Operation Barbarossa Day

Once again.

It seems to me Jean that you may be simplifying too much. Zhukov was after all only a man. He was given the task of defending Leningrad and he did. Defenses were put in place new, units were conscripted and counterattacks were ordered by him in order to grind the Germans down and they did! Von Leeb even stated this in his letter to Hitler after which Hitler issued the order to stop the attack on Leningrad and to just bomb it and starve it into submission. This order came NOT on the 12 of sept. but on the 22nd. On the 12th was the order given only given to Guderians mechanzed units as they were moved for the assualt on Moscow.

Also liberating Leningrad was not an easy task as hundreds of thousands of Germans were dug in. Around 300,000 at a time. ( Also there were the Fins in the North and other allies )
The Russian were also a very different fighting force in 1941 then they were in 1943. The Red Army was simply incapable of liberating the city so quick.

Operation Barbarossa: Army Group North, part 2

Defending Moscow was more important then liberating Leningrad. To say that Zhukov let 1 million people starve is quite shallow.

 

Just a while ago saw in a book on Norwegian Waffen-SS volunteers a map of the lines around Leningrad. The distance between the troops from the north and south of the axis forces behind Leningrad was only some 20 kilometers apart in autumn 1941 so I would not stay and wait for something to happen if I was a Soviet commander...

 

To Kai-Petri: I do not understand well?
To Sloniksp: I know, that Zhukov was only a man (however his quality is still a question for me, too many counterargumets on both sides) , but he claims to be not only a man and this is that, what makes me curious...
Even if this order of Sep. 12th was only to move Guderians corps away, it made the ocupation of Leningrad not possible. The remainig forces lacks enough strenght and mobility to repel soviet counterattacks, if they would to continue to advance. But you are right, the informations I gave here were not as correct, as I thought and I am sorra for that.
300,000 looks much better, than those 700,000+ from Wiki, dont you think? I lack for some better specification of which units are figured to those around Leningrad and which are not. But with all those Finnish and other soldiers it is possible to reach those 300,000, even with enormous level of attrition of German units in autumn 41 (some units, mostly the armoured ones were about 50% of their original strenght and sometimes even lower). I. e. 1st Panzer division had at Aug. 16th only 18 Pz-II, 20 Pz-III and 6 Pz-IV, but I have this in my notes without source, so I dont know, if it is true.

 

Jean,

the German troops were separated from the Finnish troops by some 20 kilometers which is not much.

 

Jean it may be easy to make such a statement after the events occured. The Germans at the time really had no idea as to how many Russians were in the city and how fanatically they would fight to make sure that it would not fall. I remember that I have stated in the past ( another thread ) as to how my father told me that when in St. Petersburg ( then Leningrad ) he stumbled upon some German veterans who were there just to take a glimpse of the city they were once besieging. They simply could not figure out how it did not fall.

Again all of this was possible thanks to the defences and counter attacks and the immediate conscription of new units drawn up by Zhukov who replaced Veroshilov as he failed to accomplish this.

No apologies needed friend Oh and I understand you just fine ( most of the time at least ) Not to worry, several more months here and you will be fluent!

Actually those figures did not include the Finns ( Kai can provide more specifics then me on this ) The 725,000 number like you said would probably include the reinforcements and rotation of units. Then again a luxury which the Citizens at Leningrad did not have.

 

I will try to find something about those "units conscripted by Zhukov" and about those ones conscripted before him. It should to be interesting, I think, but now, there is some other nameless battle, that attracts my attention much more, than Leningrad does. It is tank battle between Rowno and Dubno, but I don't know much more about it. It started probably at June, 23th, and ended at June, 27th (the year 1941, of course). Great numbers of Soviet tanks were destroyed there, but I don't (look! I just discovered this apostrophe ' thing!!) know even which corps/armies/divisions fought there, can someone help me? (There will be a book about this battle, it is planned to be released in Czech Republic in about one year, but just now there is nothing about it anywhere I was trying to search)

 

Jean,

try to get " Stalin´s folly" by Constantine Pleshakov. I think the book has quite good information on the reasons why things went the way they did for the Red Army. Of course not everyone agrees but I found the book very good.

For instance

" Minsk area June 24-26

the counteroffensives ordered by Stalin and supported by his yes men were not simply a failure, they were an utter catastrophe. The Tenth Army was now surrounded at Belostok, the Third had virtually disappeared , and the Fourth had suffered staggering casualties and had been forced to withdraw. The gap between the Western and Northwestern Fronts had grown to 60 miles. The opening contained the highway to Minsk, and German tanks were now rolling speedily along it, approaching the Byelorussian capital.The frontier battle had been lost.

....

Moscow´s response was equally farcical.Timoshenko magnanimously allowed Pavlov to evacuate the units, but the troops were to relocate not to Minsk but to the Lida-Slonim line, 80 miles west of the city. Timoshenko did not know that on June 25 the Red Army was already leaving Slonim, having been overwhelmed by the pincer strike of Guderian and Hoth.However, he should have admitted tha the Third and the Tenth Army had by then practically ceased to exist. Instead, the people´s commissar of defence was sending ghost armies to nonexistent trenches.

The Western Front has just one Army unscathed by fighting-the Thirteenth, located in the rear, at Moghiley.The defenders of Minsk eagerly awaited its arrival. ( The Thirteenth Army, commanded by General Peter Filatov, was barely six weeks old. When the war started, it was still being formed....) "

 

I'll try to find that book, but it is not easy here, in Czech Republic.
(btw., are there in that "Stalin's folly" some numbers? I mean division numbers and figures about their mannpower and equipment, especialy the tanks?)
A little off-topic: Right now I'm reading some very strange book about Barbarossa. It's name is "Thunder on the Dnepr" from Bryan Fugate and Lev Dvoreckij and I must to say, I have never ever seen such great pile of nonsenses, as is there. According to authors, all of those great defeats of Soviets up to winter of the year 1941 were purposely prepared by Zhukov and, but only partially, by Stalin and Timoshenko to lead Germans to the depth of Russia, where they will be more vulnerable etc.... Oh, man, if you can, try to borrow copy of this fairy tale, just for fun, but never, never spend your money for it. I have to say, that the last two books from Suvorov (from the years of 2002 and 2005) were much better (if possible, of course), than this Thunder... Interesting is, that authors are often using the very same affairs or doings like Suvorov, but they are turning them to contradictory evidence, often by concealment of some facts etc...

 

Zhukov's memoirs seem accurate to me. When I was doing research on Operation Uranus other accurate historians like Erickson seemed to agree with Zhukov. He also admitted to his mistakes in operation bagration. David Glantz is also a good historians; however, I find that he glorifies a bit.

 

I am reading Zhukov's Memories and Thoughts right now, so I'll see whatever is true or not as true. Now seems to me, Zhukov glorifies a bit too, but only himself. If I will find something not accurate, I'll bring it here with some explanation, why I suppose it could not to happen like Zhukov (or someone, who wrote his book) wrote.

 

What! You mean Manstein glorifies himself too !?!?

 

Yes of course Generals Glorify themselves but what is interesting with Zhukov is that he admits to his own mistakes while other books blame someone else.

Example.
page 531
He admits that he assigned the 3rd and 48th armies large penetration areas.

" I failed in my duty as a representative of the GHQ to correct the front commanders"

He also gives credit to other people for the things people say he did.

Some books say that the idea of the two main blows was Rokossovsky's and Zhukov's however Zhukov him self does not mention agreeing with Rokossovky's idea which turned out to be the main reason for the encirclement of the German forces in Bobruisk

Rokossovsky barvely argued with stalin himself and convinced him of doing such a thing.

This is proven in page 524

 

Exactly!!!

 

@ Jean : I should not judge a book by the cover, but the "Icebreaker" theory was so twisted and contradicted by so many proven facts, that I would not rely on anything this guy has wrote.

 

I don't know, if we read the same book (Memories and thoughts). I am now somewhere at about page 200 (August 1939, battle of Khalkhin-Gol), but I could not to write here those, ehm, not exact facts, just because there are too many of them. If I only consider those foot-notes from authors of czech translation, I would have to re-write half of the entire book here and I simply don't have time to do this. But I can give you a little examle, directly from his action description of Khalkhin-gol. He describes here, how the brave Soviet pilots shoot-down about 120 Japanese aircrafts in about 20 days, wow, such a great number, I wonder, if Japanese had enough planes only to match this number... But he forgot, surely only by accident, to mention looses on their own side, which were (i.e. on Wiki, but not only there) nearly 50%, about 23,000 killed and wounded from about 50,000 of initial strenght.
About half of this book is, btw., only very repulsively glozing and boasting of the Communist Party and its crimes (i.e. the crushing of Tambov rebelion). It is very, very disgusting to me, because I experinced this personaly, luckily for me only in childhood, but I can still remember it good. I read this book too slowly for this reason too, it seems to me somehow slimy.

 

I have read there was the censored version of Zhukov´s memoirs and possibly at some time later on ( after 1991 ?) another version with all info unaltered released....definitely sure the one published in the 1960´s was censored.

Unfortunately have not found the uncensored version anywhere.

 

I have got the 12th edition of this book, printed in the year 2005, and there are even more communist bullshits, than were in the first edition. If i think about it, something strange just had revealed in my mind. Did not he received the Order of the Battle Red Banner for subduing the Tambov Rebelion in 1921? This is the very first place, where were chemical weapons used first time against civilians, am I wrong? I wonder, why he did not wrote something about this, instead of his fairy tales about those "cruel Antonov's bands" and others? I think, if he wanted, it should to be in this "uncensored" version (in my opinion there were not any censorship, only some book, signed, but not necessary written by Zhukov and add-ons in next editions were just for some following and favor of official line of the Party and its respective leaders, especially Brezhnev).