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.
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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
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