Barbarossa

Discussion in 'The Eastern Front' started by Gerard, Dec 13, 2006.

  1. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    David Glantz in his essay on The Eastern Front "Myths and Realities" makes reference to the fact that some Soviet attacks took place but weren't recognised as such. I'll try and come up with some info on these battles if anyone's interested. Might make a few decent discussions.
    Here's the excerpt:
    THE FORGOTTEN WAR:
    New archival evidence now indicates that, from the very day that Operation
    “Barbarossa” began, Stalin and the Stavka consistently and repeatedly attempted to halt and drive back the German juggernaut.2 Beginning in late June and extending into July,
    August, and September, they ordered the Red Army to conduct a series of operations in the form of counterattacks, counterstrokes, and, in one case, a full-fledged counteroffensive, all of which represented clumsy attempts to implement the Red
    Army’s 1941 State Defense Plan. However, the extremely fluid combat situation and the rapid German advance made these offensive operations seem uncoordinated and prevented the Germans from recognizing them for what they actually were. Close examination of newly released documents, including Stavka and front orders, clearly indicates that the Stavka attempted to coordinate these operations with regard to their timing, conduct, and objectives.
    The list of neglected or totally forgotten operations includes the following:
    The Soviet Rasenai, Grodno, and Dubno Counterstrokes (June 1941)
    The Soviet Soltsy, Lepel’, Bobruisk, and Kiev Counterstrokes (July 1941)
    The Soviet Staraia Russa, Smolensk, and Kiev Counterstrokes (August
    1941)
    The Soviet Smolensk, El’nia, and Roslavl’ Offensive (September 1941)
    The Soviet Kalinin Counterstroke (October 1941)
     
  2. Shörner

    Shörner Member

    interesting find

    i still believe one of the best insights to this campaign is in Erich v. Manstiens memoir book Lost Victories.
     
  3. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    Here is the full text: http://www.strom.clemson.edu/publications/sg-war41-45.pdf , a very interesting book. Mind you, it's a 9Mb PDF. Highly recommended.

    von Manstein's book is interesting, but as all memoirs it natrurally tends to put the author in the best light. One sub-title for it could be "What I told Hitler he should do to win the war" ;) The author also tends to go into great detail into operations in which he did well, and to quickly dispatch those he didn't win. Also as he did not take part in it, he makes no mention of the late part of the war.
     
  4. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    I constantly thought of Shaggy singing "It wasn't me" while reading 'Lost Victories', to the extent I went out and bought the record.
     
    stolpi likes this.
  5. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    I disagree with your point of view

    The list of neglected or totally forgotten operations includes the following:
    The Soviet Rasenai, Grodno, and Dubno Counterstrokes (June 1941)

    Very famous fights though, but with very small amount of documents from Russian side. I think you know why those documents couldn't stay.
    I'm lucky to have some operative reports for Soviet troops engaged in the battles in Rasseniai (not much though) and Dubno (much more) areas.
    If Ir emember this correctly in Rasseniai area operated the 2nd and 5th soviet Tank Divisions. On Grodno direction operated 6th and 11th Mechanised corps.
    The 6th MC was among the most interesting ones, as majority of new tanks T-34 and KVs of the Western front were concentratd just in this one.
    Unfortunately it was used not in proper way and lost its tanks due to lack of ammo and fuel, technical breakages and other reasons.
    Relatively small amount of tanks were lost in attacks of positions of German infantry.

    The battle for Dubno is among the most interesting ones, as many soviet mechanised corps were involved in this one. Germans had much troubles parring counter-attacks of soviet troops there.
    And again problems with operating so large masses of tanks, lack of auxiliary transport, lack of ammunition, low reliability of soviet tanks, low amount of infantry for mechanised units supply affected on the small results of this battle

    The Soviet Soltsy, Lepel’, Bobruisk, and Kiev Counterstrokes (July 1941)

    Soltsy counter-attack was well-known in Soviet historiography.
    Fights on the Lepel direction (5th & 7th Mechanised corps) is less known, but also can't be called fogotten.

    Kiev operations are also rather well-known...
    however as usual there are many blanks simply due to organic lack of documents just for that period.
    My friend seraching in TsAMO arhcive tells me what a chaos is in the papers of that period.... He collects papers for needed units by single sheets dispersed in many places!

    The Soviet Staraia Russa, Smolensk, and Kiev Counterstrokes (August
    1941)


    Hmmm... Smolensk battle is well-known. However again lack of documents just for this one prevents from writing of more, or less reliable modern books.
    I have this one in mind in my research because my great grandpa was missed in it... For more than 60 years we are searching for him, but still not much results in spite of efforts of the most experienced professionals....

    Staraya Russa area for Aug. 1941 was not too famous indeed...

    The Soviet Smolensk, El’nia, and Roslavl’ Offensive (September 1941)


    these fight are also known...
    Yelnia battle is among the most famous for the year 1941, as it was among the first succesful operation of the Soviet troops in this period.

    The Soviet Kalinin Counterstroke (October 1941)

    Not sure what you mean here

    To my opinion the most unknown operations are those around Leningrad and more to the south from it.
    A few millions of Soviet soldiers were lost just in those deep corners of the war....

    Regards,
    Alex
     
  6. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Alex,
    Thanks for your input to the thread.
    I want to spend next year learning more than the basic outline of the Soviets War.
    Hope you stay around here to help.
    We in the West really need educating on the Eastern Front.
     
  7. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    Alex,
    Thanks for your input to the thread.
    I want to spend next year learning more than the basic outline of the Soviets War.
    Hope you stay around here to help.
    We in the West really need educating on the Eastern Front.

    Yes, I know that there are not too many good sources on the Eastern Front on the West.
    D. Glatnz's works are relatively good. At least they are more believable than other (even when I disagree with his conclusions. Especially for the Mars operation). David had access to a wide range of Soviet publications on the subjects he researched. He had no full access to archival records (foreigners ar not allowed to work in our military archives), but he really employed good Soviet sources....

    I created my site just to fill in some blanks in knowledge of the Russian theatre, because there are almost no Russian resources, which provides enough online materials in English (to tell you the truth I know only one such site www.battlefield.ru)
    It's real problem to get needed info even in Russian net, as not much sites provides really exact information and not retyping of Soviet encyclopedias

    Regards,
    Alex
     
  8. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    I disagree with your point of view

    Very famous fights though, but with very small amount of documents from Russian side. I think you know why those documents couldn't stay...


    Alex, you have to remember most of us are westerners with very little or none at all access to the sources like you have. We have been subject for all these years to German or German influenced sources, and practically there was nothing at all written about the Soviet point of view on this side until John Erickson, David Glantz etc opened the door. That Glantz paper is, for western eyes, revolutionary work as it puts the "East Front" (see, again the western bias) in an entirely new light.

    I am aware of the immens archive in militera.ru, but unfortunately I can't read Russian, so I'm still stuck!

    As you know, the most we have will be memoirs by the great names which are heavily politicized and self serving, to the point of being useless.
     
  9. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    Alex, you have to remember most of us are westerners with very little or none at all access to the sources like you have. We have been subject for all these years to German or German influenced sources, and practically there was nothing at all written about the Soviet point of view on this side until John Erickson, David Glantz etc opened the door. That Glantz paper is, for western eyes, revolutionary work as it puts the "East Front" (see, again the western bias) in an entirely new light.

    I am aware of the immens archive in militera.ru, but unfortunately I can't read Russian, so I'm still stuck!

    As you know, the most we have will be memoirs by the great names which are heavily politicized and self serving, to the point of being useless.

    Yes, I always remember that on the west there are great lack of sources just about the Russian theatre. Waht blank I'm trying to fill in woth my site... But my forces are rather limited, as I can't translate thousands of pages I obtain...:smash:

    I know folk, which worked with D. Glantz, so, I'm (a bit) aware what materials did he use...

    Usage of German materials sometimes is useful, but basing only on them is incorrect.
    Otherwise a simple question appears: "Why so glorious army ran away for thousands kilometers?"
    If you permit I will not answer to this question not to cause a large -scale dispute here...

    If you wish to read more memoirs from the Russian front you can buy books recently published with the help of Artyom Drabkin
    http://www.iremember.ru/index.php?lang=en

    On the same site you also can read online a large set of memoirs published in English....

    Regards,
    Alex
     
  10. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    Alex,
    Thanks for your input to the thread.
    I want to spend next year learning more than the basic outline of the Soviets War.
    Hope you stay around here to help.
    We in the West really need educating on the Eastern Front.

    Hi, Owen

    Thx for the interest to the russian theatre... I can say that even in Russia we have too much contradictive materials published on the subject...
    Too many authors simply makes money on this....

    Btw, recently an interesting book was published by J. Mark

    Island of fire

    I think Jason made a tremendous amount of work processing materials on the Stalingrad battle. I took part in his research and know how many unique materials did he use.
    I think even Russian historians had no such an amount like he had got...

    Regards,
    Alex
     
  11. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    If you wish to read more memoirs from the Russian front you can buy books recently published with the help of Artyom Drabkin
    ß Ïîìíþ

    On the same site you also can read online a large set of memoirs published in English....
    Regards,
    Alex

    We discussed this site earlier this year.

    Predominantly the rebuttal of Vladimir Rezuns' thesis (Vicktor Suvorov) in the Hall of Shame.
     
  12. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

     
  13. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    We discussed this site earlier this year.

    Predominantly the rebuttal of Vladimir Rezuns' thesis (Vicktor Suvorov) in the Hall of Shame.

    rebuttal of Rezun's theses need several books, because almost each string of his "works" contain either error, or lie, or incorrect statement...
    Serious historians never refers to his books. It's non-science fiction...

    Regards,
    Alex
     
  14. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

     
  15. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Amvas,

    Great to have you here and like Owen I am interested in promoting discussions on the Eastern Front that won't slide into a "West v East opinion or a Suvorov argument.
     
  16. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    I second that ;)
     
  17. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    Also I can't miss that horrible equipment our archives has.
    We even can't order scanning, or making digital photocopies of anything!!!
    The most modern equipment they have in use for independant researchers is b/w xerox! :screwy:

    Ha ha, obviously you haven't seen some recent photos here from the British Public Records Office or so, pierced and tied with a string. Now where are those pics?
     
  18. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    Amvas,

    Great to have you here and like Owen I am interested in promoting discussions on the Eastern Front that won't slide into a "West v East opinion or a Suvorov argument.

    Thx..

    I only have to say that if discussion need a book to be written in reply (and it's not rare case) I can't help then....

    For example I stopped any discussions for the "Mars" operation (which I noticed on this forum as well).

    Regards,
    Alex
     
  19. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Thx..

    I only have to say that if discussion need a book to be written in reply (and it's not rare case) I can't help then....

    For example I stopped any discussions for the "Mars" operation (which I noticed on this forum as well).

    Regards,
    Alex

    I would hope that we can call on your expertise as it seems you are prepared to quote sources.

    We have had "Western" members who posted with a patch over one eye when it came to the Eastern front. We have also had members from Russia et al who deny that any Western involvement assisted the Soviet Union to overcome the German invader.

    I do look forward to your concise responses and can assure you we are not looking for a thesis on any subject.
     
  20. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    I would hope that we can call on your expertise as it seems you are prepared to quote sources.

    We have had "Western" members who posted with a patch over one eye when it came to the Eastern front. We have also had members from Russia et al who deny that any Western involvement assisted the Soviet Union to overcome the German invader.

    I do look forward to your concise responses and can assure you we are not looking for a thesis on any subject.

    I never positioned myself as analitic....;)

    As for comparison between Eastern and Western Fronts each of them had own specific.
    For example I cannot avoid paying respect for allied forces for naval operations.
    And also how to forget that allied air forces did a large portion of strategic bombing of Germany when Soviet aviation had no such a facilities.
    I also think scales of lend-lease help are also underestimated by those members, who tries to diminish them. (Not only tanks, guns, airplanes, small arms and other "shooting equipment" must be counted)
    I'm staying for weighted analysis of contribution of all sides to our mutual Victory over Nazism

    Regards,
    Alex
     

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