Barbarossa 1941

Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia in 1941 is the lead volume in a new Battles & Campaigns series by Tempus Publishing that seeks to draw "on the latest research and integrating the experience of combat with intelligence, logistics and strategy." The author, David M. Glantz, is an acknowledged expert on the Russo-German conflict and over the past decade, his assiduous research has over-turned many pre-existing notions about that conflict. This volume on Barbarossa, while vaguely reminiscent of an Osprey series campaign title, continues in the research tradition that Glantz used in earlier volumes. Barbarossa is a bit overly succinct at times - the reader may wish that the book was not part of a tightly-constrained series - but Glantz succeeds in delivering an excellent account of the 1941 German campaign in Russia that breaks significant new ground. Furthermore, Glantz combines excellent research with top-notch military analysis.

Barbarossa consists of nine chapters, beginning with a 22-page opening section on opposing forces and plans. Glantz moves through this opening section quickly, but highlights the main strengths and weaknesses of each side. The next two chapters cover the initial border battles and the Soviet response; these chapters were a bit too succinct and readers should consult Glantz's earlier The Initial Period of War on the Eastern Front and Stumbling Colossus for greater detail. The three middle chapters cover the battles for Smolensk, Leningrad and Kiev. The Battle for Moscow and the Soviet Winter Counteroffensive are covered in the final three chapters. Glantz provides appendices listing German planning documents for Barbarossa, Soviet documents and opposing orders of battle in June 1941. There are about 200 photographs in the volume, as well as about one dozen sketch maps. Inadequate maps are usually the only weakness in books by Glantz and he continues that trend in Barbarossa; the maps are too few and too poorly presented to enable the reader to follow most of the actions described. A bibliography and detailed end notes complement the text.

Glantz contradicts several popular notions about Barbarossa, and he has the archival data to back up his claims. The trendy hypothesis of recent years that Germany could have won the war by taking Moscow in September 1941 had not Hitler meddled with his "Kiev diversion" is exposed as facile. Before Hitler ordered the Kiev encirclement, fewer than 3 million German soldiers were facing 5 million Soviet soldiers, but after the encirclement this ratio had improved to 3:4. Many authors ignore the fact that Soviet resistance had stiffened during the Smolensk fighting, inflicting the first serious disruptions to the German plan. Hitler went south and north in September because the road to Moscow was effectively barred, and he went for easy pickings. However, a month later, everything had changed. Glantz shows how Soviet historians concealed the ill-judged Soviet counter-offensive in September that depleted their reserves around Moscow. When the German panzers turned again toward Moscow in October, the Soviet armies were caught off-balance still in an offensive posture and the result was the catastrophic encirclement battles at Vyazma-Bryansk. Glantz concludes that, "the Wehrmacht's best opportunity for capturing Moscow occurred in October 1941 rather than September."

Although this book is written primarily at the army and corps level, Glantz does take time to focus on some of the brigade and division-size units that made vital contributions. There are blind spots in this account, particularly concerning air operations. For example, there is no mention of the key role played by Richtofen's 8th Air Corps in spearheading the Blitzkrieg or the German air raids on Moscow. Nor is their much mention of German supply difficulties and inability to assess Soviet mobilization capabilities, despite the fact that this series is intended to incorporate logistic and intelligence perspectives. On the operational level, Glantz sometimes glosses over significant actions such as the failure of the SS Das Reich Division to breakthrough the Soviet defense at Borodino in October 1941 - an action which probably saved the capital. Glantz also ignores the Soviet air deployment of an airborne corps to Orel to help delay Guderian's panzers - a unique operation by any standard. However, the culprit of these omissions is probably the series editor, rather than the author.

Why did Barbarossa fail? Glantz believes that "the most significant factor in the Red Army's ability to defeat Operation Barbarossa was its ability to raise and field strategic reserves." The German panzer groups annihilated one Soviet army after another, only to face a new wall of defenders. While the defending Soviet forces around Moscow received about 75 division equivalents during October-November 1941, the attacking Germans received not one new division. Stalin, unlike Hitler in 1941, believed in total mobilization. Furthermore, the bad weather explanation has been used by Germans to conceal a host of operational errors and reckless contempt for a resilient enemy. Glantz believes that poor logistics, rather than bad weather, was responsible for bringing the German offensive to a halt. While the Russian mud and earlier winter hindered German mobility, Glantz notes that the first serious frostbite cases did not occur until after the German offensive had shot its bolt. Overall, Barbarossa is a fine summary of the 1941 campaign and it succeeds - as always with this author - in delivering fresh information and perspectives on the decisive theater of the Second World War.