V Stalins War 1939-1943

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Stalin’s SSSR

session v
Stalin’s War; 1939-1942

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Major themes of this session

• Introduction:1939-War with Japan

• Germany; the Vital Threat-1922-1939

• War Postponed; August 1939-June 1941

• Debacle; June-December 1941

• Seesaw; 1941-September 1942

• Stalingrad, War of Rats; September 1942-January 1943


A Little Known War

With an eye towards Hitler’s
insatiable appetite, Stalin cleverly
avoids the prospect of a two-front
war with both force and
diplomacy


Mongolia


Baron Roman Nickolai Maximilian
von Ungern-Sternberg (1886-1921)

• born in Graz, Austria of a noble Baltic
German family

• tsarist cavalry captain in WW I

• during the Civil War he fought both
Reds and Whites in Siberia as a
brutal independent warlord
supported by the Japanese

• his goals included restoring the
Russian monarchy and the
Mongolian Khanate

• 1921-executed by the Reds


Mongolian Peoples Republic (1924-1996)

• 1924-after the deaths of von Ungern-Sternberg and his nominal religious leader and
king, Bogd Khan; the Reds proclaim a Mongolian People’s Republic with Soviet military
support

• 1928-Khorloogiin Choibalsan assumes power. He begins collectivization of livestock.

• in the 1920s, approximately one third of the male population are Buddhist monks in
about 750 monasteries

• with encouragement from his Soviet sponsors, Choibalsan follows the patterns
established by Lenin and Stalin

• only after Gorbachev will Mongolia move away from Communism towards the West


Khorloogiin Choibalsan--Mongolia’s Stalinist dictator (1895-1952)

• like Stalin, he was originally trained for the
priesthood, in his case, as a Buddhist monk

• 1919-in travels in Siberia he became
radicalized by Russian revolutionaries

• 1921-with others, founded the Mongolian
People’s Revolutionary Party. Became
deputy war minister

• came to dominate the party and launched
the “Great Repression” (climax,1936-37) of
party rivals, landowners, and especially
monks and monasteries

• deaths are estimated between 22,000 and
35,000

The Khalka River winds from north to south near the
tip of a ﬂat grassy salient of Mongolia that juts about
100 miles eastward into Manchuria.


Khalka River

In the 1930s, Manchuria’s Japanese overlords
regarded the river as an international boundary
line: Manchuria to its east, and Outer Mongolia
-- then a protectorate of the Soviet Union
known as the Mongolian People’s Republic--to
the west. Those on the Mongolian side of the
border claimed that the line ran some 10 miles
east of the river, near the tiny hamlet of
Nomonhan.

While the precise location of the border meant
little to the nomadic Mongols who had followed
their herds back and forth across the river for
centuries, the Kwantung Army, the elite
Japanese force that controlled Manchuria, took
a different view.


Descendants of Russia’s Conquerors

• April, 1939-Japanese major Masanobu Tsuji drafted an order to deal with the
Mongolian border incursions:
• “where boundaries are not clearly deﬁned, area commanders will establish boundaries on their own”
• that in the event of an armed clash “the army will ﬁght until victory is won, regardless of...the location
of boundaries”
•”it is permissible to enter Soviet territory, or to trap or lure Soviet troops into Manchuokuan territory”


Outcomes

• July, 1939-the Japanese local commander decided to destroy a Mongolian cavalry unit
in the disputed region

• the conﬂict which this ignited lasted four months, involved more than 100,000 men,
hundreds of tanks and aircraft

• the future World War II commanders, then major Tsuji and Soviet general Georgi Zhukov,
would play critical roles in the years to come

• one leading Japan on the road to Pearl Harbor

• the other fending off the Nazi blitzkrieg against Russia in 1941 and ultimately leading the Soviet
Union to victory


Zhukov

Tsuji

• Tsuji’s attack plan (left) intended to
strike the intruding force “like a
butcher’s cleaver dismembering a
chicken”

• the 23rd Division would cross the river
and move south to block a Soviet
retreat while Yasuoka’s strike force; 2
tank regiments, a motorized artillery
regiment, a crack infantry regiment
would attack the Soviet presence in the
disputed area

• through faulty intelligence, the
Japanese failed to appreciate that the
Soviet forces had been signiﬁcantly
strengthened. After initial successes,
Japan was forced to withdraw. Both
sides prepared for the rematch.


Even more astonishing

• this little-known campaign helped pave the way for the Nazi invasion of Poland

• August, 1941-at the height of the battle for Nomohan, the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
protected Stalin from a two-front war just as it did Hitler

• it kept the USSR out of the intra-capitalist war in Europe so that Hitler felt free of the danger of
a two-front war which had doomed Imperial Germany two decades earlier

• it stunned the Japanese who had allied with Germany (1936) and Italy (1937) in the Anti-
Comintern Pact. The so-called Axis Powers were now no longer aligned against the USSR

• and Stalin proceeded to unleash his full fury against the Japanese in Manchuria


• mid-July--in the weeks following the
initial battle, Japan brought up almost
all the heavy artillery in Manchuria for
a major artillery duel

• August--Stalin assembled a massive
force with a ﬂeet of 4200 trucks to
deliver the 55,000 tons of supplies it
required. The nearest railroad was 400
miles away.

• Zhukov’s plan (right) was to pin down
the Japanese force and encircle it,
then destroy it (hat tip to Shaka Zulu)

• 19 August--with the Nazi-Soviet Pact
“in the bag,” Stalin gave him the green
light


For Japanese soldiers, surrender is not an option


• 0545 20 August--the Russian offensive
opened with massive artillery and bombing
“like the gongs of hell”

• the Japanese fought fiercely against
overwhelming odds

• 30 August--only some 400 survivors, including
Major Tsuji, escaped Zhukov’s iron ring after
10 days ferocious fighting

• after four months of fighting each side had lost
50,000 men KIA or WIA

• the Japanese militarists had gained deep
respect for the Red Army


fast forward--two years later, Fall, 1941

• Major Tsuji, now a Lieutenant Colonel, is a key member of the operations staff at
Imperial General Headquarters

• America increases the pressure on Japan and Hitler approaches Moscow after terriﬁc
initial successes

• in Tokyo debate rages between the Northern Strategy and the Southern Strategy:

• follow Hitler’s urging to attack the Soviet Union

• or attack British and French colonies in Southeast Asia, which would mean war with the United
States

• Tsuji’s memory of the “gongs of Hell” at Nomonhan made him an eloquent advocate of
the Southern Strategy


fast forward--two years later, Fall, 1941

• when Japan made the decision for the Southern Strategy, their opening move was to
destroy the American Paciﬁc Fleet at Pearl Harbor

• Stalin’s top spy in Tokyo, Richard Sorge, signaled Moscow that Japan would not attack
the USSR

• only then did the desperate Stalin pull his Far Eastern forces to defend Moscow

• 15 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry divisions, 1,700 tanks, and 1,500 aircraft were moved west
under the command of General Georgi Zhukov

• the ﬁrst week of December, 1941-Hitler was stopped short, in sight of Moscow and
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor

• it was the decisive week of World War II, the week that ultimately doomed the Axis


Germany; the Vital Threat- 1922-1939


Lenin’s double-edged foreign policy

• From the beginning, Lenin proceeded on two tracks against the capitalists:

• the ofﬁcial legal track--traditional state diplomacy through the People’s Commissariat for
Foreign Affairs

• the revolutionary track--with deniability, not ofﬁcially the acts of the Russian government, but
secretly supported or even controlled by Moscow

• January 1918-the Spartacist revolt in Berlin

• March 1918-Bela Kuhn’s communist take-over in Hungary

• April 1918-the Bavarian Soviet Republic

Spartakus
• 1921 & 1923-the German communist uprisings in the Ruhr and Saxony

Berlin 1918
• the Soviet-Polish War--a single failed “third track;” to bring the Revolution by war

Lenin’s double-edged foreign policy

• From the beginning, Lenin proceeded on two tracks against the capitalists:

• the ofﬁcial legal track--traditional state diplomacy through the People’s Commissariat for
Foreign Affairs

• the revolutionary track--with deniability, not ofﬁcially the acts of the Russian government, but
secretly supported or even controlled by Moscow

• January 1918-the Spartacist revolt in Berlin

• March 1918-Bela Kuhn’s communist take-over in Hungary

• April 1918-the Bavarian Soviet Republic

• 1921 & 1923-the German communist uprisings in the Ruhr and Saxony

• the Soviet-Polish War--a single failed “third track;” to bring the Revolution by war

Rapallo, 1922

Chancellor of Germany Joseph Wirth (2.from left) with Krassin, Tschitscherin and Joffe from the Russian delegation.


Rapallo, 1922

• 16 April-two pariah states, Weimar Germany and the RSFSR, soon to be the USSR,
break out of diplomatic isolation

• publicly, all that the Rapallo treaty created was diplomatic recognition and to
“cooperate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both
countries”

• 29 July-a secret annex allowed Germany to train Russian staff ofﬁcers and develop its
own armor (Panzer) and air (Luftwaffe) forces on Russian soil in violation of the Versailles
Treaty

• both states viewed the French as their primary opponent

• France had constructed a Cordon Sanitaire between the two consisting of defense
treaties with Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary


Zinoviev and the Comintern

• March1919-founded after the failures of 1918, the Third Workingman’s International, the
Communist International or Comintern was to be the catalyst for the World Revolution

• Grigori Zinoviev was appointed Chairman of its Executive Committee but Lenin was the
guiding spirit until his death in 1924. Four congresses were held

• 1926-after Zinoviev lost power, Bukharin led the Comintern

• during the twenty-ﬁve years of Stalin’s leadership only three congresses were held:

• 1924-endorsing the denunciation of Trotskyism

• 1928-eliminating the inﬂuence of Bukharin and the right Bolsheviks

• 1935-proclaiming the policy of the Popular Front


Stalin, holding no post in the Government [Sovnarkom], never
addressed any congress of the Comintern….Only the initiated knew
that the public debates and votes were of little signiﬁcance, and that
no major decision of the Comintern had any validity unless it was
approved by Stalin….he regarded the regular congresses as a
waste of time….As in the Russian party, so in the Comintern, the
caucus gained absolute predominance over the whole body of the
movement.

Deutscher, Stalin, p.396


The debacle of German communism in 1923….In the summer of that
year the Politburo and the Executive of the Comintern hotly debated
the German crisis provoked by the French occupation of the Ruhr
and the galloping devaluation of the German currency. Some of the
Bolshevik leaders saw the approach of the ‘German October.’
Heinrich Brandler, the leader of the German Communist Party (KPD),
arrived in Moscow to consult the Executive of the Comintern on
strategy and tactics….[Stalin’s] view on the German situation...a
strong disbelief in the chances of German communism….‘Should the
German government topple over now...and the Communists seize
hold of it, they would end up in a crash….In my opinion the Germans
[that is, the KPD] should be restrained and not spurred on.’

Deutscher, op. cit., pp. 393-394


1923-Germany; attempted coups, Left & Right

• later in the year the turmoil increased. Trotsky,
Zinoviev and Radek incited the KPD to act

• Heinrich Brandler returned to Germany with a series
of contradictory goals:

• organize revolution against the Social Democrats (SPD)

• join the SPD government of Saxony, then start the
revolution there

• naturally, the result was failure

• 8 November--in Munich an obscure fringe politician
made headlines with his Bierkeller Putsch and then
seemed destined to return to what Trotsky had
called “the dustbin of history”

1925-1929; Good Times/Bad Times & the “Third Period”

• with the Dawes Plan and economic “Stabilization,” the revolutionary moment passed

• even with his increasing power in government, Stalin was not able to weaken the ties to
what he considered to be the useless body of the Comintern

• for their part, the European communists were more likely to side with Trotsky and
Zinoviev and the Left Opposition

• but Stalin was able to turn the Comintern gradually into a “wholly owned subsidiary” of
his Moscow apparat by using the subsidies to the foreign parties, “Moscow gold”

• by the end of the decade the Comintern could be relied upon to “turn on a dime” when
the Kremlin changed the Party Line

• but could the Party Line turn quickly when the Crash and the Great Depression came?


the Nazi threat

• as late as the year when Hitler destroyed the
oldest Marxist party in the world, the Party Line
was still that the Social-fascists (the SPD!) were
the greater threat. No cooperation with other
leftists

• 1930-Trotsky, exiled on Prinkipo Island, with no
espionage service, began warning about the
Nazis as if his hair was on ﬁre!

• he correctly predicted Hitler’s threat to the USSR
should he come to power

• 1934-ﬁnally, Stalin recognized the threat and
began the Line of the Popular Front
Torchlight procession celebrating Hitler’s appointment
as Chancellor, 30 January 1933


Picasso’s Guernica, 1937
In the Paris World’s Fair, emphasizing
the horrors of aerial bombing of
civilians by the Nazi allies of Franco


the Popular Front; 1935-1939

• ﬁrst as a call to unite against fascism with other left parties

• June 1936-June 1937--the greatest such success was in
France with Leon Blum’s Socialist government

• 1936-the grim Spanish Civil War was a proxy war between
the Left and the Right which drew volunteers worldwide

• it also was a proving ground for the weapons and tactics
of Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union

• the brutal Terror at home now added “fascist” to the list of
epithets attached to the “enemies of the people”
Nazi poster picturing the sea of blood
which the Communists were pouring
out in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1938


Along with military aid like this T-26
tank came NKVD men who purged
the Republican ranks of Trotskyite
“deviationists.” Social-Democrat
George Orwell became so
disillusioned with the Cause that he
wrote his classic anti-Stalinist works.


War Postponed; August 1939-June 1941


With Lenin and Stalin looking
on, Foreign Minister Molotov
signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop
War Postponed; August 1939-June 1941 Pact, 23 August 1939


Stalin could scarcely have fashioned a more perilous
arrangement in which decisions of state might be taken. He
alone took the supreme decisions. On his mental acuity
depended the fate of his country and peace in Europe and the
Far East. Most leaders would have lost sleep over this….Not
Stalin. He was supremely self-conﬁdent now that he had
liquidated those prominent intellectuals who had made him feel
edgy and--deep down in his mental recesses--inadequate. He
learned fast and prided himself on his mastery of detail. He had
never lacked willpower.
Service, p. 397


Spring 1939; Things Go Smash!

• 15 March-Hitler seizes the rest of Czechoslovakia
making a mockery of Chamberlain’s “peace in our time”

Nazi troops enter Prague; 15 March


Spring 1939; Things Go Smash!

• 15 March-Hitler seizes the rest of Czechoslovakia
making a mockery of Chamberlain’s “peace in our time”

• 23 March-Hitler adds the Memel district to East Prussia

• 31 March-ﬁnally Chamberlain draws the line at Poland
in a speech in the House of Commons

• 17 April-Stalin made two moves in opposite directions:

• he offered Britain and France an alliance and military
convention to guarantee Poland against aggression

• the Soviet ambassador in Berlin cautiously broached
the subject of a Russo-German rapprochement
Memel stripped from Lithuania

• which would “bite” ﬁrst?


By the end of June Stalin’s manoeuvres in Berlin as well as in London
and Paris had seemingly come to a standstill. In all capitals there was
the same distrust and the same playing for time. But in the silent
multilateral trial of nerves, Hitler’s nerves seemed to give way ﬁrst….
On 22 July the Russians agreed to talk….But three days later
London and Paris at last agreed to send their military mission to
Moscow….
The Anglo-French military mission delayed its departure for eleven
precious days.

Deutscher, Stalin, pp. 433-434


24 August 1939
----------------------------
This Polish cartoon
heaps scorn on
Ribbentrop as Stalin and
Molotov gloat


Probably, in Hitler’s own mind, the Russo-German Pact represents no
more than an alteration of time-table. The plan laid down in Mein
Kampf was to smash Russia first, with the implied intention of
smashing England afterwards. Now, as it has turned out, England has
got to be dealt with first, because Russia was the more easily bribed of
the two. But Russia’s turn will come when England is out of the picture
-- that, no doubt, is how Hitler sees it. Whether it will turn out that way
is of course a different question.

George Orwell, from a review of Mein Kampf in The New Statesman, March, 1940


The secret protocol dividing the spoils


1 September 1939
the most destructive war
the world has ever seen
begins


Stalin at ﬁrst refused to sanction the movement into [Polish]
territory….The reason was that the USSR and Japan remained at
war in the Far East, and the military risk of deploying forces in
eastern Poland was too great until the two countries made peace
on 15 September. The Red Army moved into Polish territory two
days later.
Service, pp. 402-403


The bloody
“The scum of
assassin of
the earth,
the workers,
I believe?
I presume?

Poland

A second agreement--the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation
and Demarcation--was agreed on 28 September. Stalin
demanded not only Estonia and Latvia but now also
Lithuania as part of the Soviet sphere. He aimed both to
recover the land of the Russian Empire and to secure a
compact area of defence for the USSR. Hitler, who was
already thinking about attacking France, quickly acceded.

Service, pp. 402-403


The Winter War
The Shelling of Mainila (Finnish: Mainilan
laukaukset) was a military incident on
November 26, 1939, where the Soviet Union's
Red Army shelled the Russian village of
Mainila (located near Beloostrov), declared
that the ﬁre originated from Finland across a
nearby border, and claimed losses in
personnel. The Soviet Union gained a great
propaganda boost and a casus belli for
launching the Winter War four days later.


250,000 Russian troops under the cover of a coordinated air and artillery
bombardment crossed into Finland to begin one of the least publicized and most
costly campaigns in the annals of military history. It would be a "walk over;"
General Meretskov estimated it would take only 10 to 12 days for his 26 well
equipped 14,000 man divisions to reach Helsinki. Russian propaganda had been
so convincing that it was felt that the Finns would be waving ﬂags and welcoming
the Red Army with open arms. Opposing him were nine poorly equipped 11,000-
man Finnish divisions.
Robert Maddock, Jr., “The Finnish Winter War”
http://kaiku.com/winterwar.html


The Winter War of 1939 is a footnote in most histories. Yet it had great importance
in the outcome of World War II. Hitler watched as the Finns humiliated the
Russians and believed that Germany could crush his Eastern neighbor. Although
publicly claiming a great victory, Stalin realized that it had been a military fiasco.
He reinstated many Army officers, returned their rank and privileges and reduced
the importance of political commissars. His reorganization was just in time to
prevent Hitler from taking Russia. Timoshenko said, "The Russians have learned
much in this hard war in which the Finns fought with Heroism." Admiral
Kuznetsov concluded, "We had received a severe lesson. We had to profit by it."
Khrushchev summed it up, "All of us and Stalin first and foremost sensed in our
victory a defeat by the Finns. It was a dangerous defeat because it encouraged our
enemies' conviction that the Soviet Union was a colossus with feet of clay . . . We
had to draw some lessons for the immediate future from what had happened."

Robert Maddock, Jr., “The Finnish Winter War”
http://kaiku.com/winterwar.html


Military shake-up -- not a moment too soon!

• part of the Tsaritsyn clique, survived the Army
Purge of 1937-38 to become the senior general

• after Voroshilov’s incompetent conduct of the
Winter War, he replaced him

• March 1940-given massive forces, he compelled
the Finns to surrender

• May 1940-becomes Narkom for Defense and a
Marshal of the Soviet Union

• aware of the need to modernize and mechanize,
Семён Константи́нович Тимоше́нко
he pushed through reforms and tightened
Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko
February 18, 1895 – March 31, 1970 (aged 75)
discipline


“Polandization” of the Baltic Republics

• Spring 1940-Stalin was horriﬁed at the ease with which
Hitler chewed up Denmark & Norway, the Low Countries,
and France!

• he resolved that he immediately needed to put his
defenses in order, and as far forward as possible

• he had already brutally rounded up the leadership classes
in his part of Poland--execution, deportation or prison

• now it was the turn of the three Baltic states: Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania

• 3,5 &6 August-Stalin “accepts” the “request” of
Communist puppet governments to join the USSR Plaque commemorating the Victims
of Soviet NKVD in Bauska, Latvia.


the Countdown to 22 June

• December 1940-as late as this Zhukov and Timoshenko were having to debate
Budyonny over tanks versus cavalry! after Poland! after the Blitzkrieg in the West!

• April 1941-as the intelligence of German preparations increased, Stalin became more
anxious. He wouldn’t be ready for war until 1943.He tried appeasement.

• Zhukov objected to moving armaments from the Fortiﬁed Areas to deeper positions. If
the Germans attacked soon, neither position would be ready. Stalin’s cronies prevailed.

• June 1941-as the reports of German activity reached a crescendo, Timoshenko and
Zhukov begged Stalin to order a full alert.

• “No, that would be a provocation. We have 149 divisions. Well, isn’t that enough? The
Germans don’t have so many…”


Debacle; June-December 1941


Debacle; June-December 1941

German liberators?


0430 22 June 1941-
Barbarossa

Stalin’s murderous “chickens
come home to roost.” He had
gutted his own army leadership
during the Great Terror. Would
Timoshenko’s rebuilding hold?


On the same day that Napoleon’s Grand Army had invaded Russia
129 years earlier, Hitler’s over three million soldiers--Germans, Croats,
Finns, Romanians, Hungarians, Italians and even Spaniards backed
by 3,600 tanks, 600,000 motorized vehicles, 7,000 artillery pieces,
2,500 aircraft and about 625,000 horses, were crossing the border to
engage the Soviet forces of almost equal strength, as many as 14,000
tanks (2,000 of them modern), 34,000 guns and over 8,000 planes.
The greatest war of all time was about to begin in the duel between
those two brutal and reckless egomaniacs. And both were probably
still asleep.

Monteﬁore, p. 359


“Hitler won’t attack”--Denial

• Reports of German aerial recon over Soviet cities, reports from diplomatic spies like Richard
Sorge in the German embassy in Tokyo… But intelligence was “stovepiped.” Secretive Stalin
alone interpreted it.

• Stalin was convinced that the threat had passed.He believed that by late June the Germans
had missed their chance. He was overconﬁdent in his own analytic powers

• But, indeed, Hitler had planned to strike a month earlier. Mussolini’s botched war with
Greece over Albania had required German help.

• the conquest of Yugoslavia had pushed Barbarossa back

• Still, Stalin continued to believe the reports that morning were some kind of “conspiracy
within the Wehrmacht.” “Contact the German ambassador”

• as more than 1,000 Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground, Stalin refused to authorize
war until hours later. Even then, “don’t cross the border with counter attacks”


Denial-->Despair-->use of Terror

• as the scale of the military defeat became clear over the next few days, Stalin had to
accept that there would be no successful counter attacks

• his bellicosity turned to rage. “This is a monstrous crime. Those responsible must lose
their heads.”

• there had to be cowards or traitors, just as he had explained problems with the
economic failures a decade earlier

• 4 July-Marshal Pavlov, commander of the Western Front, was arrested. Under torture he
implicated others. 18 days later the four commanding generals were shot.

• so many telegrams ﬂooded in asking permission to shoot traitors that they blocked the
NKVD ofﬁce in Moscow. “Try and shoot your own traitors.”


Order No. 270
“I order that (1) anyone who removes his
insignia...and surrenders should be regarded as
a malicious deserter whose family is to be
arrested as a family of a breaker of the oath and
a betrayer of the Motherland. Such deserters are
to be shot on the spot. (2) Those falling into
encirclement are to ﬁght to the last...those who
prefer to surrender are to be destroyed by any
means available while their families are to be
deprived of all assistance.”


Order No. 270
“I order that (1) anyone who removes his
insignia...and surrenders should be regarded as
a malicious deserter whose family is to be
arrested as a family of a breaker of the oath and
•Stalin’s ﬁrstborn, Iakov Djugashvili, a betrayer of the Motherland. Such deserters are
taken prisoner on 16 July when his to be shot on the spot. (2) Those falling into
artillery battery was overrun. encirclement are to ﬁght to the last...those who
prefer to surrender are to be destroyed by any
• his father’s reaction: “The fool--he means available while their families are to be
couldn’t even shoot himself!” deprived of all assistance.”
• Iakov’s wife Julia was arrested.
Their three year old daughter
wouldn’t see her mother for two
years


above-Iron Crosses awarded at Bialystok; upper right-Soviet A-20 tanks destroyed
along a dirt road; lower right-endless lines of the millions of Soviet prisoners


28 June -the fall of Minsk--> ”...the gravest crisis of his career”-Monteﬁore

• 26 June-the Politburo, in a secret decision, had Lenin’s body removed from the Mausoleum
and taken to Tyumen in Siberia

• 28 June-the Germans completed the encirclement of 400,000 Soviet soldiers in Minsk, the
ﬁrst of many such kesselschlachten (kettle- or cauldron-battles)

• Stalin, accompanied by Molotov, Mikoyan and Beria, made a midnight visit to headquarters

• he confronted Timoshenko and Zhukov in quiet fury. They broke the news that once again
the rout was so grave that they had lost contact with the commanders at the front

• Stalin returned, profoundly depressed:”We @#$%ed it up. Lenin left us a great state and we
his successors have $&*$ed it all up.”

• he became so depressed that he withdrew to his dacha for two days (29 & 30 June) and had
to be begged to head the State Defense Committee


above-Nazi soldiers pass a burning village outside
Smolensk (a propaganda postcard)
upper right-Victory isn’t cheap; German tanks. lower
right-artillery,”the king of battles”
(another propaganda postcard)


Mikoyan Vosnesensky

Bulganin
Khrushchev
Voroshilov

Andreyev Kaganovich
Beria
Shvernik Molotov Malenkov


By August huge areas were
behind enemy lines


Gehimmler

Gehoering
In Russian all four names start with the letter
( (geh) . The swastika is formed with the four
gehs. The slogan at the bottom, “All start
with Geh” seems pretty innocuous until you
learn that geh is the polite abbreviation for
govno which means excrement.

Gehitler

Gehoebbels


Stalin calls for partisans (above) behind German lines


GLORY TO THE HERO
PARTISANS.
WE DESTROY
FASCIST REAR AREAS


Hitler shifts his strategic goals southward


Kiev--Hero City?
• May 1945-Stalin designates four hero cities:

• Leningrad, Stalingrad, Sevastopol & Odessa

• 1961-for political reasons, Kiev is added

• 1972-during my teaching exchange, many
Ukrainians commented that they felt it was
undeserved


Smolensk
Minsk
Kiev

Red Square--60th Anniversary in 2005
23 million dead
80% of males born in 1923 didn’t survive the war

RUSSIAN UKRAINIAN

Kikes of the city of Kiev and vicinity! On Monday,
September 29, you are to appear by 08:00 a.m. with
your possessions, money, documents, valuables,
and warm clothing at Dorogozhitskaya Street, next to
the Jewish cemetery. Failure to appear is punishable
by death.


The last Jew in Vinnitsa

This picture from the fall of 1941 shows that the Army was clearly implicated in
“the ﬁnal solution”

!"#"$ !%#"& '%(&(!#)$
GOROD GEROI LENINGRAD (HERO CITY LENINGRAD)

• 900 Days from August 1941 to January 1944

• unparalleled famine deaths caused by blockade and
disruption of utilities, water and energy supply

• deaths of 1.5 million civilians (only 3% from German
bombs and artillery)

• evacuation of 1.4 million more, mainly women and
children, many of whom died during the evacuation
due to starvation and bombardment

• economic destruction and loss of life on both sides
exceeded those of the battles of Stalingrad, Moscow
or the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki


“...people died like ﬂies” but “history would never have forgiven me had I given up Leningrad”
A.A. Zhdanov


•before committing General Winter, Stalin
called upon Marshall Mud

•by late October the temperature dropped
and frostbite began

•at least when the mud froze, the Nazi army
could move once again


MOSCOW


Happy Moskvichanki
dig an anti-tank ditch


WE DEFEND MOSCOW! upper right snow-covered anti-tank devices;
lower right-anti-tank artillery


Seesaw; 1941-September 1942


December, 1941. Soviet
troops in winter gear,
supported by tanks,
counter-attack German
Seesaw; 1941-September 1942 forces


Marshal Zhukov directs the counter-offensive

Stalin was launching a wave of counter-attacks along the entire
front. He quite reasonably presumed that Hitler would again attack
Moscow but the Führer actually planned a powerful summer
offensive to seize the grain of the Ukraine and, more importantly,
the oil of the Caucasus. But Stalin’s real fault lay in his raging
overconﬁdence; he lacked the resources for this vast enterprise
which, instead of capitalizing on his Moscow victory, handed Hitler
a constellation of stunning victories that led to the ultimate crisis of
Stalingrad.

Monteﬁore, p. 411


VOLKHOV FRONT

Stalin was launching a wave of counter-attacks along the entire
ZHUKOV’S
front. He quite reasonably presumed that Hitler would again attack
SUCCESSFUL
Moscow but the Führer actually planned a COUNTER-ATTACK
powerful summer
offensive to seize the grain of the Ukraine and, more importantly,
the oil of the Caucasus. But Stalin’s real fault lay in his raging
overconﬁdence; he lacked the resources for this vast enterprise
which, instead of capitalizing on his Moscow victory, handed Hitler
INITIALLY
a constellation of stunning victories that led to the ultimate crisis of
SUCCESSFUL
COUNTER-ATTACK
Stalingrad.

Monteﬁore, p. 411

KERCH
COUNTER-ATTACK

SEVASTOPOL
COUNTER-ATTACK


1942-“...a constellation of stunning [defeats]…”

• January-Voroshilov’s counter-attack at Leningrad on the Volkhov Front. Germans
counter-attack! Stalin dispatched Mehklis to ﬁnd culprits for the failure

• March-Stalin ordered a counter-offensive from Kerch towards the center of the Crimea
to relieve the besieged Sevastopol

• Mekhlis gleefully took command of these 250,000 men

• “In this sensitive and complicated battle, Stalin had exchanged an inept and corrupt
drunkard for an inept and incorruptible maniac.”--Monteﬁore


“...would become Stalin’s secretary and one of the most despised
men in Soviet history…”-Louis Rapoport

• born in Odessa of Jewish parents

• “a military Mephistopheles, compared to a ‘shark’
and a ‘gloomy demon.’ Even Stalin called him a
‘fanatic,’ fount him hard to restrain…”-Monteﬁore

• 1918-as a commissar in the Crimea executed
thousands

• 1930-Stalin appointed him editor of Pravda,

• 1937- Voroshilov brought him into the Narkom for
Defense to help with the Army purges

Lev Zakharovich Mehklis
• 1941-became a commissar again with grim 1889-1953
results


Krim-scene of Commissar Mehklis’ disaster

German-held
territory

Kerch
Peninsula


Manstein’s Offensive; 8-20 May 1942


Manstein’s Offensive; 8-20 May 1942

the near complete destruction of Soviet defending forces. Three armies (44th, 47th, and 51st), 21 divisions, 176,000
men, 347 tanks, and nearly 3,500 guns were lost.[7] The remains of the force were evacuated.


Sevastopol--Real “Hero City”


Sevastopol--Real “Hero City”

The Germans claimed over 90,000 Red Army soldiers had been taken prisoner, and an even greater number
killed. However these claims seems an overstatement….A more reasonable estimate puts the Soviet losses
at 90,000 captured and 11,000 dead.
Although a success in the end, the operation had taken much longer than the Germans had imagined.
Operation Blau, Army Group South's advance towards Stalingrad and Caucasus was just beginning, and the
German offensive would not have the 11th Army to support them.

1942-“...a constellation of stunning [defeats]…”

• January-Voroshilov’s counter-attack at Leningrad on the Volkhov Front. Stalin
dispatched Mehklis to ﬁnd culprits for the failure

• March-Stalin ordered a counter-offensive from Kerch towards the center of the Crimea
to relieve the besieged Sevastopol

• Mekhlis gleefully took command of these 250,000 men

• “In this sensitive and complicated battle, Stalin had exchanged an inept and corrupt
drunkard for an inept and incorruptible maniac.”--Monteﬁore

• 12 May-Khruschev and Timoshenko launched a counter-offensive to retake Kursk. The
Germans encircled and captured 250,000 men and 1,200 tanks


Blow upon Blow

1,044,742 Prisoners...6,271
tanks & 10,131 artillery
pieces…. and in the East
alone more than 6,000
enemy aircraft destroyed.

The land which our troops have taken from
the Soviets is greater than the British Island

Until the Opponent lies annihilated on the floor


Dizzy with over-confidence, Hitler divided his forces into two: one
pushed across the Don to Stalingrad while the other headed southwards
towards those Caucasian oilfields. When Rostov-on-Don fell, Stalin
drafted another savage order:”Not One Step Backwards,” decreeing that
“panic-mongers and cowards must be liquidated on the spot” and
“blocking units” must be formed behind the lines to kill waverers.
Nonetheless, Hitler’s Southern Army Group A broke into the Caucasus.
On 4 and 5 August, Stalin, Beria and Molotov spent most of the nights in
the office as the Germans took Voroshilovsk (Stavropol), racing towards
Grozny and Ordzhonikidze (Vladikavkaz) in the Caucasus and, on the
Volga, approached Stalingrad. Paulus’s Sixth Army was poised to take
the city and split Russia in two.

Montefiore, p. 417


Nazi raid on the Northern Caucasus

• Stalin warned oil boss Baibakov-”Do you know that Hitler
has declared that without oil , he’ll lose the war? ...you’re
responsible on the pain of losing your head for ensuring
no oil is left behind”

• the ﬁeld at Maikop was expertly blown up with hours to
spare

• Beria was despatched to the Caucasus to stiffen that
front with terror

• the German advance petered out at Ordzhonikidze as the
battle for Stalingrad drew off more and more resources


STALINGRAD

MAIKOP ORDZHONIKIDZE


Strange Bedfellows; Churchill & Stalin-12-14 August 1942

• as the crisis battle approached, Churchill came with bad
news

• there would be no Second Front in Europe anytime soon

• Stalin was cold, implied cowardice. Churchill bristled,
reminded him how Britain had fought alone,

• then offered the consolation, Operation Torch that
November would open a front in North Africa

• Stalin reminded him of his role in 1919

• but it was all love and kisses at the drunken farewell Despite smiles for the camera, all
dinner. After all, they were in this together. To the death! was not sweetness and light at this
ﬁrst meeting


Stalingrad, War of Rats; September 1942-January 1943


Stalingrad, War of Rats; September 1942-January 1943

view from the Soviet side of the Volga


the “meatgrinder” mindset still from “The Enemy at the Gates”
costly mass assaults-”blood equals time”


Soviet soldiers storm a ruined factory


Bulganin
Zhukov Voroshilov


At 0720 on the misty morning of 19 November, the 3,500 guns of
the northern sector opened up. When this Jupiterian thunderclap
was unleashed, the earth shook thirty miles away. A million men,
13,541 guns, 1,400 tanks and 1,115 planes smashed into Hitler’s
forces.

Monteﬁore, p. 432


Within four days of
the launch of
Operation Uranus,
the German Sixth
Army, 330,000 men
was encircled in
what Stalin called
“the decisive
moment of the war.”
Monteﬁore


V Stalins War 1939-1943

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