Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East by David Stahel

Author:David Stahel [Stahel, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History, Military, General, Europe, Modern, 20th Century, World War II
ISBN: 9781107320079
Google: 0TchAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2009-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 6.2 As the Soviet armies near the border dissolved, countless armed groups hid in the extensive forests of Belorussia ambushing German supply columns.

By the middle of July 1941 Hitler's desire to rule the great expanses of the east finally seemed within his grasp. Certainly Halder's military briefings had done nothing to dissuade Hitler from this viewpoint – quite the contrary in fact. Halder's buoyant reporting on the military situation, with its brazen tone of optimism, upheld the most fanciful pillars of Hitler's Weltanschauung. At every stage the triumph of German arms was lauded over that of the inferior Soviet armies, providing a strident confirmation of Hitler's perverted racial conceptions and fuelling his unbridled thirst for conquest in an ever widening departure from reality. At the same time veiled qualms, voiced from various quarters, were either left unattended or dismissively rejected. It was in this atmosphere of unmitigated delusion that Hitler's revised War Directive 32a was issued on 14 July 1941, calling for a future reduction in the size of the army with resources being redirected towards the air force. Although retaining the ambitious tank building programme, the directive nevertheless stated: ‘The extension of arms and equipment and the production of new weapons, munitions, and equipment will be related, with immediate effect, to the smaller forces which are contemplated for the future.’150 As an instructive indication of the recurring importance of economic factors in Hitler's strategic deliberations, the directive specifically pointed out: ‘It is particularly important to ensure supplies of raw materials and mineral oil.’151 Conspicuously for the intensifying strategic debate, it was only in the south of the Soviet Union, namely the mineral-rich Donets Basin in the eastern Ukraine and the oil-producing Caucasus, that Hitler could secure such commodities.

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