Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front of World War II was the theatre of war covering the conflict in eastern Europe. Many sources include the German-Polish War of 1939 in this World War II theatre but this article concentrates on the much larger conflict which was fought from June 1941 to May 1945 in which the two principal belligerent nations were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It resulted in the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower, the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, and the partition of Germany.

Leadership

The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were ideologically driven totalitarian states in which the leader had near-absolute power. The character of the war was thus determined by the leaders and their ideology to a much greater extent than in any other theatre of World War II.

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Adolf Hitler exercised a tight control over the war, spending much of his time in his command bunkers (most notably at Rastenburg in East Prussia, at Vinnitsa in Ukraine, and under the garden of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin). At crucial periods in the war he held daily situation conferences, at which he used his remarkable talent for public speaking to overwhelm opposition from his generals and the OKW staff with rhetoric.

Related Topics:
Adolf Hitler - Rastenburg - East Prussia - Vinnitsa - Ukraine - Reich Chancellery - Berlin

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He believed himself a military genius, with a grasp of the total war effort that eluded his generals. In August 1941 when Walther von Brauchitsch (commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht) and Fedor von Bock were appealing for an attack on Moscow, Hitler instead ordered the encirclement and capture of Ukraine, in order to acquire the farmland, industry, and natural resources of that country. Some historians believe that this decision was a missed opportunity to win the war.

Related Topics:
Walther von Brauchitsch - Wehrmacht - Fedor von Bock

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In the winter of 1941–1942 Hitler believed that his obstinate refusal to allow the German armies to retreat had saved Army Group Centre from collapse. He later told Erhard Milch,

Related Topics:
Army Group Centre - Erhard Milch

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:I had to act ruthlessly. I had to send even my closest generals packing, two army generals, for example ? I could only tell these gentlemen, "Get yourself back to Germany as rapidly as you can — but leave the army in my charge. And the army is staying at the front."

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The success of this hedgehog defence outside Moscow led Hitler to insist on the holding of territory when it made no military sense, and to sack generals who retreated without orders. Officers with initiative were replaced with yes-men or fanatical Nazis. The disastrous encirclements later in the war — at Stalingrad, Korsun and many other places — were the direct result of Hitler's orders. Many divisions became cut off in "fortress" cities, or wasted uselessly in secondary theatres, because Hitler would not sanction retreat or abandon voluntarily any of his conquests.

Related Topics:
Hedgehog defence - Stalingrad - Korsun

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Frustration at Hitler's leadership of the war was one of the factors in the attempted coup d'etat of 1944, but after the failure of the July 20 Plot Hitler considered the army and its officer corps suspect and came to rely on the Schutzstaffel and Nazi party members to prosecute the war. His many disastrous appointments included that of Heinrich Himmler to command Army Group Vistula in the defence of Berlin in 1945 — Himmler suffered a mental breakdown under the stress of the command and was quickly replaced by Gotthard Heinrici.

Related Topics:
Coup d'etat - 1944 - July 20 Plot - Schutzstaffel - Heinrich Himmler - Army Group Vistula - Gotthard Heinrici

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Hitler's direction of the war was disastrous for the German army, though the skill, loyalty, professionalism and endurance of officers and soldiers enabled him to keep Germany fighting to the end. However, the Allied commanders who read the decrypted German command signals were always happier when Hitler was in charge. F. W. Winterbotham wrote of Hitler's signal to Gerd von Rundstedt to continue the attack to the west during the Battle of the Bulge:

Related Topics:
Gerd von Rundstedt - Battle of the Bulge

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:From experience we had learned that when Hitler started refusing to do what the generals recommended, things started to go wrong, and this was to be no exception.

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Joseph Stalin bore the greatest responsibility for the disasters of the first two years of the war.

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The Great Purge of the Red Army in the 1930s on Stalin's orders had killed or imprisoned the majority of the senior command, including Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the brilliant proponent of armoured blitzkrieg. Stalin promoted obscurantists like Grigory Kulik, who opposed the mechanization of the army and the production of tanks. Distrust of the military led to a system of "dual command", in which every high-ranking officer was paired with a political commissar, a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who ensured that the officer was loyal and implemented Party orders.

Related Topics:
Great Purge - Red Army - 1930s - Mikhail Tukhachevsky - Blitzkrieg - Grigory Kulik - Tank - Political commissar - Communist Party of the Soviet Union

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Following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, the Baltic states and Bessarabia in 1939–1940, Stalin insisted that every fold of the new territories should be occupied: this move westward left troops far from their depots in salients that left them vulnerable to encirclement. There was an assumption that the coming war would be fought outside the borders of the Soviet Union and few plans were made for defence. As tension heightened in Spring 1941, Stalin was desperate not to give Hitler any provocation that could be used as an excuse for an attack; this caused him to refuse to allow the military to go onto the alert even as German troops gathered on the borders and German reconnaissance planes overflew installations. This refusal to take the necessary action was instrumental in the destruction of the Soviet air force, lined up on its airfields, in the first days of the war.

Related Topics:
Poland - Bessarabia

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Stalin's insistence on repeated counterattacks without preparation led to the loss of almost the whole of the Red Army's tank corps in 1941 — many tanks simply ran out of fuel on their way to the battlefield through faulty planning or ignorance of the location of fuel dumps.

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Unlike Hitler, Stalin was able to learn lessons and improve his conduct of the war. He gradually came to realise the dangers of inadequate preparation and built up a competent command and control organization — the Stavka — under Semyon Timoshenko, Georgy Zhukov and Kliment Voroshilov.

Related Topics:
Stavka - Semyon Timoshenko - Georgy Zhukov - Kliment Voroshilov

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At the crisis of the war, in autumn 1942, Stalin made many concessions to the army: unitary command was restored, as were insignia such as shoulderboards — stripped from tsarist officers after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Elite divisions were given the traditional "Guards" title. But these concessions were combined with ruthless discipline: Order No. 227, issued on 28 July 1942, threatened commanders who retreated without orders with punishment by court-martial. Infractions by military and politruks were punished with transferal to penal battalions and penal companies, and the NKVD's barrage troops would shoot soldiers who fled.

Related Topics:
Russian Revolution of 1917 - Order No. 227 - 28 July - 1942 - Court-martial - Politruk - Penal battalion - Companies - NKVD - Barrage troops

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As it became clear that the Soviet Union would win the war Stalin ensured that propaganda always mentioned his leadership of the war; the victorious generals were sidelined and never allowed to develop into political rivals. After the war the Red Army was once again purged: many successful officers were demoted to unimportant positions (including Zhukov, Malinovsky and Koniev); a few were tortured into confessions of treason and sent to the Gulag. No-one was allowed to detract from Stalin's cult of personality.

Related Topics:
Zhukov - Malinovsky - Koniev - Gulag - Cult of personality

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