Life takes us in many strange directions and wonderful discoveries. It never turns out the way we thought it would.
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Wednesday, December 27, 2023
What Was The Bloodiest Battle In World War II?
As a former Soviet citizen born in Belarus I was brought up on stories of bloody and gritty battles: fall of Minsk and Kiev in Operation Barbarossa, siege of Leningrad, defense of Moscow… Stalingrad, Kursk, later in the war - Budapest and Berlin. Each one of them was horrible and heavily traumatic for everyone involved…
Still those battles created kind of heroic mythology being seen as an important part of the war’s history. The battle I want to name has distinction of being not famous and only infamous for a huge amount of casualties. It was inconclusive, with indecisive results and of unclear strategical importance… the battle which was not popular to speak about on both sides of the front lines.
The series of Soviets offensives and German counter-offensives through year 1942 and beginning of 1943 around town of Rzhev in Kalinin Oblast ended with over 1,000,000 Soviet and around 500,000 German soldiers dead/missing/captured or injured. None of sides succeeded to reach their objectives.
The campaign became known as “Rzhevskaya myasorubka” e.g "Rzhev Meat Grinder"
It still has cultural impact as maybe the most tragic WW2 war poem speaks about this not well known battle:
Alexander Tvardovsky
I was killed near Rzhev...
I was killed near Rzhev
In a nameless bog,
In fifth company,
On the Left flank,
In a cruel air raid
I didn’t hear explosions
And did not see the flash
Down to an abyss from a cliff
No start, no end
And in this whole world
To the end of its days —
Neither patches, nor badges
From my tunic you’ll find
…
Full text:
Poland Voted A Right Wing Government Out Of Power
Operation Dismantlement
POLAND
The results of the Oct. 15 parliamentary elections in Poland are still echoing throughout Europe.
Women and young voters helped swing the election to the Civic Coalition and other parties opposing the ruling Law and Justice party, a populist political group that espouses conservative Catholic values and skepticism about the European Union, wrote the BBC.
Law and Justice (or PiS) is still the largest party in parliament, with a 35 percent share, reported Reuters. Now the task of governing falls to Civic Coalition leader Donald Tusk, a former prime minister and ex-president of the European Council, a key EU institution.
Tusk recently notified Polish President Andrzej Duda, an ally of Law and Justice, that he had assembled a majority of lawmakers into a coalition that would appoint him as premier, Politico explained. And on Dec. 11, Tusk became the country’s leader after the newly elected parliament rejected Law and Justice’s longshot bid to retain power.
Now, the new government is expected to make choices that will reverberate throughout the continent, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Tusk will draw Poland closer to the EU, send a strong signal to Russia that it supports progressive Western values, and curb the spread of so-called “illiberal” policies.
Last week, Tusk shut down the Polish state TV channel TVP Info and replaced the leadership of TVP, Polish Radio and the Polish Press Agency in a move to restore freedom of the press, the BBC reported. All three had been considered propaganda tools for the Law and Justice party. Parliament also backed a resolution calling for independence, objectivity and pluralism in public TV and radio.
Law and Justice has been accused of using their years in the majority to weaken democratic institutions like the judiciary and the free press, while consolidating their hold on state media and every other institution in government. For example, the Financial Times wrote that the state-run broadcaster spewed absurd pro-government propaganda before the vote, recalling a news ticker headline – “The opposition’s proposals for Poles: worms instead of meat.”
Meanwhile, the former government’s moves have brought it censure from the EU.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist Anne Applebaum told Visegrad Insight that the election was basically unfair due to government manipulation, yet Tusk and his allies still won. Bulgarian geopolitical thinker Ivan Krastev wrote an op-ed in the Guardian similarly arguing that Law and Justice’s ploys to win enough support to keep its majority failed. Instead, a strong turnout – the highest in 30 years – helped propel the opposition to its strong showing.
Now, one of Tusk’s main jobs will be to dismantle this legislative framework, administrative machinery, and election apparatus, not an easy task. “A deeply entrenched populist system, a president loyal to the Law and Justice party, a puppet Constitutional Tribunal and Supreme Court – these are just a few of the problems a new government would face,” Polish journalist Jaroslaw Kuisz and historian Karolina Wigura wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times.
In the meantime, this move from a populist to a more centrist government is potentially bad news for Russian President Vladimir Putin, noted CNBC. Poland has resisted Russian influence since the end of the Cold War. Now, however, a key anti-Russian voice is also going to be far more accepting of pan-European efforts to counter Russian forces in Ukraine and elsewhere.
The bureaucrats in Brussels must be happy.
THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
Nazi Germany's Planning For The Invasion Of The Soviet Union
From your Digest
No, but he realized things were not going well, even with his armies victorious. We need to go back a year.
Hitler’s plan to invade the Soviet Union were initiated while his armies were fighting in France in 1940. Franz Halder assigned the planning task to Eric Marcks:
Marcks delivered this to Hitler on August 5, 1940…before the height of the Battle of Britain:
Hitler hated it. Hitler wanted a “resource plan.” He wanted the food and materials of Ukraine and he wanted the oil of the Caucasus. He expected a focus on this:
The High Command insisted and worked hard to convince Hitler. He acquiesced. However, the High Command’s hike into fantasy land got worse. They extended the goal line further east. Observe the A-A Line (Archangel to Astrakhan):
You are free to wonder what mind altering drugs the German generals were taking.
Please, refer to map of the Marck’s Plan. Observe the times dedicated to the phases. The German High Command convinced Hitler, German forces would be across the River Volga by the end of October 1941.
Is the question, when did the German generals realize they had sold Adolf a “pipe dream”?
When did the German generals realize Operation Barbarossa proposed a front 1,800 miles long, north to south? When did the German generals know Operation Barbarossa called for the German army to advance over 1,000 miles, west to east, in four months?
We do not know the answer to those questions about the generals. The question might as well be, when did the German High Command go collectively insane?
How about Hitler? We do not need to speculate. We have documentation, signed by Hitler.
Whatever hopes Hitler had when he ordered Operation Barbarossa, came to an end on December 5, 1941. The German army had halted and was incapable of advancing. For the next two days, he and the High Command formulated instructions to the German top brass. Fuhrer Directive 39 was sent out on December 8, 1941:
The winter battle in Russia is nearing its end. Thanks to the unequaled courage and self-sacrificing devotion of our soldiers on the Eastern front, German arms have achieved a great defensive success.
The enemy has suffered severe losses in men and material. In an effort to exploit what appeared to him to be early successes, he has expended during the winter the bulk of reserves intended for later operations.
As soon as the weather and the state of the terrain allows, we must seize the initiative again, and through the superiority of German leadership and the German soldier force our will upon the enemy.
Our aim is to wipe out the entire defense potential remaining to the Soviets, and to cut them off, as far as possible, from their most important centers of war industry.
All available forces, German and allied, will be employed in this task. At the same time, the security of occupied territories in Western and Northern Europe, especially along the coast, will be ensured in all circumstances.
I. General Plan
In pursuit of the original plan for the Eastern campaign, the armies of the central sector will stand fast, those in the north will capture Leningrad and link up with the Finns, while those on the southern flank will break through into the Caucasus.
In view of conditions prevailing at the end of winter, the availability of troops and resources, and transport problems, these aims can be achieved only one at a time.
First, therefore, all available forces will be concentrated on the main operations in the southern sector, with the aim of destroying the enemy before the Don River, in order to secure the Caucasian oil fields and the passes through the Caucasus mountains themselves.
The final encirclement of Leningrad and the occupation of Ingermanland may be undertaken as soon as conditions in that area permit, or sufficient forces can be made available from other theaters.
….
B. The next task will be a mop up operation in the Kerch Peninsula in the Crimea and the capture of Sevastopol the Luftwaffe, and later the Navy, will have the task of preparing these operations, and hindering enemy supply traffic in the Black Sea and the Kerch Straits as energetically as possible.
In the southern area, the enemy forces which have broken through on both sides of Izium will be cut off along the Donets River and destroyed.
Final decision concerning the mop up still necessary in the central and northern sectors of the Eastern Front must await conclusion of the present fighting and of the muddy season. The necessary forces, however, must be provided, as soon as the situation allows, by thinning out front-line troops.
C. The Main Operation on the Eastern Front
The purpose is, as already stated, to occupy the Caucasus front by decisively attacking and destroying Russian forces stationed in the Voronezh area to the south, west, or north of the Don River. Because of the manner in which the available formations must be brought up, this operation can be carried out in a series of consecutive, but coordinated and complementary, attacks. Therefore these attacks must be so synchronized from north to south that each individual offensive is carried out by the largest possible concentration of army, and particularly of air, forces which can be assured at the decisive points.
……
The general operation will begin with an overall attack and, if possible, a breakthrough from the area south of Orel in the direction of Voronezh. Of the two armored and motorized formations forming the pincers, the northern will be in greater strength than the southern. The object of this breakthrough is the capture of Voronezh itself. While certain infantry divisions will immediately establish a strong defensive front between the Orel area, from which the attack will be launched, and Voronezh, armored and motorized formations are to continue the attack south from Voronezh, with their left flank on the Don River, in support of a second breakthrough to take place towards the east, from the general area of Kharkov. Here too the primary objective is not simply to break the Russian front but, in cooperation with the motorized forces thrusting down the Don River, to destroy the enemy armies.
The third attack in the course of these operations will be so conducted that formations thrusting down the Don River can link up in the Stalingrad area with forces advancing from the Taganrog-Artelnovsk area between the lower waters of the Don River and Voroshilovgrad across the Donets River to the east. These forces should finally establish contact with the armored forces advancing on Stalingrad.
…..
What do you think? It paints a very negative picture. It stated, Germany had lost the initiative, overextended, did not have the men or resources to achieve its objectives and must focus on a strong offensive towards the southeast (the resource plan), by thinning out troop strength in the northern and central sectors. It is all in the text:
- Defensive success
- We must seize the initiative again.
- Central sector will stand fast.
- Those on the southern flank will break through into the Caucasus.
- in order to secure the Caucasian oil fields and the passes through the Caucasus mountains themselves.These aims can be achieved only one at a time.
- Sufficient forces can be made available from other theaters.
- Central and northern sectors of the Eastern Front must await conclusion of the present fighting and of the muddy season. The necessary forces, however, must be provided, as soon as the situation allows, by thinning out front-line troops.
Again, this was issued on December 8, 1941. The draft was completed before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Do you think Hitler and his High Command thought they were winning?
Fuhrer Directive 39 clearly stated, Germany was betting it all on one roll of the dice and it only had the resources for that one throw. This roll of the dice was aimed at the Caucasus. Why? Germany was not only exhausted. Germany’s war machine was out of fuel. Without oil, Germany would lose the war.
I encourage readers to research this quote.
“If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny, then I must end this war.”-Adolf Hitler