Page 27 - History of War - Issue 29-16

OPERATION BARBAROSSA

“STALIN ALSO ORDERED THE The Wehrmacht’s superior training and
START OF PARTISAN OPERATIONS equipment could not prevent the logistical
and weather demands of the Russian terrain
BEHIND GERMAN LINES,

DECREEING IT TO BE A DUTY OF
EVERY RED ARMY SOLDIER TO
CONTINUE RESISTING TO HIS

LAST BREATH”

circumstances, the loss of cities – even of the
major cities – would have made little difference,
the war would have continued; if necessary as
a protracted and bloody guerrilla con ict.
HOW DID THE RUSSIANS
SUCCESSFULLY COUNTERATTACK?
Some of it was down to General Georgy Zhukov,
who was appointed commander of the western In this way, the Red Army gained a vital edge against humanity, it was an enormous missed
(Muscovite) front in early October 1941. Zhukov in the crucial Battle for Moscow and enabled opportunity for Berlin, as millions of potential
had masterminded the Soviet victory against their rst winter counteroffensive to push the supporters against Stalin were thereby
the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol in 1939 and Germans back and save the Soviet capital. alienated. Potentially, these supporters may
he would be instrumental in the defence of have held the key to the ultimate political
Moscow two years later. DID THE GERMANS’ DELIBERATE defeat of the Soviet Union, however the German
Under his guidance, the Red Army had been POLICY OF COMMITTING ATROCITIES invaders were too blinded by their racism, too
carefully hoarding men and materiel for months, INSIDE RUSSIAN TERRITORY BECOME obsessed with exterminating the untermensch,
sending just enough troops to the front to avoid A DETRIMENT TO THEIR OVERALL to see the political potential of their victims.
a collapse while building up a huge strategic MILITARY OBJECTIVES?
reserve of 58 divisions. Of these, 18 were Absolutely, and on many levels. It tied up MANY HISTORIANS AGREE THAT
well-trained Siberian units – winter warfare large numbers of troops behind the lines who OPERATION BARBAROSSA WAS
specialists – who were transferred westwards were engaged in the anti-partisan operations, ARGUABLY THE DEFINITIVE TURNING
in mid-October, once Stalin was sure that by which civilians and others were routinely POINT OF THE WAR. IS THIS CORRECT
Siberia was secure from Japanese attack. slaughtered. In addition, the rigid application OR CAN THE WESTERN ALLIES CLAIM
This course of events is probably one of the of Nazi racial policy robbed the many groups SOME LEGITIMATE CREDIT AS WELL?
reasons that the Germans were so convinced of disaffected Soviet citizens – particularly Given that roughly 85 per cent of all German
that the Red Army was at breaking point in the Ukrainian nationalists and Byelorussians losses, and fully 80 per cent of all German
November. But, those fresh troops would amongst others – of their argument that by combat deaths occurred on the Eastern Front,
parade past Stalin in a snowstorm on Red welcoming the Nazis as liberators they might be it would be rather foolish to try to claim that
Square that month, and continue out beyond able to throw off the hated Soviet yoke. any other front or campaign of the European
Moscow’s western suburbs to face German Germany’s merciless racial war in the war was more decisive. Operation Barbarossa,
forces, many of whom were at the end of their occupied USSR; its policy of destruction, as the opening phase of that campaign, must
physical endurance. rape and mass murder, was not only a crime therefore be considered to be a vital turning
point. More importantly, Barbarossa opens a
Pandora’s Box of atrocity and brutality in World
This scene of destruction was repeated War II.
countless times over throughout Whereas both the Nazis and the Soviets
occupied areas of the Soviet Union
had already behaved abominably up to that
point – the Germans with mass murders and
deportations in Poland and the Balkans, the
Soviets in their treatment of newly subject
populations in Poland and the Baltic states
– Barbarossa begins the ideologically driven
race war between the two; arguably the
con ict that Berlin had been itching to launch.
From there, the gloves are off; atrocity
follows atrocity from Berlin to Stalingrad, to
Leningrad and a thousand nameless places in
between, before nally being visited back upon
the German people.
The fact that Soviet deaths in World War II
are still disputed – and have been estimated
as high as 25 million plus – should make us all
pause for a moment to contemplate the sheer
murderous horror of that war.
Barbarossa was the start of that most
murderous phase, and so must be regarded as
one of the undoubted turning points of World
War II.

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