Great Patriotic War Presentation

Part 1.Pre-history:

1.1. Soviet-German relations 1933-1941

Nazism and Communism are known to be two ideologies with the biggest opposition and rivalry against each other. As Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, he committed repressions against Communists ASAP. It was an unfriendly action regarding the Soviet Union, the factual leader of Comintern.

Hitler hated Communism believing in the so called “Dolchstoßtheorie”, which stated, Jews and Communists would have stroke Germany in the back, causing German defeat in WW1. This doctrine was supported by German capitalists (corporations Krupp, IG Farben, Siemens etc.), who feared Communist workers’ movement and brought Hitler to power.

On the other hand, Nazis also hated Russians and other Slavs. They believed, that it was German mission to colonise extensive resource-rich Russian territories in the East. Local population should be shot, bombed and starved to death in this “Lebensraum” concept. A small part would become slaves of German colonists.

Therefore, USSR and the 3rd Reich were enemies in 1933-1939 with Soviet Union actively fighting pro-Italian and pro-German fascists in Spain and protesting against the occupation of Czechoslovakia.

After Soviet-French-Czechoslovak treaty fell, Stalin didn’t want to stay in isolation during his industrialization, which needed foreign technology and money (from raw materials export). USSR signed Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, which included also a secret part about planned division of Eastern Europe between Soviet and German spheres of influence. Thus, USSR became an opportunity to shift its borders away from main cities (Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev).

We all know what came next: division of Poland, Winter War, Baltic States annexation, return of Bessarabia. USSR and Germany didn’t become allies (for example, they didn’t develop a mutual invasion plan for Poland, which would be essential for allies, and both invasions {German and Soviet} were a surprise for the other sides), but rather co-belligerents for the next 22 months. But secretly Hitler already planned the invasion of USSR.

1.3. State of armed forces of fighting countries (21.06.1941)

Germany

German Armed Forces consisted of 7 234 000 men – 3,8 millions of them served in Ground Forces, 1,68 millions in Luftwaffe, 150 000 in Waffen-SS and the rest were either in the Reserve Army or in Kriegsmarine (limited participation on the Eastern Front). 3,7 millions German combatants were sent to the East until June 1941 and took part in the first assault on USSR.
It was the best army in the world at that point. Geman infantry formed the core of 8 field armies – from north to south: Separate Army “Norway”, 18th army, 16th, 9th, 4th,6th ,17th, 11th. Each was well-trained and equipped and had combat experience of campaigns in Poland, Scandinavia, France and the Balkans. Germans were first to organize assault groups during WW1 and successfully used them in WW2. Those were battalion-sized groups of riflemen, sappers, flamethrowers with a pair of light guns and mortars – ideally made to crash the enemy’s fortified defenses in close combat.
Infantry was backed up by powerful artillery – 88-mm Flak guns, heavy howitzers and the world biggest mortars (among them reactive mortar “Nebelwerfer” and siege guns “Karl”). German artillery was carried by fast tractors, able to keep up with mobile tank units.
Speaking about the latter – they were on verge of perfection. Many countries (among them USSR) overloaded their units with tanks. Germans organized their tank divisions in such a way that motorized infantry and artillery (on tractors or self-propelled) could provide enough support for tankers anytime. A German tank division had 2 tank battalions and 5 motorised and motorcycle infantry battalions, at the same time 24 105-mm howitzers, 16 150-mm howitzers, 20 75-mm guns and 30 81-mm mortars. German tank forces in the East consisted of 4 Panzer Groups (4th in AG North, 1st in AG South and 2, 2nd and 3rd in AG Centre), 150 000 - 200 000 men and around 1000 tanks in each.
A flaw in Panzerwaffe’s building was its lack of infantry direct support tanks. An infantry division could only rely on self-propelled guns as mobile armored firing points.
1st, 2nd and 4th Air Fleets (Luftflotten) were transferred to the Eastern Front to give Wehrmacht air cover. Luftwaffe had lots of recon planes, world strongest bomber fleet and lots of transport planes, essential for supplying fast-advancing or surrounded units. 4400 Goering’s planes were invading Soviet skies.
German Navy (Kriegsmarine) only became orders for limited action against USSR. It should avoid major battles, secure German and occupied coasts and wait until the Army occupies Soviet naval bases. Mine-laying activity was planned for ships and naval aviation to trap the Red Banner Baltic Fleet in Gulf of Finland and Black Sea Fleet in Northern bay of Sevastopol.

Finland

Finns deployed 2 armies – Karelian (5 divisions, 3 brigades) and Southeastern (6 divisions, 1 brigade) along the eastern border. Finnish infantry was well-trained and had a lot of combat experience, including fighting against Soviet armor in Winter War.
Field and anti-tank artillery was strengthened through German supplies and Winter War trophies.
Finnish forces had 3 battalions (120 tanks, most of them Soviet trophies and 22 armored cars).
Finnish Air Force consisted of 3 regiments (almost 300 planes) with well-trained crews (Finland is motherland of several world-class aces, such as Eino Ilmari Juutilainen [94 victories], Hans Henrik Wind [75 victories] and Eino Antero Luukanen [56 victories]).
Finnish Navy consisted mostly of patrol ships (11 ships of 64 in total) and torpedo boats (20/64), which was typical for small countries.

Romania

Romanian Armed Forces had 703 000 men. However, around a half of this number didn’t stay in the first line on 22nd of June 1941.
Romanian infantry divisions were equipped with outdated rifles and machine guns and mostly light artillery (100-mm howitzers were the heaviest guns in massive use).
Romanians formed 4 elite mountain brigades. Other specific force was their numerous cavalry (25 regiments).
The only one tank regiment was united with a motorized infantry regiment to an armored brigade. It’s equipment wasn’t brilliant - the core being Czechoslovak LTvz35 light tanks.
Romanian Air Force was a fleet of 700 planes (623 deployed against USSR). Despite quite a large number, its effectiveness was far behind that of Germans, Brits or Soviets.
Main force of Romanian Black Sea Fleet was 2 light cruisers, 7 destroyers, a submarine and 3 torpedo boats. Danube flotilla consisted of 45 lightly armed boats and ships.
Romanian invasion force had 13 infantry divisions, 5 infantry, 3 cavalry and 1 armored brigade, organized in 2 armies (3rd and 4th).

Hungary

Hungary began to violate Triannon treaty terms only in 1939. It began to hastily organize prohibited aviation and tank forces.
In 1941 Hungarian Armed Forces had 216 000 men in total. Their 9 infantry brigades were equipped with German rifles and machine guns pretty well, but seriously lacked artillery (just 24 guns per brigade).
Their mechanized corps used Italian tankettes CV 3/35 and Hungarian “Csaba” armored cars and “Toldi” light tanks. No need to tell, that with such a weak core the general state of unit wasn’t better.
Hungarian Air Force had 363 combat planes and 1 paratrooper battalion.
Horthy formed the “Carpathian group” to fight USSR: mechanized corps, 1st mountain brigade, 8th border brigade (60 000 men total)

Italy

I won’t speak about the whole Italian Army and Navy here, because only a small part of it fought in the East.
This part was named Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia (Corpo di Spedizione Italiano in Russia, CSIR). Its 2 motorised and 1 cavalry division had 62 000 men in service. These troops were slightly more efficient than Romanians and Hungarians and arrived at front only in August 1941.

Slovakia

Oh yes, Slovak mechanised brigade, Rýchla brigada) I can’t help laughing about the name, because rychly (рыхлый) means “fast” in Slovak, while “lax” in Russian. Lax brigade! And you know what, looking at the number of desertions (3000 defectors during the Eastern campaign in a 8000-men strong unit!) it is so much true! No offence, Slovaks, I’m glad your people chose to fight alongside my Soviet ancestors, not against them. But the fighting capability of this unit really almost reached zero. Its 37 Pz.Kpfw.38(t)s, 9 37-mm anti-tank guns, an artillery squadron and a motorized infantry battalion couldn’t do much, but still participated in operation “Barbarossa”.

USSR

Now we’ll finally talk about Axis’ enemy – the defending USSR. Red Army and Fleet had 5 080 000 men in service. It’s not that many, regarding the extra-long Soviet borders. Mobilisation will be declared on 22nd of June. Until then Soviet Union has a peacetime army. Divisions are held in contracted state (1 regiment exists, 2 other do so only on paper until mobilization), artillery didn’t get tractors from collective farms yet etc. A part of Red Army divisions were mobilized during the annual Great Training Muster in May-June 1941
In contrast to popular belief Soviet infantry was mostly well-armed and equipped (especially in terms of rifles and machine guns). Some examples of Soviet rifle divisions, which met the invaders on 22nd of June:
41st rifle division:
• 9912 men
• 2462 horses
• 8867 rifles
• 4128 automatic rifles
• 420 submachine guns
• 464 manual machine guns
• 292 heavy machine guns
• 54 45-mm AT-guns
• 35 76-mm guns
• 27 122-mm howitzers
• 12 152-mm howitzers
• 138 mortars
• 222 automobiles
• 17 tractors
97th rifle division:
• 10 500 men
• 2535 horses
• 7754 rifles
• 3540 automatic rifles
• 401 submachine gun
• 437 manual machine guns
• 174 heavy machine guns
• 58 45-mm AT-guns
• 37 76-mm guns
• 37 122-mm howitzers
• 12 152-mm howitzers
• 151 mortar
• 143 automobiles
• 78 tractors

Infantry tactics was however not at the highest level. Assault groups, which were used by Russian Imperial Army in WW1 found no use in Civil War (mobile warfare, almost no well-fortified positions), so this tactics was forgotten until Rzhev meatgrinder 1942-1943.
As we saw, Soviet rifle divisions had various guns for lots of purposes, though not in large numbers. 8% of Soviet artillery were in High Command’s Reserve (mostly heavy and rocket artillery) and this percentage increased to 30% during the war, so the Red Army could effectively concentrate massive firepower in each point of the frontline, but…
Soviet artillery lacked mobility. Its tractors were slow and in small numbers.
This problem affected also tank units. They were not very well-organised (6 tank battalions with only 3 motorised infantry battalions in each tank division and several times less guns per divisions than in Wehrmacht), but with artillery on slow tractors somewhere behind and with infantry which was often motorized only on paper (lack of transport made it marching by feet), the issue of not getting enough artillery and infantry support got even worse. USSR had more tanks than Wehrmacht, but wasn’t able to use them so effective. To add a good point, Red Army, unlike the Germans, had direct infantry support tanks.
USSR had 78 000 cavalrymen in 3 cavalry corps and 7 separate cavdivisions. They rode horses, but fought like infantry (like Napoleonic dragoons). They attacked the enemy in a cavalry charge only when he was in low morale or ill-defended. I’ll talk more about Red Cavalry later to prove its value in WW2 (and it’s one of my favorite topics).
Aviation of western military districts had 7800 planes. Most Soviet airplanes were inferior to new German models. Another problem were the construction works on many air fields (concrete landing strips were built), which forced the planes to massively concentrate on few airfields not under reconstruction, so they became easy targets for the Luftwaffe on 22nd of June.
Red Navy had 3 western fleets: Northern Fleet, Red Banner Baltic Fleet and Black Sea Fleet, the second being the strongest. Soviet naval command made lots of mistakes in pre-war fleet construction (there were a few of minesweepers and not a single one for magnetic mines neutralization, lots of submarines, but not enough infrastructure for them etc.). Elite admiral corps with a 200-years long tradition was destroyed through Civil War, emigration and purges. The Navy wasn’t prepared for a war.

Tuva

Wanna hear an analysis of armed forces of a Central Asian client state with 80 000 inhabitants? Here we go.
In 1925 Tuva formed its first army – cavalry squadron of 52 (!) horsemen with the proud name Tuvan Arat Red Army (arats are Tuvan and Mongolian peasants). In 1932 it was promoted to a cavalry regiment of 5 squadrons (489 horsemen).
On 22nd of June 1941 Tuvan People’s Republic declared war on European Axis powers. Its army grew to 1136 men, in addition some militia and volunteer units were formed. In total 8000 Tuvan volunteers fought in the Red Army. On 14th of October 1944, Tuva became a part of the USSR.

alexandrvasilevski, I gotta say this has exceeded all expectations even for you so far. Great presentation!

P.S. The first part is finished. The next one will tell already about the war itself. I'll try to make my next posts somewhat shorter, because it's really annoying to see your monitor completely covered with one single post without pictures. Maps (of Russian/Soviet origin, but with some English descriptions above, because European/American maps for GPW are really bad) will also be added.

2.2. Northern strategic direction and Finnish entry into the war

Action in the Far North began later than the main offensive and it wasn’t typical for “Barbarossa”, but I’ll begin with it, because I’d like to always go from north to south if possible to not additionaly confuse you with Eastern European geography, which may be unfamiliar to you.
Finnish participation in war was decided long before the 22nd of June. On 7th of June first German troops of Army “Norway” arrived in Finnish port Petsamo. On 20th of June Finnish invasion force was already fully mobilized and deployed near the border. Two days later Finnish army units landed on demilitarized Aland islands, violating the terms of Finnish-Soviet Moscow treaty (1940).
On 22nd of June Finland didn’t declare war on USSR, but German planes already used Finnish airfields to lay mines in the Gulf of Finland. At the same time 3 Finnish submarines (war is not declared yet!) laid mines off the Soviet Estonian coast.
And so Finns already helped the German aggression, but they were clever enough to wait until USSR attacks first. And Soviets did so on 25-30th of June, hitting Finnish airfields and several cities. The bombing raids weren’t really effective, but now Finns had a full right to declare war on Soviet Union and to use the bombings for propaganda purposes.
On 29th of June German-Finnish forces began a joint offensive. German Army “Norway” attacked in Murmansk direction, Finns supported them with a move against Kandalaksha, success of it would break Murmansk defenders' land connection with the main Soviet territory.
In the first days of operation Germans and Finns advanced only several kilometers, failing to reach their objectives for this period. Finnish drive on Leningrad was also very slow.It was the case, because Soviet Northern Front (in Karelia and Kola peninsula) had more time to prepare than other Soviet fronts.
Map of this direction:

2.3. North-Western strategic direction

But in Baltic region Germans fought a real blitzkrieg. German AG “North” (commanded by Wilhelm von Leeb), made of 18th (Georg von Küchler) and 16th (Ernst Busch) field armies and Erich Hoepner’s 4th Panzer Group (PzG) largely outnumbered Soviet Northwestern Front under Fedor Kuznetsov (don’t mistake him for famous admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov, who led the Soviet Navy in the same time).
German attack began seeing immediate success. 291th infantry division (291 ID) broke through overstretched 10 RD and on the next day reached port Libava (Liepaja). There however it experienced stiff resistance of the Soviet 67 RD and got halted for 6 days (23-29th of June), a real Soviet success in this catastrophic period.
At the same time 4th PzG (better to say its 41 motorised corps, MC) managed to overcome strong resistance in Taurage much faster and advanced to Raseinai. There Soviet 12th mech corps and 2nd tank division (TD) attacked its flanks. One KV-tank from the 2 TD blocked supply route of the whole German Kampfgruppe Raus (half a division) for a day, showing how difficult it was for Germans to pierce KVs’ armor. However the counterstrike didn’t defeat or stop 41 MC.
The other Hoepner’s MC, 56 MC led by Manstein didn’t experience this counterstrike and captured a bridgehead over Western Dvina river already on the 26th of June. It managed to capture 2 bridges intact thanks to German special unit, Brandenburger Regiment 800. Brandenburgers had Soviet uniforms and spoke Russian, so they could march to bridges in the Soviet rear unnoticed. They were often used during operation “Barbarossa”.
On 27th of June, Latvian nationalists started an uprising in Riga. But Germans reached Riga only two days later – in this time the uprising was already defeated, so Latvians and Germans couldn’t help each other. Soviet 8th Army (8 A) began an organized retreat to Estonia.
There 8 A finally organized a good defense. But German main attack direction lay to the east – Pskov and Ostrov, scheduled to be captured by 4 PzG. In Ostrov it experienced one more Soviet counterassault and later its advance was slowed down by 41st rifle corps, which halted German tanks to retreat and avoid encirclement west of Pskov. AG “North” now reached Soviet 1939 border.

2.5.Southwestern strategic direction and Hungarian entry into the war

The specialty of AG “South” (Gerd von Rundstedt) was in a big amount of non-German troops under command. While 6th (Walter von Reichenau), 17th (Karl-Gustav von Stülpnagel) and 11th (Eugen von Schobert) field armies and 1 PzG (Ewald von Kleist) were regarded as self-sufficient forces, Romanian 3rd (Petre Dumitrescu) and 4th (Nicolau Kiuperca) Armies, Hungarian (Bela Miklos), Italian (Giovanni Messe) and Slovak (Ferdinand Csatlos) corps became tasks for supporting actions.
It makes sense to part AG “South”s offensive in two chapters: first one about its action against the Soviet Southwestern Front (Mikhail Kirponos) [from Liuboml to Soviet-Hungarian-Romanian triple border] and the second against the Southern Front (Yakov Cherevichenko) [from Carpathians to the Black Sea].
SW Front was the strongest of all (4 armies with 6 (!) mech corps). Therefore this summer wasn’t so catastrophic for it, like for the Western. When Germans stroke its divisions weren’t hopelessly overstretched and gained support from “Molotov line’s” fortified districts. Some border forts resisted many days in total isolation. But at their cost the rifle divisions withdrew somewhat organized.
1 PzG attacked in Rovno direction. It began suffering from Soviet mech corps’ flank counterassaults already on the 24th. These mech corps had to march many hundred kilometers through rough terrain and under air attacks to arrive at the battlefield. Speaking about aviation: SW Front lost “just” 15% of its planes on the first day (40% on the Western Front), so German tankers also often suffered from Soviet bombing raids and Soviet intelligence could work better than in Byelorussia.
Just as everywhere else this summer, Soviet counterattacks were ill-coordinated (4th mech corps, the strongest mech corps available for SW Front at the time didn’t even participate in this counterstrikes despite Kirponos’ and Zhukov’s order; it covered 6th Army’s retreat instead). Lack of infantry and artillery support (see Part 1 of the presentation) prevented Red Army from an effective use of its large number of tanks (3400 Soviet vs 728 German). But they still halted 1 PzG for 6 days in the small Dubno-Lutsk-Brody triangle.
Soviet command expected 1 PzG to turn south and encircle 6 A, 12 A and 26 A before they can reach “Stalin line” on the 1939 border. Therefore it reinforced Tarnopol direction, while Kleist’s Group continued advancing to the east, hoping to meet with the 11th Army and complete an encirclement deeper in the Soviet territory. I showed this with light and dark blue arrows on the map. Soviet mistake helped the Germans to punch a hole in Soviet defense on Zhitomir direction, Zhitomir itself fell on 9th of July.
If we return to the 26th of June, we’ll see a bombing raid on Hungarian town Kassa (modern Kosice, Slovakia). Hungary was neutral until that day and blamed USSR for this raid. However some historians think it was a German or Romanian provocation. Tbh, I don’t know which version is closer to the truth, but nevertheless Hungary now also declared war on USSR.
Edit: black lines on the map are "Molotov" and "Stalin" lines