German logistics and railroads

About "German locomotives aren' simply built for Russian territory" : hm :this is irrelevant,unless one should say that it is the fault of Adolf (always him),because he did not ordered Dorpmüller to build locs fit for Russian territory .

it is also wrong,because the Germans were able to supply the Ostheer to the end,:the German artillery was firing more ammunition in 1943 than in 1942..

About bad logistics :the Germans had in 1944 more tanks and StuG on the eastfront than in 1941.

 

No it is not irrelevant. It had a significant impact on the German logistics system. Nor was it Hitler's fault. This is something that would be layed at the foot of either German intel and/or logistics planners.

Which doesn't mean that the Germans didn't have logistics problems which severely impacted their performance. Indeed they stopped for about a month in the August September time frame did they not? That stop was a log stop. The offense in front of Moscow was also impacted by some pretty severe logistical constraints as well from what I've read. That's not to say that the Germans would have won without them nor tha the Red Army wasn't one of the primary causes of the logistical problems.

 

Of course, there will always be excuses for the failure of an enterprise where more than a single man is involved. Even in the case when just a single man is involved, other excuses may exist.
But here we talk about the operation within the limited time frame: duration of the Operation Barbarossa and we attempt to assess to which extent logistics has influenced the outcome of that operation.
In this specific case we may consider the post #58 as an important contribution. It helps to reveal the real-life aspect of technical problems of supplying units during the operation.

 

Just because the German production increased does not mean the Germans were doing better. Their percentage increase was paltry compared to the increase of the US and the Soviets. You are doing the same thing Hitler did, we have so many divisions and so much ammo and so on, there fore we must be winning.

 

With these German locs who were not built for Russia,the Germans succeeded to supply the Ostheer during the 41/42 winter .
That the Germans stopped in august 1941,is not a proof of a logistical failure :they were blocked by the Soviets .

 

One cannot say that logistics influenced seriously the outcome of Barbarossa,this is ignoring the FACT that the outcome of Barbarossa was determined by the role of the Soviet Army .
If the Red Army had collapsed in august 1941,the German logistics would be no obstacle to march to the AA line.
Saying that logistics determined the outcome is saying :the average German soldier was worth 6 Soviets,he failed because some one (Adolf or an other) was not giving him the needed bullets to kill these 6 Soviets .

German logistics NEVER could be increased to the point where a German victory would be probable .

German victory in Barbarossa never depended on what the Germans would do,could do,should have done :it depended more than mainly on what the SU could do ,and the Germans knew it and admitted it .
Victory only would be possible if,after the door was smashed,the whole building would collaps

 

Regarding food supplies the Germans have simplified task of logistics: the occupied Soviet territories have been turned into a single large concentration camp. German army and the German population were fed by plundering food from the starving population:


In occupying Ukraine the Germans were particularly concerned to exploit the country's agriculture and raw materials for the war effort, to recruit slave labor, and to crush popular support for Soviet or Ukrainian nationalist partisans (see Soviet partisans in Ukraine, 1941–5, and Ukrainian Insurgent Army). Numerous war crimes were committed in the effort to achieve those goals. By the autumn of 1941, serious food shortages were being reported in Kyiv and Lviv, but nothing was done to alleviate them: the provision of food to the army and the German population was seen as the overriding priority. General Walther von Reichenau wrote in November 1941 that feeding locals and prisoners of war was an ‘unnecessary humanitarian gesture,’ and a report of the German Economic Armament Staff dated 2 December 1941 advocated the ‘elimination of superfluous eaters (Jewsand inhabitants of large Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv, which get no food rations at all).’ Urban dwellers were forbidden to change their places of residence or buy food invillages on pain of arrest and fine. Kyiv lost about 60 percent of its population, and Kharkiv lost about 80,000 persons to starvation. High-calorie foods were reserved for Germans. Ultimately more than 80 percent of the food that Germany took from the eastern territories came from Ukraine.

The Soviet system of collective farms was left virtually unchanged under Nazi rule, with work norms and delivery quotas rigorously enforced. Draconian penalties, including execution, were inflicted on those who failed to deliver food to the occupation authorities. Village officials were held responsible for prompt fulfillment. According to a decree issued in Lubny on 8 April 1943, the penalty for delivering watered milk was confiscation of all the offending peasant's property. When Adolf Hitler demanded 3 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain in 1943, Erich Koch ordered that the task be carried out ‘without regard for losses,’ since the feeding of the Ukrainian civilian population was ‘of absolutely no concern.’



Following the invasion of the USSR in June 1941, the Germans took approximately 5.8 million prisoners of war, whom they held in open-air camps. Some 3.3 million perished as a result of deliberate starvation, neglect, physical abuse, and lack of international protection. More than 1.3 million prisoners of war died in approximately 160 concentration camps throughout Ukraine. Some escaped death by recruitment as concentration camp guards and, after the defeat at Stalingrad, in military and other formations.

 

So why was Barbarossa launched int he first place? On what basis did Germany believe it could win? Surely they had a decent estimate of Soviet population. Given that they had cooperated with Soviet industry to develop and test their own tanks I'd guess they even had a decent estimate of Soviet industry and military capabilities. If Germany knows Barbarossa will certainly fail there's no reason to attempt it. If Germany suspects that Barbarossa will probably fail there must be a remarkably compelling reason before taking such an awful risk. Steverodgers hit on one possible explanation when he talked about a need for imported Soviet materials and as a way for an end run around the Royal Navy. But I wonder why Hitler would have felt an invasion was the only way to ensure these things. I ask again, was there some reason to believe Stalin would enter an alliance with the Western powers? It seems a little unlikely to me without German aggression. Germany's nationalistic/socialistic government seems a more natural ally of the Soviet system.

But back to failures and mistakes for a moment: to say that a bridge collapsed because a man (or many men) made a mistake is not synonymous with placing humans above nature. If I am dancing and misstep and fall down and my partner says to me "You made a mistake when you put out your left foot first," she isn't saying I am above nature. I can't be. (Nor can you or anyone else.) We are a part of nature. It is in our nature to build bridges. The dichotomy between the "natural" and the "artificial" is nothing more than a human construction to distinguish between what we as humans did and what was here before us. Your suggestion that examining our failures and attempting to understand them mistakenly places us above nature seems to me to encourage the idea that we cannot build a bridge, nature will always destroy it. This is obviously false in the short term. Nothing lasts forever, but we have clearly built many bridges and most have stood until we abandoned them or replaced them.

Let me be absolutely clear: I do not believe the alleged German failure to accurately anticipate railway logistics inside the Soviet frontier was the principal cause of the German defeat. I'm not even sure it was an important contributing cause. I simply find it quite feasible that it was one (doubtless among many) of the mistakes Germany made both during the decision process leading to Barbarossa and during the operation itself. But you make German defeat sound as inevitable as the sunrise and were that truly the case then someone in Germany should have known this. If this was the case and it was known then there was a failure of leadership. If it was the case and it was not known then there was a failure of intelligence. If it was not the case then there was a failure of planning. The one thing we CAN say of absolute certainty is this: mistakes were made. Somewhere, somehow real human beings made mistakes.

As students of history we are here to understand what human errors led to the outcome we know. It is these errors we strive to correct. To suggest that the outcome was inevitable both exonerates all parties of responsibility (the vons, and Adolfs, and ministers alike), and liberates us all of free will. One can argue that free will is a fiction but it is one upon which the very idea of government, indeed the idea of ethics itself rests. With no free will not only are there no mistakes, there is no right or wrong; there simply is.

 

The main cause comes down to Hitler's belief that only will mattered and that his was the superior will. Logistics was not the primary cause, but a key one because the German assumption that they could simply advance to the AA line in a few months was simply untenable. The failure of the generals was they had gamed an attack and had seen that there would be a logistics crisis after Smolensk and yet they pretended it wouldn't matter. The other key assumptions were that the Soviets were incapable of offering any resistance and that there were no more divisions beyond what was in the border regions and that the Soviets could not raise any more. The Arabs have a saying "those whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad". Right now I'm reading about Guderians fight to keep moving, the strange part is that Guderian was one of the worse is saying the Soviets are no threat to our units and worrying about flanks is just being scared. He overlooks the fact that there were vast amounts of men behind his lines and they were attacking supply columns. He knew he needed infantry units to guard his flanks, but he refused to accept that they were having troubles clearing up the pockets. He was right in that the longer it took to go forward the more the Soviets had to time to prepare, but the reality is the infantry units could not keep up with the tanks.

 

Well,it is a well known fact why Barbarossa was launched :from the POV of the Geman leadership,it was the only possibility to force Britain to give up,before a war with the US would be official.
Would Britain give up if Rommel was at the canal? NO Would it give up if the WM was at the AA line ? For Hitler :YES

Of course,it was risky:if Barbarossa failed,it was over for Germany .
BTW:the oil of the Caucasus,tje grain of the Ukraine were only sophisms :compared to the German grain production,what Germany obtained from the Ukraine was marginal:6.2 million tons in 3 years:the Ukraine never was the Eldorado,Adolf was proclaiming. .

The Germans were not thinking that Barbarossa would fail,probably or certain.They knew that Barbarossa would fail if it was a long war,thus the only solution was to win in a short campaign?
How? They had only limited resources which could not be increased:this was a given .(that's why one can not talk about a failure of logistics).
Everything depended on what the SU would do,could do should do :if the SU would do,could do,should do what the Germans were thinking what was needed to win,success was possible.It was the only possibility.

A) The Soviet strategy :if the SU was retreating to the hinterland,it was over for the Germans :they only had the strength to defeat the Red Army at the border,not east of the Dnepr.The Germans guessed that the SU would not abandon its western territories and would launch a big counter attack .
And,they were right :Halder was relieved :he wrote in his diary :they are doing what we expected .

B)Barbarossa also would only be possible if the SU could not send reinforcements while the Germans were destroying their standing forces,because,this was all the Germans could do :eliminating the 2.5 million men who were stationed in the western parts of the SU.
That would only be possible if C happened in the summer:

C) = the collapse of the Soviet state :some one would kill Stalin/Stalin would escape to Siberia,:whatever,the whole rotten structure would fall apart,and at the end of the summer,the Ostheer would stop,while light armed occupation forces would advance to the AA line .The Germans knew they had not the means to move the whole Ostheer to the east .

But,what happened? Every day,tens of thousands of new Soviet soldiers were appearing and counterattacking (1 million a month ,average) and the German losses increased and increased (200000 men in august) and the Germans became despondent.
While Halder was writing in the beginning of july :it is no exaggeration to say that the war is already won,a few weeks later,he wrote :we have underestimated the enemy : we expected 200 divisions,and,now,we have already counted 360.
The farther the Germans advanced to the east,the stronger the Soviet resistance became,and,already in august:it was over :the Germans were blocked,from Leningrad to Odessa.

Now:FHO (German intelligence) was not to blame :the Germans did not fail because they underestimated the enemy,they failed ,because the enemy was to strong :if the FHO had better informations,there still would be 360 Soviet divisions and 145 German . Nothing would change ...

No one was to blame:not the FHO,not the planning staf,not the logistics,unless ...one should blame the Soviets .

In an operation as Barbarossa,human mistakes do not influence the outcome seriously ..The German defeat was caused by point B:the possibility of the Soviets to send 1 million men to the front every month ..This was something the Germans had no hold on,and none in the OKH was willing to think about,to imagine .

Of topic:not only in Barbarossa was the influence of human mistakes marginal ,but also in minor operations :let's take Market Garden. After its failure,every one was blaming his neighbour:it was Montgomery,it was Ike,it were the ground troops,it were the airborne units,it was the weather,intelligence,the usual traitor (prince Bernhard,Kingkong),but,no one was blaming the Germans,although,if one was arguing on the scape-goat level : it was the Germans:MG failed because of the Germans,as Barbarossa failed because of the Soviets .
And, in both case,defeat was inevitable .
Of course,mistakes were made,but their importance was marginal .

 

In WWI,Germany was defeated by a coalition of Britain,France,Russia (later replaced by the US)

In june 1940,Germany was unable to eliminate Britain.When the US would join Britain (not if,Hitler was certain of the intervention of the US) a German victory was excluded .If the SU also joined,Germany was doomed .The only possibility was to eliminate the SU,before the US were intervening,and hoping that some one in Whitehall would say :without the millions of Russians,we can not defeat Germany,thus,let's make peace .And,without Britain,the American danger would be over (temporarily).

 

Of course,it would not matter:the war would already be over,it had to be,otherwise,Germany was doomed .

 

There different kind of mistakes, mistakes in planning are to be expected, this is why the US only gives assignments and then allows the commander to figure out how to do it. The mistakes of Germany were ones that initial success could not over come. Even worse they were mistakes that they knew were wrong, but were unwilling to challenge.

 

Let me quote the Fuhrer himself about his reasons to attack the U.S.S.R.:


What confirmed me in my decision to attack without delay was the information brought by a German mission lately returned from Russia, that a single Russian factory was producing by itself more tanks than all our factories together. I felt that this was the ultimate limit. Even so, if someone had told me that the Russians had ten thousand tanks, I'd have answered : "You're completely mad!" (Table Talks, Night of 5th-6th January 1942, at dinner with special guest, Sepp Dietrich)

 

Not correct on some major points, as the Germans had invested fairly significant resources pre-war on the Reichsbahn engineers to re-gauge the lines in Poland to standard guage. After 22 June they continued to push Eastward into the Soviet Union, why would they have done that if they expected to capture significant Soviet capacity?

From what I have seen it was never intended to use Soviet guage, as it was impractical to transfer all cargo at the Polish border, it was always intended to convert it to standard gauge.
Hitler hadn't "neglected" the rail system, and I doubt that he was deeply interested in all the details about Railways, it was the OKW planners who would have made plans in this regard. The railways were constrained by the high demands on German engineering just as everything else was, the rapid expansion of tank, aircraft & naval production meant that there was less capacity for railroad infastructure in the early war.

 

But wouldn't it had helped if the Germans had been able to use Soviet rail until the conversion? The Germans did not have enough road transport, so using the Soviet rail would make sense. Yes Poland may have been redone, but what about the rest of the Reich.

 

The Soviet locs and waggons could only be used on the parts of the Soviet rail that were not converted (which ,after 1942,were only a small minority) and,these parts could not be used by the German locs:it was A or B ,both was impossible.
If the line Smolensk-Minsk was used by German locs,it could not be used by Soviet locs,and,vice versa,and German locs implies German waggons .
And,if Soviet locs and waggons were used,at a certain moment (the beginning or the end) everything had to be transhipped from German waggons to Soviet waggons (or the opposite)

 

If the Germans were able to use Soviet rail,this means there was no conversion ,and,if there was conversion,they could not use Soviet rail;

 

Either my computer is old or this new format is not user friendly....but I digress.

Anyway-

LJad said-

"Of course,if the bridge is collapsing,we will blame a human (one of us),because,we are starting from the POV that mankind is superior to nature,thus,if a bridge is collapsing,the cause must be a human failure, otherwise we have to admit .... (horresco referens)

If Real Madrid is eliminated by Barcelona (horresco referens,would say the Spanish husband of my cousin),it can't be because Barcelona is strongt : no :we are the champoions.There must be a culprit (=a scape-goat): :the referee,the trainer,the weather (colonel mud was there,on our side of the field only,the keeper,(but the excuse of the keeper is :I did not sleep :the baby was whining,the fault of my wife :the other machos are nodding :women,only good for cleaning and washing),the sun,etc .
And,it is the same for Barbarossa:after the defeat,the attitude was : who should be blamed ?
Adolf :good choice
colonel mud
general winter
Benito
general Kamasutra:if these traitors were not drinking sate,but were attacking the countless (=in fact inexistant) Siberian divisions,we would have won. Very popular argument over there :these ,never to be trusted : they attacked Uncle Sam ,in the weekend (idem) ,without warning(idem)
logistics:this mean :we could /should have had better logistics (but,the usual scape-goat spoiled everything) and,with better logistics,we would have won (of course,because :we are the champions,and the others...expletives are not allowed)
Now:whom can we blame for bad logistics ?
Wagner(chief transport of the WM) ? :not a good choice :he is a general,and killed after 20 july 1944: thus,a good boy
Dorpmüller : a civilian (railway minister) :very good
the Ruhr barons : good choice
But,Dorpmüller is not stupid (although being a civilian) and will say that it was the fault of Adolf (haha),because(as some one posted),Adolf did not give Dorpmüller enough money to build locs and waggons ."

As a simple way to explain the perspective of a great many people;
If the Germans possessed the ability to defeat the Soviet Union in 1941 and they failed, this means mistakes were made and that the cause of the defeat is German and not Soviet. The Red Army is a contributing factor and likely the key factor, but ultimately if the possibility of victory existed then the failure to attain it is German. Thus we look for the mistakes. If your opinion is that there was never a chance, then simply state it as such?

 

@black6
I think I understand LJAD's point and I also agree with him. Let me put this in a concise manner: you cannot blame anyone for failure to accomplish an impracticable task.