War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942

The River Bug… Brest-Litovsk

Gerd Habedanck, a war correspondent, moved forward with the 45th Infantry Division. Its objective was the Russian fortress at Brest-Litovsk.

Joining the battalion headquarters in an old bunker, part of the original western defences alongside the Bug, Habedanck looked across the river where, 100m away, Russians sat in similar casemates. What might they be thinking? ‘One could clearly hear them speaking on the other side,’ he observed, while ‘further within [the fortress] a loudspeaker sounded’.⁽¹⁾

Rudolf Gschöpf, the division chaplain, had held a final service at 20.00 hours. He now watched the doctor and medical orderlies dig shelter-trenches alongside the forward dressing station of the IIIrd Battalion of Regiment 135. They presently retired to a small house nearby and chatted together, welcoming any distraction from the rising tension. At 02.00 hours they glanced with surprise at the passage of a Russian goods train, ‘certainly with goods as part of the German–Russian economic agreement of 1939’, puffing up clouds of steam into the night air as it crossed the four-span railway bridge into Germany. This incongruous reminder of peacetime was entirely at variance with the bustling activity around the heavy mortar that was being loaded in preparation outside their house.

General Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2 had been ordered to cross the Bug on either side of the Russian fortress at Brest-Litovsk. Because the border demarcation line between Germany and the Soviet Russian zone in Poland was the River Bug, the fortress defences (which had already been conquered by the Wehrmacht during the 1939 Polish campaign, and subsequently withdrawn) were split. The citadel on the outskirts of the city was occupied by the Russians, while the old outer forts on the west side were in German hands.

Before the invasion of Russia Guderian was aware that ‘the supreme German command did not hold uniform views about the employment of armoured forces’. Panzer generals wanted their armoured divisions at the forefront of the attack right from the start, to avoid the confusion of mixing tanks with slower foot soldiers. Other arms of the service were of the opinion that initial assaults should be spearheaded by infantry divisions after heavy artillery preparation. Tanks would then exploit after the infantry had broken through to a specified point. The fortifications of Brest-Litovsk might be out of date, but Guderian’s view was that ‘the combination of the Bug, the Muchaviec [rivers] and water-filled ditches made them immune to tank attacks’. Therefore an infantry corps was placed under command, one division of which, the 45th, was to assault Brest directly. Guderian concluded that:

The fortress of Brest had been built in 1842. It consisted of four partly natural and partly artificial islands situated at the confluence of the Bug and Muchaviec rivers. In the centre was the Citadel Island, surrounded concentrically by three others: the western Terespol Island (referred to subsequently in the text as West Island), the northern Kobrin Island (North Island) and the Cholmsker Island to the south (South Island). The central ‘keep’ or citadel was ringed by a massive two-storey wall, easily defensible with 500 casemate and cellar positions, which doubled as troop accommodation. These positions were also connected by underground passages. Inside the walls were numerous other buildings including the ‘white house’ officers’ mess and the garrison church. The thick outer walls provided good protection against modern artillery. The West, North and South islands provided an outer defence belt, which supplemented the citadel, with 10m high earthwalls. These were studded with bastions or old casement forts complete with towers, such as the Nordfort (North Fort) and Ostfort (East Fort) on the North Island. In all, some 6km of defence works ringed the fortress.

The objective, however, possessed an Achilles’ heel. It had been built originally for all-round defence. Following the 1939 Polish campaign, the fortress network was split by the demarcation line separating the German and Soviet zones of occupation. The most relevant section, the forward defences facing west, were already in German hands. Moreover, only three gates allowed access to the 6km defensive ring in keeping with the original defence concept, adding to the reaction time required to man the fortress in the event of an alert. Maj-Gen Sandalov, the Soviet Fourth Army Chief of Staff, calculated this might take three hours, during which time the defenders would be vulnerable to considerable casualties. Only 2km of the ring faced westwards, now the main direction of threat, with room for only one infantry battalion and a half battalion of border troops. It is likely that on the night of 21 June there were about seven battalions from the 6th and 42nd Soviet Rifle Divisions in Brest in addition to regimental training units, special units and some divisional artillery regiments.⁽⁴⁾

^{The fortress at Brest-Litovsk was built across four islands at the confluence of the Muchaviec and Bug rivers. Its all-round defence design was adversely affected by the haphazard establishment of the Russo-German demarcation line in 1939. Nine German infantry battalions conducted the break-in assault across the islands either side of the citadel and a further 18 advanced on their flanks. The northern prong with Regiment 135 attacked through West Island, and a battalion was soon cut off in the citadel while a further assault broke into North Island. Regiment 130 attacked Southern Island and bypassed the fortress further south of the River Muchaviec. Nine assault boats entered the river to the west to capture the five bridging points in successive coup de main operations. It was a microcosm of the coming experience on the eastern front. An operation anticipated to last one day did not cease until German forces had formed the Smolensk pocket, nearly half way to Moscow, almost six weeks later.}

They would be directly faced by nine German infantry battalions with a further 18 operating on their flanks. XIIth Infantry Corps, under the command of Generalfeldmarschall Kluge’s Fourth Army, had been tasked to surround the fortress and clear a path for the vanguards of Panzergruppe 2. The inner flanks of the two Panzer corps forming it (XXIVth and XLVIth) were to be protected as they passed either side of the fortress. XIIth Infantry Corps intended to attack with three infantry divisions forward: 45th Infantry Division against Brest-Litovsk in the centre, with 31st Division left (north) and 34th Division right (south).

The 45th Division had three regiments (130th, 133rd and 135th) of three infantry battalions each. Its primary tasks were to capture the citadel, the four-span railway bridge over the Bug, five other bridges crossing the Muchaviec south of the town of Brest and secure the high ground 7–8km east of the town. This would open up the Panzer Rollbahn (main route) identified for Panzergruppe 2 to march eastwards towards Kobrin.

The division attack plan was based on two primary attack axes: north and south. The northern prong of a pitch-fork thrust was to attack across the West Island to the citadel, then through the North Island to the eastern side of the town of Brest. Two battalions from Regiment 135, supported by two armoured train platoons, were earmarked for this task. Meanwhile, the southern prong would assault south of the River Muchaviec across the South Island with Regiment 130. The five Muchaviec bridges were to be taken by an assault-pioneer coup de main force mounted within nine assault boats. One battalion was held as divisional reserve and the three battalions of Regiment 133 were to be held back as corps reserve. Nine light and three heavy batteries of the division’s artillery, supported by a group of nine heavy mortars and two 60cm siege guns would provide a pulverising five-minute preparatory surprise bombardment, before switching to nominated targets. The two flanking infantry divisions, the 34th and 31st, would also contribute to the initial barrage. A specialised, and until now secret, unit Nebel Regiment 4 (ZbV Nr 4) was to support the attack with newly developed Nebelwerfer multiple-barrelled rocket launchers. ‘Hardly a mouse would survive the opening bombardment,’ was the assurance given to the assault groups.⁽⁵⁾

There was no lack of confidence. Leutnant Michael Wechtler with the reserve regiment assessed that the operation would probably be ‘easy’, noting that the first day’s objective was set 5km east of Brest. Having viewed the fortifications from a distance, the corporate view was that it appeared ‘more like normal barracks accommodation than a fortress’.⁽⁶⁾ This optimism is reflected in the fact that only two of nine battalions, or 22% of the infantry force, would be in direct contact with the enemy to deliver the first blow. Three others would, meanwhile, be deploying while four waited in reserve.

The 45th Infantry Division was a veteran formation of the French campaign, where it had lost 462 dead. Like many other infantry divisions massing on the frontier, the soldiers were optimistic and well rested. While billeted in Warsaw prior to the campaign, soldiers were given the opportunity to sightsee. Many took snapshots from open horse-drawn tourist carriages. Training had been pleasant. Crossing water obstacles had been the theme. Expertise in negotiating high riverbanks in assault formation and attacking old fortifications was practised. Conditions had been idyllic. Bathing trunks were worn during off-duty moments. Watermanship often deteriorated into high-spirited splashing and clowning with races between rubber dinghies. Inventive one-man rafts were pelted with rocks, soaking the grinning occupants. There was only mild conjecture over the purpose of the training.

As they left Warsaw for the 180km approach march to the assembly area, the band of Regiment 133 played. An initial downpour of rain soaked everyone, but spirits rose again when it was replaced by a continuation of the heat wave. The march was demanding but carefully managed in 40km stages, with bathing opportunities in the lakes en route. It ended 27km from the border, where the regiments were billeted in cosy village quarters. The last of the captured French champagne was consumed with gusto and final letters written home. Scheinwerfer (searchlight) units were formed by squads of men who had elected to shave their heads prior to the coming campaign (they were nicknamed ‘shiny-heads’). Final ‘squad’ photographs were snapped inside the heavily camouflaged wood bivouacs. Few of these groups, it was realised, would ever muster complete again. Then in the early hours of 22 June the soldiers moved up to their final assault positions.⁽⁷⁾

Shortly before 03.00 hours, Chaplain Rudolf Gschöpf stepped out of the small house in which he had been waiting. ‘The minutes,’ he remembered, ‘stretched out interminably the nearer the time to H-hour approached.’ Dawn was beginning to emerge. Only the routine noises of a peaceful night were apparent. Looking down to the river he saw:

Gerd Habedanck was abruptly awoken by the metallic whir of an alarm clock inside his vehicle. ‘The great day has begun,’ he wrote in his diary. A silvery light was already permeating the eastern sky as he made his way to the battalion headquarters bunker down by the river. It was crowded inside:

Habedanck glanced through the bunker vision slit again. Nothing to see yet. The battalion commander’s comment, voiced yesterday on the opening bombardment, still preyed on his mind.

Air strike… First light

The pilot of the Heinkel He111 bomber kept the control column pulled backwards as the aircraft continued climbing. He glanced at the altimeter: it wavered, held, then continued to move clockwise past 4,500–5,000m. The crew were signalled to don oxygen masks. At 03.00 hours the aircraft droned across the Soviet frontier at maximum height. Below was a sparsely inhabited region of marsh and forest. Even had the rising throb been discernible from the ground, nobody would have linked it to an impending start of hostilities.

Kampfgeschwader (KG) 53 had taken-off in darkness south of Warsaw, steadily climbing to maximum height before setting course to airfields between Bialystok and Minsk in Belorussia. Dornier Do17-Zs from KG2 were penetrating Soviet airspace to the north toward Grodno and Vilnius. KG3, having taken-off from Demblin, was still climbing between Brest-Litovsk and Kobrin. The aircrew scanning the darkened landscape below for navigational clues were hand-picked men, with many hours’ night-flying experience. These 20–30 aircraft formed the vanguard of the air strike. The mission was to fly undetected into Russia and strike fighter bases behind the central front. Three bombers were allocated to each assigned airfield.⁽¹⁾

They droned on towards their targets. Below, the earth was shrouded in a mist-streaked darkness. Pin-pricks of light indicated inhabited areas. Ahead, and barely discernible, was a pale strip of light emerging above the eastern horizon. There was little cloud. Only 15 minutes remained before H-hour.

Behind them, in German-occupied Poland, scores of airstrips were bustling with purposeful activity. Bombs were still being loaded and pilots briefed. Aircraft engines burst into life, startling birds who flew off screeching into the top branches of trees surrounding isolated and heavily camouflaged landing strips.

Leutnant Heinz Knoke, a Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf109 fighter pilot based at Suwalki air force station near the Russian frontier, watched as groups of Junkers Ju87 Stuka dive-bombers and fighter planes from his own unit slowly took shape in the emerging twilight. There had been rumours of an attack on Russia. ‘That appeals to me,’ he confided to his diary that night. ‘Bolshevism is the archenemy of Europe and of western civilisation.’ Orders came through earlier that evening directing that the scheduled Berlin-Moscow airliner was to be shot down. This created quite a stir. His commanding officer took-off with the headquarters flight to execute the mission, ‘but they failed to intercept the Douglas’.

Knoke had spent the earlier part of the night sitting in the mess discussing the likely course of events with other pilots. ‘The order for shooting down the Russian Douglas airliner,’ he wrote, ‘has convinced me that there is to be a war against Bolshevism.’ They sat around waiting for the alert.⁽²⁾

‘Hardly anybody could sleep,’ recalled Arnold Döring, a navigator with KG53, the ‘Legion Condor’, ‘because this was to be our first raid.’ Aircrews had been up since 01.30 hours, briefing and preparing for a raid on Bielsk-Pilici airport. The aerodrome was thought to be full of Soviet fighter aircraft. As they hurried ‘like madmen’ about the airfield, attending to last-minute preparations, they were aware of ‘a glare of fire and a faint strip of light that signalled the approaching day’. Although these aircraft were not part of the vanguard force, already airborne, they still faced the difficulty of taking-off and forming up in the dark. ‘So many things went through my mind,’ Döring recalled. ‘Would we be able to take-off in darkness, with fully laden machines, from this little airfield, where we’d only been a few days?’

The Luftwaffe was confident with its task but, inevitably on the eve of combat, there was nervous trepidation. Hans Vowinckel, a 35-year-old bomber crew member wrote to this wife:

Planning for this crucial air strike, which aimed to guarantee the requisite air superiority needed to support the ground force attack, had been going on at the Gatow Air Academy near Berlin since 20 February 1941. Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, the commander of Luftflotte 2, was given overall command of the Luftwaffe forces earmarked for ‘Barbarossa’. Hitler, convinced of the innate inferiority of the Soviet Union had been ‘stunned’ by early reports presented on the Red Air Force.⁽⁴⁾ Luftwaffe Intelligence (Ic) reports assessed the total strength of the Red Air Force to be 10,500 combat aircraft, of which 7,500 were in European Russia and 3,000 in Asia. Only 50% of these were reckoned to be modern. The number of aircraft they might expect to encounter over the front, not including transport and liaison assets, was estimated at 5,700. Some 1,360 reconnaissance and bomber types and 1,490 fighters were believed to be operational. These could be reinforced during the first half of 1941 by 700 new fighters. These formed part of a modernisation and re-equipment programme which would also update 50% of the bomber fleet but not increase its overall numbers. In support, the Red Air Force could depend on 15,000 fully trained pilots, 150,000 ground personnel and 10,000 training aircraft.⁽⁵⁾

The Luftwaffe, by contrast, on 21 June had 757 bombers operational from a total of 952, 362 of 465 dive-bombers, 64 Messerschmitt Bf110 Zerstörer fighters (the Bf110 Zerstörer, or destroyer, was a heavy fighter) and 735 of 965 conventional fighters, in addition to reconnaissance, sea, liaison and transport types.⁽⁶⁾ Despite the Soviet superiority – they had three or four times the number of Luftwaffe aircraft – Luftwaffe staffs assessed overall enemy combat effectiveness would be much smaller. Because of the size of the operational area to be overflown and scepticism over Russian training and command and control capabilities, it was thought the Soviet air divisions would not to be able to mount joint operations with their ground forces. Luftwaffe General Konrad briefed Halder, the German Army Chief of Staff, selectively on the Red Air Force. Fighters were rated inferior to Luftwaffe variants and were described as ‘fair game for German fighters’ – as were the bombers. Red Air Force training, leadership and tactics were belittled. Halder commented in note form that Soviet leadership skills were ‘hard and brutal, but without training in modern tactics, and mechanical, lacking adaptability’.⁽⁷⁾

German planning was characterised by this subjective rather than objective appreciation of capability. On 22 June 1941 Luftwaffe staff estimated that only 1,300 bombers and 1,500 fighters were fully operational in European Russia, this from an overall assessment of 5,800 aircraft. Moreover, radio intercepts had identified the assembly of some 13,000–14,000 aircraft in western Russia.⁽⁸⁾ General Jeschonnek, the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, had earlier briefed Halder that ‘the Luftwaffe expects concentrated attacks against our spearheads, but thinks they will collapse owing to our superior technique and experience’. All faith was placed in the effectiveness of the pre-emptive strike, which aimed to catch the Red Air Force vulnerable and at peace on the ground. ‘Russian ground organisations, being organic to operational flying units,’ Jeschonnek explained, ‘are clumsy and, once disrupted, cannot be readily restored.’⁽⁹⁾

Kesselring’s mission was clear:

Contrary to the planning priorities that had been accorded the Luftwaffe for the invasion of the West, the army this time was to have final say on the timing of H-hour. It was set for 03.15 hours on 22 June. The decision had emanated from a heated and protracted debate between the General Staffs of both land and air forces. ‘My Geschwader, to get into formation and attack in force, need daylight’ observed Kesselring. ‘If the army persists in marching in darkness, it will be a whole hour before we can be over the enemy’s airfields, and by then the birds will have flown.’ The army had to assault at first light to achieve maximum tactical surprise, but thereafter wanted the Red Air Force kept at bay. Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock, commanding Army Group Centre, responded: ‘the enemy will be put on his guard the moment your aircraft are heard crossing the frontier. From then on the whole element of surprise will be lost.’ Zero hour was fixed at daybreak against the wishes of the Luftwaffe ‘for very convincing ground tactical reasons,’ recalled Kesselring. ‘This was a great handicap to us, but we managed to overcome it.’⁽¹¹⁾ The compromise was selective pre-emptive night attacks conducted by specially trained crews. These should cause sufficient mayhem on the ground to delay any concerted response before the arrival of the main strike waves.

Sixty per cent of the Luftwaffe’s strength was deployed along the frontier with the Soviet Union on 22 June: 1,400 of its 1,945 operational aircraft, of which 1,280 were serviceable. They were assembled in four Luftflotten, warming up or training over airstrips dispersed across the new front. Luftflotte 1 would support Army Group North; Luftflotte 2 with 50% of the strike force, was to attack with Army Group Centre. Luftflotte 4 would operate over Army Group South and Luftflotte 5 would fly in the north from Norway. All told there were 650 fighters, 831 bombers, 324 dive-bombers, 140 reconnaissance and 200 transports and other variants. To the south, the Romanian Army was supported by a further 230 aircraft, including Hungarian and Slovakian machines; 299 Finnish aircraft would join later.

The force, however, was completely outnumbered by the enemy. German estimates of Red Air Force strengths were out by at least a half. Only 30% of the total European Russian element had been located. Fighter figures were misrepresented by half and bombers by a third. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe was convinced it could deal with the threefold superiority it had identified by its own qualitative superiority and a devastating pre-emptive strike.⁽¹²⁾

Arnold Döring took-off in darkness with KG53 which managed, despite difficulties, to form up in the restricted visibility. They headed toward Sielce airport in order to rendezvous with their fighter escort. ‘However,’ to their dismay, ‘our fighter friends were nowhere to be seen,’ Döring declared. Crews anxiously scanned the skies from their cockpits. ‘That is rich, we thought.’ There was no alternative but to press on. ‘After a slight change of course,’ he recalled, ‘we flew on stubbornly towards the target.’⁽¹³⁾

In Berlin the day had been oppressively hot and close. Josef Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, burdened with the knowledge of the onslaught, found it difficult to concentrate on routine. He was, nevertheless, confident.

‘The business of Russia is becoming more dramatic by the hour,’ he confided to his diary. Russian protests concerning German frontier overflights were studiously ignored. ‘Molotov has asked for permission to visit Berlin, but has been fobbed off. A naïve request,’ Goebbels wrote, which ‘should have been made six months ago. Our enemies are falling apart.’

During the afternoon Goebbels hosted a visiting Italian delegation at his home at Schwanenwerder. The guests were invited to watch a recently released American film – Gone with the Wind – which all found impressive. Despite all this social activity, Goebbels admitted, ‘I cannot relax sufficiently to give it my full attention.’ His colleagues at the Ministry were informed about the coming operation. ‘At home it is so close as to be almost intolerable,’ Goebbels complained. ‘But the entire world is waiting for the cleansing storm.’ As his guests watched the long film to its conclusion, the Minister ordered his Ministry officials out to his house ‘so that I have them close at hand’.

A telephone call from the Führer summoned him to the Reich Chancellery. Shining lights and open windows in the various army headquarters nearby provided mute testimony to the activity going on to finalise last-minute preparations for the impending attack. The code word ‘Dortmund’, confirming H-hour at 03.30 hours, was given at 13.00 hours. Should an unexpected delay occur, it would be postponed by a further coded message ‘Altona’. Nobody seriously expected Altona to be transmitted.

Hitler briefed Goebbels on the latest developments. Wladimir Dekanosow, the Soviet Ambassador in Berlin, had made representations about illegal reconnaissance flights across the border, but had received yet another evasive response. After discussion it was decided that the time for reading the proclamation of war over the radio should be set for 05.30 hours. The international press and correspondents would receive their summons after 04.00 hours. ‘By then,’ Goebbels noted, ‘the enemy will know what is happening, and it will be time that the nation and world were informed as well.’ Meanwhile, the inhabitants of both Moscow and Berlin slept on, blissfully unaware of impending events.

Goebbels left Hitler at 02.30 hours, noting: ‘The Führer is very solemn. He intends to sleep for a few hours. And this is the best thing that he can do.’ He drove on to his own ministry building, noting ‘outside on the Wilhelmplatz, it is quiet and deserted. Berlin and the entire Reich are asleep.’ It was still pitch dark when he arrived to brief his staff. ‘Total amazement in all quarters’ was the response, even though ‘most had guessed half, or even the whole truth’. They set to work immediately, notifying and mobilising the radio, press and newsreel cameramen. Goebbels glanced repeatedly at his watch. ‘03.30 hours. Now the guns will be thundering. May God bless our weapons!’⁽¹⁴⁾

Over the primary Russian fighter bases immediately behind the newly forming Ostfront (Eastern Front), trios of aircraft from KG2, KG3 and KG53 had arrived undetected. It was still dark, but a shimmering strip of light was now floating on the eastern horizon. The independently operating wings began their descent. By 03.15 hours they were roaring in at low level. Hundreds of SD2 2kg fragmentation bombs began to trickle from open bomb bays, invisible against the night sky. They fell among serried ranks of aircraft, neatly parked wingtip to wingtip with personnel tents situated close by. It was peacetime. The Russian aircraft were neither camouflaged nor dispersed. Last-minute alerts had been to no avail. The small bombs were adjusted to explode either on impact or above ground. Within seconds, crackling multiple explosions began to envelop the lines of aircraft as light flashes illuminated the sky. Each bomblet had a blast radius of up to 12m. Airframes were lacerated and slashed by the release of 50–250 particles of shrapnel. A direct hit had the impact of a medium antiaircraft shell. Punctured fuel tanks, ignited by subsequent detonations, produced multiple swirling fireballs, jetting dense clouds of boiling black smoke into the night sky. The result was total chaos. Attempts to combat fires by dazed ground crews were inhibited by vicious delayed-action explosions, which further demoralised and added to casualties. There was no guidance from superior headquarters. Individual stations coped as best they could.

It took some four hours for situation reports to get out. Third Soviet Army HQ in Grodno, north-west of Bialystok, called the Western Special Military District Chief of Staff:

Back at Suwalki air base in Poland, Stuka dive-bombers and Messerschmitt Bf109s converted into fighter-bombers were lining up and jockeying for position in the half light of dawn. Leutnant Heinz Knoke remembered the general alert for all Geschwader sounded at 04.00 hours. ‘Every unit on the airfield is buzzing with life,’ he recalled. With all the activity came an increasing awareness of the scale of this operation. ‘All night long,’ Knoke declared, ‘I hear the distant rumble of tanks and vehicles. We are only a few kilometres from the border.’ Within one hour his squadron was airborne. Four fighter aircraft in Knoke’s Staffel, including his own, were equipped with bomb-release mechanisms. They had practised for this mission weeks ahead. ‘Now there is a rack slung along the belly of my good “Emil”, carrying 100 2.5kg fragmentation bombs,’ he declared. ‘It will be a pleasure for me to drop them on Ivan’s dirty feet.’

The objective was a Russian headquarters situated in woods to the west of Druskieniki; it was to be a low-level pass. As they skimmed treetops ‘we noticed endless German columns rolling eastwards’. As he looked up, he observed bomber formations ‘and the dreaded Stuka dive-bombers alongside us, all heading in the same direction’.⁽¹⁶⁾

Kesselring’s Luftflotten, using the ambient light of dawn, were now flying in formation, intent on delivering the main blow following the initial spoiling attacks. The first strikes were made by 637 bombers and 231 fighters penetrating Soviet airspace shortly after first light. Their objectives included 31 airfields.⁽¹⁷⁾

Arnold Döring, the Luftwaffe navigator flying in formation with KG53, flew over the River Bug frontier at 04.15 hours. Pilots and crew clinically went about their business.

The formation started its bombing run. All along the Eastern Front from the North Cape to the Black Sea, waves of Kesselring’s four Luftflotten crossed the border and immediately went into the assault. Stuka dive-bombers descended shrieking onto more easily identified targets, while medium bombers carried on to more distant objectives. Fighter-bombers bombed and strafed Soviet airfields. ‘We could hardly believe our eyes,’ reported Hauptmann Hans von Hahn, commander of the 1st Staffel of Jagdgeschwader (JG) 3 operating against the Lvov area to the south. ‘Row after row of reconnaissance planes, bombers and fighters stood lined up as if on parade.’⁽¹⁹⁾

Döring’s Heinkel He111 lifted as it dropped its bombs. Down below, the navigator observed:

Other bomber groups would soon unleash their bombs over the same target. He glanced back, ‘as we climbed again’, and ‘I could see that about 15 of the fighters on the runway were in flames as well as most of the living quarters.’ They set course back to base. This had been their first bombing mission. ‘We’d been so successful,’ he reported ‘that there was no longer any need to carry out the second raid we had planned on the airfield.’⁽²⁰⁾

These early morning successes were not achieved without loss. In Poland, Siegfried Lauerwasser, a combat cameraman, was filming aircraft as they returned to their bases. ‘That’s how it started,’ he stated, running the film for television after the war. Within a few hours it became apparent some crews were missing. It was ‘a great surprise,’ he said, ‘when we were told “so and so” had not returned, and we waited’. They were not coming back. ‘What a shock. Comrades, friends, human beings gone – with unknown fates – people you had lived with for days and months together.’⁽²¹⁾ This was to be an often repeated experience.

The most devastating pre-emptive strike in the short history of air warfare was gathering momentum.

The shortest night of the year… H-hour

Leutnant Heinrich Haape, medical officer of III/IR18, stood with his battalion commander, Major Neuhoff, and Adjutant Hillemanns on the crest of a small hill on the south-eastern border of East Prussia. They were peering into the darkness ahead, trying unsuccessfully to pick out recognisable features on the pitch-black Lithuanian plain stretching before them. Five minutes remained to H-hour.

Haape was sweating slightly. This was more from ‘the awful tenseness of these fateful minutes’ rather than the sultry night. He noticed:

The shortest night of the year was nearing its end. Although at ground level all was shrouded in a murky darkness, the sky was taking on a distinctly lighter hue.

Erich Mende, an Oberleutnant in the 8th Silesian Infantry Division, remembered a last-minute conversation with his commanding officer shortly before going into action. ‘My commander was twice as old as me,’ he said ‘and had already fought the Russians as a young Leutnant on the Narwa front in 1917.’

Mende, however, was unmoved. He explained how ‘amongst the youngsters there was optimism, because of the way the war had gone already. We did not share the doubts voiced by the older men, nor myself, those of my commander.’⁽²⁾

A testimony to the vast scale of the impending campaign was the variation of H-hours required to cater for the spread of daybreak along the 3,000km front. Dawn would appear in Army Group North’s sector first at 03.05 hours. In the Central Army Group it was anticipated at 03.15 hours, in the south at 03.25 hours. All eyes along the massive front followed the progress of minute hands on watches. These final moments were to prove both interminable and unforgettable to men facing the prospect of imminent death or mutilation.

Hauptmann Alexander Stahlberg, with the 12th Panzer Division, remembered:

Walter Stoll, an infantry radio operator, positioned nearby on the Bug, remembered frantic last-minute preparations.

As they moved up, the roads became increasingly clogged with artillery moving into their final positions. ‘28s, 15s, 21cm mortars, there was no end.’ They marched across log-corduroy roads, through sand and woods to their assembly areas. In a village jammed with self-propelled assault guns, they discarded equipment except that required for action. Vehicles were left behind. Infantry squads began to shake out in assault formation.⁽⁴⁾

Gefreiter Erich Kuby, sitting in his Horch vehicle on the edge of a wood, observed: ‘it was a beautiful morning, cool and clear, with dew on the meadows.’ Following the hustle and bustle of the previous week the ‘calm before the storm lay over the land’. Hardly a single vehicle was moving in his sector. All lay motionless awaiting the attack. After receiving the order to drive forward, Kuby noticed the emerging dawn. ‘The sky was yellow and red, the outline of the woods silhouetted in black and presently also the Panzers, waiting in long lines.’ The tranquillity of the scene, with battle shockingly imminent, made a deep impression. ‘There was not a single restless line within the picture,’ displayed before him.⁽⁵⁾

Senior German officers assembled at vantage points to witness the anticipated spectacle of the opening bombardment. General Guderian, commander of Panzergruppe 2, drove to his command post, an observation tower located south of Bohukaly, 15km northwest of Brest-Litovsk. ‘It was still dark when I arrived there at 03.10 hours,’ he noted.

General Günther Blumentritt, Chief of Staff to von Kluge, the commander of Fourth Army, was standing in 31st Infantry Division’s sector nearby. From there ‘we watched the German fighter planes take off and soon only their tail lights were visible in the east’. As zero hour approached, ‘the sky began to lighten, turning to a curious yellow colour. And still all was quiet.’⁽⁶⁾

In the 20th Panzer Division sector near Suwalki, the northern prong of Army Group Centre, the ‘typical tension prior to the beginning of an offensive’ reigned. Rows and rows of tanks waited, motionless, seemingly floating on mist or long dew-strewn meadow grass. Occasional scraping-sounding movements of shadowy figures could be discerned on turret tops as commanders stood to gain a better view forward, scanning with binoculars through an emerging twilight. A few minutes before 03.00 hours swarms of Stuka dive-bombers, followed by more bombers, began to fly up from behind their assembly areas.⁽⁷⁾

With two minutes to go, Leutnant Haape with Regiment 18, like many others, began to think of his wife.

Gefreiter Erich Kuby, with Army Group South, composed a last-minute letter to his wife while waiting in his vehicle in the dark. He predicted the emotional impact coming events would have upon her and his child.

The unsettling immediacy of their present predicament occupied all minds. Heinrich Haape reconciled himself with the thought that at least his wife was mercifully unaware. ‘This night is as a thousand others, and that is how we wish it to be.’ But for the waiting soldiers an uncertain future beckoned. ‘We will march,’ Haape accepted. There was one minute to go, ‘And tomorrow night, where the horizon burns, there the war will be.’⁽¹⁰⁾

Down by the River Bug Heinrich Eikmeier watched as the first 88mm round slid easily into the breech of his Flak gun, nicknamed ‘Ceaser’. All around, officers peered intently at stopwatches. Eikmeier took up the slack on the firing lanyard and waited. Would his be the first round to herald the new campaign on the Ostfront?

Ludwig Thalmaier with the Geschützkompanie (heavy weapons company) of Infantry Regiment 63 fitfully tried to sleep in a lorry, concealed in a wood. He had a light fever. Later recording diary impressions, he saw that:

Gerhard Frey, an artillery gunner, observed that:

Artillery Oberleutnant Siegfried Knappe had previously studied his target, the village of Sasnia on the Central Front, in bright moonlight. The tranquil scene was transformed.

Back on the artillery firing line, the noise was intimidating. Kanonier Werner Adamczyk with Artillery Regiment 20 described what it was like crewing a 150mm gun battery:

Infantry and some armoured vehicles began to move forward. Soldiers advanced with trepidation and mixed feelings. Götz Hrt-Reger with an armoured car unit animatedly recalled the start of ‘Barbarossa’ in a later interview:

The three German army groups closed onto a frontier stretching from Memel on the Baltic south to Romania on the Black Sea. Many of the images of this dawning of the longest summer day of the year were captured on Wochenschau movie newsreels. Spectacular film footage was shown to German cinema audiences within one week of the event. They showed flares hanging in a dark sky already streaked with dawn. Tracer fire curls lazily over a single-span railway bridge, flashes of explosion beneath reflect briefly on the outline silhouette of advancing infantry. On the Russian side, wooden watch-towers alongside the Bug burn furiously, like flaming torches, lighting up the sky above the dark mass of the opposite bank. Smoke rises majestically into the air, expanding languidly into an inky smudge, staining the light of an emerging dawn. Stark black outlines of soldiers laden with combat gear are discernible, moving swiftly through meadow grass and briefly silhouetted crossing the high riverbanks of the Bug. They pause and lie down as the pick-pock of opposing echoing rifle fire pins them down.

The Wochenschau images atmospherically convey an aura of menacing power and progress to their audiences, as combat vehicles and soldiers pass the distinctive stripe-patterned frontier marker posts. Cameras linger on scenes of flaming destruction. Repeated shots of artillery muzzles punching through and recoiling back inside camouflage nets that jerk convulsively, raising dust, with each concussive report of the gun, add to the aura of pitiless technological dominance. Birds, panicked by explosions in the target area, fly around the periphery of rising clouds of dirty coloured smoke. Lines of motionless Panzers, filmed awaiting the call forward, underscore a constant theme of latent lethality.

All along the 800km line of the River Bug, Sturmgruppen (assault parties) dashed across bridges and overwhelmed surprised Russian guards before they could detonate demolition charges. Rubber dinghies ferried across infantry assault groups, followed soon after by parties of engineers constructing the first pontoon bridges.

In Generalmajor Nehring’s 18th Panzer Division sector near Pratulin, numbers of tanks simply drove down the bank of the Bug and disappeared underwater. Infantry nearby watched in amazement as tank after tank slid beneath the surface of the water like grotesque amphibians. These tanks, belonging to Ist Battalion Panzer Regiment 18 had originally been trained and equipped to wade underwater from ramp-mounted ferry boats built in preparation for Operation ‘Seelöwe’ (sea lion), the proposed invasion of England. In October 1940 the venture was cancelled, then resurrected in part for the foreseen amphibious assault crossing of the Bug.

The ‘U-Boat’ tanks were fitted with 3m steel pipes which protruded from the surface of the water as they waded across the river bottom, enabling the crew and engines to breathe. Exhausts were fitted with one-way valves and gun turrets were insulated by air-filled bicycle inner tubes. Bubbles from the exhaust were obliterated by the moving current. Total surprise was achieved as 80 of these Panzer amphibians emerged on the far bank, rapidly establishing a deep bridgehead. Russian armoured cars that had begun to menace landed infantry were quickly despatched.⁽¹⁶⁾

The east is aflame,’ announced Leutnant Haape, observing the progress of the assaulting spearheads. Infantry mainly led the way. Many of these men were still coming to terms with the surprise they had inflicted on the Russians. Gefreiter Joachim Kredel, a machine gunner in Infantry Regiment 67 of 23rd Division, had hours before queried his company commander’s reading of the Führer Order. ‘Soldiers of the Ostfront,’ it had announced. Kredel turning to a friend asked: ‘Did the company commander actually say Ostfront?’ Feldwebel Richard von Weizsäcker (a future President of the Federal Republic of Germany), nearby with Regiment 9, refused to believe, right up to the point of going into action, that Hitler would seriously go to war against the Soviet Union. Leutnant von dem Bussche, a platoon commander in the same regiment, thought:

Soldiers sought to allay their acute uneasiness by engaging in purposeful last-minute checks. Rifle loaded and safety catch on? Uniform buttons done up? Helmet strap not too tight – or too loose? Hand-grenade arming mechanism screw easy to turn? Have I got an uninterrupted line of sight to the soldier nearby?⁽¹⁷⁾ They awaited the signal to advance. Ernst Glasner wrote in his diary while waiting on the edge of the Bug:

Feldwebel Gottfried ‘Gottlieb’ Becker had counted off the final seconds, observing the railway embankment that was his first objective. As they ran forward, ‘the echoes of explosions mixed with the incoming whine of new salvoes’. Becker and his platoon were astonished when they reached the embankment without once coming under fire. Only single shots rang out as the first German motorised column began to trundle down the road to his right; with that, worries vanished. The opening attack had proved unexpectedly smooth. Becker had reached his first objective without losing a single man.

Nearby, Gefreiter Kredel with Regiment 67 stormed forward as fast as his legs could carry him, his machine gun sloped across his shoulder. This was his first time in action. Propelling him was the sage advice of a veteran who had assured him ‘the first wave gets through mostly unscathed, because the enemy is surprised. That’s why those that follow get the full punishment.’ Kredel thought it strange the way bullets whistled by one’s helmet. He saw a wooden Russian observation tower reduced to matchwood by a direct hit from an anti-tank gun. ‘Pieces of wood and Russians whirled through the air, and fell like toys to the ground.’ Simultaneously the Germans’ artillery dropped short and fell among their own ranks. ‘Wounded cried out, and curses of “idiots – pay attention!” became mixed with the detonations of shells.’⁽¹⁹⁾ Fire shifted abruptly forward, as if in response to these recriminations.

The campaign was already exacting its first toll of dead. Leutnant Hubert Becker with Army Group North remembered:

Gefreiter Joachim Kredel stormed forward with the 67th Infantry Regiment, still mindful of the likely retribution that must soon come to this attack, which had obviously achieved surprise. Casualties up until now had been light. His platoon commander, Leutnant Maurer, observed with satisfaction as Kredel repeatedly hosed bursts of MG34 fire across the aperture of a Soviet bunker barring progress. There was a short pause of some seconds. No answering fire. ‘Move! Bypass it!’ cried the platoon commander, and soldiers scrambled around the flanks of the silenced bunker. It was a nerve-racking moment, the calculated instant of exposure.

On the far side of the fortification, Maurer and the lead elements relaxed from their tense crouching stance to a more upright position and continued to move forward. The burst of fire that spat out from the rear of the overrun position killed Maurer instantly and an NCO with two accompanying soldiers. Suspecting just such a ploy, the Russians had moved their machine gun to the rear of the bunker. Now the shock of the enormity of this first major loss sank in.

Unteroffizier Voss took command of the platoon, and with the support of a direct-firing anti-tank gun, managed with his soldiers to scramble up onto the roof of the bunker. Secure from the Russian beaten zone of fire, the position was held in thrall as the remainder of the company stormed by. Voss, marooned on the roof, could not get at the Russian soldiers inside. They held this ‘tiger by the tail’ the whole night long. Only a few isolated pistol shots punctuated the nervous waiting period. They were too tense to sleep. Much later, at daybreak, Kredel and Voss’s group were evacuated from their exposed position and ordered to rejoin the company. A section of assault pioneers was brought up to reduce the menace with explosive charges.⁽²¹⁾

Surprise had been achieved. The campaign was barely hours old, yet men had already endured experiences that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Years after these events, Karl Unverzagt, a Fähnjunker (officer-cadet) in a Panzergrenadier division, quietly reflected, pipe in hand, that ‘we had shot into a scene where there had been dancing, drinking and singing, with people dressed in riding boots.’ His unit had burst in upon this celebration. ‘It was awful what our shells had done, something I will carry with me for the rest of my days – it was so terrible.’⁽²²⁾ Josef Zymelka, an engineer, said:

At 04.55 hours XIIth Army Corps reported to Fourth Army HQ that ‘until now, the impression is the enemy has been totally surprised’. The corps pointed to Soviet radio intercepts which were asking ‘what should we do?’ among other things.⁽²⁴⁾

There had been Soviet troop movements prior to the German onslaught. German comment on this and reactions regarding Soviet preparedness are mixed. Committed National Socialists such as Leutnant Hans Ulrich Rudel, a Stuka pilot who participated in the opening raids, left little room for doubt. His unadulterated view was that ‘it is a good thing we struck.’ Based on in-flight observations, he later wrote:

Leutnant Erich Mende, advancing with the 8th Silesian Infantry Division in the central sector, believed ‘the Red Army positions were prepared for attack, not defence. We had, according to one view, pre-empted an assault by the Red Army.’ In the fullness of time, he felt: ‘to support this view directly is wrong. But on the other hand, quite possibly such an operation could have taken place within a few months or a year.’⁽²⁶⁾ Bernd Freytag von Lorringhoven, a Panzer officer serving on the staff of General Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2, said after the war:

Whatever the intention, there had certainly been large-scale Soviet military deployments prior to 22 June. Perception often has paramountcy over facts, and will influence decisions in war. Infantryman Emanuel Selder was in no doubt that ‘at no time’ on the eve of the offensive ‘could anyone seriously calculate the Russians were going to strike first’. His view was that ‘the Red Army was totally surprised by the attack.’ Unimpressed by any ‘preventive war hypothesis’, Selder noted that the Russians in some areas had absolutely no artillery support. ‘Like us,’ he pointed out during interview, the Russians constructed camps within woods near the border.

This view is echoed by examination of the radio logs of attacking German vanguards. XIIth Corps in the central sector near Brest-Litovsk was reporting by 06.15 hours to Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2 that ‘according to radio intercepts and statements from captured officers, the enemy appears completely surprised. Maximum offensive effort by all corps is ordered.’⁽²⁹⁾

Lines of motionless Panzers awaiting information from attacking infantry – Sturmtruppen – began to erupt into a haze of blue exhaust-shrouded activity. Dust began to rise as tanks lurched forward and clattered and squeaked toward newly constructed pontoons, or captured bridges. Leutnant F. W. Christians, moving with a Panzer division in Army Group South, remembered how young soldiers were already impressed at the extent to which the battlefield was ‘dominated by our artillery and Luftwaffe’. Another aspect was also evident. Bodies from both sides were already lying by the roadsides. ‘There was also a bitter side to this advance,’ he remarked, ‘the first dead’, which ‘gave the young soldiers a foretaste of what to expect’.⁽³⁰⁾

Daybreak… Berlin

The Soviet Ambassador in Berlin, Wladimir Dekanosow, had been attempting to contact the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, without success. Valentin Bereschkow, his First Secretary and interpreter, recalled: ‘It appeared that the Reich’s Foreign Minister was not in Berlin, but was at the Führer’s headquarters.’ Dekanosow, irritated, had been denied access. He was still unable to protest against the German border overflights.

In the German Foreign Office, Erich Sommer, a Russian-speaking interpreter, was informed by his legation head, Herr Strack, to call Bereschkow at the Soviet Embassy. Ribbentrop would see the Russian Ambassador now. Sommer and Strack drove off to the Russian Embassy to escort the Soviet delegation back. Before they left, Strack informed Sommer that war was to be declared against the Soviet Union, ‘but it had yet to be done’. As the official car drove along the Wilhelmstrasse on the return journey, the sun was only just beginning to rise. The occupants were preoccupied with their thoughts over the coming interview. Dekanosow felt at last he may be able to deliver his long-overdue protest. Sommer recalled his ironic remarks as the car glided past familiar Berlin landmarks. ‘It promises to be a beautiful day,’ the Soviet Ambassador said.⁽¹⁾

Josef Goebbels, the Reich’s Propaganda Minister, was anticipating the forthcoming radio proclamation and press conference. ‘Radio, press and newsreel are mobilised,’ he wrote in his diary: ‘Everything runs like clockwork.’⁽²⁾ Telephones had been ringing since 03.00 hours summoning the press. ‘What is it this time?’ many asked. Had the British decided to give up? Was the victorious Wehrmacht announcing a new objective? Cars sped through the dew-covered Tiergarten (zoo) towards the press conference room. It seemed it would be yet another hot stifling day.

Dekanosow and Bereschkow were led in at 04.00 hours to see Foreign Minister Ribbentrop. Erich Sommer, present as interpreter, witnessed all that transpired. The Foreign Minister was leaning lightly on his desk. Dekanosow attempted to raise the issue of certain ‘infringements’ affecting both nations but Ribbentrop did not take the matter up. Instead he indicated to his envoy Schmidt who began to read a memorandum ‘in which,’ Sommer said, ‘the Soviet Union was accused of systematically dismantling German-Soviet co-operation’. As Bereschkow and Sommer were about to interject to translate, the Soviet Ambassador stopped them. For nearly half an hour Schmidt continued reading, itemising Soviet border infringements both in the air and on the ground. The Memorandum continued:

Sommer observed that, significantly, ‘the Memorandum did not end with a declaration of war. Hitler had expressly directed that the words “declaration of war” were not to appear in the text.’⁽³⁾

Bereschkow could hardly believe what he heard. The Soviet Union was allegedly threatening Germany. In fact a Soviet attack was pending. Hitler had to protect the German people. Therefore, already – two hours before – German troops had crossed the border.

Ribbentrop stood up and offered the Soviet envoy his hand. ‘The Ambassador,’ Bereschkow said, ‘was very nervous, and I think even a little drunk.’ Dekanosow, not surprisingly, ignored the gesture. ‘He declared that the German invasion was an aggression and the German Reich would soon very much regret launching this attack.’ Sommer saw the Soviet Ambassador ‘go red as a lobster and clench his fists’. He repeatedly said: ‘I regret this so much.’

As Bereschkow followed his ambassador from the room, Ribbentrop unexpectedly approached him and whispered close to his ear that ‘he was against this war. He still wanted to convince Hitler not to begin a war which he himself viewed as a catastrophe for Germany.’ Bereschkow was unmoved. He was damning in his interpretation of these events after the war, declaring: ‘in fact, there was no actual diplomatic declaration of war’. ‘Stalin strove,’ he believed, ‘right up to the last moment, to avoid the war.’ Diplomatic norms had been perverted, in his view, to maximise the military impact of surprise. He stated during interviews:

Shortly after the painful interview, at 05.30 hours Ribbentrop announced to the world’s press that the war was already two hours old. Only 21 months previously he had returned from Moscow with his greatest diplomatic triumph: the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship.

Meanwhile Liszt’s Les Préludes sounded as a fanfare across countless wireless sets in the Reich. ‘The High Command of the Wehrmacht announced the news of the invasion of Russia to the German people,’ Goebbels grandly wrote in his diary:

Afterwards he drove home to his Schwanenwerder lake residence in Berlin. ‘The burden of many weeks and months falls away,’ he wrote: ‘A glorious wonderful hour has struck, when a new empire is born. Our nation is making her way up into the light.’ Goebbels had every reason to feel pleased with himself. A diplomatic and military triumph was now in the offing. Surprise for this new campaign had most certainly been achieved. At Schwanenwerder the sun was now up ‘standing full and beautiful in the sky’; he allowed himself ‘two hours of deep, healing sleep’.⁽⁵⁾

By the time he awoke, on the new Ostfront, artillery NCO Helmut Pabst was already feeling a hard-bitten veteran. He wrote in his diary on 22 June:

Josef Deck with Artillery Regiment 71 near Brest-Litovsk vividly remembers a Feldwebel talking in subdued tones on the way to their final firing positions. This NCO did not share the Reich Propaganda Minister’s optimism. His view was that: