of the chances of successfully continuing and ending the war in the East and West. 1942 was the last year in which, without fear of immediate intervention by the Western powers, the main forces of the German army could be used in an offensive on the Eastern Front. It remained to be decided what should be done on a front of 3,000 kilometers long in order to ensure the success of an offensive carried out by relatively small forces. It was clear that on most of the front the troops had to go on the defensive" ( Results of the Second World War. M., 1957. S. 126.).
The offensive operations of the summer campaign of 1942, according to the testimony of General Halder, were foreseen as early as the winter of 1941/42. and disrupt their communications along the Volga" ( Military-ist. magazine 1961. No. 1. S. 35.). The OKW directive of December 8, 1941, spoke of creating the prerequisites for conducting an "offensive operation against the Caucasus" ( There.). In that memorable winter for the Germans, Hitler forbade the withdrawal of troops beyond the Dnieper and demanded at all costs to hold positions near Leningrad, in the areas of Demyansk, Rzhev and Vyazma, Orel, Kursk and in the Donbass.
The specific content of the plan for the summer campaign of 1942 at a certain stage and to some extent was the subject of discussion among the Nazi generals. The commander of Army Group North, Field Marshal Küchler, initially proposed to carry out an offensive on the northern sector of the Soviet-German front with the aim of capturing Leningrad. Halder ultimately also stood for the resumption of the offensive, but, as before, he continued to consider the central direction decisive and recommended that the main attack on Moscow be carried out by the forces of Army Group Center. Halder believed that the defeat of the Soviet troops in the western direction would ensure the success of the campaign and the war as a whole.
Hitler, unconditionally supported by Keitel and Jodl (OKW), ordered the main efforts of the German troops in the summer of 1942 to be sent south to seize the Caucasus. Due to the limited number of forces, it was planned to postpone the operation to capture Leningrad until the moment when the troops in the south were released.
The fascist German high command decided to launch a new offensive on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, hoping to defeat the Soviet troops here in successive operations piecemeal. Thus, although when planning the campaign of 1942 Hitler's strategists for the first time began to show hesitation, nevertheless, as before, the highest military and political leadership of the Third Reich came to a single point of view.
On March 28, 1942, a secret meeting was held at Hitler's headquarters, to which only a very limited circle of people from the highest headquarters were invited. General Halder reported in detail the plan for the deployment of troops for the summer offensive, based on the instructions given to him by the Fuhrer.
Warlimont paints a picture of this meeting this way: “No one raised any objections. But, despite this, the displeasure of the chief of the general staff of the land army (Halder. - A.S.) was almost palpably felt, who even earlier had repeatedly spoken out both against the strange layer-by-layer introduction of forces at the beginning of the offensive, and against delivering the main blows during the offensive in divergent directions, and especially against the excessive scale of operations along the front and in depth "( Warlimont W. Op. cit. S. 242.).
Colonel General Jodl of the Design Bureau, who was not indifferent to the development of Hitler's operational plans, a few weeks after the aforementioned meeting, declared to Lieutenant Colonel Scherf, a general staff officer devoted to him, whom Hitler appointed authorized to write military history, that Operation Siegfried ( Hitler, after the winter defeat of 1941/42, began to beware of assigning big names to plans for military operations and on April 5 crossed out the original code name "Siegfried". On June 30, the new code name "Blau" ("Blue") was changed to "Braunschweig" out of fear that the former name could become known to the Soviet side.) due to the lack of forces of Army Group Center and Army Group North will be at great risk if the Russians launch a decisive attack on Smolensk. However, Jodl, like Hitler, seemed doubtful whether the Soviet side had the strength and courage to do so; they believed that with the start of the German offensive in the southern sector of the front, the Russians would automatically begin the transfer of troops to the south ( Warlimont W. Op. cit. S. 242-243.).
Jodl instructed his deputy and responsible officers of the headquarters of the operational leadership of the armed forces to draw up in the form of a directive of the OKW the plans for the command of the ground forces, proposed on March 28 and approved by Hitler. The headquarters decided to limit the content of the directive to only the formulation of "tasks", without linking the main command of the ground forces with any details. However, Hitler, during the report of the "draft" on April 4 by General Jodl, announced that he himself would rework the directive. The next day, his "historiographer" wrote: "The Fuhrer substantially revised the draft directive No. 41 and supplemented it with important points formulated by himself ... First of all, he re-formulated that part of the draft, which refers to the main operation." The result of these efforts was a document dated April 5, which contained "multiple repetitions and long lengths, confusion of operational directives with well-known principles of troop leadership, vague formulations of the most significant issues and a detailed explanation of minor details" ( Ibid. S. 243-244.).
It is easy to see that the former Nazi generals are in every possible way fenced off from Hitler, whose associates and like-minded people they have been for so long. This is done in a different historical setting and at least two decades after the events they describe. In his book, Warlimont also follows this trend, as can be seen from the citations. Wehrmacht generals did not put forward any fundamentally new proposals as opposed to Hitler's plans. The atmosphere of servility to the "Fuhrer", which reigned supreme among the German generals, eliminated any possibility of this. The hidden discontent of the chief of the general staff of the ground forces, Halder, did not change anything. His alleged independence of judgment is clearly exaggerated in post-war West German literature. In hindsight, after the end of the war, Halder began to assert that at that time they were offered to throw the main forces of the German troops to capture Stalingrad in order to avoid simultaneous attacks on Stalingrad and the Caucasus. The attack on the Caucasus, in his opinion, should have been of secondary importance for securing the southern flank of the Stalingrad group. It is easy to see that, if this was the case, then such a proposal did not contain anything radically different from Hitler's plan. No wonder in his diary, referring to the meeting at the headquarters of the Wehrmacht on March 28, 1942, Halder writes down such a significant phrase: "The outcome of the war is decided in the East" ( Halder F. Military diary. M.. 1970. Vol. 3, book. 2. S. 220.).
All this shows quite clearly that the summer-autumn campaign of 1942 was planned by the German generals, who stood for the continuation of the aggressive and adventurous war against the USSR. Hitler only detailed and refined this plan, made the final decision regarding the choice of the direction of offensive operations. The majority of Hitler's generals showed a complete inability to understand the criminal nature of the war unleashed by the Nazis after the defeat of Germany in World War II. Thus, Warlimont in his memoirs puts forward his own plan for the continuation of the war in relation to the situation of 1942.
“Without speculation,” he writes, “it will obviously be appropriate here to speak of the prospects that a generous reconciliation with France could still bring. These prospects must have been of particular importance, considering that Germany was now dealing with two major maritime powers. If a devastating blow had been delivered to the enemy's sea lanes and fleet from bases located on the territory of the French state, using a large number of submarines and all air formations suitable for this, then it would have been possible - in accordance with some then and today's estimates - according to at the very least, to delay the landing of the Western allies on the European continent and in North Africa, and thereby create serious obstacles for the enemy in achieving air superiority over the continent. At the same time, the Red Army in the East, which was largely dependent on allied imports by sea, would obviously have been deprived of the opportunity to conduct major operations for a long time as a result of shifting the main efforts to the sea and air war in the Atlantic, especially if to involve the Japanese in the joint conduct of the war, at least at sea" ( Warlimont W. Op. cit. S. 239-240.). This plan, conceived many years after the war, does not deserve serious consideration. Suffice it to say that the combat power of the Red Army - contrary to Warlimont's assumptions - was not determined at all by the supplies of the Western Allies. In addition, the transfer of funds to the creation of a more powerful submarine fleet of fascist Germany was bound to lead to a decrease in the equipment of the Wehrmacht ground forces. The landing of Anglo-American troops on the European continent, as is known, was already delayed until the summer of 1944. As for the actions of the allies in Africa, they were of a local nature. Finally, "generous reconciliation" with France depended not only on the desire of the Nazis. All this suggests that Hitler and the German General Staff - contrary to Warlimont's opinion - more correctly than he defined the main theater of the war. But they did not understand the inevitability of the catastrophe that awaited them.
The idea of the Wehrmacht command for 1942 is most fully set forth in Directive No. 41 (see Appendix 14), which was of particular importance: stubborn attempts to implement it determined the actions of the enemy on the Soviet-German front until late autumn and the beginning of winter 1942.
Directive No. 41 largely reveals the essence of the policy of the Third Reich in the second year of the war against the Soviet Union. It is quite obvious that in preparing for a new offensive on the Eastern Front, the enemy by no means abandoned the military-political goals formulated a year and a half earlier in the Barbarossa plan - to defeat Soviet Russia. In general form, this task remains in Directive No. 41. “The goal is,” it says there, “to finally destroy the forces still at the disposal of the Soviets and deprive them, as far as possible, of the most important military-economic centers” ( See: App. 14. S. 567-571.). Hitler spoke about the same on April 3, 1942, in a conversation with Antonescu. “This summer,” he declared, “I decided to continue the pursuit as deeply as possible for the final destruction of the Russians. American and British assistance will be ineffective, as new Russian defeats will lead to a loss of contact with the outside world. They have lost the best soldiers and equipment, and now they are only improvising" ( Military-ist. magazine 1961. No. 1. S. 34.).
It should be noted that some authors in the FRG are trying to retrospectively narrow the tasks of the Nazi plan for the summer campaign of 1942. Thus, the former Hitlerite General Mellenthin writes: “In the summer offensive of 1942, our armies in the south had as their task the defeat of the troops of Marshal Timoshenko and the liquidation of the enemy in the bend of the Don River between Rostov and Voronezh, in order to create a springboard for the subsequent offensive on Stalingrad and the oil regions of the Caucasus. The offensive against Stalingrad and the Caucasus was planned to begin much later, perhaps not earlier than 1943. Mellenthin F. Tank battles 1939-1945. M., 1957. S. 142.).
The absurdity of such statements is refuted by the Nazi generals themselves. K. Zeitzler, who after F. Halder became chief of the general staff of the ground forces, testifies: “Planning the summer offensive of 1942, Hitler intended, first of all, to capture Stalingrad and the Caucasus. The implementation of these intentions, of course, would be of great importance if the German army could cross the Volga in the Stalingrad region and thus cut the main Russian communication line running from north to south, and if the Caucasian oil went to meet the military needs of Germany, then the situation in the East would be radically changed, and our hopes for a favorable outcome of the war would be greatly increased. Such was Hitler's train of thought. Having achieved these goals, he wanted to send highly mobile formations to India through the Caucasus or in another way ”( Fatal decisions. M., 1958. S. 153.).
An objective assessment of the plans of the German High Command for the summer of 1942 is incompatible with the unreasonable narrowing of their actual scope and goals. In the document under consideration, as is clear from its text, in addition to the main operation on the southern wing of the front, the Wehrmacht troops were also tasked with “taking Leningrad in the north” and carrying out the operations necessary “to level the front line in its central and northern sections” . Ignoring this part of Directive No. 41 on the part of certain representatives of bourgeois historiography, especially West German, can only be explained by a conscious desire to belittle the scale of the victory of the Red Army and the entire Soviet people in the battle on the Volga. At the same time, one must also see significant differences between Directive No. 41 and the Barbarossa plan.
The ultimate military-political goals of Nazi Germany's aggressive war against the Soviet Union, in connection with the changed situation on the Eastern Front in the winter of 1941/42, seemed unattainable even to the most rabid Nazis within the framework of the next campaign. This led to the well-known inconsistency of the document under consideration and the vagueness of setting in it the main goal of the strategic offensive of 1942. In a general form (without indicating the terms), it sets out the intention to crush the Red Army, and at the same time it also contains an indication that the defensive positions created along the right bank of the Don to ensure the north-eastern flank of the strike force of German troops, should be equipped "taking into account their possible use in winter conditions." The capture of the region of the Lower Volga and the Caucasus, for all its great strategic importance, could not yet lead to the defeat of the USSR. The most powerful grouping of the Red Army was located in the central industrial region. In this regard, we should recall the testimony of Field Marshal Keitel. He said that the German high command, after the capture of Stalingrad by the Nazi army and the isolation of Moscow from the south, intended to carry out a turn with large forces to the north. “I find it difficult to give any time frame for this operation,” added Keitel ( Military-ist. magazine 1961. No. 1. S. 41.).
Thus, the main goal of the enemy offensive on the Eastern Front, according to the above Directive No. 41, was to win victory over the Soviet Union. However, unlike the Barbarossa plan, the achievement of this political goal was no longer based on the strategy of "blitzkrieg". That is why Directive No. 41 does not establish a chronological framework for the completion of the campaign in the East. But on the other hand, it says that, while maintaining positions in the central sector, to defeat and destroy Soviet troops in the Voronezh region and west of the Don, to seize the southern regions of the USSR rich in strategic raw materials. To solve this problem, it was planned to carry out a series of successive operations: in the Crimea, south of Kharkov, and only after that in the Voronezh, Stalingrad and Caucasian directions. The operation to capture Leningrad and establish ground communications with the Finns was made dependent on the solution of the main task in the southern sector of the front. Army Group Center during this period was supposed to improve its operational position through private operations.
Preparing the conditions for the final defeat of the Soviet Union, the enemy decided first of all to seize the Caucasus with its powerful sources of oil and the fertile agricultural regions of the Don, Kuban and the North Caucasus. The offensive in the Stalingrad direction was supposed to ensure, according to the enemy’s plan, the successful conduct of the main operation to conquer the Caucasus “in the first place”. In this strategic plan of the enemy, the acute need of fascist Germany for fuel was very strongly reflected.
Speaking on June 1, 1942 at a meeting of the commanders of Army Group South in the Poltava region, Hitler stated that if he did not receive oil from Maykop and Grozny, he would have to end this war ( See the testimony of Paulus to the International Military Tribunal on February 11, 1946 // Nuremberg trial, M., 1954. T. 1. S. 378; see also: Voen.-ist. magazine 1960. No. 2. S. 81-82.). At the same time, Hitler based his calculations on the fact that the loss of oil by the USSR would undermine the strength of Soviet resistance. "It was a delicate calculation that was closer to its goal than is commonly believed after its final catastrophic failure" ( Liddell Hart BG Strategy of indirect actions. pp. 347-348.).
The choice of the south for the offensive was also determined by a number of other considerations, including those of a specifically military nature.
The enemy troops on the central sector of the front penetrated deeply into Soviet territory and were under the threat of flank attacks by the Red Army. At the same time, the Nazi troops occupied an overhanging position in relation to the southern grouping of Soviet troops. The Red Army had no less forces here than in the western direction. However, the open terrain - the steppe expanses of the Don, the Volga region and the North Caucasus - created the most favorable opportunities for the enemy to use armored formations and aviation. Of certain importance was the fact that in the south it was easier for the Nazis to concentrate the troops of their allies: Romanians, Hungarians and Italians.
The capture of the Caucasus pursued, in addition to those mentioned above, other important goals: according to the plans of the enemy, this brought the Nazi troops closer to Turkey and accelerated the decision of its rulers about armed aggression against the USSR; With the loss of the Caucasus, the Soviet Union was deprived of ties with the outside world through Iran; the capture of the Black Sea bases doomed the Soviet Black Sea Fleet to death. Finally, the Nazis hoped, in the event of a successful implementation of the planned offensive, to open their way to the Middle East.
In preparation for carrying out the planned operations, the Nazi leadership carried out a number of preparatory measures. In search of the forces and means necessary for the offensive, the allies of the Third Reich were not forgotten either. Warlimont writes that a few weeks before the final decision on the plan for the 1942 summer campaign was made, the Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command, General Keitel, visited, on Hitler's instructions, the capitals of Germany's European allies, who were to contribute "every available force" to the operation. As a result, the Nazis managed to get a promise from the rulers of Italy and Hungary to allocate one reinforced army each. In Romania, I. Antonescu placed at the disposal of the German command another 26 divisions in addition to the Romanian troops already operating in the East ( Lebedev N. I. The collapse of fascism in Romania. M., 1976. S. 347.). “Hitler, who in this case refused personal correspondence with the heads of state and government, subsequently limited himself to only demanding that the contingents of the Allied troops be part of the armies under their own command. In addition, already in the directive of April 5, when determining the zones for the offensive of the allied forces, it was stipulated, albeit in veiled terms, that the Hungarians and Romanians, who were allies of Germany, but were at enmity with each other, should be separated from each other by a considerable distance, introducing in between are Italian connections. All these troops were assigned defensive missions, for which they had to be reinforced with German reserves, and above all with anti-tank weapons" ( Warlimont W. Op. cit. S. 244.).
Among the activities of the Nazi command aimed at preparing an offensive on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, the plan for the fictitious operation "Kremlin" occupied not the last place. Its purpose is to misinform the Soviet command regarding German plans for the 1942 summer campaign.
Operation "Kremlin" was developed at the direction of the OKH and Hitler by the headquarters of the army group "Center". In the “Order on the offensive against Moscow”, signed on May 29 by the commander of Field Marshal Kluge and the chief of staff, General Wehler, the troops of the Army Group Center were tasked with: “To defeat the enemy troops located in the area west and south of the enemy’s capital, Moscow, surrounding the city, and thereby deprive the enemy of the possibility of operational use of this area "( Dashichev V.P. Bankruptcy of the strategy of German fascism. M., 1973. T. 2. S. 312.). To achieve this goal, the order set specific tasks for the 2nd, 3rd tank, 4th, 9th armies and the 59th army corps. The beginning of both operations ("Kremlin" and "Blau") coincided in time.
The enemy did everything, including radio disinformation, so that the plan of Operation "Kremlin" became known to the command of the Red Army. To some extent, this trick succeeded the enemy.
By the spring of 1942, the Soviet Supreme High Command and the General Staff were faced with the need to develop a new strategic plan - for the next stage of the war. The impossibility of continuing the broad offensive of the Red Army, which remained unfinished, became obvious. A. M. Vasilevsky, who was then deputy, and then chief of the General Staff ( In May 1942, A. M. Vasilevsky was admitted to the duties of Chief of the General Staff, and on June 26 he was approved in this position.), wrote in his memoirs that the winter offensive in April 1942 died out due to the lack of the necessary forces and means to continue it. The troops of the fronts were ordered to go on the defensive.
From the way events unfolded at the front, it was clear that the enemy had begun to recover from the blows inflicted on him and was preparing for active operations. The Soviet leadership had no doubt that with the onset of summer or even spring, the enemy would try to seize the strategic initiative again. The absence of a second front allowed the Nazis to transfer troops from the European countries they occupied to the Eastern Front. All this had to be taken into account when analyzing the situation.
In what direction will the new major offensive of the enemy begin? “Now the Headquarters, the General Staff and the entire leadership of the Armed Forces,” recalled Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky, “tried to more accurately reveal the enemy’s plans for the spring and summer periods of 1942, to determine as clearly as possible the strategic directions in which the main events were destined to play out. At the same time, we all perfectly understood that the further development of the entire Second World War, the behavior of Japan, Turkey, etc., and perhaps the outcome of the war as a whole, would largely depend on the results of the summer campaign of 1942 ”( Vasilevsky A. M. The matter of a lifetime. 2nd ed. M.. 1975. S. 203.).
Military intelligence reported to the General Staff: “Germany is preparing for a decisive offensive on the Eastern Front, which will unfold first in the southern sector and subsequently spread to the north ... The most likely date for the spring offensive is mid-April or early May 1942.” ( History of the Second World War. 1939-1945. M., 1975. T. 5. S. 112.).
On March 23, the state security agencies reported the same to the State Defense Committee: “The main blow will be delivered in the southern sector with the task of breaking through Rostov to Stalingrad and the North Caucasus, and from there towards the Caspian Sea. In this way the Germans hope to reach the sources of Caucasian oil" ( There.).
However, intelligence data was not fully taken into account. The Headquarters and the General Staff proceeded from the fact that the strongest grouping of the Wehrmacht, consisting of 70 divisions, continued to be located on the central sector of the Soviet-German front, still threatening the capital. Therefore, it seemed most likely that the enemy would strike the main blow in the Moscow direction. “This opinion, as I am well aware, was shared by the command of most fronts” ( Vasilevsky A. M. The matter of a lifetime. 2nd ed. S. 206.), - testifies A. M. Vasilevsky.
According to Marshal G.K. Zhukov, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief believed that in the summer of 1942 the enemy would be able to attack simultaneously in two strategic directions - the western and the south of the country. But Stalin also feared most of all for the Moscow direction ( Zhukov G.K. Memories and reflections. 2nd ed. add. M., 1974. Book. 2. S. 64.). Later it turned out that this conclusion was not confirmed by the development of events.
An assessment of the situation showed that the immediate task should be an active strategic defense of the Soviet troops, the accumulation of powerful trained reserves, military equipment and all the necessary materiel, followed by a transition to a decisive offensive. These considerations were reported to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief B. M. Shaposhnikov in the middle of March in the presence of A. M. Vasilevsky. After that, work on the summer campaign plan continued.
The General Staff correctly considered that, while organizing a temporary strategic defense, the Soviet side should not, at the same time, conduct offensive operations on a large scale. Stalin, who was poorly versed in matters of military art, did not agree with this opinion. G.K. Zhukov supported B.M. Shaposhnikov, but believed, however, that at the beginning of summer in the western direction, the Rzhev-Vyazma grouping, which held a vast bridgehead relatively close to Moscow, should be defeated ( There. S. 65.).
At the end of March, the Headquarters again discussed the issue of a strategic plan for the summer of 1942. This was when considering the plan submitted by the command of the South-Western Direction for a large offensive operation in May by the forces of the Bryansk, South-Western and Southern Fronts. “The Supreme Commander-in-Chief agreed with the conclusions and proposals of the Chief of the General Staff,” writes A. M. Vasilevsky, “but ordered, simultaneously with the transition to strategic defense, to provide for the conduct of private offensive operations in a number of areas: on some - in order to improve the operational situation, on others - to preempting the enemy in the deployment of offensive operations. As a result of these instructions, it was planned to carry out private offensive operations near Leningrad, in the Demyansk region, in the Smolensk, Lugovsko-Kursk directions, in the Kharkov region and in the Crimea.
How can one regard the fact that such an authoritative military leader as B. M. Shaposhnikov, who headed the country's highest military institution, did not try to defend his proposals on a question on the correct solution of which so much depended? A. M. Vasilevsky explains this as follows: “Many who are not aware of the difficult conditions in which the General Staff had to work during the past war can rightly accuse its leadership of failing to prove to the Supreme Commander the negative consequences of the decision to defend and come on at the same time. Under conditions when there was an extremely acute shortage of trained reserves and material and technical means, the conduct of private offensive operations was an unacceptable waste of energy. The events that unfolded in the summer of 1942 showed with their own eyes that only a transition to temporary strategic defense along the entire Soviet-German front, the refusal to conduct offensive operations, such as Kharkov, for example, would save the country and its armed forces from serious defeats, would allow we will go over to active offensive operations much earlier and recapture the initiative in our own hands.
The miscalculations made by the Headquarters and the General Staff when planning hostilities for the summer of 1942 were taken into account in the future, especially in the summer of 1943, when a decision was made on the nature of hostilities on the Kursk Bulge "( Vasilevsky A. M. Memories of the historical battle // Stalingrad epic. M., 1968. S. 75.).
Historians of the past war have not yet exhausted their study of the problem of planning the summer campaign of 1942; it needs further in-depth research. At the same time, one should also take into account the general situation that the failures of the Soviet troops in the spring and summer of 1942 were not inevitable ( Vasilevsky A. M. The matter of a lifetime. 2nd ed. S. 207.).
By the beginning of the second year of the war, the Red Army and the rear of the country, which ensured its struggle, had forces and means, if not in everything sufficient, then in the main, to prevent a new deep penetration of the Nazi troops into the vital regions of the Soviet Union. After the successes of the winter offensive of the Red Army, the Soviet people gained confidence in the inevitability of the defeat of Nazi Germany. On the eve of the summer-autumn campaign of 1942, there was no negative effect on the struggle of the Red Army and the entire people of the factor of surprise, which took place at the beginning of the war. Temporary factors gradually lost their effectiveness, while permanent factors exerted a growing influence in all spheres of the struggle. The experience of the participation of Soviet troops in the modern big war has acquired an ever more prominent role. Its first year was a serious test for the entire command and political staff, most of which acquired both hardening and the skill that comes only with practice. In the fire of war, knowledge was improved, the abilities and talents of those who led the combat operations of the troops were tested. The names of many military leaders and political workers became known throughout the country. On the battlefields, the combat and moral might of the Soviet Armed Forces was tested, which, under difficult conditions, thwarted the plan of a "blitzkrieg" war of fascist Germany against the USSR. The mass heroism of Soviet soldiers became the norm for their actions in the Great Patriotic War.
At the same time, by the spring of 1942, the Red Army did not have enough trained reserves, and the formation of new formations and associations was significantly limited by the level of production of the latest types of weapons. Under these conditions, the most expedient use of available forces and means acquired special significance, since the enemy had greater opportunities to continue the aggressive war. In this regard, the Soviet side received a very real idea of the strength and professional qualities of the Wehrmacht troops, of the features of their actions in offensive and defensive operations.
The Soviet Supreme High Command correctly assessed the overall balance of forces in the USSR's war against fascist Germany, but the immediate prospects for the development of armed struggle depended on the adoption of correct strategic decisions. Expecting that the enemy would strike the main blow in the central direction, the Headquarters concentrated strategic reserves in the areas of Kalinin, Tula, Tambov, Bori-soglebsk, Vologda, Gorky, Stalingrad, Saratov, believing that, depending on the development of events at the front, they could be used both southwest and west History of the Second World War. 1939-1945. T. 5. S. 143.). However, the actual development of events did not fully justify these calculations.
Thus, the Headquarters planned for the spring and summer of 1942, along with the transition to the defense, offensive operations in the Leningrad region, near Demyansk, in the Oryol direction, in the Kharkov region, in the Donbass and Crimea. The successful conduct of these operations could lead to the release of Leningrad, the defeat of the Demyansk, Kharkov and other groupings of enemy troops. This was due to the desire to bring as close as possible the timing of the expulsion of the fascist invaders from Soviet soil. However, at that time there were not yet sufficient prerequisites for this, and the decision taken by the Stavka was erroneous.
The ability to solve the practical problems of military strategy, taking into account all the factors that determined accurate and correct foresight, was developed at the Supreme Command Headquarters gradually, as experience in warfare was accumulated.
The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force 1933-1945
Their aces were rightfully considered the best in the world.
Their fighters dominated the battlefield.
Their bombers wiped entire cities off the face of the earth.
And the legendary "things" terrified the enemy troops.
The Air Force of the Third Reich - the famed Luftwaffe - was as important a part of the blitzkrieg as the tank forces. The resounding victories of the Wehrmacht would have been impossible in principle without air support and air cover.
Until now, military experts are trying to understand how the country, which was forbidden to have combat aircraft after the First World War, managed not only to build a modern and efficient air force in the shortest possible time, but also to maintain air supremacy for many years, despite the overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy. .
This book, published by the British Air Office in 1948, literally "hot on the heels" of the just ended war, was the first attempt to comprehend her combat experience. This is a detailed and highly competent analysis of the history, organization and combat operations of the Luftwaffe on all fronts - Eastern, Western, Mediterranean and African. This is a fascinating tale of the meteoric rise and disastrous fall of the Third Reich air force.
Summer campaign of 1942 (June - December)
Sections of this page:
Summer campaign 1942
(June - December)
Preparing for the campaign
Faced with the prospect of continuing large-scale hostilities on the Eastern Front, German strategists were forced to admit that operations built on the same principles as the previous summer's offensives could hardly produce the desired result. The great length of the Eastern Front inevitably led to the conclusion that in order to obtain a satisfactory result, it was necessary to concentrate the maximum possible forces on one sector. Therefore, it was decided to conduct the main military operations on the southern sector of the front in order to capture the Caucasus (which would cut off the Soviet Union from the main sources of oil and at the same time provide oil to the ever-increasing needs of Germany) and open the way to the Middle East at the same time as Rommel's strike through Egypt in the Mediterranean theater.
The first condition necessary for the implementation of this plan was the complete occupation of the Crimea, necessary to cover the southern flank of the German troops. Therefore, during April, Soviet troops were driven out of the Kerch Peninsula, and only Sevastopol, which was stubbornly defending, remained in the Crimea. In May, the VIII Air Corps was transferred from the central front to the Crimea and subordinated to the 4th Air Fleet. Thus, about 600 aircraft of various types were concentrated at the Crimean airfields, which were ready to take part in the full-scale assault on Sevastopol. The place of the VIII Air Corps on the central sector of the front was taken by the V Air Corps, withdrawn from the southern sector at the beginning of 1942. It was renamed the Luftwaffe Command East and received the status of an air fleet (see map 17).
The choice of the VIII Air Corps to participate in this assault was in line with the already established practice of sending this formation under the command of Richthofen to support the most important operations, given its experience and effectiveness in participating in massive ground support operations.
At this stage of the war in the Soviet Union, the Germans attached great importance to operations in the Crimea, since the success of their summer offensive in the Caucasus depended on the occupation of the peninsula. Kerch had already fallen, but Sevastopol continued to stubbornly resist. Accordingly, the VIII Air Corps, which during this period of the war was usually assigned to carry out the most important operations, was transferred from the Moscow direction to the Crimea, where it entered the disposal of the 4th Air Fleet. The support of the VIII Air Corps, no doubt, contributed a lot to overcoming the resistance of the Soviet troops on the Kerch Peninsula.
The section of the front liberated by the VIII Air Corps was occupied by the V Air Corps, which was renamed the Luftwaffe East Command. This command had the status of an air fleet and was directly subordinate to the Ministry of Aviation. In March, the IV Air Corps had to bear the burden of repelling the powerful and successful offensives of the Soviet troops in the south, therefore, to strengthen it, parts of the direct support of ground troops from other air corps that fought on the Eastern Front were transferred.
The assault on Sevastopol began on June 2 and ended on June 6, and all this time the fortress was subjected to massive air strikes. On average, about 600 sorties were performed per day, with a maximum of more than 700 (June 2). Approximately 2,500 tons of explosive bombs were dropped, many of which were of the maximum caliber . Nevertheless, on June 4, the German infantry, which had gone on the offensive, suddenly found that the fortifications had largely survived, and the morale of the defenders had not been broken. However, the Germans stormed so stubbornly that the resistance of the Soviet soldiers was overcome in a relatively short time.
While the operations against Sevastopol were underway, the sudden advance of the Soviet troops on Kharkov forced the Luftwaffe to transfer part of the forces from the Crimea to help stop the advance of the enemy, and intensive air operations were required to save the situation. The preemptive strike by the Soviet army not only inflicted losses that needed to be replenished, but also delayed preparations for the planned main summer campaign. However, in early June, the VIII Air Corps was again transferred to the north. Its headquarters was located near Kursk, in the northern part of the zone of responsibility of the 4th air fleet (see map 18). From May to June, active measures were taken to accumulate large stocks of bombs, fuel, etc. on the Southern Front, for which the railways were fully involved. At the same time, reinforcements were returning to the Eastern Front, rearmed after six months of fighting and additionally reinforced by aircraft withdrawn from the Mediterranean Sea after the completion of the air attack on Malta. Thus, by the beginning of July, the number of German aviation on the Eastern Front again reached the level of 2,750 aircraft and, thus, reached the level of forces involved in the operations of the previous summer. However, now 1,500 of them were on the Southern Front as part of the 4th Air Fleet. That is, the deterrence forces remained in the central sector of the front - about 600 aircraft, in the Leningrad direction - no more than 375, and another 200 aircraft were based in Northern Norway and Finland.
Fighting in July - August 1942
The German offensive began in the first week of July with the actions of the VIII Air Corps on a relatively narrow sector of the front, where its aircraft supported the first German attack in the direction of Voronezh. Gradually, the area of operations of the corps expanded to the south as the tank units advanced along the Voronezh-Rostov railway east of the Donets River. The forces of direct support of the ground forces quickly followed the German units advancing along the Don, and after the transfer of part of the long-range bombers to the south in the Voronezh region, which was subjected to heavy attacks by the Soviet army from the northeast to the flank of the advancing Germans, only insignificant forces remained. Nevertheless, near Voronezh, the Soviet troops managed to be contained without resorting to the help of the forces participating in the offensive to the south with the constant support of long-range bomber aircraft and units of direct support of ground forces.
Having completed its task on the extreme southern sector of the Eastern Front, the VIII Air Corps was now transferred to a new important direction. The corps was transferred from the southern section of the 4th Air Fleet's area of responsibility to the northern one. The redeployment took place during the preparation by the Germans of the offensive from the Kursk region in the direction of Voronezh.
As a result of the movement of the VIII Air Corps, the southern sector of the front, adjacent to the Black Sea, was occupied by the IV Air Corps.
All the time while the German troops were rapidly advancing along the Don from Voronezh in the direction of Stalingrad and from the Rostov region to the Caucasus in the direction of Maikop and Armavir, a significant part of the long-range bomber aircraft participated in systematic raids on communications behind enemy lines. These operations covered vast areas, including the North Caucasus, where bridges, ferry crossings and railways were subjected to massive strikes. Deeper lines of communication were also bombed strategically to cut off supply lines between Stalingrad and Moscow, but no attempt was made to bomb cities far behind the front lines and not under immediate threat of occupation. On the contrary, long-range bomber aviation concentrated its efforts exclusively on indirect support of the offensive, trying to disable Soviet communications. To this end, attacks were made on the ports of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus up to Poti, and small-scale attempts were made to mine the Volga and were subjected to air strikes by vessels on the Volga as far as Astrakhan.
Unlike the attack on Stalingrad, which was supported by about 1,000 aircraft of all types, the German offensive into the Caucasus after crossing the Don received almost no air support until the advance was slowed down by hilly terrain that prevented the massive use of tanks. Then it became necessary to strengthen the IV Air Corps, which was responsible for air operations in the Caucasus, and fighter units were deployed to the bases located along the line running approximately from east to west through Krasnodar, armed with single-engine and twin-engine fighters.
Fighting in September - October 1942
In September and October, the determining factor in air strategy was the inability of the German high command to achieve decisive success either at Stalingrad or in the Caucasus. Near Stalingrad, VIII Air Corps, which made up the bulk of the forces of the 4th Air Fleet, conducted active operations. Dive bombers were especially active, often making 4 or more sorties per day.
Despite active hostilities for four months, until October, the strength of the Luftwaffe remained surprisingly stable: 2450-2500 aircraft. Quite a few aviation units during August and September were withdrawn to the rear for re-equipment, but their places were occupied by fresh units, fully equipped with equipment and crews. Nevertheless, the concentration of forces in the south left only small forces for the Moscow and Leningrad directions. Probably, in this area, Soviet aviation owned the advantage in the air, since the offensive of Soviet troops near Rzhev and in the area of \u200b\u200bLake Ilmen forced the Germans in September to transfer to the north part of the aviation that participated in the battle for Stalingrad. However, the reinforcement of the Luftwaffe in the Leningrad region that took place in September was planned, as well as the reinforcement of ground troops in this direction, in preparation for a full-scale offensive, planned with the expectation that Stalingrad would not last long. By the beginning of October, 550-600 aircraft were concentrated on the Leningrad sector of the front, but Stalingrad did not fall, and the preparations and movements of Soviet troops in the Moscow region and, to a lesser extent, in the south, forced the Luftwaffe to redistribute forces and weaken the group near Leningrad. In the second half of October, at least 300 aircraft were withdrawn from this sector.
At this stage, the dangers to which German aviation was exposed in the Soviet Union became apparent: its supply lines were stretched; she moved away from the bases equipped in the winter of 1941/42, and operated from poorly prepared airfields; its main forces were so involved in the battles near Stalingrad that it was impossible to ensure air superiority anywhere else; parts of the direct support of the ground forces acted intensively, many crews made three or four sorties per day, which affected the state of equipment and crews and ultimately led to catastrophic consequences. At the same time, a continuous series of local operations and the threat of an offensive by Soviet troops in the north required constant redeployment of units, leaving no pauses for rest and restoration of combat effectiveness.
In the Soviet Union, by the end of the summer, the area of responsibility of the IV Air Corps expanded to the Caucasus, and the VIII Air Corps was tasked with supporting the offensive against Stalingrad. Taking into account the concentration of forces of the VIII Corps and the situation in the Don basin, it was decided to create a new operational formation to direct operations north of the zone of responsibility of the 4th Air Fleet, on the Voronezh sector of the front. Accordingly, the 1st Air Corps from the 1st Air Fleet was transferred here (it fought there from the very beginning of the campaign), which received a new designation - the Luftwaffe Don Command and, presumably, was directly subordinate to the Ministry of Aviation. Not a single air corps remained in the 1st Air Fleet.
The map shows the approximate position of the German armies on the Eastern Front.
Fighting from November 1942 to January 1943
The counteroffensive of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad began at the end of October and was accompanied by the preparation and concentration of troops in the middle reaches of the Don below Voronezh, where the Germans had only a small force of 70–80 aircraft covering a front of about 500 km. However, this section of the front was considered important enough for the 1st Air Corps, which received the designation Don Luftwaffe Command, to be transferred here from the 1st Air Fleet. Thus, in addition to a frontal attack from the east, the Germans also faced the threat of a flank attack from the northwest. The actions of aviation near Stalingrad and in the bend of the Don were hampered by the disruption of communications, lack of fuel and bad weather, and by mid-November it was decided to stop the offensive and go on the defensive.
The Soviet offensive from the bend of the Don in a southwestern direction deprived the Germans of advanced airfields and forced them to withdraw air support for ground troops to the rear. As a result, Stalingrad was out of range of German single-engine fighters, and Soviet aviation won superiority in the sky over the encircled German group. At the same time, the tension of constant fighting began to affect, and the withdrawal of some units to the rear for reorganization became an urgent need. With the start of the Allied offensives in Libya and Tunisia, it was necessary to withdraw additional forces from the front to reinforce the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean, and by early December the number of German aviation in the USSR had decreased to about 2000 aircraft, of which a significant part was inoperative. The number of VIII and I air corps in the Don region, which had previously reached 1000 aircraft, fell to about 650-700 aircraft.
After the transfer of approximately 400 aircraft to the Mediterranean, it became clear that the Luftwaffe was unable to cope with all the tasks on the Eastern Front, and activity in the Caucasus began to wane. After the transfer of almost all long-range and dive bombers, as well as part of single-engine fighters to other sectors of the front, the initiative in this direction passed to the Soviet troops, who took advantage of the numerical superiority in the air to support the offensive through the Kalmyk steppes to Rostov and through the western part of the Caucasus in the direction of Kerch strait.
The encirclement of the German 6th Army near Stalingrad and the almost complete encirclement of the 17th Army in the Kuban that followed it posed another serious task for the Luftwaffe: supplying the encircled troops by air. To do this, Xe-111 bombers were removed from combat missions and transferred to transport aviation. They suffered heavy losses not only due to adverse weather conditions, but also due to constant attacks on transport aircraft in the air and on the ground. These strikes forced the Germans to commit fighter escorts, reducing the number of single-engine fighters that could be assigned to close ground support. By the end of December 1942, there were only about 375 single-engine fighters on the entire Eastern Front, and it was this lack of fighter cover that could be one of the reasons for the exceptionally high losses during the last few weeks of 1942. However, there was another reason for the high losses: non-combat losses of aircraft left on the ground during the retreat, and losses as a result of adverse weather conditions. If we add to this the loss of combat aircraft used as transport, then the losses in the second half of 1942, apparently, will be equal to the losses in the last six months of 1941, which, as is known, led to a noticeable weakening of the striking power of German aviation in 1942 year, reducing its number to less than 4,000 vehicles by the end of the year after another peak - 4,800 vehicles in July 1941.
The shortage of first-line aircraft at the end of 1942 is evidenced by the commissioning of second-line units and the use of obsolete types of aircraft (Xe-146) and reconnaissance aircraft for bombing. During December the number of German first-line aviation in the East was reduced by about 150 aircraft, despite the fact that the Soviet offensive required little less active action than before the onset of winter.
Analysis of the 1942 campaign
The significant weakening of the Luftwaffe at the end of 1942, which was greatly facilitated by the previous six months of the eastern campaign, is discussed in detail in Chapter 9. Therefore, it will suffice here to give only a brief account of the strategy and tactics of the Germans and the development of new ideas for the use of aviation, which became apparent towards the end of the year.
The campaign in the East in 1942, as in 1941, showed that the Luftwaffe continued to strictly follow the traditional tactics of massive strikes aimed at direct support of tank units. Despite the successes in some cases of the Battle of France and the Balkan campaign, by the end of 1942 it became clear that this approach did not give the necessary results on the Eastern Front. The reason for this was not only the huge length of the front, as a result of which any concentration of forces for a strike left the flank of the German troops unprotected, but also the depth of the theater of operations. The Soviet troops took full advantage of these circumstances, retreating, thereby stretching the German lines of communication until the Luftwaffe strike force, detached from its supply bases, was exhausted due to maintenance problems. Thus, despite the huge successes at the initial stage, the specific conditions of the war in the USSR did not allow the Germans to use the proven strategy of combining the most powerful direct support of troops from the air and massive strikes against factories and rear supply bases to achieve final victory.
By the autumn of 1942, the failure to achieve the expected results began to lead to a modification of German tactics and the reorganization of forces, but no radical changes followed. Thus, there was a tendency to increase the flexibility of the structure on a "functional" basis, and new units were specially adapted to the tactical requirements that were dictated by conditions on the Eastern Front. This trend was manifested in a greater attention to defense issues, which was facilitated by the Soviet strategy of organizing counteroffensives in winter, when the Germans could not fight on equal terms. Such a doctrine was supposed to lead to the creation of a balanced grouping of Luftwaffe forces on the Eastern Front, in which offensive and defensive functions would be more evenly distributed. Therefore, it meant a step forward in tactical terms, the development of a more intelligent, albeit less effective strategy and increased flexibility of use compared to previous campaigns.
This concept manifested itself in the organization of auxiliary units and second line units. These included: units equipped with obsolete Xe-46, Khsh-126 and Ar-66, whose tasks included harassing nighttime bombardments of concentrations of Soviet troops; anti-tank units equipped with Khsh-129, Me-110, Yu-87 and Yu-88, carrying special heavy weapons to fight Soviet tanks that were breaking through the German defense line; and, finally, special squadrons for strikes against railways, equipped with the Yu-88 in the fighter version and designed to strike at the main transport arteries in order to impede the offensive actions of the Soviet troops. All of these units were relatively new categories that did not fall under the traditional organizational chart of the Luftwaffe. These experiments and innovations mainly took place in early July 1942, after the appointment of the commander of the VIII Air Corps, General Oberst von Richthofen, to the post of commander of the 4th Air Fleet, and there is reason to believe that it was von Richthofen who was the main supporter of the new tactics. His experience as commander of the VIII Air Corps, which was the main formation in close support of the ground forces, could well be used to solve defense problems, the main direction of which would be to eliminate those shortcomings that nullified all the successes achieved earlier in the Soviet Union. However, the events of 1943 showed that these innovations, no matter how original, could not be brought to mind in the face of the ever-increasing lag behind the Luftwaffe, both quantitatively and qualitatively, which became stunningly obvious the next year.
Summer campaign 1942
On instructions from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, in the spring of 1942, the General Staff began planning the upcoming summer campaign. The main attention was paid to determining the direction of the main attack of the Germans.
The report of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army (GRU) dated March 18, 1942 stated that “the center of gravity of the German spring offensive will be shifted to the southern sector of the front with an auxiliary strike in the north while simultaneously demonstrating on the central front against Moscow. The most likely date of occurrence is mid-April or early May.”
On March 23, 1942, the USSR state security organs reported to the GKO (State Defense Committee): “The main blow will be delivered in the southern sector with the task of breaking through Rostov to Stalingrad and the North Caucasus, and from there towards the Caspian Sea. By this the Germans hope to reach the sources of Caucasian oil. In the event of a successful operation with access to the Volga near Stalingrad, the Germans planned to launch an offensive north along the Volga ... and undertake major operations against Moscow and Leningrad, since capturing them is a matter of prestige for the German command.
Based on a study of the situation on the entire Soviet-German front, we came to the conclusion that with the start of the summer campaign, the Hitlerite command will probably undertake its main operation in the Moscow direction, will again try to capture Moscow in order to create the most favorable conditions for the further continuation of the war. . This circumstance induces us in the time remaining until the summer to thoroughly prepare for the disruption of the enemy's intentions.
Stalin believed that in order to conduct an offensive along almost the entire Soviet-German front (from Leningrad to Voronezh, Donbass and Rostov), the Red Army had the necessary forces and means by the spring of 1942: more than 400 divisions, almost 11 million people, over 10 thousand tanks, more than 11 thousand aircraft. At the same time, apparently, it was not properly taken into account that more than half of the replenishment was not trained, the units were not put together, understaffed, and lacked weapons and ammunition.
As in the winter campaign, Stalin overestimated our capabilities and underestimated the strength of the enemy.
Marshal Zhukov did not agree with the plan to deploy several offensive operations at the same time, but his opinion was not taken into account.
Subsequent events showed that the adventurism of Stalin's summer plan led to a new catastrophe.
At the same time, on March 28, 1942, a special meeting was held at Hitler's Headquarters, at which the Wehrmacht's summer offensive plan was finally adopted. Hitler returned to his basic idea, which he held in December 1940 and summer 1941, to concentrate his main efforts on the flanks of a wide-spread front, starting in the Caucasus. Moscow as the target of the offensive has so far fallen away.
“...First of all, all available forces should be concentrated to carry out the main operation in the southern sector with the aim of destroying the enemy west of the Don, in order to then capture the oil regions in the Caucasus and cross the Caucasian ridge.”
Hitler decided to carry out here the task of a large strategic scale with far-reaching goals.
By the beginning of the spring-summer campaign, the Nazis concentrated their main grouping against the southern wing of our troops to deploy a major strategic operation with the aim of invading the Caucasus and reaching the lower reaches of the Volga in the region of Stalingrad.
The result of the implementation of Stalin's plan was: the tragedy of the 2nd shock army in the swamps near Leningrad, the death of troops in the Crimea, the breakthrough of our front near Kharkov, from where the 6th army of Paulus then moved to Stalingrad.
The defeat of the Soviet troops south of Kharkov in May 1942 was especially difficult, when 240 thousand people were captured because of Stalin's stubbornness, who did not allow the withdrawal of troops to the east, although the command of the South-Western Front insisted on this.
In the same month, the Kerch operation ended in failure, costing us only 149,000 prisoners. Military experts believe that incompetent, gross interference in command and control of the representative of the Headquarters of Mekhlis, who was there, led her to such a result.
As a result of these failures, and then the defeat of our troops near Voronezh, the enemy seized the strategic initiative and launched a swift offensive towards the Volga and the Caucasus. In this regard, it took incredible efforts to delay the advance of the Nazis in the foothills of the Main Caucasian Range and on the banks of the Volga and Don.
More than 80 million people turned out to be in the territory occupied by the Germans. The country lost its largest industrial and agricultural areas, which produced over 70% of cast iron, 58% of steel, 63% of coal, 42% of electricity, 47% of all sown areas. This meant that our country could only use half of its economic potential.
The main reason for the failure of the summer campaign of 1942 was the erroneous, incompetent determination by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the main direction of the German offensive, as well as his desire to “suspend” numerous private offensive operations on all fronts from the strategic defense. This led to the dispersion of forces, the premature expenditure of strategic reserves, which obviously doomed the Stalinist plan to failure.
Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky noted: “The events that unfolded in the summer of 1942 showed with their own eyes that only the transition to temporary strategic defense along the entire Soviet-German front, the refusal to conduct offensive operations, such as Kharkov, would save the country and its Armed Forces from serious defeats would allow us to switch to active offensive operations much earlier and recapture the initiative in our own hands. (Marshal THEM. Bagramyan. "My memories", 1979)
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abstract
USSR during the Great Patriotic War
Completed by: student of the group AF 11-11 Matveev A.V.
Head: Gryaznukhin A.G.
Krasnoyarsk 2011
In 1941 the Second World War entered a new phase. By this time, fascist Germany and its allies had captured virtually all of Europe. In connection with the destruction of Polish statehood, a joint Soviet-German border was established. In 1940, the Nazi leadership developed the Barbarossa plan, the goal of which was to defeat the Soviet armed forces with lightning speed and occupy the European part of the Soviet Union. Further plans included the complete destruction of the USSR. For this, 153 German divisions and 37 divisions of its allies (Finland, Romania and Hungary) were concentrated in the eastern direction. They were supposed to strike in three directions: central (Minsk - Smolensk - Moscow), northwestern (Baltic - Leningrad) and southern (Ukraine with access to the Black Sea coast). A lightning campaign was planned to capture the European part of the USSR until the autumn of 1941.
SOVIET-GERMAN FRONT
The beginning of the war
The implementation of the Barbarossa plan began at dawn on June 22, 1941. Broad air bombardments of the largest industrial and strategic centers, as well as the offensive of the ground forces of Germany and its allies along the entire European border of the USSR (for 4.5 thousand km) For the first few days, German troops advanced tens and hundreds of kilometers. In the central direction in early July 1941, all of Belarus was captured and German troops reached the approaches to Smolensk. In the northwestern direction, they occupied the Baltic states; on September 9, Leningrad was blocked. In the south, Moldova and Right-Bank Ukraine are occupied. Thus, by the autumn of 1941, Hitler's plan to capture the vast territory of the European part of the USSR was carried out.
Immediately after the German attack, the Soviet government carried out major military-political and economic measures to repel the aggression. On June 23, the Headquarters of the High Command was created. On July 10, it was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. It included I. V. Stalin, V. M. Molotov, S. K. Timoshenko, S. M. Budyonny, K. E. Voroshilov, B. M. Shaposhnikov, and G. K. Zhukov. By a directive of June 29, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks set the task for the entire country to mobilize all forces and means to fight the enemy. On June 30, the State Defense Committee was created, concentrating all power in the country. The military doctrine was radically revised, the task was put forward to organize a strategic defense, wear down and stop the offensive of the fascist troops.
At the end of June - the first half of July 1941, major defensive border battles unfolded (the defense of the Brest Fortress, etc.). From July 16 to August 15, the defense of Smolensk continued in the central direction. In the northwestern direction, the German plan to capture Leningrad failed. In the south, until September 1941, the defense of Kyiv was carried out, until October - Odessa. The stubborn resistance of the Red Army in the summer-autumn of 1941 frustrated Hitler's plan for a blitzkrieg. At the same time, by the fall of 1941, the capture by the fascist command of the vast territory of the USSR with its most important industrial centers and grain regions was a serious loss for the Soviet government.
Moscow battle
In late September - early October 1941, the German operation "Typhoon" began, aimed at capturing Moscow. The first line of Soviet defense was broken through in the central direction on October 5-6. Pali Bryansk and Vyazma. The second line near Mozhaisk delayed the German offensive for several days. On October 10, G.K. Zhukov was appointed commander of the Western Front. On October 19, a state of siege was introduced in the capital. In bloody battles, the Red Army managed to stop the enemy - the October stage of the Nazi offensive against Moscow ended. The three-week respite was used by the Soviet command to strengthen the defense of the capital, mobilize the population into the militia, accumulate military equipment and, above all, aviation. On November 6, a solemn meeting of the Moscow Council of Working People's Deputies was held, dedicated to the anniversary of the October Revolution. On November 7, the traditional parade of the Moscow garrison took place on Red Square. For the first time, other military units also took part in it, including militias who went straight from the parade to the front. These events contributed to the patriotic upsurge of the people, strengthening their faith in victory.
The second stage of the Nazi offensive against Moscow began on November 15, 1941. At the cost of huge losses, they managed to reach the approaches to Moscow in late November - early December, envelop it in a semicircle in the north in the Dmitrov region (Moscow - Volga Canal), in the south - near Tula. On this, the German offensive bogged down. The defensive battles of the Red Army, in which many soldiers and militias died, were accompanied by the accumulation of forces at the expense of Siberian divisions, aircraft and other military equipment. On December 5-6, the counter-offensive of the Red Army began, as a result of which the enemy was driven back from Moscow by 100-250 km. Kalinin, Maloyaroslavets, Kaluga, other cities and towns were liberated. Hitler's plan for a blitzkrieg was thwarted.
In the winter of 1942, units of the Red Army launched an offensive on other fronts as well. However, the breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad failed. In the south, the Kerch Peninsula and Feodosia were liberated from the Nazis. The victory near Moscow in the conditions of the military-technical superiority of the enemy was the result of the heroic efforts of the Soviet people.
Summer-autumn campaign of 1942
The fascist leadership in the summer of 1942 relied on the capture of the oil regions of southern Russia and the industrial Donbass. JV Stalin made a new strategic mistake in assessing the military situation, in determining the direction of the enemy's main attack, in underestimating his forces and reserves. In connection with these, his order to advance the Red Army simultaneously on several fronts led to serious defeats near Kharkov and in the Crimea. Kerch and Sevastopol were lost. At the end of June 1942, a general German offensive unfolded. Fascist troops in the course of stubborn battles reached Voronezh, the upper reaches of the Don and captured the Donbass. Then they broke through our defenses between the Northern Donets and the Don. This made it possible for the Nazi command to solve the main strategic task of the summer campaign of 1942 and launch a broad offensive in two directions: to the Caucasus and to the east - to the Volga.
In the Caucasian direction at the end of July 1942, a strong enemy group crossed the Don. As a result, Rostov, Stavropol and Novorossiysk were captured. Stubborn battles were fought in the central part of the Main Caucasian Range, where specially trained enemy Alpine riflemen operated in the mountains. Despite the successes achieved in the Caucasian direction, the fascist command failed to solve its main task - to break into the Transcaucasus to master the oil reserves of Baku. By the end of September, the offensive of the fascist troops in the Caucasus was stopped.
An equally difficult situation for the Soviet command developed in the eastern direction. To cover it, the Stalingrad Front was created under the command of Marshal S.K. Timoshenko. In connection with the current critical situation, an order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief No. 227 was issued, which stated: "To retreat further means to ruin ourselves and at the same time our Motherland." At the end of July 1942, the enemy under the command of General von Paulus delivered a powerful blow on the Stalingrad front. However, despite the significant superiority in forces, during the month the fascist troops managed to advance only 60-80 km and with great difficulty reach the distant defensive lines of Stalingrad. In August, they reached the Volga and intensified their offensive.
From the first days of September, the heroic defense of Stalingrad began, which actually continued until the end of 1942. Its significance during the Great Patriotic War is enormous. During the struggle for the city, Soviet troops under the command of Generals V. I. Chuikov and M. S. Shumilov in September-November 1942 repelled up to 700 enemy attacks and withstood all tests with honor. Thousands of Soviet patriots heroically proved themselves in the battles for the city. As a result, in the battles for Stalingrad, the enemy troops suffered colossal losses. Every month of the battle, about 250 thousand new soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht, the bulk of military equipment, were sent here. By mid-November 1942, the Nazi troops, having lost more than 180 thousand people killed, 50 thousand wounded, were forced to stop the offensive.
During the summer-autumn campaign, the Nazis managed to occupy a huge part of the European part of the USSR, where about 15% of the population lived, 30% of the gross output was produced, and more than 45% of the sown area was located. However, it was a Pyrrhic victory. The Red Army exhausted and bled the fascist hordes. The Germans lost up to 1 million soldiers and officers, more than 20 thousand guns, over 1500 tanks. The enemy was stopped. The resistance of the Soviet troops made it possible to create favorable conditions for their transition to a counteroffensive in the Stalingrad region.
Battle of Stalingrad
Even during the fierce battles, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command began to develop a plan for a grandiose offensive operation, designed to encircle and defeat the main forces of the Nazi troops operating directly near Stalingrad. G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky made a great contribution to the preparation of this operation, called "Uranus". To accomplish the task, three new fronts were created: the South-Western (N. F. Vatutin), the Don (K. K. Rokossovsky) and Stalingrad (A. I. Eremenko). In total, the offensive group included more than 1 million people, 13 thousand guns and mortars, about 1000 tanks, and 1500 aircraft. November 19, 1942 The offensive of the South-Western and Don fronts began. A day later, the Stalingrad Front advanced. The offensive was unexpected for the Germans. It developed at lightning speed and successfully. November 23, 1942 There was a historic meeting and connection of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts. As a result, the German group near Stalingrad (330 thousand soldiers and officers under the command of General von Paulus) was surrounded.
Hitler's command could not come to terms with the situation. They formed the Don army group consisting of 30 divisions. She was supposed to strike at Stalingrad, break through the outer front of the encirclement and connect with the 6th army of von Paulus. However, an attempt made in mid-December to carry out this task ended in a new major defeat for the German and Italian forces. By the end of December, having defeated this grouping, Soviet troops reached the Kotelnikovo area and launched an attack on Rostov. This made it possible to begin the final destruction of the encircled German troops. M January 10 to February 2, 1943. They were finally eliminated.
The victory in the Battle of Stalingrad led to a broad offensive of the Red Army on all fronts: in January 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken; in February, the North Caucasus was liberated; in February - March - in the central (Moscow) direction, the front line moved back 130-160 km. As a result of the autumn-winter campaign of 1942/43, the military power of Nazi Germany was significantly undermined.
Battle of Kursk
In the central direction, after successful operations in the spring of 1943, the so-called Kursk salient was formed on the front line. The Hitlerite command, wanting to regain the strategic initiative, developed Operation Citadel to break through and encircle the Red Army in the Kursk region. In contrast to 1942, the Soviet command unraveled the enemy's intentions and created a defense in depth in advance.
The Battle of Kursk is the largest battle of World War II. It was attended by Germany about 900 thousand people, 1.5 thousand tanks (including the latest models - "Tiger", "Panther" and guns "Ferdinand"), more than 2 thousand aircraft; on the Soviet side - more than 1 million people, 3400 tanks, and about 3 thousand aircraft. In the Battle of Kursk commanded: marshals G. K. Zhukov and A. M. Vasilevsky, generals N. F. Vatutin and K. K. Rokossovsky. Strategic reserves were created under the command of General I. S. Konev, since the plan of the Soviet command provided for the transition from defense to a further offensive. July 5, 1943 A massive offensive by German troops began. After tank battles unprecedented in world history (the battle near the village of Prokhorovka, etc.), on July 12 the enemy was stopped. The counteroffensive of the Red Army began.
As a result of the defeat of the Nazi troops near Kursk in August 1943, the Soviet troops captured Orel and Belgorod. In honor of this victory, a salute was fired in Moscow with 12 artillery volleys. Continuing the offensive, the Soviet troops inflicted a crushing blow on the Nazis during the Belgorod-Kharkov operation. Left-bank Ukraine and Donbass were liberated in September, the Dnieper was forced in October, and Kyiv was liberated in November.
End of the war
In 1944-1945. the Soviet Union achieved economic, military-strategic and political superiority over the enemy. The labor of the Soviet people steadily provided for the needs of the front. The strategic initiative completely passed to the Red Army. The level of planning and implementation of major military operations has increased.
In 1944, relying on the successes achieved earlier, the Red Army carried out a number of major operations that assured the liberation of the territory of our Motherland.
In January, the blockade of Leningrad was finally lifted, which lasted 900 days. The northwestern part of the territory of the USSR was liberated.
In January, the Korsun-Shevchenko operation was carried out, in the development of which Soviet troops liberated the Right-Bank Ukraine and the southern regions of the USSR (Crimea, Kherson, Odessa, etc.).
In the summer of 1944, the Red Army carried out one of the largest operations of the Great Patriotic War "Bagration". Belarus was completely liberated. This victory opened the way for advances into Poland, the Baltic states and East Prussia. In mid-August 1944, Soviet troops in the western direction reached the border with Germany.
At the end of August, the Iasi-Kishinev operation began, as a result of which Moldova was liberated. The opportunity was created for the withdrawal of Romania from the war.
These largest operations of 1944 were accompanied by the liberation of other territories of the Soviet Union - the Karelian Isthmus and the Arctic.
The victories of the Soviet troops in 1944 helped the peoples of Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia in their struggle against fascism. In these countries, pro-German regimes were overthrown, and patriotic forces came to power. Created back in 1943, on the territory of the USSR, the Polish Army took the side of the anti-Hitler coalition. The process of re-establishing Polish statehood began.
The year 1944 was decisive in securing the victory over fascism. On the Eastern Front, Germany lost a huge amount of military equipment, more than 1.5 million soldiers and officers, its military and economic potential was completely undermined.
The General Staff, headed by B.M. Shaposhnikov proposed to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command for the summer campaign of 1942 a plan for deep defense, since the main combat units of the Red Army were around Moscow in the process of reorganization and replenishment. In addition, in the spring of 1942, near Leningrad, near the village of Lyuban, the 2nd Shock Soviet Army was defeated, and its commander, Lieutenant General A. Vlasov, surrendered. However, I. Stalin, despite these unfavorable conditions, insisted on conducting major offensive operations of the Red Army. In April 1942, in the Crimea in the Kerch region, as a result of the inept actions of the front commander D.T. Kozlov and member of the Military Council of the Front L.Z. Mehlis, the offensive of our troops ended in defeat: the total losses amounted to about 200 thousand people. July 4 had to leave Sevastopol, heroically defending 8 months.
In May 1942, near Kharkov, the troops of the Southwestern Front (S.K. Timoshenko and N.S. Khrushchev), without prior preparation and in the absence of reserves, went on the offensive, but were surrounded by enemy troops and lost 18-20 divisions. The initiative in the fighting passed to the German troops. In June 1942, they occupied the Donbass and Rostov-on-Don, broke through the front of the Red Army in the bend of the Don, and continued to advance on Stalingrad and the North Caucasus. There were no defensive structures on the outskirts of Stalingrad, so German tank columns soon appeared on the outskirts of the city, and in the North Caucasus they reached the Main Caucasian Range.
On July 28, 1942, I. Stalin issued Order No. 227 “Not a Step Back!”, which introduced severe punishments for commanders and commissars who allowed their units to retreat without command orders: they were declared enemies of the Motherland and brought to trial by a military tribunal. In addition, penal companies were also formed, where ordinary soldiers and junior commanders were sent, "guilty of violating discipline due to cowardice or instability ...". In the rear of some divisions, armed barrage detachments began to be located and they were obliged "in the event of panic and disorderly withdrawal of parts of the division, to shoot alarmists and cowards on the spot." The detachments were canceled only on November 13, 1944, however, the punitive body of counterintelligence "SMERSH" ("death to spies") continued to operate with unlimited powers.
At the beginning of the summer of 1942, the fascist command transferred an additional 80 divisions and a lot of military equipment to the Eastern Front in order to cut off the Volga region and the Caucasus from the center of Russia and take Moscow by a detour. The Nazi troops included Austrian, Hungarian, Italian and Romanian units, while Finnish troops blocked Leningrad from the north.
On July 17, 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad began, which lasted 200 days until February 2, 1943; Direct battles on the streets of Stalingrad unfolded on September 12, 1942. The defense of the city was held by the 62nd army of V.I. Chuikov, the 64th army of M.S. Shumilova and the 13th Youth Rifle Division A.I. Rodimtsev, almost the entire composition of which died in stubborn battles for every house.
The general leadership of our troops on the Volga was headed by representatives of the Headquarters Marshals G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky and N.N. Voronov. According to the Uranus plan, on November 19, 1942, the Red Army went on the offensive with the forces of three fronts: the South-Western (N.F. Vatutin), the Don (K.K. Rokossovsky) and Stalingrad (A.I. Eremenko). On November 23, 1942, the 330,000-strong Nazi group was surrounded, but did not capitulate, hoping for outside help. December 24, 1942 the tank corps of General V.M. Bogdanov, behind enemy lines, defeated the airfield near the village of Tatsinskaya, from where the grouping of Field Marshal F. Paulus was supplied by air. Tankers destroyed 430 Nazi aircraft.
January 10, 1943, following the "Ring" plan, the Red Army began the defeat of the encircled enemy group in Stalingrad. The attempts of Manstein's army group to release the Nazis who were surrounded from the west ended in failure, and the enemy troops were thrown back to the west by 170 - 250 km. Successfully advancing in the direction of Rostov-on-Don, the Red Army cut off the fascist troops operating in the North Caucasus, and they retreated to the Crimea.
During the period of fighting on the Volga, the enemy lost up to 1.5 million people killed, wounded and captured, lost 3.5 thousand tanks, 12 thousand guns, 75 thousand vehicles and 3 thousand aircraft. In Stalingrad alone, 91,000 Nazis were taken prisoner, including 2,500 officers and 24 generals, led by Field Marshal F. Paulus. Hitler declared 3 days of mourning throughout Germany. The military power and prestige of Germany were undermined, the initiative in hostilities passed to the Red Army, and a radical change began in the course of the Great Patriotic War in favor of the USSR.
After the defeat of the Nazi troops on the Volga, the Red Army launched a general strategic offensive, which continued until the end of March 1943. During this time, the enemy troops were driven back 600-700 km. This made it possible for the troops of the Leningrad (L.A. Govorov) and Volkhov (K.A. Meretskov) fronts in January 1943 to break through the blockade of Leningrad.
The success of the Red Army was largely determined by the valor of the home front workers, who in 1942 produced 25.4 thousand aircraft, 24.5 thousand tanks, 33.1 thousand guns, while Germany during this time produced only 14 thousand aircraft, 6 , 1 thousand tanks, 14 thousand guns, and almost all of Europe conquered by it worked for Nazi Germany.
