Eastern Front (World War II)

“ We expect from the new Eastern Front nothing different from that which German soldiers had to do during four Russian war Winters twenty-five years ago. Every German soldier must set an example to our faithful allies. ”

“ East Germany's dependence on the Soviet Union as the guarantor of its continues existence as a national state and the integration of its armed forces into the Warsaw Pact combined command are effective deterrents to the formulation and implementation of a defense policy inimical to the interest of Moscow and the nations of Eastern Europe. In the event of war, strategy would be dictated by Soviet leaders, and the employment of the armed forces would be in accordance with Soviet plans. ”

“ Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940–41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! ”

“ The Allies could only hope to defend their position on the west front against the impending offensive on the part of Germany, for which preparations on a vast scale were being made, until reinforcements from the United States could reach them sufficient to enable them to take the offensive in their turn. Germany hastened its preparations through the winter months of 1917-18, for they knew they must win a decisive victory to crush the armies of France and England before the United States could give efficient assistance. ”

“ And it may be that that phrase was carefully chosen, for Germany hoped to conquer the world in detail: to fight on one front at a time, not to unleash a general European conflict. But, he went on, “the politically fluid world situation, which does not preclude surprising incidents, demands a continuous preparedness for war of the German Armed Forces (a) to counter attack at any time (yet he had just said that there was no fear of any attack) and (b) to enable the military exploitation of politically favorable opportunities should they occur”. ”

“ Inevitable, because no forethought or exertion on the British side could have averted the German onslaught, determined as it was by the breakdown of the whole Eastern front of the war, and the letting loose upon the Western front of immense forces previously held by the Russian armies. ”

“ Daily our front is being advanced in a northeasterly direction, and there is little prospect for the Russians of being able to oppose successful resistance to our pressure. For it is not a matter of the success of a single fighting group that has been shoving forward like a wedge from the great line of attack, but of a strategic offensive led as a unit, and everywhere winning territory, the time for which seems to have arrived.
It is an important fact that the eastern group of the Austro-Hungarian army will clearly not be shattered. ”

“ The Allies holding this portion of the line were too thinly dispersed to offer any great resistance against the powerful enemy attack and were forced to fall back. While the defenders fought the Germans, Allied armies shifted their drives and troops were rushed to the Ardennes to reinforce the hard hit units along the front from Monschau to Echternach. After severe fighting during late December 1944 and early January 1945 the Germans were defeated and by 25 January the Allies were once more ready to move toward Germany through the West Wall defenses. ”

“ Change of the status quo in the east in the German sense can only be carried out by force. So long as France knows that England, which so to speak has, taken on a guarantee to aid France against Germany, is on her side, France’s fighting for her eastern allies is probable in any case, always possible, and thus with it war between Germany and England. ”

“ The military aim of the Allies is the destruction of the armies of Germany. When once the western front is broken through and the German hordes are driven across the Rhine, not only Germany, but Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey will have to accept whatever terms the democracies of the west may lay down. To gain such a complete military triumph Britain, France and Italy are straining all their strength, and the United States is organizing its tremendous resources of men and material to give Germany the finishing blow. ”

“ In order to secure victory in a few weeks in France before England could develop her strength, they must be prepared to endure serious injuries in the East. The German force opposing Russia was therefore rightly cut down to the absolute minimum. But to carry their plan through in its integrity more territory should have been yielded to the Russian invaders, and in no circumstances should any reinforcements have been transferred from the West to the Eastern front until the decision in the West had been reached. ”

“ Considering the Soviet Union military capability, the long-range allied military objective in Western Europe must envisage an increased military strength in that area sufficient possibly to deter the Soviet Union from a major war or, in any event, to delay materially the overrunning of Western Europe and, if feasible, to hold a bridgehead on the continent against Soviet Union offensives. ”

“ It is indeed fortunate for the alliance that France—Army, Government and People—is united in the determination to fight this war through to its logical conclusion. For France is apt to be the nation which pays the piper. England is physically safe behind her fleets, Russia proper is physically safe behind her distances, for the German invasion is not apt to go far beyond her alien provinces of Courland and Poland. ”

“ Three million men were engaged in the main struggle. When the Germans first reached the Franco-Belgian frontier near Charleroi they were opposed by 700,000 French and 150,000 British troops. After being driven back the Allies began assembling 1,000,000 men between the frontier and Paris, The Allies hoped to hold the whole German army in check while the Russians pursued their successes in eastern Germany. French troops guarded the entire frontier, battling to check the other German invading columns. ”

“ For the Eastern campaign the Airforce will have to free such strong forces for the support of the Army that a quick completion of the ground operations may be expected and that damage of the eastern German territories will be avoided as much as possible. This concentration of the main effort in the East is limited by the following reservation: That the entire battle and armament area dominated by us must remain sufficiently protected against enemy air attacks and that the attacks on England and especially the supply for them must not be permitted to break down. ”

“ As part of the Nazi preparation for aggression against Poland and her allies, Germany, on 23rd August, 1939 had entered into a non-aggression pact with Soviet-Russia. It was only a delaying treaty intended to be kept no longer than necessary to prepare for its violation. On June 22, 1941, pursuant to long matured plans, the Nazis hurled troops into Soviet territory without any declaration of war. The entire European world was aflame. ”

“ As a consequence of the pacifists’ preachments both by words of mouth and document, the Second Army was ready for the friendly approaches that came from the front lines of the Austrians only a few hundred yards away. Daily communication was established and at night the opposing soldiers fraternized generally. The Russian doctrine that an end of the fighting would come if the soldiers agreed to do no more shooting, spread throughout the Italian trenches. ”

“ It was not their fault if the old alliance with Russia had broken down; the alliance with Austria still continued. But, above all, Germany must depend on her army, and then they could look boldly into the future. "It will calm our citizens if they think that if we are attacked on two sides we can put a million good soldiers on the frontier, and in a few weeks support them by another million." But let them not think that this terrible engine of war was a danger to the peace of Europe. ”

“ The Russian Army will continue its stern offensives on Germany's eastern front, the Allied armies in Italy and Africa will bring relentless pressure on Germany from the south, and now the encirclement will be complete as great American and British forces attack from other points of the compass. ”

“ In no way could victory in Italy or Finland change the course of the war. Russia likewise offered no hope for any decisive victory with the forces which Germany might expect to gather in 1944. The campaigns in the east had finally convinced Hitler, or so it would appear, that the vast distances in the east and the seemingly inexhaustible flow of Soviet divisions created a military problem whose solution lay beyond the capabilities of the Third Reich as long as the latter was involved in a multifront war. ”

“ In eighteen days, our Wehrmacht crushed Poland. Others had imagined things would develop quite differently. They had been convinced that the battle would last six, eight, or ten months. They said to themselves: "Wars with decisive results are no longer possible. Under the best of circumstances, trench warfare will ensue. A front will be erected in the East, and this will slowly bleed Germany to death. Meanwhile, the West will arm. Then the summer of 1940 will come, and then one will move up through Belgium and the Netherlands to the Ruhr territory frontier. ”

“ The rest—the ineffectives, the very old and the very young, the weak and the useless—we mean to place in front of the firing line, put firing squads behind them, and drive them through the French and English lines, that France and England may take care of them." That [Pg 7] is what Germany has been doing ever since the war broke out. Wherever her armies have gone, from Armenia to Serbia, Poland, Belgium, and France, she has been driving women, children, and men through our lines for us to care for. ”

“ I want to pass now to the Eastern Front, where there was large-scale land fighting in Poland and the Soviet Union, from 1941 on. Here the German forces were fighting among a hostile population and had to face extensive partisan activities behind their lines. I propose to show here that the activities of the German Armed Forces against partisans and against other elements of the population became a vehicle for carrying out Nazi political and racial policies and a vehicle for the massacre of Jews and numerous segments of the Slav population which were regarded by the Nazis as undesirable. ”

“ Nothing, indeed, was more certain than that Germany, having temporarily freed herself and her allies from danger in the East, would recall her attention to these enemies in the West by whose defeat alone could she hope to win the war; and before the end of 1915 there were rumours of the transport of German guns and troops from the East to the Western front. ”

“ France, by her alliance with Russia, was bound to stand by Russia if she was attacked by Germany and Austria. On July 31 the German Ambassador at Paris informed the French Government that Russia had ordered a complete mobilisation, and that Germany had given Russia twelve hours in which to order demobilisation and asking France to define her attitude. France was given no time, and war came, when German troops at once crossed the French frontier. Germany, by her attitude towards France, plainly admitted that she was the aggressor. ”

“ The decision to give priority to the Western Front, if one can take Hitler at his own word and waive a possible emotional reaction to the sudden Allied plunge through the German line at the base of the Cotentin peninsula, is something new and worthy of notice. The strategic and operational problem posed by a war in which Germany had to fight an enemy in the east while at the same time opposing an enemy in the west was at least as old as the unification of Germany. ”

“ And, of course, if the front of any one sector was pushed considerably ahead of the front of the other two, grave danger immediately arose that the most advanced sector would be cut off from the rest of the Russian armies by flank movements. For in a country such as Turkish Armenia, without railroads and with only a few roads, it was of course impossible to establish a continuous front line, such as was to be formed on the European battle fields both in the east and west. ”

“ It was, on the contrary, the enemy's weakest point, because this front was from its geographical position the one where British and French troops could most easily be assembled, and it was the one on which a serious defeat to the enemy necessarily threatened that enemy with a grave, if not an irretrievable, disaster. It is true that for the comparatively short period during which Russia really counted, that is to say during the early months before Russian munitions gave out, the Eastern Front—the Poland Front—was a weak point for the Germans. ”

“ The Eastern territory will be manned stronger in the weeks to come. By the end of October the status shown on the enclosed map is supposed to be reached.
“These regroupings must not create the impression in Russia that we are preparing an offensive in the East. On the other hand, Russia will realize that strong and highly trained German troops are stationed in the Government General, in the Eastern Provinces and in the Protectorate; she should draw the conclusion that we can at any time protect our interests—especially in the Balkans—with strong forces against Russian seizure. ”