Operation Barbarossa: Difference between revisions
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== Initial actions == | == Initial actions == | ||
===[[C3I-ISR|C3I]]=== | |||
Tactical surprise was almost complete; while General Headquarters sent some warnings just after the Germans started moving, very few were received through a primitive communications system. <ref>{{citation | |||
| title = Military Errors of World War Two | | title = Military Errors of World War Two | ||
| author = Kenneth Macksey | | author = Kenneth Macksey | ||
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| author = [[Walter Warlimont]] | | author = [[Walter Warlimont]] | ||
| date = 1992 | publisher = Presidio Press}}, p. 180</ref> | | date = 1992 | publisher = Presidio Press}}, p. 180</ref> | ||
===Diplomatic=== | |||
On the first day, [[Italy]] and [[Rumania]] declared war on the Soviet Union.<ref name=Gilbert>{{citation | |||
| author = Martin Gilbert | |||
| publisher = Stoddart | year = 1989 | |||
| title = The Second World War}}, p. 199</ref> | |||
===Air=== | |||
German air strikes hit 66 air bases, the naval facilities at [[Libava]] in the Baltic, and five cities: [[Kovno]], [[Minsk]], [[Odessa]], [[Rovno]] and [[Sebastopol]]. With 1280 combat aircraft the German [[Luftwaffe]] destroyed over than 2000 Soviet aircraft within 18 hours. The Germans lost 35 aircraft, 15 of which from premature explosions of own bombs. The Soviet air defense, therefore, was only able to inflict a a loss of one German aircraft to each 100 of theirs. | |||
<ref name=Ratley>{{citation | |||
| url = http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1983/mar-apr/ratley.htm | |||
| journal = Air University Review | date= March-April 1983 | |||
| title = A Lesson of History: The Luftwaffe and Barbarossa | |||
| author = Lonnie O. Ratley III}}</ref> | |||
The Luftwaffe changed its targeting priorities from [[close air support]] being the main air task in the 1939 and 1940 [[blitzkrieg]]s. Instead, the first mission was [[offensive counter-air]]: destruction of the Red Air Force and its ground organization, after which close ar support would follow. These priorities indicate the Luftwaffe regarded aircraft engines as a [[centers of gravity (military)|center of gravity. They were:<ref name=Ratley/> | |||
*"Destruction of modern aircraft and the Red Air Force ground organization. | |||
*Destruction of production facilities for aircraft and aircraft engines. | |||
*Destruction of aircraft with "M" (modern) engines. | |||
*Destruction of other aircraft." | |||
===Ground=== | |||
Land forces, by nightfall, had taken the fortress towns of [[Kobryn]] and [[Pruzahany]]. <ref name=Gilbert/> | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
{{reflist|2}} | {{reflist|2}} | ||
Revision as of 20:26, 8 January 2011
A strategic surprise to Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa was the German code name for its invasion of Russia on 22 June 1941, at 04:15 local time. Stalin had believed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact promising nonaggression from the Germans.
German intentions
Failure to prepare
Both Stalin and Adolf Hitler, in various ways, were unprepared for the reality of the conflict. Stalin was surprised, tactically and strategically, by the invasion. Hitler was overconfident in a quick victory.
Stalin
Strategic warning
Stalin received a warning document, in May 1939, about The Future Plans of Aggression by Fascist Germany, based on a German briefing obtained by Soviet spies in Warsaw. A Soviet agent first reported that Hitler planned to declare war on the Soviet Union in March 1941, and refined the estimate, by February 28, to May 20.
This intelligence was corroborated by sources in Bucharest, Budapest, Sofia and Rome, to say nothing of the information provided by the spy Richard Sorge (code-named Ramsay) in Tokyo [1] in which the authors detail the undercover operations of the spy ring headed by Richard Sorge and Hotsumi Ozaki which transmitted highly secret information from Tokyo to the Soviet Union between 1933 and 1941. On April 17 a Prague informant predicted a German invasion in the second half of June. The precise date and time of the invasion were revealed by a reliable source in Berlin fully three days before the Germans attacked.
All of this Stalin ignored. Typically, he scrawled on the bottom of the Prague report: English provocation! Investigate! On May 19, Sorge predicted that 150 divisions were being readied by the Germans for an invasion of the Soviet Union. Stalin retorted with an expletive.
Readiness
The result was that literally nothing was done to prepare for the German assault. Soviet planes were not camouflaged. Troops were not in defensive positions; indeed they were ordered not to occupy such positions, for fear of provoking the Germans.
Worse, Stalin had to the gathering storm with yet another purge of suspected threats to his own authority, having had shot Mikhail Tukhachevsky and:
- 2 of the oher 5 Marshals
- 13 of the 15 army commanders (full generals) and 8 of the 9 equivalent admirals
- 50 of the 57 corps commanders
- 154 of the 186 division commanders
Soviet public position
On 13 June 1941, Moscow Radio broadcast a TASS report that appeared to be in Stalin's personal style. "to tear up the Pact and to undertake an attack on the USSR are without any foundation," and that such rumours were "clumsy propaganda by forces hostile to the USSR and Germany and interested in an extension of the war." [2]
Was Stalin planning an attack?
Hitler
Initial order of battle
Germany
Soviet Union
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