Guderian 1941: The Barbarossa Campaign

By David R. Higgins

An in-depth account of the advance of Heinz Guderian’s Second Panzer Group across the central Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa.

During the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Heinz Guderian's Second Panzer Group played a leading role, cutting through the defenses on the border, then taking part in the massive encirclement battles near Minsk, Smolensk, and Kiev. The extraordinary speed of the advance reflects the experience of the Wehrmacht as a whole during the first phase of the war on the Eastern Front. That is why David Higgins’s graphic narrative, which describes how Guderian’s forces achieved enormous success before they were forced to halt, is such compelling reading. It is a fascinating story, vividly told.

Drawing on a wide range of official German and Soviet records, he reconstructs the entire course of Second Panzer Group's advance, covering each stage in unprecedented detail. His narrative offers a German perspective and an inside view of what the opposing commanders knew during each operation and shows how important logistics became as the German supply lines stretched deep into the Soviet Union. It also explains how Soviet resistance and reinforcements, declining strength and the onset of the Russian winter combined to bring Guderian to a stop at Tula where he was relieved of his command.

The high hopes with which the German army had launched the campaign were dashed only a few months later before Moscow. This in-depth study the of operations of Second Panzer Group gives the reader a telling insight into what went wrong.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Dec 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781526762139

David R. Higgins

David R. Higgins is the author of several military history books and has written articles for magazines such as Strategy & Tactics, Armchair General, World At War and Modern War. He has appeared on television's Greatest Tank Battles.

Book preview

Guderian 1941

Guderian 1941

The Barbarossa Campaign

David R. Higgins

First published in Great Britain in 2023 by

PEN & SWORD MILITARY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

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Copyright © David R. Higgins, 2023

ISBN 978-152-676212-2

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The right of David R. Higgins to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Maps

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian

Introduction

Chapter 1. Barbarossatag, 22 June 1941

Chapter 2. Race to Minsk, 23–25 June 1941

Chapter 3. Closing the Minsk Pocket, 26 June–1 July 1941

Chapter 4. Securing the River Dnepr, 2–9 July 1941

Chapter 5. Mogilev and Smolensk, 10–20 July 1941

Chapter 6. Roslavl’, 21 July–7 August 1941

Chapter 7. Turning from Moscow, 8–26 August 1941

Chapter 8. Capping History’s Largest Encirclement, 27 August–23 September 1941

Chapter 9. Orel, 24 September–31 October 1941

Chapter 10. Tula, 1 November–5 December 1941

Aftermath

Appendix A Second Panzer Group, 22 June 1941

Notes

Select Bibliography

Preface

Although numerous books, articles, and papers have covered Operation Barbarossa either in whole or in part, I believe an opportunity exists to address the challenges of orchestrating an army-sized, armour-centric German spearhead during the 1941 campaign. Over the roughly five-month period where (full) General (Generaloberst) Heinz Guderian’s Second Panzer Group/Army carved a seemingly inexorable swath across Soviet-annexed Poland, Belorussia and Ukraine (Soviet Socialist Republics), and Russia (Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) a myriad factors needed to be overcome to affect battlefield success. In covering active combat operations involving a fluctuating mix of mobile, foot, and horse-bound formations, numerous organic and temporarily attached units and integrated air support focusing on one of Barbarossa’s four main armoured vanguards seemed an excellent vehicle through which to convey the overall complexity of Guderian’s command, and by extension that of his peers in the wider war effort.

Instead of an omniscient view in which both Wehrmacht and Red Army forces are given equal coverage and level of detail, being from the German perspective any information about the enemy would often be clouded and incomplete to approximate the fog of war to the reader; with any elaboration relegated to the notes to avoid muddying the narrative. Aside from any outside direct or indirect influence related to Guderian’s command, coverage is exclusively on Second Panzer Group/Army. Although translated German designations have been employed when appropriate, the widespread use and understanding of some seemed better left in their original form. Based largely on primary German and Soviet sources, the reader is presented with comprehensive coverage of not just the events and personalities, but the reasons behind decisions that were made, and their results and consequences. Set within what was arguably the Second World War’s deciding theatre, the conflict’s immense size and scope, not to mention its viciousness and barbarity reminiscent of the Thirty Years War (1618–48), made for a compelling subject from which valuable lessons can be extrapolated and applied to the modern political and military arena.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following individuals for their kind support, without which, this book, and my other military history endeavours, might not have been possible. Joseph Miranda, Editor-in-Chief (Strategy & Tactics magazine); Colonel (ret.) Jerry D. Morelock, PhD, Editor-in-Chief (Armchair General magazine); Nick Reynolds, commissioning editor, Osprey Publishing; David Fletcher, former curator (Bovington Tank Museum); Charles Lemons, former curator (Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor); Jari Saurio, curator (Parola Armour Museum); Mark Whitmore, former Director of Collections & Research (Imperial War Museum); Colonel (ret.) David M. Glantz; Oberleutnant der Reserve Otto Carius; Bogusław Winid, former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Poland to the United Nations; Peter Williamson, co-founder, Breakthrough Entertainment; Thomas Jentz, for taking time out of his measuring to talk with me atop an Aberdeen Jagdpanther; The Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic; Rupert Harding, Lisa Hooson, and Tara Moran, Pen & Sword Books; Dr Craig Luther; G.G. Bysyuk (Г.Г. Бысюк), Director of the Memorial Complex ‘Brest Hero Fortress’; Agata Kowalewska, Stawicka Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, National Research Institute (Warsaw, Poland); John Calvin (http://www.wwii-photos-maps.com); Neil Peart’s enduring example; my wife, Diana; and Griffin, Lily, and Nimbus for their moral support. I would also like to thank my mother (h+) for fostering self-reliance, humour, risk tolerance, and a healthy scepticism of authority; as well as all those formative family vacations to historical sites and battlefields – even the ones where those people happened to prevail.

Any errors or omissions in this work were certainly unintended, and for which I alone bear responsibility.

Maps

While consideration was given to showing Soviet formations where German intelligence (frequently incorrectly) understood them to be, this made for unnecessary confusion, and instead they are depicted accurately based on the initial map/chapter date. To minimize visual clutter individual divisions are sometimes grouped into their parent corps or army, and each associated Red Army organizational write-up only includes formations whose symbols are visually presented. The fully-black German formation symbols indicate their generalized locations on the chapter/map’s first day, with a lighter version representing their positions at the selected period’s end. Movement arrows depict primary German advance routes, which overlap to indicate sequence. As representative of the numerous rivers/crossings Second Panzer Group needed to secure along its path to Moscow, Maps 3 and 4 show bridge locations along the main and secondary roads. In contrast to the earlier emphasis on showing low-lying wood and marshland, the hilly terrain around Tula necessitated its focus for Map 11 (and called for omitting Soviet location bubbles to minimize visual clutter). The foundations upon which the book’s maps were created included Armee-Oberkommando 2, Ia. Anlage 8-14 zum KTB Russland and Der Feldzug gegen Sowjet-Russland: Band I. Operationen Sommer-Herbst 1941 vom 21. Juni–6. Dezember 1941, as well as Polish 1:100,000 Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny, edition 1937–8 and USSR produced 1:100,000, General Staff of the Red Army, edition 1940.

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian

Although not intended as a biography considering this book’s subject matter, and Heinz Guderian’s prominent position in Germany’s military pantheon, cursory coverage of his background is warranted. Born on 17 June 1888 in the picturesque town of Kulm, his ancestry extended far back into the Prussian territory between the rivers Vistula and Neman. Although familial military and professional backgrounds predominated through his paternal grandmother, Emma Guderian (née Hiller von Gaertringen), and included general officers who fought under Friedrich II, genannt ‘the Great’, and during the Revolutionary Wars against France, like many of the Junkers aristocracy who traced their lineage to the Teutonic Knights, Heinz’s family lacked the wealth so often associated with them. Having shown the requisite aptitude at age 9 to be placed in a track towards university, after three years in Gymnasium a 12-year-old Heinz (and his younger brother, Fritz) were accepted to the Karlsruhe Cadet School in south-western Germany. In what was undoubtedly a jarring first step towards becoming an officer in the Kaiser’s Army, the boys entered a world of discipline, hierarchy, hazing, ill-fitting uniforms, limited quantities of mediocre food, negligible privacy, physical activities, and a curriculum that included geometry, religion, history, French, drawing, and philosophy. Within two years Heinz was accepted to the prestigious Main Cadet School at Gross-Lichterfelde (Berlin) for secondary schooling, where top-notch instructors led courses on history, mathematics, languages, Latin, and especially military science. Illustrative of his having taken to the Prussian/German military philosophy, process, drill, and formality, and his growing reputation, his company commander wrote that ‘Guderian has conducted himself excellently in every relationship and has given his younger comrades a good example through loyalty to duty, [and an] excellent attitude. His appearance as a superior is calm and secure.’ Following graduation in 1907, Guderian served for six weeks in the Hanoverian Jäger Battalion No. 10 under his father, Friedrich, before attending the War Academy in Metz from April to December. Upon his graduation his Leaving Certificate read, ‘an excellently qualified and equally aspiring young man, physically very skilled and [a] good rider, of solid character, amiable manners and [an] outstanding inclination for the profession’. On completing the instruction he received a lieutenant patent (commission) in January 1908.

After a very brief stint with 10th Engineer Battalion and a year-long assignment with 3rd Telegraph Battalion (5th Cavalry Division) Guderian married Margarethe Goerne after a two-year courtship in October 1913 before being accepted into the very selective War Academy for the General Staff. With a global conflict breaking out the following year, however, the classes attending the facility were subsequently mobilized, with Guderian serving with his former division as leader of 3rd Heavy Radio Station and later in a similar signals/intelligence position with Fourth Army. While wireless technology was in its infancy, applying it in close contact with combat-active staff commands provided valuable experience with untethered communications. As a captain serving in the Ypres and Verdun sectors, he was left with a deep disdain of static combat and attritional waste. Guderian commanded II./14th Infantry Regiment at Reims in September 1917 and starting the following month served in staff positions until the war’s end.

Having opted to remain in the military post-war, Guderian served with the War Ministry’s Central Border Defence-East, and other positions in the area towards preserving his country’s eastern territorial integrity and maintaining a physical frontier with Soviet Russia, lest Entente-friendly nations re-establish Poland as a political entity and effectively surround Germany to its detriment. Given the chaotic years after the Armistice, he served as a company commander. Along with many within the German military he was an avowed monarchist, and although no proponent of the present weak, democratic Weimar government, he helped put down Spartacist forces that attempted to supplant it for a Communist one. As Inspector of Motor Transport Troops in eastern Germany, where only few trenchworks and defensive positions were available to maintain a defined front line, he gained considerable insight into the use of armoured cars and mobile forces to figuratively fight with a rapier instead of a cudgel. Guderian studied the works of contemporaries in the field, and wrote brief military journal articles about his take on motorized and cavalry operations during the First World War. In his 1934 book Achtung! Panzer!, Guderian neglected to mention many of his influences, in particular Austrian Lieutenant General (General der Artillerie) (ret.) Ludwig Eimannsberger, and the contributions of foreign and domestic military theorists, as well as those specialists and senior commanders working to put them into practice. As a proponent of applying concentrated, mixed-unit armoured and motorized forces, with close-air support, and maximum violence to breech an enemy’s defences and range deep into their soft command and control, and logistics zone to bring about rapid victory Guderian was known to aggrandize himself by assuming the position of a maverick and outsider who was at odds with more conservative peers and members of the General Staff. In reality many of these new ideas about conducting a modern war of movement were widespread.

On assuming command of 3rd Prussian Motor Transport Battalion in 1930 he worked to put these theories and his past experience into practice by reorganizing its subordinate units into scout, antitank, and tank companies that communicated via radio; an application largely seen as a novelty at the time. Considering the name Guderian had built for himself and the legally elected German Chancellor and self-appointed ‘Führer’ a year later in 1934, Adolf Hitler, desiring to showcase his nation’s fledgling armoured force that had recently thrown off what had been promoted as the shackles of Versailles, in 1935 the former was made commander of the newly-minted 2nd Panzer Division. Given this plum position when he had only been made a colonel three years previously, Guderian was tasked with leading XVI Motorized Army Corps, which comprised Germany’s first three panzer divisions and participated in the bloodless 1938 Austrian Anschluss. As a leading proponent of mixed unit, deep manoeuvre tactics and operations, without undue immediate concern for his flanks believing movement would bring security, later that year he was made Lieutenant General (General der Panzertruppe) and Chief of Mobile Troops in charge of recruiting, training, and doctrine for Germany’s armoured and motorized forces. Achieving spectacular battlefield success in Northern and Central Poland, as commander of XIX Motorized Army Corps in 1939 and in France and the West the following year, Guderian was naturally chosen to lead one of Germany’s four armoured and motorized vanguards slated for the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Introduction

During the early twentieth century what German-Slavic animosity that existed in North-Central and Eastern Europe extended back at least to the Wendish portion of the Second Crusade (1147–50), in which Christian forces fought to quell the pagan Balts and Slavic tribes east of the River Elbe, but also the end of the Mongol domination of the region a century later. Having devastated and depopulated much of their far western, occupied territories for some two decades, following their withdrawal from Europe in 1242 Slavic leadership moved to fill the resulting economic void by attracting enterprising, adventurous outsiders from the West. As part of this eastward expansion (Ostsiedlung), a steady flow of Germanic farmers, merchants, traders, and other incentivised parties relocated into the territory between the Baltic and Black Seas, including Ukrainian Volhynia and Bessarabia, and even the River Volga. Many of the participants viewed the migration as their cultural destiny, as Germanic, Dutch, Walloon, and Danish elements ascended into positions of power and influence. With Teutonic Knights having been brought from their anti-Islamic crusading in the Levant to put down Pagan Prussian tribes in the Baltic, during which the former carved out an independent state, not to mention the campaign to impose Christianity throughout the region, this aggravated what became lingering cultural and later national animosities.

As a framework from which the modern German military evolved the founding of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701 provided a number of institutionalized practices intended to address that region’s geopolitical situation, and limited population and resources. Due to Prussia’s centralized location in Northern Europe, its lack of mountainous terrain or major rivers along its borders that could modify a defence and dissuade invasion, other options were necessary to provide national integrity and security. At the conclusion of the Thirty Years War in 1648 large swathes of Central Europe lay in ruins. While many of the numerous principalities that comprised the Holy Roman Empire escaped the marauding bands of brigands or more established mercenary forces due to luck or location, the Margrave of Brandenburg had been devastated. To help pre-empt, counter, or disincentivise future threats from larger, more powerful adversaries in the West (France), South (Austria), and East (Poland and Russia) effective diplomacy backed by a reliable, professional military were critical to providing operational flexibility, and thereby options, from which to secure a desired battlefield and, by extension, political outcome. Due to the kingdom’s limited natural resources, and its core regions of Brandenburg, Magdeburg, and Pomerania being predominantly rural, limited funding required that Prussian/ German leadership opt for quality over quantity. As such a force was suited to conducting rapid, brief campaigns to secure military and political goals, while minimizing casualties and avoiding drawn-out attritional conflicts in which it would eventually lose given sufficient time and pressure, emphasis was placed on developing a culture of fortitude, industriousness, loyalty, austerity, and discipline.

In an effort to provide for his domain’s defence King Friedrich Wilhelm I (1620–88) created a Prussian standing army, which, unlike other militaries that relied heavily on mercenaries, was based on conscription. Such an undertaking helped solve several problems, including the temporal nature of using men-for-hire, who outside of payment for services rendered generally held no allegiance to those under whom they fought and were just as inclined to turn on their employer should such compensation dry up. As a teenager Friedrich Wilhelm had been sent away to Holland to avoid the worst of the Thirty Years War. There, he witnessed how the Dutch military fought the more powerful Habsburg Spain during the overlapping Eighty Years War (1568–1648), and later adopted much of what he learned, such as fiscal discipline, drilling, and how a comparatively small army of disciplined, motivated soldiers and effective leaders could operate under state control. Possessing such a force also permitted consistency in training and weapons standardization, which in turn encapsulated martial principles and insight that also drew from French, Swedish, and even Imperial sources into a written doctrine that could be distributed and assimilated throughout his own military. Although limited available funding initially meant a rather modest force could be created, Friedrich Wilhelm I applied its permanence and loyalty towards balancing the power of Prussia’s wealthy, landowning Junkers. As part of his efforts to centralize his absolutist authority and establish the trappings of a modern state he pulled his officer corps from this caste believing they collectively possessed high morals, and would serve to integrate a major component into the political whole of the Hohenzollern possession.

Building upon the economic, military, infrastructure, and political works of his father and grandfather during the mid-eighteenth century, Friedrich II implemented perhaps his greatest reforms with Prussia’s military. By adopting frequent firearms drills, stiff-legged (Stechschritt) marching to improve close-order movement, and other combat-oriented training, in which an officer’s orders were absolute, the average Prussian soldier understood his role and generally performed as directed on the battlefield, and with the requisite elan, albeit with a healthy dose of fear. As part of this effort to promote professionalism and ease logistics, standardization was emphasized for weapons, equipment, and uniforms, as well as the size and composition of battalions. A transition to a recruitment system that pulled obligatory youths from their respective domestic cantons steadily reduced the need for using foreign soldiers and promoted what became a national army. Ultimately, Friedrich II’s talents as military commander and planner, his institutionalization of knowledge management, discipline, and a host of other accomplishments produced battlefield and political success in the Silesian Wars, and also greatly increased the prestige and power of the Kingdom of Prussia.

However superior the Prussian Army was on the mid- to late-eighteenth-century battlefield, under Friedrich II’s grandson, Friedrich Wilhelm III, and his decision for going it alone against a more populous, resource-rich France, his forces were soon found to be complacent and their tactics and Grand Strategy outdated or unsuited when confronted with Napoleon I during the War of the Fourth Coalition (1806–7). Unlike the Prussian military, with their aging officers, stifling command and control, and brutal discipline, Napoleon I’s emphasis on rapid, operational manoeuvre, combined arms divisions, and massed cavalry and artillery provided much greater flexibility and mobility. By incorporating dedicated, motivated officers and men that were well versed in the system, an extensive information network, and multi-echelon staffs the resulting tactical flexibility and command and control response times outperformed that of his adversaries. By tailoring doctrine towards his corps they became the foundation upon which to advance separately, outmanoeuvre an opponent, and concentrate to defeat them. In giving subordinates the authority to act on their best judgment when circumstances warranted it rather than await official orders a faster battlefield tempo could be implemented and maintained. Although such a system seemingly called for a less centralized combat decision process Napoleon retained his position as sole authority over his army’s planning, tactics, and operations, while his staff focused on supplemental support functions.

In response to Napoleon’s decisive victory at Jena-Auerstedt in 1806 against what had become a dated, increasingly outclassed Prussian Army, leaders with foresight such as Major General (Generalleutnant) Gerhard von Scharnhorst initiated efforts towards modernization that helped contribute to the defeat of his nemesis, France, during the War of the Sixth Coalition (1813–14). Towards institutionalizing a permanent cadre of skilled senior staff officers that would exist regardless of the nation’s leadership he established a military society that was open to military, royalty, and even learned civilians to debate and formulate the best ideas from a wide spectrum of input. Aided by the Junkers’ reduced power under the French thumb meritocracy was to officially replace nobility as a determining factor for entry into the officer corps. Education was to be stressed, and in attempting to build a solid, moral foundation upon which to instil discipline he correspondingly rejected allowing non-commissioned officers to be chosen by their peers. Scharnhorst also established the General War School (War Academy after 1859), which incorporated experiences and insights from the likes of famed Prussian Brigadier (Generalmajor) Carl von Clausewitz to formulate the institute’s central doctrine. Having to contend with resistance from many of his fellow officers who felt there was little to learn from French ‘mob heaps’, under Scharnhorst’s authority a fledgling General Staff developed from his Military Reorganization Commission. Instead of formulating a narrow set of rules, such as those French (later Russian) Generalleytenant Antoine-Henri Jomini espoused, this Prussian institutionalized, dynamic entity endeavoured to encapsulate the tenets of warfare and provide a backstop for field commanders. Together with others, such as Gneisenau, Boyen, Bülow, and Grolman, the goal was to infuse a culture of innovation and change into the Prussian military, and mitigate the more detrimental aspects of absolute obedience, in which leadership decisions went unquestioned. To minimize what disruptive repercussions his changes were having throughout the Prussian officer corps Scharnhorst sided with the traditionalists when possible and worked to counter any French-inspired democratization of the Army.

The Prussian/German General Staff

Building on what martial knowledge the cadets had accumulated, the General War School stressed avoiding an educational environment in which learning was delivered exclusively by the various instructors, but rather promoted a back-and-forth process that encouraged independent thinking, confidence, and motivation towards further learning. Those desiring to enter the highly selective facility needed to have at least five years of service and pass an entrance examination that tested knowledge and understanding in several subjects rather than rote memory. Over the next three years military subjects included tactics, fortifications, communication, siege warfare, general staff duties, and military history, as well as law, hygiene, geography, surveying, physics, law, mathematics, and French or Russian. Applicant names and units were unknown to the graders, with only about one-hundred candidates accepted annually to the institution’s first-year programme. Roughly thirty students who performed satisfactorily and passed a very difficult second examination were promoted to a second and then the third year which further whittled their numbers down. Visits to fortifications, arms factories, and exercises of the railway regiment provided variety to classroom learning, and during three-month summer breaks the students attended manoeuvres and were taken on tactical field exercises in which they commanded imaginary units. Fewer than 10 students completed the full programme, and were subsequently posted to fill vacancies in what was a 50 to 100-man General Staff. With just one or two permanent officers designated as ‘of the General Staff’ (‘des Generalstabs’) the remainder retained their regimental commands as ‘on the General Staff’ (‘im Generalstab’).

Considering the much larger populations and industrial capacities of late-nineteenth-century Europe’s major nations their correspondingly bigger and more complex field armies were beyond the capabilities of a single, Napoleon-like commander to effectively orchestrate. For Prussia the answer lay in grooming select officers that had been rigorously trained in a common War Academy curriculum, who in practice would function as iterations of a great captain. Having been appointed as Chief of the General Staff in 1857, Helmuth von Moltke (the Elder) expanded and consolidated the existing staff system and promoted non-military fields of study towards broadening a candidate’s martial frame of reference. Each year, he selected the best twelve graduates from the War Academy for his personal training towards their becoming General Staff officers, during which they attended theoretical studies, annual manoeuvres, map exercises, war games, and other activities intended to promote emulating the master’s thoughts, understanding, and actions. During wartime Moltke could provide directives to these former students, who would by then be commanding higher formations, and allow staffs to turn intent into action based on established doctrine and intentions. In contrast, the Supreme Commands of Germany’s opponents often became bogged down in a mountain of paperwork and trivial details as they tried to control the entire army from a single, overworked headquarters; a situation that rapidly became unmanageable given the massive size of modern armies and their supporting infrastructure. Even if another commander of Napoleon’s calibre came along, as their individual abilities would get swamped in a modern combat zone Prussia/Germany opted for consistent training and doctrine and a group of skilled, creative, and experienced senior leaders to balance the workload, and help formulate what were collectively believed to be the best solutions to a range of issues. For all its tactical and operational successes the General Staff too often viewed military solutions in conventional terms, where process, planning, training, and discipline prevailed, and asymmetric or indirect options were ignored or dismissed.

As a commander issuing detailed, unchanging orders in a top-down system risked being out-of-date, inaccurate, or inappropriate at the time of implementation, Moltke (the Elder) integrated into the German Army a command philosophy fleshed out by Sigismund von Schlichting and quantified as Mission Tactic/Command (Auftragstaktik) from what had been applied loosely since the early nineteenth century.1 Stemming in large part from Clausewitz’s push to have commanders avoid writing detailed, constraining orders, such a framework relied on a culture of trust, professionalism, and a common understanding in which officers conveyed their intent to subordinates who had been brought up in the same martial environment and inherently understood exactly what had been expressed and expected. As orders were disseminated through the leadership hierarchy the ability for one to independently alter it (Selbständichkeit) provided subordinates with the power to make changes reflective of their respective proximity to the action, while keeping to the spirit of their superior’s intent. Faster to implement within the combat environment, and producing better, more timely orders compared with contemporary structures, this rather decentralized concept encouraged, if not demanded, individual initiative and decisive action from lower leadership levels in the absence of communication or direction from above, and was shoehorned with self discipline, independent thinking, and what was considered a leader’s primary quality, a willingness to accept responsibility (Verantwortungsfreudigkeit). As these aspects of a Prussian General Staff matured and coalesced they provided a system in which the best and brightest junior and mid-level officers received specialized military instruction from which they developed an aptitude and eagerness for independent actions and applied collective wisdom, experience, and insight from the army’s best minds intent on formulating critical thought and doctrine towards waging war.

By the turn of the twentieth century the strategic scenario Germany had hoped to avoid had begun to take shape, as the nation’s neighbours had steadily formed entangling, mutually-supportive alliances that threatened the Central European state, and its aspirations of being a world power. Imperialism, and the resulting national prestige and wealth generated by exploiting their respective colonial possessions, incentivised an arms race. With Prussia (and a post-1871 unified Germany) having fostered a culture of nationalism and militarism based on battlefield and political success, and a General Staff emphasizing offensive operations to achieve success, conflict seemed unavoidable given the nation’s disruption of its European neighbours’ power and influence status quo. Although contrary to conventional military tenants promoting concentration or convergence of effort to achieve battlefield success, numerous historical examples illustrate that bold leadership and optimizing internal lines could pay considerable dividends at the tactical (Lee and Jackson at Chancellorsville (1863)) and opera-tional/strategic (Friedrich II (the Great) during the Seven Years War (1754–63)) levels. In practice such actions required temporarily weakening one threatened sector to provide overwhelming strength in another, and once defeated to redirect forces to the original sector to overcome it as well. Considering railroads had proven such a critical operational and strategic asset during ‘the War’ (1861–5) regarding transporting large numbers of men, weapons, and supplies to various theatres and combat zones, Prussia developed its own network to optimize its inherent interior lines. Such efforts proved a considerable benefit that helped the nation secure victory in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1), which, in turn, facilitated Germany’s unification under its Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, and spurred a growth in domestic population and manufacturing that four decades later would surpass all other European nations.

Soon after Germany’s new Kaiser, Wilhelm II, ousted Bismarck from office in 1890 the former reversed the policy on Russia to see the nation in more fearful, adversarial terms, such that when the First World War (1914–18) brought the two nations into conflict the legacy of Ostsiedlung persisted, in which the German government sought to carve out a colonial empire in Central and Eastern Europe. Both the Kaiser and his Chief of the General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke (the Younger), envisioned a European race war that the latter felt would ultimately become ‘a struggle between Teuton and Slav’. When the ‘February Revolution’ in St Petersburg overthrew Russia’s ruling Romanov dynasty on 8 March 1917 Lieutenant General (General der Infanterie) Erich Ludendorff contacted the Communist/Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, who was living in Switzerland, with a promise of transporting him into Russia towards seizing power and facilitating a separate peace with Germany. Along with Germany also providing the Bolsheviks with military advisers, weapons, and industrial experts the moves were intended to hinder Imperial Russia’s continuing war with Germany. On 6 November, Lenin launched the ‘October Revolution’ during which the Communists seized power, and early the following year signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that secured peace and freed the German military to transfer large forces to the West to defeat Britain and France before the arriving American forces could bring their considerable industrial and manpower resources to bear. As German Foreign Minister Admiral Paul von Hintze stated in July 1918, ‘The Bolsheviks are the best weapon for keeping Russia in a state of chaos, thus allowing Germany to tear off as many provinces from the former Russian empire as she wishes…’. With a large portion of the German Army subsequently freed up, these troops were transported by rail to the stalled front lines in North-Western France. Even though the Germans initially accomplished what was envisioned to be a war-winning offensive their broad reliance on foot and horse-bound movement lacked the endurance to maintain momentum and by April 1918 the Western Front had reverted to a stagnant war of attrition against a multi-national force that included Great Britain, France, and eventually the United States. In concert with a naval blockade, lack of natural resources, and internal social unrest, the German military was steadily forced into an unsustainable position from which it ultimately succumbed.

Inter-war

Considering the war had been fought on foreign soil, and the civilian homeland population had been kept largely ignorant of Germany’s battlefield setbacks, the seemingly sudden cessation of hostilities came as a considerable shock. German formations simply abandoned their wartime positions and went home, where they performed a final display of martial pride by marching through urbanized areas to cheering German crowds before disbanding. With the senior German military leadership having previously persuaded Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate before the November 1918 Armistice the manoeuvre shrewdly pushed responsibility for the humiliation onto the new democratic parliamentary republic (later Weimar Republic) that supplanted the long-standing federal constitutional monarchy; a sentiment German military leadership was only too pleased to trumpet.

A weakened Germany was vulnerable to a leftist-inspired revolution, food insecurity (although not to the level of widespread famine found in Poland, Belgium, and Belorussia), and former adversaries looking for their political and economic pound of flesh. Incentivised to sway public opinion to bolster their weakened position German politicians professed the Allied-imposed Treaty of Versailles (1920) as being overly punitive, while the French authorities, such as Marshal Ferdinand Foch, naturally expressed a contrary sentiment. Motivated to ensure Germany’s national security, and in doing so restablish their positions of power and influence, during the post-war period the nation’s military, political, and business leaders worked to externally project the illusion of adhering to the agreement that in many ways was reminiscent of the harsh 1808 Convention of Paris. Forced to relinquish all of its pre-war colonies, 80 per cent of its pre-war fleet, 48 per cent of iron production, and nearly 14 per cent of its pre-war territory, along with the civilians living there, hardship and resentment motivated the German people to regain what had been taken, including their national pride. Prohibited from the possessing major assets of a modern military, including tanks, armoured cars, submarines, and its vaunted War Academy and General Staff, such a penalty presented a potential silver lining in that the German military could reinvent itself largely from scratch, and instead of being complacent and maintaining the doctrine, training, and tactics that helped win the last war could focus on succeeding in the next.

Under the leadership of the final Prussian Minister of War, and subsequent head of the new Reichswehr’s Army Command, Brigadier Walther Reinhardt advocated several reforms, including incorporating elected, civilian authority, something many of his peers considered radical. To quietly rectify the German military’s disadvantageous situation in addition to expanding the Troop Office (Truppenamt) to accommodate a covertly re-established General Staff, Reinhardt’s 1920 replacement Brigadier Johannes ‘Hans’ von Seeckt established ‘Special Group R’ (Russia) to quietly conduct mutually beneficial military undertakings with Soviet Russia. With France having led the post-war effort that re-formed Poland as an Allied-friendly, political entity and physical buffer against the destabilizing Bolshevik threat from the East, it was at the expense of large parts of German and Russian territory, industry, and population. Seeing an opportunity to mutually benefit Europe’s pariah nations, Seeckt established secret relations with Russia through which German military personnel provided technical expertise in return for the use of distant aircraft, armour, poisonous gas, and other facilities to test and train on new weapons and tactics. With the Prussian/German military long a proponent of wargaming to disseminate doctrinal changes, playtest oppositional methods, and apply operational concepts in the field, under his leadership this preparation was broadened to include a host of planning, staff, and terrain exercises, staff rides, and sand-table discussions. As part of a shared command responsibility intended to promote optimal tactical and operational decision-making a commander’s Ia (chief-of-operations (division), aka chief-of-staff (corps and above)), was responsible for his formation’s operation, including training, organization, and leadership. The latter could also take unresolved disputes to the next command level, although such disagreements were typically settled