Dan Snow's History Hit - How and Why History: Operation Barbarossa

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

In June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, opening up the Eastern Front in World War II – a campaign to which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in history. But why... did Germany invade the Soviet Union? What did Stalin and Hitler think of each other? And how did the invasion impact on Germany’s eventual defeat? To find out the answers about this escalation in the Second World War, Charlie Mills spoke to Dr. Mario Draper at the University of Kent.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi everyone, we have launched an exciting new series of podcasts on history here. It's called How and Why History. Guess what it does? We're exploring history's big how and why questions with top historians, writers and academics. They range from the ancient world right up to recent times. This is a one-stop overview of history's most important names and the big world-changing events. To mark the anniversary this week of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, take a listen to this new How and Why episode about Operation Barbarossa. If you like it, please go and search for How and Why History wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe, and rate us, and all that junk.
Starting point is 00:00:40 There's a new episode every Tuesday and Friday, and you'll find fascinating ones already there about Attila the Hun, the Battle of Waterloo, the Renaissance, Pearl Harbour, and coming this Friday, the Romans and the Mediterranean. If you're really keen on How and Why History, there's more than 20 episodes over at History Hit TV. That's the new digital history channel. Go and check it out. In the meantime, let's relive those momentous events when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union 79 years ago. Hitler's attack in Russia came just when many commentators were saying there would be no German offensive this summer. The issue is still in the balance, the aim of the attack still in doubt. One thing, however, is clear. The German attack is a two-pronged assault in the direction of Kursk
Starting point is 00:01:27 with the object of cutting the Volga line or of outflanking Moscow, or both. It's clear, too, that Hitler has massed his tanks and planes and men and thrown into this sudden onslaught just about the heaviest weight of material and manpower of any battle on the Eastern Front. And they're concentrated in two small sectors, intent on smashing through at any cost. Tanks have been sent forward a hundred at a time, dwarfing in numbers even the tank clashes of the Western Desert.
Starting point is 00:01:55 On 22nd of June 1941, the Axis powers launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Over the course of the operation, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare marched into the Western Soviet Union, opening up the Eastern Front. But why did Hitler invade Russia? How did the invasion unfold?
Starting point is 00:02:20 And how did Operation Barbarossa influence the course of the Second World War? In this edition of How and Why History, Charlie Mills puts the big questions about this escalation in World War II to Dr Mario Draper from the University of Kent. This is How and Why History. Mario, thanks for joining us. Absolute pleasure. What was the historic relationship like between Russia and Germany?
Starting point is 00:02:48 Well, I'm not going to go too far back in history, but I will go back as far as the mid-18th century, just to give us a starting point. And this is a relationship that oscillates from one extreme to the other, sometimes in the same war, right? So Prussia, which later becomes Germany, and Russia can often find themselves on the same war. So Prussia, which later becomes Germany, and Russia can often find themselves on the same side or on opposite sides in various conflicts from the mid-18th
Starting point is 00:03:12 century all the way through to the Second World War. So during the Seven Years' War, for instance, which was 1756 to 1763, they are absolute mortal enemies to the point where Berlin is invaded by an Austrian and a Russian force and seemingly Frederick the Great's Prussia is on its knees, it's about to collapse. And then there's a change of monarch in Russia, suddenly the the Prussophile Peter III comes to the throne, signs peace treaty and they're all friends again and absolutely fine, no problems at all. Similarly the Napoleonic Wars, various times they're in the same coalition, at other times they're against each other. So there's a large Prussian contingent that joins Napoleon in the Grand Armee in the invasion of Russia in 1812. So again the same wars,
Starting point is 00:03:54 the same periods, they're finding each other on either the same side or the opposite side. Going into the late 19th century they were part of the Dreikaiserbund, the League of the Three Emperors until the late 1880s when this was dissolved which allowed Russia to fall into the sphere of influence of France and then also Britain in triple entente which then later seized them on opposite sides during the First World War until obviously the Russian Revolution takes the Russians out of the First World War and obviously the Russian Revolution takes the Russians out of the First World War and the peace treaty is signed at Brest-Litovsk in March of 1918. So a fractious
Starting point is 00:04:31 relationship to say the least historically. How much did this relationship start to change then in the lead up to the Second World War? Well this is a period of rapidly changing ideologies, of radicalisation, of dictators emerging left, left right and center so you know it's not just that you've got Stalin establishing himself in the Soviet Union or Hitler in Germany you've also got Mussolini in Italy and later Franco in Spain and these ideologies that they're all in many ways cut from the same cloth but also radically different at the same time as well so it's easy to say that all the dictators quite naturally would have got along. But if you think about it, Stalin's Bolshevism is far to the left of Hitler's National Socialism. So in many ways,
Starting point is 00:05:16 they're not natural bedfellows. But much like the history of the last 250 years preceding this, they find themselves either friends or foes at different times, depending on what the situation is. So, for instance, they're friends during the period of German rearmament, because the Treaty of Versailles has prevented the German army from building things like tanks, from having its own air force. And what the Germans find in the Russians are a suitable host. They send soldiers over across the border to be trained up with these new weapons in secret,
Starting point is 00:05:52 to give them some kind of base knowledge for development, for experience. So that shows some kind of friendship. Yet only a few years later, 1936, the eruption of the Spanish Civil War, they find themselves on opposite sides. So Hitler, very importantly for the nationalists for the far right in Spain under General Franco,
Starting point is 00:06:13 provides them with transports to get the army across from North Africa to Spain, supplies them with equipment and manpower in the famous Condor Legion. And on the other side, the Republican left, you've got Stalin sending particularly armour to support them, also military representatives and observers. And so the two are on opposite sides of a civil war. And then you get to 1939 and you have the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the pact of non-aggression, where the two sides come together, almost in their mutual hatred of the imperialist and capitalist West, to decide the fate of Eastern Europe, particularly Poland. And they declare spheres of influence
Starting point is 00:06:54 and make sure that the other can't ally themselves to an enemy of each other, so just keeping themselves at arm's length, but on the same side. And this results then very quickly after the invasion of Poland by the Germans in September of 1939 in the Russians invading as well from the other side. Normally to liberate natural Russians, bring them into their sphere of influence, but later as transpires this has been prearranged partition of Poland to keep both sides happy with each other for the time being. So the relationship actually mirrors what it had been in the last 250 years, at times friends, at times enemies. What did Hitler think
Starting point is 00:07:30 of Stalin and vice versa? Difficult to say really. The two men, as far as we can tell, never actually met. So there's no record of their direct personal interactions. So what we can go off is their reactions to one another's policies or things that they do. And this largely mirrors diplomacy. So at times when they're looking to mutually benefit, they're very nice to one another publicly in what they say about each other. But at times when there's a little bit more friction, it's not uncommon for particularly Hitler, becomes obvious later in the war to descend into one of those towering rages of his so for example when Stalin decides to occupy Bukovina in the summer of 1940 Hitler goes absolutely berserk at this because it's starting to threaten German oil
Starting point is 00:08:20 reserves in Romania right so this is a direct provocation, a direct threat, and at that point, clearly Hitler's opinion of Stalin is not very good. You can see this vice versa as well. So it really does reflect the diplomacy and the state of diplomacy during the period. So why did Germany wish to invade the Soviet Union? For a number of reasons. This comes about as a result of the strategic situation in the summer of 1940 out of practical reasons as well as political ones. So from a practical perspective the Soviet Union was the natural next target. So once they'd got rid of the threat posed by the British and French armies in the west in 1940 the next big beast is the one in the East. It's
Starting point is 00:09:05 ideologically also the most obvious target because, as I've mentioned previously, national socialism and Bolshevism aren't natural bedfellows. So if you look at the rhetoric of a lot of senior German officers, they see the next big struggle as being in the east, being against Russia, because if they don't take care of the Soviet Union, then sooner or later the Soviet Union is going to try and take care of Germany. So partly because Europe has largely been cleared of enemies barring the Soviet Union, practically speaking, they then turn their attention partly also ideologically as well and let's not forget also that in many ways this is a good time to launch an attack against the Soviet Union so only a couple of days after Hitler hosts a celebration for the victory in the west
Starting point is 00:09:58 where he raises a whole load of his generals to field marshals and in this very kind of self-congratulating way. You know, two days later, he already suggests to them that Russia is the next target. And this is partly because the Soviet Union is seen as being militarily weak, or if not weak, at least not at the strength that it could achieve in the very near future. So they know that there is military reform happening which is seeing the the Red Army increase from what it had been 1.1 million men in 1937 to somewhere near four and a half million men by 1940-41 so they see that they're strengthening so they don't want that to get too far into that process because all of a sudden it's
Starting point is 00:10:43 going to shift the balance of power between the two forces. And also they don't want the Soviet Union and the Red Army to recover from Stalin's purges. So in 1937-38 and again in the period of 1939-41, Stalin effectively decapitates the officer corps of the Red Army. In each of those phases, about 40,000 officers are quote-unquote repressed and you can understand what that means in most cases and it takes out 80% of the senior officers in the Red Army, really important people like Mikhail Tukhachevsky who is a tank theorist who has some fairly radical ideas about what to do with armour that might have proved very useful in the end, he's gotten rid of. So there's almost a command vacuum and a lack of experience in the Red Army, which is known about. So in order to capitalise
Starting point is 00:11:36 on this before the Red Army gets to its full strength post its reforms, before it can replace these officers, this seems like the time to strike. So practical reasons as well as political and ideological ones. How spontaneous was this decision or was it more well prepared than that? Not very spontaneous, I think. If we look at when Hitler first suggests the idea to his staff, we're looking at the summer of 1940. We're looking before the Battle of Britain really gets going. Now, he doesn't fully commit to the idea until after Operation Sea Line, the invasion of Britain is indefinitely postponed on the 17th of September 1940. But the general staff trying to regain some control over military strategy because they felt that they'd lost a
Starting point is 00:12:26 little bit of their position with the attack in the west because a lot of that had come out of Hitler's own personal hunch that this was the right time to do it a lot of the military didn't feel it was right but it proved to be very successful so Hitler had almost superseded them right as this supreme commander with this innate ability to make good strategic calls, had meant actually that what the general staff are trying to do in the summer of 1940 is preempt what Hitler wants to do. So even before Hitler mentions to them, actually Russia's the next target, there are some in OKH, the general staff, who are already planning for an attack in the east. So they already are sending divisions over eastwards so from both Hitler's perspective and the general staff's this isn't a
Starting point is 00:13:09 spontaneous thing right this is something that is a long time in the planning by the time they fully commit to it like I say in in the autumn of 1940 it's it's too late to do anything that year so the earliest they can project to invade is probably April of the following year in 1941. That'll be the peak of German mobilisation, be the earliest time weather-wise that they can get the operation off the ground. So they've got all this time through the autumn and the winter, even eventually the early spring of 1941 to plan this attack. It doesn't actually get going until the summer itself. But the Soviet hasn't been taken by surprise. For weeks, to judge by their air raids in the neighborhood of Orel and elsewhere,
Starting point is 00:13:54 they've been expecting a German push on the Kursk salient. They were ready, and the destruction of Hitler's men and machines in the first few days of the big battle has been enormous. Germans were wiped out in tens of thousands, tanks in hundreds, yet the figures in the Soviet communiques still mounted. Obviously Russian losses must also have been great, but Russia's reply to the opening of the attack was powerful and prompt. So you've mentioned Hitler, but who else influenced this decision? Land a Viking longship on island shores,
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Starting point is 00:15:31 It is largely Hitler's decision, actually. The decision to invade the Soviet Union comes directly from the top. The general staff, like I said, had been preempting this train of thought from Hitler and had made plans to pitch to him, partly to regain their status as drivers of military strategy and operations. So in terms of the actual decision, it's more Hitler than the military professionals themselves. What the military professionals do is then try and influence how this operation is going to come into being. Hitler has a couple of plans, a couple of ideas, which is basically a two-pronged attack using two army groups to go around the flanks and encircle the Red Army in a massive what's called Kesselschlacht, cauldron battle, which had been the linchpin of German military thought and strategy basically since
Starting point is 00:16:16 the days of Frederick the Great. This isn't a new idea to entrap your enemy by operating quickly and efficiently around the flanks and forcing them to fight surrounded or to give up. So this is Hitler's conception. What you then get is the general staff who are less sure that this is going to fully work, that actually having studied military history as they do and Napoleon's campaigns in 1812 and what they perceive the Russians as being capable of doing. They want to change this into a three-pronged attack and rather than fully concentrate on destroying the Red Army itself which is Hitler's main concern they like they did in France and Belgium in 1940 are about territory. Not in terms of gaining cities for city's
Starting point is 00:17:06 sake but for penetrating deep into the enemy's rear areas to sow absolute chaos and discord and break down the command and control capabilities of the Red Army because that will bring it to a standstill anyway. So that's what they want to do and they feel that a three-pronged attack, one to the north, one to the centre, one to the south, that's the way to go. So that's what they want to do. And they feel that a three-pronged attack, one to the north, one to the centre, one to the south, that's the way to go. So you get someone like von Paulus, who famously is the field marshal that surrenders at Stalingrad in 1943. He brings this plan to the table. So that's where the military professionals, the German general staff feeds in. But the actual decision to invade the Soviet Union itself comes from the top, comes from the top,
Starting point is 00:17:45 comes from the Supreme Commander Hitler. You've mentioned the tactics here, but where did the invasion begin and why was this point chosen? So the invasion begins in Poland, in the north, but simultaneously or relatively simultaneously along the entire front. So you've got these three army groups that are each pressing for their ultimate objective or at least in terms of direction north heading for Leningrad, centre heading towards Moscow and the southern group heading towards Kiev and beyond into Crimea and things like that. So you know huge huge huge swathes of territory to be covered and the invasion starts with air raids preparing the
Starting point is 00:18:26 way, preparing the ground for the lightning German strike, the famous panzer divisions to go off and do their thing. Go straight for the jugular, go quickly, go hard and so absolute chaos in the ranks of the Red Army, which is exactly what happens because the Red Army is not prepared. It doesn't have the officers with experience enough to deal with this type of warfare. It also doesn't have officers who are brave enough in many ways to contradict Stalin's orders. And there's basically a policy of not surrendering ground, of no retreat, which sees huge pockets of Red Army personnel being entrapped by these fast-moving German formations. And they can't or won't do anything about it because they're afraid that if they do suggest retreat,
Starting point is 00:19:14 that they're going to have a bullet in the back because Stalin ordered not to do that. So you get these incredible pockets. Bialystok, 160,000 prisoners taken in the early weeks and months. Minsk, 164,000 prisoners. Smolensk, 315,000 prisoners. And then the two big ones, Kiev, 665,000 Red Army prisoners. And at Vyazma, Bryansk, 660,000 prisoners. I mean, these are huge, huge, huge numbers of prisoners being taken.
Starting point is 00:19:45 prisoners. I mean, these are huge, huge, huge numbers of prisoners being taken, these pockets that are created by these rapid German advances into the Soviet Union. And this actually is part of the reason why it goes wrong, because you've again got competing strategic ideas. You've got Hitler, on the one hand, who wants to defeat these pockets in detail, right, and therefore slow the advance, because you can't leave these big armies in the rear, you've got to deal with them. And then on the other hand, you've got, you know, the military, who are largely saying, no, we've got to keep going, got to keep on penetrating deep, because this is ultimately what's going to force the Soviet Union to crack. And this kind of back and forth in the decision-making process eventually leads to a delay on the advance towards Moscow in October. And all of a sudden, this delay gives
Starting point is 00:20:33 a tiny bit of breathing space to the Soviet Union. The Red Army is able to defend Moscow, to put in place measures that allows them to not only halt, but then later counterattack the German forces as well. How did other nations, Allied and otherwise, react to this invasion? I think in many ways they were not surprised. We might think in hindsight, what on earth is Hitler doing? Making the same mistake that Napoleon did in 1812. Hitler doing? Making the same mistake that Napoleon did in 1812, attacking, actually,
Starting point is 00:21:12 the invasion was launched on the 129th anniversary of the invasion of Russia, the very day. So, you know, there's almost a symmetry there in history that people look back on in hindsight and go, well, this is crazy. But if you look at what the Wehrmacht had achieved in France and Belgium in 1940, where they had defeated, you know, one of the strongest armies on the continent in the French army. It doesn't put up a great showing, but people don't realise that before the war starts. They think this is a very strong army, supported by the BEF, again, another very strong force, and they'd scythe through them like a hot knife through butter. So there was no reason to think that similar things couldn't happen in the East, you know, particularly given that the Red Army is
Starting point is 00:21:48 not at the height of its powers in 1941 with this command vacuum, with, you know, this reform to bring more men into the army but at the same time an army that is not fully equipped yet. It's got more tanks than all other armies in the world combined, 20,000 or so, but of those only really 1,800 are of any real use in terms of the famous T-34 tanks or the KV tanks. So there's a feeling that this was going to happen and actually the German army could well be successful here. From say a British perspective I think there's almost a sigh of relief that not everything
Starting point is 00:22:26 is being directed towards them anymore. The threat of invasion all of a sudden fades as a result because there's no way that the German army could realistically launch two major land campaigns like that. In the States, it's almost one of apathy, in a sense. They really don't want to be drawn into this war if they can avoid it. If you look at Gallup polls which effectively are trying to assess the the mood and the opinion of the American people, many of them are happy to supply arms to the Allied powers but what they really don't want to do is to get themselves involved. So if they can stay out of it they will.
Starting point is 00:23:02 So the invasion of Russia, okay, was, it's a shame for the Soviet Union. They don't really want to see fascism spread too much, but at the same time, not their problem. How did this decision then influence the course of the Second World War? It's absolutely massive. It's probably the biggest decision of the Second World War, with the possible exception, I guess, of the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbour
Starting point is 00:23:25 in December of 1941. But what both of them do is bring in the powerhouses of the Second World War in terms of manpower, in terms of industrial capacity. And this is something that the Axis powers cannot keep up with. It bleeds them dry in many respects because the war in the east sucks in so much manpower and material and effort that it really does weaken German capacity to wage war elsewhere. And although there are a number of successes early on in the campaign, once they're checked and halted and slightly pushed back and particularly once you get past 1941 into 1942-43, all of a sudden you do see a shift in the nature of the fighting on the Eastern Front. So, you know, firstly, it becomes a lot more dominated by things like armour,
Starting point is 00:24:18 and particularly heavy armour, which the Soviet Union is in a much better place to produce on a mass scale than the German economy is. So this sees a kind of sea change in terms of how the war unfolds on the Eastern Front. And equally, it's also massively important because Omar Bartóf, a leading historian on the Eastern Front in the Second World War, has talked about the brutalisation of war and almost the barbarity of it on the Eastern Front in the Second World War has talked about the brutalisation of war and almost the barbarity of it on the Eastern Front. You don't see this anywhere else really in the Second World War because these are two ideologies kind of being pitted against one another. And there is absolute hatred and enmity between the two sides. And so some of the fighting, even though in many ways it becomes less technological and much more
Starting point is 00:25:04 visceral than hand-to-hand combat, is fighting to the death in many respects. And this takes a big psychological toll on both sides and takes a grip of them psychologically as well. So, you know, people often talk about Stalingrad, you know, this big symbol of the Soviet nation because it bears the name of Stalin, right? It cannot lose that. Same as Leningrad. It drives both sides into feeding manpower material into this meat grinder almost, which severely weakens the German army more so than it does the Soviet Union. And as a result, the ability then of the Germans to fight in North Africa, to fight the eventual invasion of Italy, to fight in Northwest Europe in 1944, once D-Day comes around, much reduced because of the time and effort spent dealing with the Soviet Union in the East.
Starting point is 00:25:58 So what was the outcome of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union? Ultimately defeat, and not just defeat in the East, but defeat in the entire war. Let's not forget, it's the Soviet Union that reaches Berlin first. It is a Red Army victory in many respects. Certainly, the Allies in the form of the British and the Americans and the Free Forces play a big part in that, not just from 1943 and the invasion of Italy or 1944 and the invasion of Northwest Europe onwards.
Starting point is 00:26:29 Even before that, in terms of the strategic bombing campaigns, which effectively is like a second front, not to diminish their contribution in any way, but this is almost a Red Army victory proper. Red Army victory proper. So after Kursk, you have Operation Bagration in 1944, which is a huge, huge, huge operation through Belarusia, which pushes the German army out of Russia and back into its own territory. And the effects materially and psychologically are huge. So just to put this into some kind of perspective, the military losses for the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945, so the period from Operation Barbarossa through to the end of the war, is estimated at around 8.7 million. Now compare that with the Wehrmacht, with German losses for the entirety of the war, 1930-1945, that's estimated at 4 million. So in terms of absolute numbers it's 2 to 1 in terms of the
Starting point is 00:27:26 Russians losing more men but they have that manpower pool to draw from so it makes it easier for them to replace those losses than it does for Germany. Similarly you know with something like tanks so it's estimated that the Red Army lost 96,500 tanks and self-propelled guns between 1941 and 1945, whereas this is more than the Germans were able to produce in the entirety of the war from 1939 to 1945. So this decision to invade Russia put so much strain on the German army, on the German economy, that one tank lost for the Russians is not a big deal. One tank lost for the Germans is a massive deal. The Red Army can soak up these losses much easier than Germans.
Starting point is 00:28:13 So ultimately, this plays a massive role in the overall defeat of the German army. Mario, thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Thank you. How and why history?

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