Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941–1944 (Cambridge Military Histories) by Jeff Rutherford

Author:Jeff Rutherford [Rutherford, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

I. “The replacement situation is unfortunately proving to be catastrophic”: the state of the infantry

At the most fundamental level, Army Group North simply did not possess enough men and machines to complete its ever-expanding mission: capture Leningrad, maintain a common front with Army Group Center, and construct a defensive front linking the wings of its advance. During the first month and a half of war, only 14,000 replacements entered the ranks of Army Group North in a futile attempt to replace its 42,000 casualties.4 The resulting deficit in manpower wreaked havoc on the ability of the army group to function as a coherent whole. While Eighteenth Army concentrated its forces in the siege line around Leningrad, Sixteenth Army’s mandate forced its units to advance in divergent directions, and this permitted very little mutual support between its corps.5 The shifting of Panzer Group 4 in mid-September to Army Group Center for the final drive on Moscow only further strained the situation.6 When Eighteenth Army’s commander complained of this situation in late September, he was informed by Halder that “the numerical superiority of the Russians is a fact that we will continue to face, despite the lack of personnel on his side that is gradually becoming discernible. It will be balanced out through the high value of the German soldier.”7 In other words, Soviet superiority in quantity would have to be defeated by a German quality that was rapidly shrinking in numbers.

The results of such manpower shortages clearly arose in two meetings held between Busch and his Sixteenth Army corps and divisional officers during the last three months of 1941. In early October, Busch provided depressing details on the Wehrmacht’s material resources to the assembled officers. He informed them that the 400,000-man reserve available at the outset of the campaign had already been “used up” and that they “cannot count on any reserves”; only convalescents would be returning to their units for the foreseeable future. He then exhorted them to scour the rear areas for all available men and ended the meeting with the demand “the last man to the front!”8 Just over two months later, the situation had only worsened. His division commanders painted a grim picture of German weakness to Busch in mid-December 1941:

continuous Russian activity, constant tactical patches, living from hand to mouth. Impossible to construct fortifications. Troops remain overextended. Everyone must be permanently ready for action … Constant weakening of combat power. Daily average 30–40 [men lost] … The situation is extraordinarily serious. Strength is not sufficient to hold this position for an extended period of time.9

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.