FIGURE 1: ZHUKOV'S PROPOSED PLAN, 15 MAY 1941
Hitler's decision to attack the Soviet Union in June 1941 has generated considerable historical controversy. Among the most controversial “What ifs” concerns the timing of the German attack.
A German delay of up to two years in launching Operation Barbarossa could have had a significant effect on immediate conditions surrounding the attack and on the initial course of operations. It is not likely, however, that such a delay would have altered the outcome of the war. German postponement of Operation Barbarossa until 1942 or 1943 presumes that Germany would have been able to defeat or neutralize Great Britain. Although direct German invasion of the British Isles was thwarted in 1940 and would probably have been unlikely in 1941, a broad German thrust through the Balkans into the Middle East (an expanded Mediterranean strategy) in time could have brought Britain to its knees. Such an outcome would have cleared Germany's southern flank and rear and permitted German military planners to adhere to their schedule for an invasion of the Soviet Union in May of 1942 or 1943, thus avoiding the delay which they experienced in 1941.
On the other hand, one must recognize that expanded German military operations in the Middle East and Mediterranean basin could conceivably have tied down large German forces, or done damage to German units, which would have required repair by the time Barbarossa actually began: recall German casualties in the Crete operation.
Assuming the Germans succeeded in clearing their southern flank, neutralizing Britain, and assembling an imposing military host to conduct Barbarossa, the delay of one or two years would have posed other problems for the Germans. First, it is unlikely that the Germans could have achieved in 1942 or 1943 the degree of surprise they achieved in 1941, in particular since they would not have benefited from the deceptive effect which the Balkan operation had on the Soviet government in spring 1941.
Second and even more important, by 1942 the Soviet military reorganization and re-equipment program, which had begun in 1940, would have been close to completion, if not fully complete. The Soviet armored force of 29 mechanized corps, so woefully deficient in requisite tanks in June 1941 and so poorly trained and equipped with the 1,443 model T-34 and KV tanks in 1941, surprised the Germans and locally slowed the German attack. By 1942 most of the ten Soviet mechanized corps in the border military districts, and the six which ultimately reinforced them, would have possessed a sizeable complement of the new tanks, enough to disrupt seriously German operations.
The restructuring and re-equipment program began in 1940 after the end of the Soviet-Finnish War, during which the Soviets did so poorly. It involved the streamlining of rifle forces (divisions), creation of mechanized corps, airborne corps, and anti-tank brigades, fielding of new model tanks (T-34, KV-1 and 2) and artillery, and a host of other measures. Soviet analysis of German operations in Western Europe spurred the efforts on. According to Soviet sources the program was to be completed by the summer of 1942.
By June 1941, T-34 and KV-1 and 2 strength was just short of 1,500, most in the border military districts. By summer 1942, this figure should have risen to over 16,000. Realistically, the figure should not have exceeded 5,000, but that number would have had a sizeable impact on operations. Regarding surprise, 6th Panzer Division's harrowing experiences with several battalions of Russian T-34 and KV-1 tanks was indicative of what an ever larger and better prepared Russian force would have achieved.
Had German intelligence detected the existence of the new models, and had Hitler sought to delay the attack until comparable German tanks were available, further delay would have ensued. The record of wartime armor production clearly demonstrates it was a technological race the Germans could not have won.
Given greater Soviet military capabilities, it is also more likely that Stalin would have considered some sort of preemptive action against Germany. If preemption did not occur, Soviet forces would have been better prepared than they were in 1941 to meet and defeat the actual German invasion.
One of the most intriguing “what ifs” has for years been rumored in western circles and has only recently been surfaced by the Soviets themselves. It involves a Soviet response, in the form of preemptive action, to the obviously maturing German threat in May and June 1941.
Throughout the spring of 1941, tensions grew between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Germans intensified their intelligence collection against the Soviet Union and began mobilization measures associated with secret plan Barbarossa. Soviet intelligence kept track of the German troop build-up in eastern Europe and received a significant amount of intelligence from diplomatic and military sources concerning the impending attack. Soviet concern over increasing German offensive preparedness was sufficient for Stalin and the General Staff to order preliminary mobilization measures of 13 May involving the mobilization and western deployment of five armies. The record of this and other measures, as well as the extensive Soviet intelligence files, have only recently been openly published.1
Among the newly published materials is an interesting proposal supposedly made in mid-May 1941 by Chief of the General Staff Zhukov to Stalin proposing a Soviet preemptive strike be conducted against mobilizing German forces. Zhukov's proposal, although probably only one of many made during 1941, and a rejected one at that, fits comfortably within the context of previous Soviet strategic planning and, in particular, the experiences of the January war games.
FIGURE 1: ZHUKOV'S PROPOSED PLAN, 15 MAY 1941
Entitled “Report on the Plan of Strategic Deployment of Armed Forces of the Soviet Union to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of 15 May 1941” and co-signed by Timoshenko, Zhukov's report began with the words:
Considering that Germany, at this time, is mobilizing its forces and rear services, it has the capability of forestalling [pre-empting] our deployment and delivering a surprise blow. In order to avert such a situation, I consider it necessary to on no account give the initiative of action to the German command, to pre-empt the enemy deployment and to attack the German Army at that moment when it is in the process of deployment and has not yet succeeded in organizing the front and cooperation of its forces.2
The report then set out strategic objectives for the proposed operation designed to defeat and destroy the estimated 100 German divisions already assembling in eastern Poland. The first (initial) strategic objective was to destroy German forces assembled south of Brest and Demblin and, within thirty days, to advance to a line running from north of Ostrolenka, south along the Narew River, through Lowicz, Lodz, Kreuzberg, and Oppeln to Olomouc (see figure 1). Subsequently, Soviet forces were to attack north or northwest from the Katowice region to destroy German forces in the center and northwest wing of the front and seize the remainder of former Poland and East Prussia.
The immediate mission of Soviet forces during the first phase of the strategic operation was to break up German forces east of the Vistula River and around Krakow, advance to the Narew and Vistula Rivers, and secure Katowice. Specific missions to carry out this task were:
a) Strike the main blow by Southwestern Front forces toward Krakow and Katowice to cut Germany off from her southern allies.
b) Deliver the secondary blow by the left wing of the Western Front toward Warsaw and Demblin to fix the Warsaw grouping and secure Warsaw, and also to cooperate with the Southwestern Front in destroying the Lublin group.
c) Conduct active defense against Finland, East Prussia, Hungary, and Romania and be prepared to strike a blow against Romania if favorable conditions arise.3
Zhukov calculated the Soviet attacking force of 152 divisions would be faced by roughly 100 German divisions.
Zhukov's report suggests the following conclusions: first, as of 5 May 1941, Soviet intelligence estimated German strength opposite their borders in excess of 107 divisions. This included 23 to 24 in East Prussia, 29 facing the Western Special Military District, 31 to 34 opposite the Kiev Military District, 6 located near Danzig and Poznan, 4 in the Carpatho-Ukraine, and 10 to 11 in Moldavia and Norther Dobrudja. Eighteen more divisions were then rumored to be enroute. While Thukov's estimate of German strength on 15 May was close to accurate, it certainly would not have been when the Soviet had been able to mount their preemptive assault.
Second, Soviet deployments of 15 May were insufficient for the mounting of such an offensive. Between them, the Western and Southwestern Fronts counted about 102 divisions (see figure 2). Strategic second echelon and reserve forces were just then beginning their deployment forward and would arrive in stages between early June and mid-July. Thus, to establish requisite force strength for the offensive, Zhukov's plan could not have been implemented until mid-June (30 days) at the earliest, and by then German force strength would have also risen. For Zhukov to have reached his desired correlation of forces, the attack would have had to occur after 60 days of preparation (in mid-July). That, of course, would have been too late to have preempted the Germans and denied them surprise.
FIGURE 2: THE ZHUKOV PROPOSAL FORCE AVAILABILITY
Third, in addition to correlation of forces problems, the dismal performance of Soviet forces in Poland and Finland, the sorry state of training and force readiness, the major equipment and logistical shortfalls in the Red Army, and the half-completed force reorganization would have made any offensive action by the Red Army simply folly. In light of these realities, Stalin's decision to ignore Zhukov's proposal seems to have been prudent. Thus, speculation concerning what might have occurred within the context of the major Soviet “what ifs” has no basis in fact.
For years historians have speculated about what would have occurred if the Soviets had met the German onslaught with a defense based on the “Stalin line” rather than one anchored on the post-September 1939 Polish border. Such speculation proceeds from two premises: first, that such a defense would have had greater success, since German forces would have had to cross over up to 300 kilometers of lightly defended terrain before reaching the main Soviet defensive positions (with concurrent loss of surprise); and, second, that Red Army Chief of Staff, B.M. Shaposhnikov, had proposed such a defense only to have the proposal rejected by Stalin.
Neither claim is substantiated by either fact or existing conditions. The supposed Shaposhnikov plan required the positioning of main Soviet border military district forces along the pre-September 1939 Polish-Soviet borders in the heavily fortified positions of the Stalin line. Covering forces would operate in the wide sector between the new border and the Stalin line with the mission of preventing surprise attack, delaying the German advance, and protecting the full mobilization of Soviet main forces (see figure 3). Essentially, the plan required mobile mechanized and armored forces, unsupported by infantry and aviation, to conduct a mobile defense across an expanse of 300 kilometers from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains and from the Western Bug River to the 27th meridian.
The “Shaposhnikov Plan” is suspect in two basic respects. First, the Soviets reject its very existence, writing:
There is no doubt whatsoever, that the essence of the investigated plan resembles strategic nonsense. Such a proposal could not have emanated from B.M. Shaposhnikov, who deeply understood the nature of contemporary war, who possessed vast knowledge in the realm of military history, who had great military-historical understanding and who was the author of a series of original strategic deployment plans of the Soviet armed forces in a variety of international conditions, which were affirmed after careful discussion by the Central Committee and Soviet government.4
Second, the plan itself would have been unrealistic and unsound. The Soviets themselves cite precedents which underscore the folly of such a defense. During the Napoleonic Wars, Russian attempts to use Barclay de Tolly's army in a similar covering force role, as a foil for a subsequent successful defense and counteroffensive by Bagration led to French occupation (albeit brief) of Moscow. German use of similar covering forces along the Marne in 1918, instead of producing successful German defense, led to a steady and disastrous German withdrawal.
FIGURE 3: THE SHAPOSHNIKOV PLAN
In June 1941, a “maneuver defense” would have accorded the Germans an almost unobstructed advance of 300 kilometers and probably produced disastrous losses in the most powerful and mobile of Soviet forces before decisive battle resulted along the Stalin line. Deprived of mobile reserves, in short order Soviet main forces in the Stalin line defenses would have been rendered as irrelevant as French forces massed in their Maginot fortresses.
Among many surprises that greeted Allied troops as they invaded Hitler's Fortress Europe was the staggering number of non-Germans who served loyally with or in Hitler's Wehrmacht. During the Normandy landings, Turkestanis and Cossacks in German uniform opposed Allied forces. Allied soldiers, noting that most of the former Soviets were led by Germans, were certain that these non-Germans were virtually herded into battle at gunpoint as cannon fodder. Why else would anyone from an occupied country fight for the Germans? In particular, why would someone from the Soviet Union fight for a system whose record of cruelty against Slavic people in World War II is well documented?
Four factors contributed to large numbers of Soviet peoples serving with the Wehrmacht. The first was bitter hatred of the oppressive Communist regime. While acknowledging the atrocities of the Germans in the occupied Soviet Union, the reader should remember that the Germans only occupied Soviet territory for some 2-3 years. This short period of time naturally limited the number and scope of atrocities, even if official German policy did not. But by the time the Germans arrived, the people of the Soviet Union had already endured over 20 years of barbarism at the hands of their own government(s). Once Lenin and his Bolsheviks had won, for years after the Revolution those who opposed them were either exterminated or incarcerated in the camps which became an integral part of Soviet culture. This, together with the immense loss of life during the Revolution, made opposition to the Soviet system a high risk proposition. But those who survived, and/or their families, held a bitter hatred for the Marxist/ Leninists/Stalinists. It was a hatred which quickly reemerged when the Germans drove the Soviet government out of European Russia in 1941-42.
Secondly, closely akin to those who simply hated the Bolsheviks and their system were those who specifically hated Stalin. In the interwar years many families in Soviet Russia had suffered from the oppression of the Stalin era. Once Josef Stalin solidified his control over the Party apparatus in the late 1920s, he established a regime based on terror and oppression. The first consequences of his system were the brutal collectivization movement (1928-30) and the subsequent famine when some 5-10 million people died. This was followed by a purge of the party leadership which eliminated most of the early Politburo membership other than Stalin himself. The political purge was followed by the witch hunt of the Soviet military – the Tukhachevski affair – which decimated the high ranking Soviet military leadership. In addition to these campaigns against selected groups, Stalin and his henchmen systematically oppressed Soviet citizens from all walks of life. As an end result, even many Russians who believed in the Marxist system hated Stalinist oppression, and were more than willing to assist in seeing Stalinism destroyed.
Thirdly, it should be held in mind that the Soviet Union was not a nation – in the traditional sense. Instead it included some 120 nationalities, many of which were forcibly integrated into Imperial Russia (or the Soviet Union) within 100 years prior to World War II. Many of these nationalities had not been fully integrated into the culture or language of the Great Russians, or of the new Marxist Soviet Union, when the German attack occurred. Most significant were the people of the Baltic States forcibly annexed in 1940, the Ukrainians, and the people of the southern tier of Soviet republics who had more in common with the Turks, Iraqis, and Iranians than the people of European Russia. Given their respective desires to retain their unique identities and cultures, and the pressures and persecution they were subject to by Stalin's regime, it is not surprising that many of these people would regard the Germans, who gave them national legions, regiments, and even divisions, as their potential liberators.
For a final and most obvious reason why some Soviets worked with the Germans, in the first six months of Barbarossa, one spectacular German victory succeeded another. By November 1941 some 2,053,000 Soviet soldiers had become prisoners of war, and the figure continued to climb. March 1942 found Alfred Rosenberg's Ostministerium stating that 3,600,000 Soviet soldiers were German prisoners. The staggering prisoner bags from the first two years of the war extended German logistical capabilities beyond limits that in any case were set to provide standards far below those accepted for “western” prisoners. By accident and design the vast POW enclosures established by the Germans became hell holes of disease, starvation and death from exposure. Many Soviet soldiers were more than willing to do anything to escape from these places of almost certain death.
The potential for mobilizing became evident to the German officers who interviewed Stalin's son after his capture. According to their findings, Stalin did not worry so much about the foreign enemy, the enemy from outside. His major concern was the enemy within, and the possibility that someone could spark a war of national liberation that would cause the Soviet people to rise up and cast off his system.5 What types of appeals could have been successful in causing such a national war of liberation?
A direct anti-Stalinist campaign would have likely been the most effective. Since Stalinist oppression had affected virtually every element of Soviet society, to include loyal and dedicated party members, such an appeal would have approached universality. The Germans could call for the Soviet people to rise up and throw off the oppressive yoke of Stalin and establish a new and more humane state. Or the appeal could have centered on throwing off Stalin's rule, which had in fact corrupted many of the basic tenets of Marx and Lenin, so that a bona fide Marxist state could develop.
If such an approach was thought inappropriate by Nazi ideologues, the Germans could have appealed to the agrarian workers on the vast Soviet collectives and state farms, promising them land and prosperity by returning the land to private ownership. Many peasants had thought that the Russian Revolution would bring them land and the freedom to work it. Instead, the collectivization drive initiated by Stalin placed Soviet farmers on either state farms or collectives, dashing their hopes for their own plots of land and the ability to market their own produce. The widespread bitterness over the collectivization of agriculture and the brutality associated with the implementation of this program made it a logical appeal for German propagandists.
A third approach that would have promoted widespread interest, could have been an appeal to the scores of Nationalities that composed so much of the population of the Soviet Union. The citizens of the three Baltic states, Ukrainians, Armenians, Georgians, and the Crimean Tatars, to name only a few, all had a history of seeking independence from Russian/Soviet rule. Even the Tsar's traditional praetorian force, the Cossacks, sought self-rule. Promises of independence or autonomy could have been a highly effective tool for defeating the Soviets. That such a strategy could and did work can be illustrated through the case of Bronislav Kaminsky. In the autumn of 1941, General Rudolf Schmidt, commander of the 2nd German Panzer Army, placed Kaminsky, a former Soviet official, in charge of pacifying part of the Bryansk forest, an area infested by partisans. Kaminsky organized local anti-partisan units, and soon the area was under his control and partisans were no longer a serious threat. The Germans were so pleased that they eventually allowed the development of a self-governing region, with executive authority in Kaminsky's hands. Kaminsky became both the civilian and military administrator of the Lokoty Self-Governing District. He was allowed to organize a small army called the Russian People's Army of Liberation (RONA), a force that would ultimately be large enough to have its own artillery section and a complement of T-34 tanks. His Liberation Army was never larger than a German division but Kaminski's success and the adaptability shown by his German sponsors were a hint of what could have been if the Germans had been willing to use other than military means to defeat the Soviet Union.
The Kaminsky model, solely a military initiative, was replicated on several other occasions. When German units entered the Caucasus area, they again planned for self-governing regions. They had the highest hopes in a Cossack self-governing region. This experiment allowed the Cossacks to establish their own local government, based on established traditions and form ministries for agriculture, education and health services. In addition, the Cossack Ataman had the authority to raise and command military forces for the liberation of their homeland from Bolshevism. So successful was the Cossack region that once the Germans were driven from the Caucasus, the self-governing region and some of the population moved westward with them; by the war's end, the Cossacks were located in northern Italy!
Could extending and systematizing such appeals have actually caused the Soviet army to disintegrate and/or the Soviet peoples to rise up against their government? Evidence seems to indicate that they had an extremely good chance for success if coupled with fair and reasonable treatment of both the people in the occupied areas and the large numbers of POWs. That such a concept was a reality was shown by the fact that in 1941, as the Germans advanced through the western Soviet Union, they were greeted in many areas as liberators rather than conquerors.
Above and beyond the friendly crowds and the refreshments provided to weary soldiers, Soviet citizens offered more tangible assistance to the advancing Wehrmacht. In the Ukraine, many German units were pressed for manpower to fight a war and simultaneously garrison territories. The 49th German Mountain Corps solved this problem by asking, through local city leaders, for indigenous volunteers to provide security forces to guard their own communities. Everywhere on the entire Eastern Front, German units, weakened by heavy fighting, informally recruited former Soviet soldiers to drive trucks, work with supply units, handle rear area security and, before 1941 was over, even fill vacancies in frontline combat units. Citizens and soldiers cooperated without the necessity for oppressive German oversight because so many of them felt few ties with the hated Stalinist regime.
A German call to the populace for liberation from the Stalinist system was unthinkable, in the context of Nazism's eastern program. The campaign planned and initiated by Hitler against the Soviet Union was intended to smash the Soviet army, destroy the Soviet state, eradicate once and for all from European life the scourge of “Jewish Bolshevism,” annex selected sections of European Russia for German colonization or settlement, and sublimate the Slavs and all of their aspirations in all areas controlled by German political or military organizations.
So serious was Hitler about a campaign of destruction against the Soviet Union and its citizens that from the onset, he forbade the Wehrmacht to allow Slavs to bear arms and fight as allies with the Germans. It was only because the Armed Forces, desperate for men, began to recruit Slavs into the German army that a movement to use Soviet citizenry developed. But the fact that, from June 1941 until the end of the war, Soviet citizens chose to fight against Stalin and with the Germans despite the latter's increasing reverses, indicates a deep-seated dissatisfaction among large numbers of Soviet citizens and a unique opportunity for the Germans. It was an opportunity to conduct a campaign to liberate the people of the Soviet Union and appeal to them to rise up against Stalinism, thus supplementing military means with political. To appeal to the Soviet people for an anti-Marxist campaign could have been counter productive because there were many in the Soviet Union who believed in the promises of Marx and thought that Marxism still offered hope for the future if the country could be rid of Stalinism. In all likelihood the best chance for such an appeal would have focused on destroying the Stalinist system and appealing to the nationalities. What if the Germans had posed as liberators? What could have been the possible outcome and conduct of the war?
A scenario in which the Germans were liberators might have proceeded as follows:
On 29 July 1940, with Operation Sea Lion looming on the horizon and the campaign to bring Britain to her knees seemingly coming to a successful conclusion, Hitler announced to the Wehrmacht high command that he intended to attack the Soviet Union. From late July 1940 until January 1941, Wehrmacht planners attempted to develop a campaign plan in keeping with Hitler's directions, only to conclude that the task as outlined by the Führer was virtually impossible. According to General Alfred Jodl, who was totally supported by all of the principals on the Oberkommando des Heeres staff, a successful campaign with the goals Hitler had established, was virtually impossible. Conversely, Jodl reported, there was a excellent chance for a campaign to succeed if Hitler were willing to sublimate or set aside some of his goals so that the most important element of his campaign might be realized, i.e. the destruction of the Soviet Union with its presently constituted Marxist government.
Though clearly annoyed that his military commanders would question the parameters of a campaign which he personally had established, Hitler allowed his high command to continue. Drawing on plans devised by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris' Abwehr and the army's own Fremde Heer Ost, it was proposed that when German units attacked the Soviet Union, the entire front would be saturated by a propaganda campaign announcing that German forces were attacking the Soviet Union to free its peoples from the yoke of Stalinism and to prevent the rest of Europe from having to live under the specter of threats from Stalin. The appeal would call for the citizenry of the Soviet Union to rise up and destroy Stalinism. Specific appeals would be addressed to the peoples of the Baltic states, the Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, as well as other national groups, drawing on their special grievances and implying that with victory the nationalities might expect favorable treatment, even autonomy with the assistance of the Germans.
All elements of the Wehrmacht would be instructed to regard themselves as liberators. Despite years of linked anti-communist/anti-Slavic themes in official German publications, the German military must see its true mission as destroying communism. It was communism which had corrupted the Slavic people, and the Wehrmacht's goal was to liberate the Slavs from the Communist scourge so they could become productive members of European society. As the army advanced, prisoners were to be treated well.
As soon as possible after capture, Soviet soldiers would be invited to join a liberation army and play a role in destroying Stalin. Philosophical support and actual manpower would be solicited as well from the large Russian émigré communities in Belgrade, Paris, Berlin and Manchuria, calling for the old soldiers of the revolution and their descendents to assist in destroying Stalin.
Once the army had liberated areas from Soviet forces, self-governing regions would be organized. These areas would be based on nationalities, and would be responsible for security, raising taxes (in part to support the liberation effort) and all of the other functions expected of a legally recognized government. German advisers and liaison personnel would be assigned to each area. It would be their responsibility to ensure that German goals were always kept in the forefront. Thus the keystones for German victory would be the strength and skill of the German army, the substantial manpower available through using anti-Stalinist forces, and the ability to draw on the resources of the secure rear areas to provision the German army.
Within this hypothetical program could have been the seeds of a German victory against the Soviet Union. Consider how it might have worked. Germany mustered over three million men for the Barbarossa offensive against the Soviet Union. This, together with assistance provided by allied countries, provided a very respectable attacking force. Conversely, the German army suffered casualties of 150,000-160,000 monthly, this figure based on day-to-day fighting and excluding major battles. General Franz Halder's diary brought this into clearer perspective by noting that from 22 June 1941 to 20 June 1942, the German army suffered 1,299,784 casualties which amounted to 40.62 percent of the attacking force.6 Some of these casualties returned to the front following convalescence, nevertheless the German army was slowly bleeding to death on the Eastern Front.
Would the hypothetical Jodl proposal have helped? In historical fact, there never was a concentrated or official attempt to recruit Russian prisoners into German service. Appeals addressed to serving or former Soviet soldiers were, by and large, designed for propaganda purposes, not to gain the badly needed manpower and equipment resources available in Soviet Russia. What were the prospects if the appeals had been sincere? Once the Battle of Smolensk was over and the city was in German hands, the new city leadership, pleased with the liberation from Stalin's tyranny and with encouragement from Field Marshal Fedor von Bock's Army Group Center, formed a “Russian Liberation Committee.” They indicated to the Germans their willingness to spearhead a move to raise a Russian Liberation Army of one million men. Their proposal was forwarded to the Führer Hauptquartier, where it languished and was never officially answered.7
Even more intriguing, on 22 August 1941, the 436th Soviet Regiment, commanded by Major Ivan Kononov defected to the Germans. Its commander had indicated as early as 3 August, in the midst of a successful counterattack against the Germans, that his entire regiment was willing to serve as the nucleus of a Liberation Army. Though their defection was accepted and Kononov and his men would fight against Soviet troops for the remainder of the war, the Liberation Movement he sought to lead was never authorized.
These are only two of many similar opportunities that presented themselves to Germans during the first year of the war. It is significant to note that, even though Hitler's, and thus the German Army's, policy was against enlisting Slavs into German service, General Ernst Koestring estimated that some 500,000-600,000 Soviet citizens were serving in the German army in the period 1942-43.8 They served in a number of capacities: as unarmed support personnel, front line soldiers in the Wehrmacht, local security forces in the occupied areas, and as pilots and air crew in their own volunteer air force. So great were their actual numbers, and so effectively did German commanders hide them from doctrinaire National Socialists, that their true strength and the extent of their service will probably never be know. After over 25 years of research, the writer is firmly convinced that altogether somewhere between 1-3 million served during the course of the war. If this many Soviet citizens could be recruited without an official campaign and in contradiction to official German policy, how many could have been enlisted with a determined and aggressive program to seek the help of the citizenry in a war of liberation and extend it as indicated in this scenario?
If Hitler had permitted the building of liberation armies, ensured the humane treatment of prisoners, and sanctioned the establishment of a reasonable occupation government, the consequences for the Eastern front would have been staggering. As German armies reached dangerously close to Moscow in the first week of December 1941, what would have been the impact of having available several hundred thousand additional troops, a Liberation Army dedicated to ousting Stalin from the seat of government. When the bitter winter of 1941 struck, what if a Russian Liberation Army was on line, equipped with Russian heavy equipment built to withstand the rigors of Russian winter. Tractors, trucks, and tanks had been left behind as junk by the advancing and victorious German army that planned to complete its campaign before winter set in.
Or what if the German army had possessed the luxury of having few worries about rear area security? To fight a war with a front line roughly 1,800 miles long and occupy an area of over one million square miles was indeed a Herculean task. What if the rear areas had been governed by their own people who ensured security through local militia groups, freeing the armed forces for the task of fighting the war? That it could and did work, where permitted by enlightened army leaders is a documented fact.
None of this was to be. In Hitler's new Europe, Slavs were to be subjugated, not entrusted with new, enlightened and popular governments. Hitler desired only to wage a war of conquest and destruction which was designed to destroy the Soviet state and Marxism and subjugate the Slavs. A strategy which would have included a combination of political appeals, accommodation with the people, and aggressive military action was simply not allowable.
To recognize fully the opportunity missed by the Germans, one only needs to contemplate that between one to three million Soviets served loyally with the Germans, many clear up to the war's end. Often they served without first class equipment. They fought loyally even though ridiculed by some Germans. They fought without any official hope or promises for a better future. What if Germany had actually offered to liberate them, to offer them a future for a new Europe? If the scenario included in this chapter had been implemented, Germany might have been virtually handed a world-shaping victory on a silver platter.
1 M. V. Zakharov, General'nyi shtab y predvoennye gody [The General Staff in the prewar years], (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1989), 258-261.
2 V. Karpov, “Zhukov.” Komunest voorushennykhsil [Communist of the armed forces], No. 5 (March, 1990), 61.
3 Ibid., 68.
4 Zakharov, 225.
5 Wilfred Strik-Strikfeldt, Against Stalin and Hitler: Memoir of the Russian Liberation Movement (New York: The John Day Company, 1973), 32-33.
6 Franz Halder, The Halder Diaries: The Private War Journals of Colonel General Franz Halder (Boulder: Westview Press, 1976), 1468.
7 Strik-Strikfeldt, 45-47.
8 General Ernst Koestring, Interrogation of General Ernst Kostring by the Historical Interrogation Commission, August 30-31, 1945, by Lieutenant Colonel O. J. Hale, 8-9, U.S. National Archives.