Russia at war 1941-1945

All subsequent attacks on Tula failed, largely, according to Guderian, for the same

reasons, and because on December 4 the thermometer had dropped to minus 31°C., and

on the 5th to minus 68° (sic). This is a physical impossibility, and must be regarded, it seems, as a Freudian lapse, betraying Guderian's urge to blame everything on the

weather!

The Russians, while denying that it was exceptionally cold in November, agree that it was very cold indeed in December; what they very rightly point out is that it is a stupid fallacy to imagine that Russian soldiers do hot suffer, like anybody else, from extreme cold! What they do say, however, is that the Soviet troops had far better winter clothing than the Germans:

General Blumentritt bitterly admits that the German soldiers were destined to

spend their first winter in Russia fighting heavily, and with nothing to wear but summer clothes, overcoats and blankets. At the same time, according to him, "most of the Russian effectives were well supplied with short fur jackets, padded jackets

(telogreiki), felt boots (valenki) and fur hats with ear-flaps. They also had fur gloves, mittens and warm underwear." We can only agree with these lamentations of the beaten Nazi general. The facts he mentions merely show... that the Soviet High

Command proved more farsighted than the German High Command... For the first

time in World War II the Nazi Army was passing through a severe crisis. The Nazi

generals were deeply discouraged by the enormous losses their troops had suffered, and by their failure to end the war against the Soviet Union in 1941. All their hopes of warm, comfortable billets in Moscow had gone up in smoke.. .

[IVOVSS, vol. II, p. 268.]

The almost astronomical figures of German losses quoted at the time for obvious

propaganda purposes by both Stalin and the Sovinformbureau communiqués are not

repeated in present-day Soviet histories of the War. In the course of the second German offensive against Moscow (November 16 to December 5), says the History, the German losses were: 55,000 dead, over 100,000 wounded and frostbitten, 777 tanks, 297 guns and mortars, 244 machine-guns, over 500 tommy-guns which is a reasonable estimate, not

greatly differing from the losses suggested, for instance, by Guderian.

[Ibid., p. 265.]

The total German losses for the first five months of the war are now put not at Stalin's four and a half million, but at 750,000, not counting the losses of Germany's allies. This figure is even slightly lower than that given by the Germans themselves. As Hillgruber and Jacobsen say: "There is no doubt that German losses were very high during the first phase of the Russian campaign, especially during the Battle of Moscow... The total losses of the German army in the east were, up to December 10, 1941 (not counting the sick), 775,078 men (roughly, 24.22 per cent of the eastern armies which, on the average,

totalled 3.2 million men). According to Halder's Diary the losses were as follows (in round figures) up to the second half of the second Moscow offensive:

Total up to 31 July 213,000 men

Total up to 3 August 242,000 men

Total up to 30 September 551,000 men

Total up to 6 November 686,000 men

Total up to 13 November 700,000 men

Total up to 23 November 734,000 men

Total up to 26 November 743,000 men

Of these nearly 200,000 were dead, including 8,000 officers.

As against this, the German authors glumly remark, 156,000 was the total of the German losses (of whom, some 30,000 dead) during the whole of the Western campaign in 1940!

[ B. S. Telpukhovsky, op. cit., German edition, footnote on p. 93.]

Chapter XII THE MOSCOW COUNTER-OFFENSIVE

In preparing for its winter counter-offensive, the Soviet High Command had a minimum and a maximum programme.

[As is implied in IVOVSS]