Glantz, or the reliability of Stalin-era Soviet reports on the Eastern Front

[Berkut]

I would disagree with your last paragraph. The standfast in the winter of 41-42, actually saved the German army from disaster against a tactically and operationally inept red army.

What could possibly be the benefit of a straight out, no flexibility, purely political order that ties the hands of the field commanders to react with nuance to this tactically and operationally inept opponent?

The German army survived intact in the winter of 41-42 did it not. Bruised to be sure, and could not conduct a theater wide offensive in 42. The sustained damage showed at the launch of Operation Blue. As did the damage from Stalingrad showed in the German 1943 summer offensive. The German strategic offensives in 41, 42, and 43 were scaled down each of those years. This showed dwindling strategic initiative for the germans and the opposite for the Russians.

Here's a quote from a memoir and any level headed assessment will be the same.

On 30 December I was back in Rastenburg and the following day I briefed Hitler. It took more than two hours, during which time Hitler hardly spoke. He only occasionally asked a question. I pleaded with Hitler not to withdraw under any circumstances. Operations were completely impossible in the snow that was two meters deep, and in the -58 degree Fahrenheit weather, river crossings and the building of positions were impossible anywhere. This was a crisis that could not be solved operationally. Front lines were being held wherever we could manage to get just one tank and twenty men to one decisive point after days and days of trying. The demand to hold under such conditions might sound brutal, but in reality it was the greatest clemency.

That is from one of the best (arguably "the best") panzer division/corps commanders the Germans had. Keep thinking the Germans could have conducted an orderly withdrawal, mobile defense, or mobile whatever in the winter of 41-42.I will respectfully disagree with such a fantasy. It wasnt possible or feasible.

I am not at all arguing that they should have retreated - what I am arguing is the claim that "the army wanted to retreat". Well, apparently that isn't the case since it appears that there were some who understood that they needed to hold (in those places where that was appropriate) - indeed, you cite an example here.

Nor am I arguing that a large scale retreat would have been a good idea. What I am arguing is that the "No retreat, no where" order is not a good idea. Or at least, the inflexibility of it is a bad idea. After all, certainly you would not argue that a voluntary adjustment of lines is WORSE than an involuntary one, right? And we know that in the case of AGC, there were examples where despite the stand fast order, they were not able to hold their positions anyway, and were forced to retreat.

And grumbler, there are examples of retreats conducted in defiance of or before the stand fast order that were made under controlled circumstances without substantial losses. Third Panzer Army was grossly over-exposed, and had no choice but to retreat, and did so in order in December, IIRC.

In any case, I also think it is important to note that again, the Soviets lacked the capability in the Winter of 41/42 to exploit German weakness and lack of mobility - they had little themselves in more than a low level operational sense. B4 is right - they could not even manage moderate to large sized mobile formations when they did have them, and by the winter had mostly disbanded those that were left.

I think the "standfast saved the Wehrmacht" story is kind of received wisdom that really doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. Yes, if the alternative is a Napoleon-esque "retreat from Moscow" debacle, then sure that would be terrible, but I don't buy the idea that absent a standfast the entire German army would just crumble and flee. They didn't do that on any number of incredibly dire circumstances later in the war, I don't believe they would have done so in the Winter of '41 either.

Rather I think had Hitler simply ordered his generals to hold as best they can, while leaving them with the operational flexibility to adjust their lines as needed, the result, at worse, would have been much the same. I don't think the German High Command was on the verge of a mental breakdown resulting in some kind of total breakdown such that absent such a stringent demand they army would have fallen apart fleeing anywhere and everywhere.

[Berkut]

Anywho, Drakken I can't remember if it's the book you got or When Titans Clashed that has one of two favorite glantz quotes "the Russian and German armies of Dec41 were that of two "punch-drunk boxers, staying precariously on their feet ..."

Indeed - and that is in large part where I started having my doubts about the CW in regards to the order. I don't think the Soviets were capable of delivering the knock out blow regardless, and I don't think the Wehrmacht, despite being battered, was the kind of army to simply have a collective failure of morale resulting in them falling apart absent such a blow being delivered.

The other being, "What Rotmistrov failed to remember was the bulk of the burning tanks on the Prokhorovka battlefield were Russian."

It was quotes like that that resulted in Glantz's "unprecedented access to Soviet archives" not being so accessible anymore.

[Berkut]

It seems weird to me to claim that Germany had no chance against Russia in WW2 when they beat Russia in WW1.

How is it weird, Russia was much stronger and Germany much weaker at this point in time.

This actually speaks to my point to some extent (and argues against it as well, depending on how you look at it).

WW2 in the East was of a different nature than WW1 in the East. In WW1, Germany and Russia fought because they were both backing up allies. They both had ideas about expanding territory and such, but the Germans never had any illusions about conquering Russia, nor did they try.

Their WW1 "win" was, at the end of the day, a win based not on outright conquest, but breaking the will of the Russians to continue. They delivered enough blows that at some point, the Russia will to continue was simply gone. It is not unreasonable to think that this could have happened in WW2 as well, it just didn't. And part of the reason it did not, is that Germany engaged in a war of conquest. The *point* of WW2 was (for Germany) to take over huge chunks of Russia - not just win a war, force a negotiated peace, and grab some border regions.

When I say I think Germany could have "won" WW2, I don't mean I think they could have taken Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, forcing a dissolution of the Soviet government and outright effective conquest of European Russia/USSR. I do think they could have realised at some point that those goals were not obtainable any longer, and been willing to pull back from those goals, and forced a defensive war of attrition and maneuver resulting in a negotiated peace that left vast parts of Soviet Europe under their control.

There are problems with this theory of course, and it is by no means certain that it would have worked. And there are even better arguments that it was simply not possible from a ideological standpoint of Nazism.

[11B4V]

I would disagree with your last paragraph. The standfast in the winter of 41-42, actually saved the German army from disaster against a tactically and operationally inept red army.

What could possibly be the benefit of a straight out, no flexibility, purely political order that ties the hands of the field commanders to react with nuance to this tactically and operationally inept opponent?

The German army survived intact in the winter of 41-42 did it not. Bruised to be sure, and could not conduct a theater wide offensive in 42. The sustained damage showed at the launch of Operation Blue. As did the damage from Stalingrad showed in the German 1943 summer offensive. The German strategic offensives in 41, 42, and 43 were scaled down each of those years. This showed dwindling strategic initiative for the germans and the opposite for the Russians.

Here's a quote from a memoir and any level headed assessment will be the same.

On 30 December I was back in Rastenburg and the following day I briefed Hitler. It took more than two hours, during which time Hitler hardly spoke. He only occasionally asked a question. I pleaded with Hitler not to withdraw under any circumstances. Operations were completely impossible in the snow that was two meters deep, and in the -58 degree Fahrenheit weather, river crossings and the building of positions were impossible anywhere. This was a crisis that could not be solved operationally. Front lines were being held wherever we could manage to get just one tank and twenty men to one decisive point after days and days of trying. The demand to hold under such conditions might sound brutal, but in reality it was the greatest clemency.

That is from one of the best (arguably "the best") panzer division/corps commanders the Germans had. Keep thinking the Germans could have conducted an orderly withdrawal, mobile defense, or mobile whatever in the winter of 41-42.I will respectfully disagree with such a fantasy. It wasnt possible or feasible.

I am not at all arguing that they should have retreated - what I am arguing is the claim that "the army wanted to retreat". Well, apparently that isn't the case since it appears that there were some who understood that they needed to hold (in those places where that was appropriate) - indeed, you cite an example here.

Nor am I arguing that a large scale retreat would have been a good idea. What I am arguing is that the "No retreat, no where" order is not a good idea. Or at least, the inflexibility of it is a bad idea. After all, certainly you would not argue that a voluntary adjustment of lines is WORSE than an involuntary one, right? And we know that in the case of AGC, there were examples where despite the stand fast order, they were not able to hold their positions anyway, and were forced to retreat.

And grumbler, there are examples of retreats conducted in defiance of or before the stand fast order that were made under controlled circumstances without substantial losses. Third Panzer Army was grossly over-exposed, and had no choice but to retreat, and did so in order in December, IIRC.

In any case, I also think it is important to note that again, the Soviets lacked the capability in the Winter of 41/42 to exploit German weakness and lack of mobility - they had little themselves in more than a low level operational sense. B4 is right - they could not even manage moderate to large sized mobile formations when they did have them, and by the winter had mostly disbanded those that were left.

I think the "standfast saved the Wehrmacht" story is kind of received wisdom that really doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. Yes, if the alternative is a Napoleon-esque "retreat from Moscow" debacle, then sure that would be terrible, but I don't buy the idea that absent a standfast the entire German army would just crumble and flee. They didn't do that on any number of incredibly dire circumstances later in the war, I don't believe they would have done so in the Winter of '41 either.

Rather I think had Hitler simply ordered his generals to hold as best they can, while leaving them with the operational flexibility to adjust their lines as needed, the result, at worse, would have been much the same. I don't think the German High Command was on the verge of a mental breakdown resulting in some kind of total breakdown such that absent such a stringent demand they army would have fallen apart fleeing anywhere and everywhere.

[grumbler]

I am not at all arguing that they should have retreated - what I am arguing is the claim that "the army wanted to retreat". Well, apparently that isn't the case since it appears that there were some who understood that they needed to hold (in those places where that was appropriate) - indeed, you cite an example here.

I'm not sure what you are arguing here.  "The army" didn't want to retreat - it HAD to retreat.  And its defensive tactics were not serving it at all well.   When Guderian withdrew (the remnants of) his 2nd Panzer Army, he forced 2nd Army to retreat as well.  Using German withdrawal tactics, Busch lost three divisions encircled and annihilated.

Nor am I arguing that a large scale retreat would have been a good idea. What I am arguing is that the "No retreat, no where" order is not a good idea. Or at least, the inflexibility of it is a bad idea. After all, certainly you would not argue that a voluntary adjustment of lines is WORSE than an involuntary one, right? And we know that in the case of AGC, there were examples where despite the stand fast order, they were not able to hold their positions anyway, and were forced to retreat.

It isn't a matter of choosing between voluntary and involuntary withdrawals.  It is a matter of choosing between the risk that the front will be crushed if it tries to stand and the risk that it will be crushed after it abandons much of its heavy weapons and artillery and retreats to some... line... somewhere.  There are examples of retreat causing disaster, and standing fast causing disaster.

And grumbler, there are examples of retreats conducted in defiance of or before the stand fast order that were made under controlled circumstances without substantial losses. Third Panzer Army was grossly over-exposed, and had no choice but to retreat, and did so in order in December, IIRC.

And, again, there are examples of retreats ending with disaster.  It isn't so black-and-white.  And the army generals were not much better-prepared to deal with the situation than Hitler (though the forced retirement of von Rundstedt wasn't a result of this).  The commander-in-chief of the army stated in a meeting (days before he was relieved) that he could see no plan that would save AGC.

In any case, I also think it is important to note that again, the Soviets lacked the capability in the Winter of 41/42 to exploit German weakness and lack of mobility - they had little themselves in more than a low level operational sense. B4 is right - they could not even manage moderate to large sized mobile formations when they did have them, and by the winter had mostly disbanded those that were left.

I think it is important to note that the Soviets did exploit German weakness and lack of mobility in the Winter of '41-'42.  In fact, we are debating the best German response to that exploitation!

I think the "standfast saved the Wehrmacht" story is kind of received wisdom that really doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. Yes, if the alternative is a Napoleon-esque "retreat from Moscow" debacle, then sure that would be terrible, but I don't buy the idea that absent a standfast the entire German army would just crumble and flee. They didn't do that on any number of incredibly dire circumstances later in the war, I don't believe they would have done so in the Winter of '41 either.

Your strawman characterization of the debate ("absent a standfast the entire German army would just crumble and flee") isn't very useful to the debate.  I believe that the Germans lacked the capacity to conduct a flexible defense and that the decision to stand and hold hedgehog positions was the correct one. 

Rather I think had Hitler simply ordered his generals to hold as best they can, while leaving them with the operational flexibility to adjust their lines as needed, the result, at worse, would have been much the same. I don't think the German High Command was on the verge of a mental breakdown resulting in some kind of total breakdown such that absent such a stringent demand they army would have fallen apart fleeing anywhere and everywhere.

Of course, the strawman part of this statement is just that, but the larger question of whether the German staff had an alternative plan that had an real chance of success is by no means as settled as you assume.  The alternative to defending in place was to abandon all of the non-operational equipment and all of the equipment for which transport was limited or non-existent (since better than half the horses and trucks the Germans started with were no longer available). 

And, of course, the question arises "retreat to where?"  AGS had a definite defensive line to retreat to, so a flexible withdrawal to that line made sense. AGN was fairly secure in its hold fast positions.  AGC had nothing to retreat to - once they started to retreat, they would have to go back as far as the Russians could advance.  That's what Guderian was effectively arguing for. 

Now, I am not arguing that Hitler was right and Guderian was wrong.  I am arguing, though, that it is by no means a clear-cut case that the hold fast order was inferior to "wing it as best you can."  The Germans had been unsuccessful when they tried to defend using their existing doctrine.  Hitler's improvised doctrine was costly, but, I believe, less costly than the likely alternative.  Just in frostbite casualties alone the stand fast order may have been the better option: the Germans lost the services of over 200,000 men due to frostbite when operating under the cover of villages and prepared positions; imagine what the frostbite losses would have been had the men been sleeping in the open.

It was Hitler's fault that the German Army had no good options in December '41 and January '42, but that fact is independent of the stand fast decision.

[Drakken]

For those who are interested, Downloadable PDFs of translations of Franz Halder's Private War Journal can be found online. Volume VI and VII concerns the war in the Balkans and Eastern Front. 

Just change the last number if you are interested in a particular volume.

http://militera.lib.ru/db/0/pdf/halder_eng6.pdf

http://militera.lib.ru/db/0/pdf/halder_eng7.pdf

[The Minsky Moment]

One of the reasons I don't buy the "Germany was doomed" argument is that the idea of the war being drawn out longer is almost a non-started as far as the Soviets are concerned.. . .
Now, this likely just results in the Western allies doing more while the Soviets do less, but it is really hard to specualte with any great accuracy what the follow on effects of this counter-factual might be. Does Italy hold out longer with a little more German help? Are the Western Allies a bit more hesitant to invade, given moderately less Soviet success, and hence moderately greater German ability to defend Western Europe?

The inevitability thesis is based on the huge disparity of resources - human, material, and technological -  between the Allies as a whole on the one hand and Germany on the other hand.  So just increasing Soviet casualty rates counterfactually might slow the allied advances in the east and lead to the various effects you suggest, but at best is just buys more time.  Eventually the resource disparity would tell.  It would take a much more extensive set of counterfactual assumptions to alter the end result.

[Malthus]

One of the reasons I don't buy the "Germany was doomed" argument is that the idea of the war being drawn out longer is almost a non-started as far as the Soviets are concerned.. . .
Now, this likely just results in the Western allies doing more while the Soviets do less, but it is really hard to specualte with any great accuracy what the follow on effects of this counter-factual might be. Does Italy hold out longer with a little more German help? Are the Western Allies a bit more hesitant to invade, given moderately less Soviet success, and hence moderately greater German ability to defend Western Europe?

The inevitability thesis is based on the huge disparity of resources - human, material, and technological -  between the Allies as a whole on the one hand and Germany on the other hand.  So just increasing Soviet casualty rates counterfactually might slow the allied advances in the east and lead to the various effects you suggest, but at best is just buys more time.  Eventually the resource disparity would tell.  It would take a much more extensive set of counterfactual assumptions to alter the end result.

Way I've seen it expressed is that Germany could have won earlier in a counterfactual, but could never have won later.  In that, the only hope Germany had of winning was if Hitler's 'kick the door in and the whole rotten edifice collapses' theory actually proved true  - when it didn't, drawing Germany into a long war, they were indeed screwed, sooner or later. Decisions made by the Germans may have drawn the whole thing out longer and caused even more suffering, of course, but there was no reasonably similar universe in which they win.

[Berkut]

One of the reasons I don't buy the "Germany was doomed" argument is that the idea of the war being drawn out longer is almost a non-started as far as the Soviets are concerned.. . .
Now, this likely just results in the Western allies doing more while the Soviets do less, but it is really hard to specualte with any great accuracy what the follow on effects of this counter-factual might be. Does Italy hold out longer with a little more German help? Are the Western Allies a bit more hesitant to invade, given moderately less Soviet success, and hence moderately greater German ability to defend Western Europe?

The inevitability thesis is based on the huge disparity of resources - human, material, and technological -  between the Allies as a whole on the one hand and Germany on the other hand.  So just increasing Soviet casualty rates counterfactually might slow the allied advances in the east and lead to the various effects you suggest, but at best is just buys more time.  Eventually the resource disparity would tell.  It would take a much more extensive set of counterfactual assumptions to alter the end result.

Way I've seen it expressed is that Germany could have won earlier in a counterfactual, but could never have won later.  In that, the only hope Germany had of winning was if Hitler's 'kick the door in and the whole rotten edifice collapses' theory actually proved true  - when it didn't, drawing Germany into a long war, they were indeed screwed, sooner or later. Decisions made by the Germans may have drawn the whole thing out longer and caused even more suffering, of course, but there was no reasonably similar universe in which they win.

I don't disagree with this, as long we hypothesize that there was no way the West was going to alter their approach regardless of Soviet participation.

However, I don't think a counter-factual involving some kind of separate peace or armistice with the USSR is out of the question, assuming moderately greater than historical German success.

That raises another question oft debated:

Was historical German success, overall, vastly greater than what could reasonably be expected, about what could reasonable be expected, or considerably less than what could reasonably be expected?

From a gaming standpoint, if Turn 1 of our game is the first year of the war, did they roll well on the CRT overall, or poorly, or average? Most people seem to think that their results were pretty incredible, and expecting relatively more is not reasonable - which suggests that my counter-factual is less likely, of course.