Traditional accounts of Germany's 1942 summer offensive on the Eastern Front (codenamed Operation Blue) describe the tyranny of time, space, and distance all working together to undermine German efforts. Couple that with the Red Army's wise decision to pull back, draw the Germans in, and only then stand and fight, using its superior size and strength to beat the Axis forces, and you have a conventional wisdom that proved surprisingly enduring.
As it turns out a huge chunk of this conventional wisdom has already been proven to be more myth than reality.
Since the Second World War ended it has been popular to present the Soviet Union as an overwhelming economic and military colossus that was essentially undefeatable by 1942 if not earlier in the war. The groundwork for this belief was laid by German officers who after the war sought to cast blame for their own failures of leadership. American military leaders then latched onto these aguments. Doubtlessly this occured in part as a response to the Cold War era Communist threat.
The German army in the east (Ostheer) had taken a beating during Barbarossa in part but even worse during the Soviet winter counter-offensives beginning in December of 1941. The first six months of 1942 featured a series of massive battles that would continue nearly up to the start of the second large-scale German summer offensive: Operation Blue.
Last year I published a series of articles examining some of the significant but often overlooked Soviet counterstrokes directed against the Sixth Army's flanks outside Stalingrad. To this day, when one thinks of the exposed northwestern shoulder of Germany's drive into the Caucuses, and Soviet efforts to penetrate that flank, they think first and foremost of events exactly like those. However, what one needs to understand is that from Case Blue's first days the Red Army proved far from a passive defender.
In examining the how and why of Operation Barbarossa's failure there is still a significant contingent of historians who believe the sheer numerical superiority of the Red Army had doomed Germany to defeat as early as the late summer of 1941. For instance, the vast majority of David Stahel's decade long work posits that the Wehrmacht in general, but the German army (Heer) in particular, had shot their bolt as early as August of 1941. Oftentimes, exhibit A for those making this argument is the manner in which Barbarossa fell apart late in 1941. It is my contention however, that events on
On June 22, 1941 Nazi Germany launched it's invasion of the Soviet Union (codenamed Operation Barbarossa). The Germans concentrated the bulk of their effort in three massive Army Groups (North, Center, and South). In this article, we shall take a look at Army Group South's operations during Barbarossa as well as examine the condition in which the Army Group stood as several key points in the campaign. In this way we can better assess how and why Army Group South fell short in terms of taking its objectives for Barbarossa.
The Red Army in June of 1941 was very much a product of several distinct eras and experiences. In many ways it represented the fourth iteration of the Red Army in less than fifteen years. First, came the Red Army of the late 1920s - a very basic and stripped down organization that had emerged from the Russian Civil War and was reflective of the fact that the first five-year plan for Soviet industry was just beginning. In comparsion we have the seemingly powerful 1936 edition of the Red Army.
In a previous article I detailed why as early as 1939 one could see that at least in terms of the equpping and manning of Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht (armed forces) that quantitative measures were proving less important in comparison to the qualitative in deciding the size and shape of Germany's military machine.
Though it is popular to think of the 1939-1941 "Blitzkrieg" era Wehrmacht as a near unstoppable war machine, reality is far different. Material shortages similar to those afflicting the German army in the years 1944-1945 were all too apparent during the Third Reich's early war march across Europe and the Mediterranean littoral. Ironically, however these shortages had far more to do with German decision making than the commonly held view that Germany didn't have enough economic resources capable of being converted into military strength.
For over a decade now, I have sought, via my professionally published work and at this website, to drill down into exactly how and why the Second World War in Europe ended as it did. To that end, the major component of my research has focused on the war fought between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. More specifically, I have sought to show that qualitative elements proved more instructive in determining the outcome of Germany and the Soviet Union's struggle in comparison to other theories that mass/quantitative factors proved decisive in the Red Army's victory.
