Operation Barbarossa: The Surge (Part 6)

Summary

Podcast Summary: WW2 Pod – We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Operation Barbarossa: The Surge (Part 6)
Date: July 27, 2026
Hosts: Al Murray (comedian) & James Holland (historian)

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Episode Overview

This rich, immersive episode dives into the dramatic initial surge of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in summer 1941. Al and James blend first-hand soldier testimony with analysis, focusing on the 4th Panzer Division’s dash east, the unfolding failure to destroy the Red Army, and the critical logistical and strategic turning points revealed by July’s end. Memorable for its blend of detail and humor, the episode lays bare the gap between what German maps showed and the real on-the-ground situation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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The Initial Surge: Rapid Advance, Little Resistance

[04:11] Richard von Rosen’s Account

• The episode opens with the words of Unteroffizier Richard von Rosen of the 35th Panzer Regiment, describing a July nightmarish push through fire-swept villages, constant maintenance (“tweaking and tinkering”), and near-complete absence of Soviet resistance for the first 12 days.
  • “They’re just trundling forward and there’s nobody there. Easy to make rapid progress when there’s no one there to stop you.” – Al Murray [05:34]
  • The Red Army was “in completely the wrong posture,” leaving vast spaces undefended (James Holland [05:34]).
• By July 4th, the division was deep into Soviet territory, pressing for vital Dnieper bridges before the Soviets could destroy them.

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The Dnieper Crossing & First Real Setbacks

[06:55] Race to Stari Bichov Bridge

• Dramatic description of the German vanguard’s attempt to seize a bridge at Stari Bichov with just five Panzer IIIs – “a laughably small advance guard,” but they succeed via surprise.
• Unwittingly cross into the heavily-gunned Stalin Line; immediate, intense firefight erupts.
  • “The air shimmered with heat making everything in the optic hazy. We received two more hits on the front but they bounced off.” – von Rosen, quoted by Al Murray [08:26]
• The group is forced to abandon their tanks, seeking shelter in a forgotten Soviet bunker via a pitch-black tunnel. They remain trapped, “using a jackboot to urinate in and they defecate where they are,” hiding in terror for two days (Al Murray [10:53]).
• On the third night, during rain, five of eight escape, rowing a battered boat across the river under the bridge’s shadow. They are received as heroes by Oberst Eberbach [11:37].

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Rising Soviet Resistance & German Exhaustion

[13:46] “It’s Coming Home to Them”

• Upon recapturing the ground, Rosen is confronted with the decomposing corpses of fallen comrades—marking a psychological turning point.
  • “It was the worst thing, to see comrades with whom one had sat in the panzer ... mutilated and decomposing almost beyond recognition.” – Al Murray quoting von Rosen [13:23]
• Russian resistance rapidly escalates: organized artillery, mines, anti-tank ditches, ever-growing friction.
• Supply and mechanical issues worsen: Fuel shortages (“Soviet fuel doesn’t agree with the German vehicles,” lower octane, engine failures) and a dwindling tank count (from 22 to 5 in Rosen’s company) [14:56 - 15:27].

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Logistics, Distance, and the Shabby Underbelly of the Blitzkrieg

[15:58; 23:04; 36:03] Logistics Overstrategy

• The further German spearheads rushed east, the more extreme their supply problems.
  • Discussion of the “culmination point”—the moment armies simply can’t advance due to logistical exhaustion (Al Murray [26:44]).
  • “You can no longer operate in the way you want to because your supplies are so stretched ... everyone’s exhausted, your kit’s exhausted ... you’ve got as far as you can on what you set off with.” – Al Murray [27:11]
• Panzer divisions are hyper-extended, inflicting huge wear and tear.
• Infantry lags far behind, often on foot or poor trucks, facing dreadful roads:
  • “Soviet roads are terrible ... the rollbahn was basically a mud road” – Al Murray [35:02]
• Discussion of over-sensitive German horses, needing better fodder than they can get in Russia (“Too well looked after, they’ve grown soft,” [35:33]).

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Hidden Failures: The Rear-Area Catastrophe

[40:02; 41:56; 43:04] Partisans, POWs, and the Illusion of Control

• Rear-area insecurity is widespread; huge numbers of Soviet stragglers, partisans, and “bandits” threaten supply lines and undermine the notion that territory is actually controlled.
  • “Thousands of Russian soldiers are sitting in the forests ... catching them is impossible. Given the tremendous size of the area and the scale of the task.” – von Bock, quoted by Al Murray [42:56]
• German troops are increasingly harassed by snipers, unable to rest at night, and frequently outnumbered in the rear.

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Strategic Turning Point: The Difference Between Advance and Victory

[46:39; 49:36] Running Out of Everything

• Despite success as shown on maps—Minsk falls July 9th, Smolensk on July 15th—German forces are exhausted and depleted:
  • Hundreds of tanks lost or broken down; divisions at a fraction of starting strength.
  • “General Emilsson ... says his 18th Panzer Division is no longer combat ready ... 25 Days of Battle Division has suffered catastrophic losses of officers, men and materiel ... From starting the campaign with 169 Panzers ... they can only field 40 by July 17th.” – Al Murray [46:39]
• Personnel losses in first three weeks: over 100,000 men—“the elites...the penny’s dropping here. By the 15th of July... German forces are in real trouble, up a gum tree despite the appearance of victories.” – Al Murray [48:44]
• Pre-Barbarossa assumptions—destroying the Red Army at the border—are now exposed as dangerously flawed. German logistics and numbers are proving totally inadequate for the sprawling battlefield [40:25; 49:36].

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Highlights, Timestamps & Notable Quotes

• Opening soldier’s account: “The house was burning ... illuminating everything with a ghostly light. We increased the distance between the panzers and drove flat out across the danger area. All hatches were tight shut.” – von Rosen [02:50]
• On the nature of the early advance: “They’re just trundling forward … rapid progress when there’s no one there to stop you.” – Al Murray [05:34]
• Von Rosen on tank engagement: “Air shimmered with heat … we received two more hits on the front but they bounced off.” [08:26]
• Describing being trapped in the bunker: “They use a jackboot to urinate in and they defecate where they are.” – Al Murray [10:53]
• Losses come home: “It was the worst thing of all...comrades ... mutilated and decomposing almost beyond recognition.” – Al Murray [13:23]
• On logistics and culmination point: “You can no longer operate in the way that you want ... everyone’s exhausted, you’ve got as far as you can go on what you set off with.” – Al Murray [27:11]
• “Logistics win wars”: “Frontline troops win battles, but logistics win wars.” – Gen. von Thoma, recounted by James Holland [30:22]
• On rear security and the illusion of control: “Thousands of Russian soldiers are sitting in forests far behind the front ... catching them is impossible.” – von Bock via Al Murray [42:56]
• On losses: “In the first three weeks, personnel losses amount to 102,588 men ... these are the elites.” – Al Murray [48:17–48:45]
• On the fundamental flaw: “This is the truth. In 1941, the Wehrmacht simply doesn’t have enough of anything for the tasks they’ve set themselves ... not for a country quite so vast, quite so challenging, and quite so inhospitable.” – James Holland [49:36]

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Memorable Moments

• The vivid imagery of Rosen’s escape and emotional devastation upon discovering his crew's corpses.
• The comparison of German operational art to “a little finger”—thin surges lacking solid control (James Holland [24:07]).
• The recurring humor about pampered German horses being poorly suited to Russian hardship (“they’ve grown soft,” “too refined,” [35:33–36:03]).
• Al Murray’s wry summation: “Not enough of anything.” [40:32]
• The growing realization, echoed throughout, that Barbarossa’s initial “surge” is a strategic illusion: fast advances do not equal strategic victory.

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Conclusion: What the Surge Reveals

In conclusion, Al and James argue that July 1941 marks a fundamental turning point in Operation Barbarossa: The Germans have advanced further and faster than ever, but are on the brink of disaster. Their spearheads are exhausted, depleted, and dangerous gaps yawn between what the maps show and what German forces can actually achieve and hold. The surge has exposed the critical logistical, strategic, and operational weaknesses of the entire campaign—problems which only get worse as the months roll on.

The next episode promises to zoom in on the experience of a single German NCO in Army Group South and, ultimately, to return to Hitler’s and the senior command’s strategic dilemmas.

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For listeners wanting more:
Detailed analysis, additional content, and membership perks are available via the podcast’s Patreon.

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Summary prepared by WW2 Pod Podcast Summarizer, using original episode content, speaker tone, and timestamps for accuracy and fidelity.

Transcript

[Al Murray]

Thank you for listening to we have ways of making you talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com wehaveways.

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[Al Murray]

visit refundclub.co.ukwhw that's refundclub.co.ukwhW for your free check. 15th of July. A few men stretched out on the rear of the Panzer slept for 15 minutes. We could hear firing ahead. Second Abteilung was on the move again. We set off at 0130. Scarcely had we exited the wood than we saw on our right a burning German armored scout car. The Russians had brought up a 105mm gun somewhere nearby and were shooting directly at us. The house in the vicinity was burning, illuminating everything with a ghostly light. All around was deep as night. We increased the distance between the panzers and drove flat out across the danger area. All hatches were tight shut. The driver floored the gas pedal. The explosion sounded strange, so close to the panzer to the side. I saw a brief flash at each impact and shell splinters would fly against the panzer armor. We were happy to get through it. It was simply impossible to make up where the gun was. Soon after we came to a village still occupied by the enemy, where you see fire every house, but nothing to various rifle bullets whistled around our turret. And that was unterofficeer Richard von Rosen, who we've been following in his progress into Barbarossa with Jim with the 35th Panzer Regiment.

[James Holland]

Yeah, well, 35th Panzer Regiment is part of the 4th Panzer Division, which is part of Panzer Group Guderian, part of that southern thrust. You remember the words. It's like the oval shaped encirclement that is going on with Panzer Group Hoke to the north in the center and Panzer Group Guderian to the south. A charging through the Soviet western front. And what is amazing from von Rosen's account is he does an awful lot of tank maintenance. They're forever tweaking and tinkering and all the rest of it. But he doesn't see any action at all before the Fourth of July.

[Al Murray]

Incredible.

[James Holland]

So that's what, 12 days in. And this of course is because Guderian's Panzer group is charging so fast that there simply aren't any Red army troops, because Red army troops have been at the crust and the replacement ones and the reinforcement ones and the ones that haven't been encircled are trying to respond and being sent northwards and southwards and all the rest of it into an area where panzer guru Guderian has already been and gone.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, we need to say hello. Don't we welcome everyone to. We have ways of making you talk with me. Al Murray, James Holland. As you can see, we're chomping at a bit to get on with this episode about Barbarossa. I am. And this episode's called the Surge, Jim. And you are surging right there. That was you surging hard into the.

[James Holland]

Yes.

[Al Murray]

Into the vast empty spaces I farm

[James Holland]

to go in my Panther 3.

[Al Murray]

It is quite extraordinary that because the Red Army's basically been in completely the wrong posture, a big part of these German advances are not fighting advances, are they? They're just like, trundling forward and there's nobody there. Easy to make rapid progress when there's no one there to stop you. And on paper, none of this should work. So by the 4th of July, 4th Panzer Division, they're back in the lead, and they're out on a massive, massive limb. And they're approaching the Dnieper, which runs sort of north, south, just to get your head around this.

[James Holland]

They are. They are southeast of Minsk, which hasn't even fallen at this point. You know, Minsk is encircled, and that means you've got to complete the encirclement. You've got to go beyond, beyond the objective. But they're now facing the Dnieper, which is, you know, runs almost vertically north, south at this point, and so is a very obvious obstacle for the Red army to defend. But the orders of the fourth Panzer Division to try and take a major bridge at the town of Stardust intact, and Bichow is now called just Bichau astori. Bichau is 241 km from Minsk and 575 km from Brest Litovsk. So, you know, just to remind everyone, the whole point was that the Red Arm is supposed to be annihilated within 500. So they've already gone beyond that. Yeah. And so Rosen says, for us, the

[Al Murray]

race to the Dnieper bridge was the important thing. We had to reach it with all speed and surprise before the Russians could demolish the bridges vital for our advance. They've got to crack on. But what they're also not doing here is destroying the Red army, are they?

[James Holland]

Not destroying anything much?

[Al Murray]

No,

[James Holland]

they're just on a. They're on a surge. So they reach Stari Bichau and found the inhabitants in panic because obviously the dust clouds of this advancing column have been seen across the flat plains of Belarusia, and they've seen them coming. And the one company commander in the 35th Panzer Regiment is Oberstleutnan von Cossel and he orders the lead five panzer threes to push straight on through the town and make for the bridge. You know, this is a kind of, you know, we've got to get it quick. Come on boys. But five Panzer threes is obviously a laughably small advance guard. But they do surprise the bridge and they do get across it and then they pause. There's these huge embankments on the far side and they pause and try and establish a bridgehead. But unbeknownst to them they'd crossed directly into the Stalin line, you know, the original border crossing where there were no less than 65 anti tank guns dug in along this stretch of the river and a number of them suddenly began firing at these isolated five Panzer Mk IIIs. And as a gunner Rosen is firing round after round but they're taking hits as were their other tanks. And it's also an incredibly hot day.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. And he says the air shimmered with heat making everything in the optic hazy. We received two more hits on the front but they bounced off the armor held. Intense stuff this.

[James Holland]

And Leutnant Koenig's tank, he sees it turning back to the bridge as does Feldwebel Scheider's. But Rosen's tank stays where it was and it's just this, you know, they're absolutely in the moment. Shells are coming in, the din is absolutely immense. The smoke in the tank and all the rest of it and you know, whether they're there for five minutes or 10 minutes, you know, Rosen, Rosen can't quite sort of, can't quite tell but suddenly the panzer's at the rear and you know, their commander says get out. So, so bullets are whistling around. He can hear them as he's jumping out of the tank and he falls through the flames and rolls down the embankment on the riverside of the road they're on, so that they're on a kind of elevated bit and they kind of have to roll down to the, down to the water's edge. And the commander Feldwebel Ghlerla is wounded and you can see him crawling towards him kind of, you know, his wound. And Gerla and Rosen and a number of others including the commander Oberstleutna von Cossel found themselves crouching together at the foot of the embankment. And then Unteroffizier Plurcher finds a small man sized tunnel at the foot of embankment and crawls in and all the others follow except Gerla who decides to make a dash for the bridge. Although on all Fours. And in the tunnel, it's completely pitch black, but it leads to a bunker on the old Stalin line which the Russians had seemingly forgotten about or just didn't know about because of course, this was built prior to 1939. They've only just got here and, you know, they obviously haven't got maps of the old bunker system or anyway, whatever. There's this tunnel which leads into a bunker and they're all in it and for the time being, safe, but, you know, they're expecting to be discovered at any moment. And they're also kind of hoping and praying that the comrades on the other side of the river are gonn counterattack and you know, are going to attack and overrun the situation and come to their rescue because after all, they're the advanced guard.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

But it doesn't happen.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

No.

[Al Murray]

And they're stuck there for two days and nights, aren't they? Eight of these German guys. And they can hear the Russians on the embankment above them. They can hear the guns firing, the machine guns, but they never rumbled. They aren't discovered. And they use a jackboot to urinate in and they defecate where they are, but there's no food, there's no water, and there's no German advance. And no rescue.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

No.

[James Holland]

So they're all thinking, we've had it looks. What are we going to do? Yeah.

[Al Murray]

And it starts raining on the night of the 5th of July, so they decide to use that as cover and try and swim the river. And of the eight of them, incredibly, five of them make it, including Rickard von Rosen. And they get most of the way in a wooden rowing boat. They stick close to the bridge and it shadows. Yes.

[James Holland]

It's sort of down in the. In the reeds and they see it and it's looking a bit forlorn, but. But they kind of, you know, there's. There's these great sort of columns going into the river from the, from the bridge. And so they kind of, sort of just very closely kind of row across and they managed to get over to the other side. And of course, on the other side they get back through the kind of. They're able to use the right passwords and all the rest of it, they're treated like heroes. And one of the person who's most thrilled to see them all is Oberst Eberbach.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. Remember him? Yes.

[James Holland]

Doesn't he take over Panzer Group Group west from, from von Schreppenberg in Normandy? Anyway, he's thrilled to see them. Rosen, however, is absolutely shaken to the core. To have lost his entire crew. And he's immediately said, oh, don't worry about it, and you know, sent off to be a gunner to another. But he's also promoted to unteroffizier and given the Iron Cross second class, which is absolutely bunked about. And he also gets the mail from home, including a birthday card from his parents and a present of a wristwatch which is his first. So it's reached him all that way. Isn't that amazing?

[Al Murray]

That is amazing.

[James Holland]

They're on the banks of the Dnieper, for goodness sake, nearly 600 kilometers from the border.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, but then he's straight back into it, isn't he?

[James Holland]

Well, no. Okay, so this is the point. He's not straight back into it. This is five day delay. And this is because resistance is stiffening and so you can't just bounce this. You gotta wait for the artillery to come up and more panzers to come up and infantry to come up and pioneers to come up. So it's five days and the Luftwaffe and you know, organize it. So this is, this is the more methodical attack which takes five days to organize, you know, so they do overwhelm the Red army troops on the other side. And you know, Rosen sees the Luftwaffe helping and watches, particularly watches an ME110 as Ysthtora hammered positions on the far side. Once they get across, they find the wrecks of the tanks plus the bodies of all their fallen comrades from six days earlier. So Lt. Koenig is recognizable only from his uniform and his body is already rotting. And Hofaber, who's one of the Rosen's crew, you know, you can see that he's had terrible injuries, but has also received an obvious coup de grass shot by a Russian. And in another panzer they find the headless body of Lindenberger. You know, it's pretty devastating stuff.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, he describes it. This was the worst thing of all. It's a whole campaign to see comrades with whom one had sat in the panzer or to whom one was a friend in such cool circumstances, mutilated and decomposing almost beyond recognition. So it's coming home to him kind of in the way. It's beginning to creep up on the. The Wehrmacht in general, isn't it? What's what they've actually taken on?

[James Holland]

Well, I would argue that he's very much the leitmotif for the entire experience.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And from then on the, the Russians are more organized. There's proper artillery in response, there's mines, there's lots and lots of troops. Because if this, if Stalin's got one thing and the Red army's got one thing at disposal, it's tons of people. And that's when you get the, the battle described in our, in the opening quote at the start of this episode. And this is the battle for propisk, which is a further 75k. So kind of 45 miles from bitchof and vehicles get hit. One panzer's fresh out of the work workshop, it's hit by a mine. They reach a fuel dump on the edge of town, but it's actually quite difficult to refuel. And another panzer is destroyed with a shell bursts in its barrel and there's anti tank ditches and mines is much, much more friction and wear and tear and it's really beginning to bite because this is what happens if you're hundreds of kilometers from. From home. And in. He says in the previous weeks of fightings the company had had several breakdowns due to engine failure and was down to its last five Panzer 3s, Russian oil and petrol and the long distance runs had taken their toll.

[James Holland]

I mean that's amazing, isn't it?

[Al Murray]

They've been using stolen fuel and of course it doesn't agree, the Soviet fuel doesn't agree with the German vehicles, does it?

[James Holland]

And lubricants, well, it's much lower octane, that's the thing.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Holland]

Rough stuff.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

And you know, and so to put this into some context, you know, a panzer company typically has three platoons of five and then two command tanks and usually a functioning tally of up to 22 tanks, you know, so you've got some spares and a bit of leeway. So to have five left in the entire company. That's it.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

And then on the 13th of July they get through Propisk and by the 14th of July they pass through Chernikov and then they're told they're getting several days rest. But then they hear that the Red army have captured the Rollbahn to their rear and surrounded the pioneers there. So they have to get going and head backwards to rescue the situation. So they travel through the night picking up newly laid mines as they do so.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Hmm.

[Al Murray]

As we came to realize in the fighting around the propisk bridges, the struggle was now becoming fiercer. So it's getting much stickier.

[James Holland]

Yes, it is.

[Al Murray]

I mean, we've got lots of German perspective here. Jim, what's the Soviet perspective?

[James Holland]

Well, the Soviet perspective is, is that it absolutely feels like it's totally one way traffic in the opening weeks of the campaign and the Germans are You know, doing exactly what they'd done so far. The war perhaps less so in Poland when there's, you know, quite finished article. But certainly what they've done in Scandinavia, in the Low Countries, in France and Balkans, you know, which is this notion of the rapid Kesselschlagt on a grand scale. It's known as Bewegenskrieg, which is, you know, this idea of overwhelming the enemy with far superior operational and tactical skill, harnessing combined arms, mobile forces and supported by highly focused and equally overwhelming air support. That's the plan. And the Russians, the Red army is absolutely, it's not regaining its balance but it's showing some kind of metal because what the Germans hadn't factored in was the vast amount of reserve forces that they've got. And in some places they have fallen back. So in the southwestern front, in Army Group south in Ukraine for example, Kripinos and Zhukov have quite successfully managed to pull back 125 miles. And so then they're going back to the old Stalin line, you know, the old pre1939 border defensive system. So suddenly you've got bunkers and you've got anti tank ditches and you've got charges ready on the bridges and they're waiting there and they now know what is happening. You know, there's no more surprises. They know that the, you know, the Germans are invading the Soviet Union and they're trying to do it. So it's sort of is cleaner now. That doesn't mitigate against the fact that they've lost most of their air forces. It doesn't get away from the fact that the command is not terribly good and it doesn't get away from the fact that vast armies are being encircled. But there is a case that the Germans are not, they're advancing through territory but they're not really taking ground. And I would argue that there is a difference. Now where you have these nodal points, you know, these are crossroads of railway marshalling yards and unlimited roads and all the rest of it and river crossings there tends to be cities such as Minsk or Brest Litovsk or Smolensk or whatever it might be, or Bitchov. So there is more ferocious fighting there, but it doesn't get away from the fact that the Soviet Union is absolutely vast and the Germans can't be absolutely everywhere. So Minsk falls on the 9th of July, which is the capital and largest city of Belarusia. And the following day, the 10th of July Army Group north captures Pskov, which is just 180 miles from Leningrad. And mopping up the Minsk pocket is also completed that day too, with von Bock's army group knitting a cool 287,704 prisoners of war and 2,585 tanks. And incredibly, by this time, German pioneers and Todd workers have regauged the entire stretch of the railway line from Brest Litovska Minsk at a rate of almost 20 kilometers a day, which extends the lines of supply by 347 kilometers, you know, which is just under 216 miles, you know, which I would say is going some, wouldn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Al Murray]

They've got their finger out there, but

[James Holland]

it's easier to do that the closer you are to your own rail head.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

[James Holland]

In the. Every, every further 20 miles or 20 kilometers is going to get harder and harder and harder. That's the, that's the problem.

[Al Murray]

And they're having to do it is the other thing that's pioneering and work you can't do on something else. That's the cost of it. These numbers are staggering. By the. By the 9th of July, though, the Red army has already lost 11,700 tanks. They're mainly the light, the BTS and the T26s, as well as 19,000 guns, artillery pieces and mortars. And by the end of the month, the total loss of aircraft would be 10,000 airframes, which means the Luftwaffe have complete control of the airspace. And some journalists do a tour of ex Soviet Galicia in Western Ukraine in the middle of July and they don't see a single Red army aircraft during that time.

[James Holland]

Not one. Yeah, I mean, isn't that amazing?

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, it's incredible.

[James Holland]

And in fact, actually, although all the airfield construction had been sent west in the first six months of the war, on 28 June, a reverse order is put in place. So all NKVD construction battalions are ordered to evacuate 57 airfields in Belarusia, 11 in Latvia, eight in Estonia and five on the Romanian border and get the hell out of there. And they do. So you've now got lots and lots of troops falling back and that means they're not in captivity, it means they're not prisoners of the Germans and that they can kind of, you know, live to fight another day, effectively. Yeah, yeah. And then on the 15th of July, of course, comes the fall of Smolensk, which is Belarusia's second city, only 200 miles from Moscow. So, you know, it's just, it seems that the Germans are going to win after all. You know, from the middle of July. And of course, you know, the, the news of this is spreading all around the world. I mean, you know, everyone's, everyone's following this. Yeah, Soviet organization is such that they have complete control of the media, but outside of that, in the Western world they're following these events because the Germans are crowing about it and making book and child films and all the rest of it. And Britain and America and the Western allies are all kind of sort of looking aghast at what is going on. And what you're looking at, of course, is the map and you're just seeing these huge arrows thrusting into the Soviet Union and you're thinking they're absolutely stuffed, you know, and everyone had known that the Soviet Union had front loaded the crust of the border. So surely that's it.

[Al Murray]

But is it the Soviet response after the break? We'll see in a tick.

[James Holland]

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[Al Murray]

You'll also get a great starting bonus to get you up to speed, whether you're playing solo, at your own pace or with friends. Give it a go. World of Warships by Wargaming. Welcome back to Way of Ways of Making. You talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland, of course. And here we are, Jim, the enormous arrows zooming across the interior of the Soviet Union through its Buffer states within 200 miles of Moscow itself. But what are the problems that come with these enormous advances? I mean, I think they, it's interesting, I think they're actually kind of obvious, aren't they? The further you get from home. It's the old clause Vitzian elastic, isn't it, that the further you are from your base of operations, the harder it is to conduct operations. And if you push the enemy back onto his base it's easier for him, all of that. But these blokes would have all studied Klaus Fitz, wouldn't they?

[James Holland]

They absolutely would. But I think it's also the arrow thrusts show on the map where they have reached, but it doesn't really mean that they've conquered it.

[Al Murray]

No.

[James Holland]

What's behind? You know, think of it like 30 Corps going through Holland. It's like a little finger.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

And the finger sort of extends either side of the immediate road. But in the hinterland they haven't got control because this is Pripit Marsh and that was boggy or whatever because it's just so huge and because there is a fact that to take territory you have to hold territory and to hold territory you need manpower. And this is all about the drivers, is all about the surge. So you can't afford to leave the manpower there because otherwise you're taking away from the surge.

[Al Murray]

And yeah, you need it to go forward.

[James Holland]

Yeah, you need to go forward. So you know, that's what you're waiting for. The, for the infantry to catch up. But, but the logistical effort has all been with the, with the surge. So you know, the, the infantry that are following up behind are not quite equipped to do what they need to do. So suddenly you, you haven't quite conquered the territory in the way that it looks like you have. And the operational skill, high confidence, tactical flair and, and a lan that seen them sigh through these western regions and through the crust of the Soviet Union is now starting to cause really major problems. Problems which were starting to reveal themselves in Richard von Rosen's account. And just to be absolutely clear here, I mean no one would deny that Army Group Center's encirclement of Pavlov's. General Pavlov's Western front was a catastrophe for the Soviet Union, but it isn't exactly one sided. And most of this victory that has been achieved has been won on the ground by two Panzer groups which after all is only 17 Panzer divisions in total for Barbarossa that's just not enough because they are taking the absolute lion's share of the lift of this offensive thrust.

[Al Murray]

And by the 15th of July they've been in constant action for 23 days. They've traveled more than 450 miles. So obviously everyone's, everyone's exhausted, their kit's exhausted and to fight like this you have to take losses. And we've seen with Rickard von Rosen, you know, they're down to five, five panzers in their Company. So it's costly doing this, as well. As dramatic as it appears, it's incredibly costly. And the. The tip of the spear, sharp as it might have been, is getting blunter. You know, Panzer Guderian is 500 miles from where it set off.

[James Holland]

I know.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Can you imagine?

[James Holland]

I mean, that's. That's huge distance in such a short period of time.

[Al Murray]

It is extraordinary, the distances. I mean, that's, you know, that's. I mean, London to Edinburgh is 400 miles, isn't it?

[James Holland]

A modern army wouldn't be able to move that quickly.

[Al Murray]

And of course, the problem is they've reached the distance by which the Red army is due to have been annihilated and destroyed. And all that chat when they were talking about, well, once we've done that, then we can decide what to do next. But there's still plenty more Russian troops coming. They have reached basically, what is known as the culmination point, which we touched on in an earlier episode. Basically, it's the point at which you stop because you gotta. Because you can't do anything else.

[James Holland]

You can no longer operate in the way that you want to operate because your supplies are so stretched and you've

[Al Murray]

taken too many knocks. Everyone's exhausted, you've got as far as you can go on. On what you set off with. And Kadarian is particularly guilty of this, isn't it? And I think this is really interesting because.

[James Holland]

Yeah, yeah, he's. He's dreadful.

[Al Murray]

Well, because he's the poster boy for armored warfare, isn't he? He's the, you know, he's. He's supposedly the genius that figured it all out.

[James Holland]

Well, he was a genius then, but. But he's got too big for his boots.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

He now thinks that, you know, shouldn't listen to all these sort of boring farts. You don't understand stuff. Even before the end of June, Phil Marshall Von Bock, who is the commander in chief of Army Group center, has had to put on the brakes to allow the masses to catch up. But Guderian just ignores this. And at one point, he even flies over to see Hoate to discuss the matter and plot to disregard such orders because he knows that for success they need an encirclement. But this could only happen if hote's Panzer group keeps pacing the north, so agrees with this. And then there's a point later where they said, we need to come back because there's this danger that the troops in the rear, you know, left behind Red army soldiers are going to cause problems. In behind you. So. So Guderian takes off in a plane and does a reconnaissance route himself. And he goes around, he goes, well, I can see anyone. Stop worrying about it, just keep going. There is this sense that Guderian is kind of sort of rolling his eyes and, you know, as I said earlier, you know, sort of cursing the kind of stuck in the mud military elites who don't understand moder mobile warfare. But he views this as 1940 and Hitler's halt order before Dunkirk all over again, which is where they have this huge opportunity to completely encircle the British and the French and don't, because Hitler insists on halting them to allow the infantry to catch up. And Guderian has cursed this ever since, felt that this is a terrible error of judgment and a massive mistake and he's determined not to do it again. On one level, he's right, they do need to keep the momentum. The problem is, and this is the problem that comes to time and time again, they don't have enough to do what they need to do, but they're in it now. So what do you, so what do you do? You know, do you just keep going? You keep plowing on and insisting that you can cut yet more sways? Well, you can, but. But eventually it's going to run out. I mean, it's, it's basically a sort of minor version of the sort of bonkers plan to send the Panzers to Antwerp in the Battle of the Bulge. You know, okay, you get to Antwerp, but you've only got one half track left by that point. And it's kind of. This is what would happen if you go to Moscow at this point. There's not gonna be anything left. So there's no point.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

You know, because, because you just can't sustain it. And this is what Guderin is not accepting.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

And you know, he's also wrong in his assessment of his superiors. You know, von Bock has been the, the officer commanding of Army Group B in France. Army Group B is the one that, through the lay countries and von Bock had absolutely railed against the halt order and said, this is insane. We need to kind of keep going. But Von Bock totally gets mobile warfare and the need for speed. But he also understands that frontline troops win battles, but logistics win wars. Do you remember General Ritter von Thommer?

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

He captured at Alameh.

[Al Murray]

Yes.

[James Holland]

You know, in July 1941. He's the officer commanding 17 Panzer Division. And he knows in modern warfare the tactics are not the main thing. The Decisive factor is the organization of one's resources to maintain the momentum.

[Al Murray]

Well, yes, it's the more long winded way of saying amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, which is the thing they say nowadays.

[James Holland]

Right, right. But Guderian is forgetting this in his kind of we've got to keep going, we've got to keep going. It's all about the thrust, it's all about the surge. At some point, the wheels are going to come off. At some point you're going to need that replacement gasket. At some point your panzers are going to grind down, even if they're not hit by the Russians. And then, then you're not going to have enough of a force to be able to do what you need to do.

[Al Murray]

It's interesting though, because they are sensitive to this, aren't they? But because German officers are also headstrong, there's this culture that you take matters into your own hands. Initiative has been encouraged. So von Kluge, who's the fourth Army Commander in Army Group center, he's getting worried about the Panzer spearhead stretching head as well, isn't he? He sees it in clear terms. It's all very well getting right into the Soviet Union, but what if these are separated and the spearheads are isolated? These things will seem pretty obvious, don't they, really, on reflection. And Kadarian's not prepared to compromise. He's not a team player. It's all or bust, isn't it? And supply lines are just getting longer and longer and longer, which means it's harder to maintain this endless rolling momentum. Because getting the stuff forward is more difficult.

[James Holland]

Well, because it takes longer to get it there.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah. So everything's slowing down and then there's

[James Holland]

a greater territory that you've then got to defend to maintain that effort.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Holland]

You know, and this is the point. These encirclements don't mean that every yard that they've passed through is now secure. And it just isn't, you know, it's not by a long shot.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Holland]

And there's this incredible army group sent a memo which is issued on the 3rd of July. Minsk was on the, on the 9th, you know, Smolensk was on the 15th of July. This is on the 3rd of July. So this is just 11 days after the launch of Barbarossa.

[Al Murray]

The problem appearing from now on in its full magnitude, which must be the constant worry of all responsible departments of the Army Group Commands, is the daily widening of the distance between the Panzer groups and the armies. While until now this instance had relatively little effect. The early renewal of the advance by the panzer groups with an objective over 500km away. Wilhelsy results. At 1-200km long stretches behind, the panzer groups are more or less empty of German troops. Almost entirely on the road means that everywhere there are still strong elemy elements roaming and a constant danger exists to the supply and communications of the panzer groups.

[James Holland]

So there you have it.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The front's too far away and the rear is not secure.

[James Holland]

So the front isn't a front if it's not secure. That's the point. It's false, it's phony, it's a charade.

[Al Murray]

And nor is your rear if it's not secure. So the front's not secure, their rear is not secure.

[James Holland]

Correct.

[Al Murray]

So your rear's not a rear and your front's not front and.

[James Holland]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. They've made a real problem for themselves. But people aren't willing to hear this. So Guderian is ordered to meet General Joachim Lemelson is another name, another one of these names. He's ordered to hold the. The gap, isn't he?

[James Holland]

And so Lemelson, Lemelson who later commands temporarily 10th army in Italy and then later 14th Army. He is the commander of the 47th motor called. Which is a part of Panzer of Panzer group Guderian.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

And he's told to kind of hold the gap.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

But despite this, Guderian still surreptitiously brings most of Lemelson's 17th Panzer Division to his spearhead forces. Just ah, don't worry about that. Yeah. Just ignore it.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah. And, and then you have General Heinriche who commands the 43rd Corps of Infantry. And the infantry are really having trouble keeping up with the pace because. Because basically they're tabbing, aren't they? They're pretty much on foot or in trucks and it's much harder. And on the 11th of July, 19 days into the campaign, he writes to his wife. Yesterday, Yesterday one regiment marched 54 another 47km to do as advance is possible to do that having already had numerous marches of 30-40km with more to come. That is something else. It makes it tremendous to do it. No one gets to sleep at night. Rather it starts at 2 or 3am and lasts until evening, leaving sometimes 10pm so they're really some PBI here, really foot slogging. It's high summer, so it's either blazing hot or it's raining. They're either caked in dust or they're caked in mud.

[James Holland]

Yeah, it's horrendous. And just, just to really stretch here, the infantry that he's talking about, they're on foot.

[Al Murray]

Bloody hard work. Carrying. Yeah, carrying as much of their kit as they have to. And Soviet roads are terrible. Richard von Rosen noticed that the roll barn was basically a mud road when he first entered the Soviet Union. It's through these, this is the case throughout. And the roads can't cope with the wooden wagons that the infantry are bringing with them. They're too heavy. The horses interestingly are too used to better food in Germany.

[James Holland]

Too well looked after.

[Al Murray]

Too well looked after.

[James Holland]

They've grown soft.

[Al Murray]

Exactly. And there's an officer in the 6th Infantry Division who says our German horses needed longer rest period, heavy meals and food for them was rarely obtainable in quantity. They had been ideal for France but for a hindrance for this campaign, I

[James Holland]

mean that's pretty damning when you got 625,000 horses, isn't it?

[Al Murray]

Well supposedly the great advantage to horses, you don't need petrol, you don't need petrol, you don't need lubricants. It cuts a corner, doesn't it? They'll just eat what's on the roadside but it's not doing the trick.

[James Holland]

So the 9th army of Army Group Centre which is supporting Panzer Group Hope was discovering the supply line priorities of going to the Panzer groups And even on the 7th of July, so at this point, you know, that's 15 days in, it's complaining that it was receiving only one third of its allotted daily supplies. Instead they had to rely almost entirely on the largely horse drawn gross transportraum, you know, which is the supply organization basically. And you know this is like the Royal Army Service Corps but in the, in the Vermont.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

You know, with his, with his oversensitive and needy horses. I love the idea of these horses are kind of, you know, too refined and it's a bit like they're sort of, you know, their machinery is too refined for the job and over engineered. But obviously you know, it's entirely insufficient for substandard roads on a, on a supply line which is now in excess of 400km because every time you advance 10km that's 20km because you've got to get 20km, then you've got to go back again. So 40km is 80km, 100km, 200km and so on because you've got to go back and forth. And by the second week of July the demand across the attacking forces is massively outstripping the supply, which means that people are having to make do and mend and they're having to do with less. Just at the point where the opposition is starting to get heavier. And it is true that amazing things have been done to widen the railway gauge and the railway track to Minsk, but they're now beyond Minsk and that already great distance and one single track railway isn't enough anyway. So great that you've got your one single track, but. But even once you get to the railhead of Minsk, you've then got to distribute it. And Panzer Group Guderin is 275km beyond Minsk to the southeast. So how do you go from Minsk to Panzegrut, Guderian? Well, you have to go cross country, but there aren't any roads or the roads there are are dirt tracks and the territory hasn't been secured. So a proportion of that supply lines is gonna be ambushed by Red army troops who don't know where they are or Belarusian nationals or, I don't know, NKVD working construction battalions with guns or whatever. So as you say, the problems just escalate and escalate and escalate. And of course part of the plan that we were looking at where General Paulus had been saying, no, no, no, no, do it again. And. And General Georg Thomas, from the economic point of view being going no, no, no, no, no, that's far too negative. Look at it again. So they had assumed that they were going to capture large amounts of Soviet stock. But not only had the Soviets been more efficient than expected in sending rolling stock east, there was also now the Stavka's scorched earth policy to contend with. Yes, which includes smashing railway lines and railway installations.

[Al Murray]

The only option to deal with that is to rebuild the them. And that means sending stuff from Germany where the Reichsbahn is under maximum stretch anyway. And the gross Transporten raum, their losses are mounting. They're down by 25% by the second week of July. And that, you know, just as we talked at the Soviets were caught in their cock up loop. In the last episode, the Germans are caught in their failed logistics loop. They never took it seriously. And now their previous daft decisions are compacting and impacting further and compounding them their difficulties. And the quartermaster General is another old friend of the show, General Edvard Wagner, who told Halder as early as the first of July that there was a big problem with pacification of the rear areas, that this rear isn't a rear, it isn't a safe base at all.

[James Holland]

He says the particularities of our military approach have resulted in an extensive insecurity in the rear area by insurgent enemy elements. The security divisions alone are not enough for the great spaces. We must employ several divisions from the front line troops. So at this point, the campaign is only eight days old, you know, a week.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Holland]

So this is the trouble, okay. If you want to bring it down to kind of, you know, one line, you know, what. What is the problem? Ain't got enough. Yeah, I haven't got enough.

[Al Murray]

Not enough of anything.

[James Holland]

Just think about this, okay? So. So the whole German USP is Bewegenskrieg and the Kesselschlagt. This idea of you hit them hard at the Schwerpunk to the point of impact. You do this encirclement, you annihilate your enemy and you do it really, really quickly. And the whole pre Barbarossa assumption is that they're going to smash them at the crust. Yeah, they're gonna annihilate the red army within 500km. So off they go. But they've got 500km and they haven't destroyed the Red Army. They've captured armies, they've done encirclements, but they haven't secured the territory behind them, they haven't secured the territory in the rear areas, and they haven't destroyed the Red army. And now they're 500km in with their extended lines of supply. If 500km was enough to destroy the Red army, then this policy would have been fine. But the moment that they don't and they don't achieve that objective, this is a disaster in the making because all those problems that you're talking about are going to compound themselves. They're only. Only going to get worse. And to illustrate the point, you've got tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of POWs to deal with and what they're calling partisans.

[Al Murray]

Yes. Which. Which can basically mean anybody because there are just so many people adrift. Red army troops have been isolated or overrun, and they've been sending POWs back pretty loosely because the spearhead hasn't. Has to keep going. Can't. Can't afford to carry Russians around with it and feed and water Soviet soldiers. So a lot of them, obviously, they take the opportunity to escape these loosely guarded POWs. And there are, in the mix, there are Nationalist freedom fighters and rebels against the Soviet Union, but it's in the mix. But mainly actually, it's soldiers, Red army soldiers, who are cut adrift and the supply lines are insufficiently protected, which is why there's the talk of robbing the front line to cover the rear. You know, you've got to rob Pete's to pay poor and von Bock notes on 28 June. So again, six days into it, thousands of Russian soldiers are sitting in the forests far behind the front, some in civilian clothes. Catching them is impossible. Given the tremendous size of the area and the scale of the task, I'd argue as well, you know, how many

[James Holland]

there are, that word catching them is impossible. It's impossible, yeah. It is not remotely possible to do what they need to do, so they can't do it. When he says it's impossible, that means it simply isn't possible at all. And it really, really isn't. So they've got a massive problem on their hand. I mean, and then look at this report from the 3rd Panzer Division. The 3rd Panzer Division is the one that was rivaling 4th Panzer Division with Richard von Rosen for the vanguard of Panzer group Guderia. And it said unarmored troops and rear echelons suffered considerable losses inflicted by hostile enemy troops. Cut off from their main bodies, they hid behind the marchroots, opened fire by surprise, and could only be defeated in intense hand to hand combat. German troops had not previously experienced this type of war. And this is written at the end of June. You know, it's not July yet.

[Al Murray]

Well, this means that there's blokes in trees with rifles and you know, this nowhere safe. And you have a German soldier who writes home at the beginning of July, says any snipers who fall into our hands, of course, shot. Their bodies lie everywhere. Sadly, though, many of our own comrades have been lost to their dirty methods. We're losing more men to the bandits than in the fighting itself. Hardly any sleep to be had. They're all awake and alert almost every night. You have to be, you have to be in case they attack suddenly. If a sentry drops his guard just once, then it could be over for us all. Traveling alone is out of the question.

[James Holland]

Imagine that. Spreading osmosis like through everyone. But, but, but the panzer spearheads. Yeah, and imagine how this wears on the nerves and how you're not getting enough sleep. You know, you're not getting enough surprise anyway, how isolated you'd feel in this vast forests of Belarusia or Ukraine, open plains of Ukraine or, or whatever, you know, it's just, it's, it's. They plow great distances, but they haven't really conquered. Yeah. And that's the truth of it. And, and for those back in London in Washington, in Berlin, at the Wolf's Lair in Rastenberg hq, Area number two, where Hitler is and everything. They're looking at the maps, they're seeing the arrows and they're thinking, great, we've got this, we've nailed this. Look at our advance. But, but, but it's a trick, it's an illusion, because they haven't really got all this territory. No, they will do in the fullness of time, but they haven't yet. And it's all about speed, because if you don't do this quickly, you've got the Russian winter coming, you've got them rebalancing, you've got lendies coming from the Americans and from Britain, and you've got an enemy which is going to be revitalized and reinvigored and stronger. So this was always a single roll of the dice. This has to win within 500km or else you're in really, really sticky problem. And as we mentioned, Smolensk, this major city in Belarusia, gets captured on the 15th of July. And there's shock in Moscow, the shock around the Allied world, you know. And at this point, very few people looking at this from the outside are prepared to bet against a German victory back, you know, because they seem unstoppable. It's another victory for the two Panzer groups of Army Group Center. But these armored forces are grossly abused and really struggling. They're winning, but a terrible cost. And the figures that are emerging by the fall of Smolensk on the 15th of July is just staggering.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, well, yes. So on the 16th of July, General Emilsson, he says that his 18th Panzer Division is no longer combat ready. They have spent, he says in his report, 25 Days of Battle Division has suffered catastrophic losses of officers, men and materiel. So it's done. There's nothing left. And they're not alone. So from starting the campaign with 169 Panzers, Jack isn't very many. 4th Panzer Division Von Rosen who have been following Richard von Rosen unto von Rosen, they can only field 40 by 17 July. 10th Panzer Division reports on 16 July they've only 30% of their original strength. 7th Panzer Division, which is Rommel's old crew, they start off with three because these are the. All these divisions are differently equipped, aren't they? There's no uniformity. They begin with 300, but by the 21st of July they've got 121 in repair and 77 have been destroyed. And in 1st Cavalry Division alone, 2,292 horses have been lost between the 22nd of June and the 12th of July. So if you're looking at the arrows on the maps, everything's fantastic. But if you're looking at the spreadsheets and looking at the numbers, it isn't. And given, as we've said in previous episodes, the size of the opponent, the sheer size of the Red army, this is not a good state to be in, no matter how well you appear to be doing on the map. And they've lost. I mean, absolutely amazing. In the first three weeks, personnel losses amount to 102,588 men. These are from. From the spearhead as well, from the bit doing the work.

[James Holland]

Well, the 17 Panzer divisions, I mean, they're not all by any stretch of the imagination, but let's say, you know, 60 are from the Panzer divisions. I mean, that's a. That's a huge bite.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, it certainly is.

[James Holland]

You know, 100, 102, that's. That's. You know what that's like. Seven divisions. Yeah, yeah, Gone.

[Al Murray]

And these are the. These are the people who you've invested your effort in and expertise and training, and they're gone. They're out the picture.

[James Holland]

They're the elites. Yeah, yeah.

[Al Murray]

I think, probably, if you're listening, the penny's dropping here by the 15th of July in the fall of Smolensk. So 23 days into the campaign, three weeks roughly, German forces, they are in real trouble. They're really up a gum tree despite the appearance of these extraordinary victories. And what they need to do, obviously, is confront the fact they've got a strategic situation that's beginning to unravel and that sorting that out is starting to come to a head. And that basically, the divergent strategic view between Hitler, who wanted the Baltic and St Petersburg and Leningrad or whatever, and the okh, who wanted Moscow, principally. These differences that were there before Barbarossa are about to come to a head because they haven't got what they need to do any of those things, either of those tasks.

[James Holland]

This is the truth. This is the truth. This is the simple truth that in 1941, the Wehrmacht simply doesn't have enough of anything for the tasks they've set themselves. Not of anything for a country quite so vast, quite so challenging and quite so inhospitable. But in the next episode, we're going to leave these strategic dilemmas to one side for a little bit and we're going to follow in the footsteps of just one German soldier, an NCO in Army Group South.

[Al Murray]

Great.

[James Holland]

Who's going into Ukraine and we're going to follow his fortunes through this period. And then in the final episode, in this part of four part series, we will be turning back to the strategic dilemmas facing Hitler and the army command and what they decide to do about it and how they. How they tried to resolve it. Amazing stuff, isn't it?

[Al Murray]

Yeah, it's incredible. If you want to hear those right away, go to our Patreon and become a Patreon member. We have ways of making you talk Patreon, become a member for a price of less than a pint of London Guinness. There's ticket offers, there's live casts. There's a buoyant membership of fellow afflicted Second World War enthusiasts waiting for you. Audiobooks, too. We will see you very soon. Thanks for listening. Cheerio.

[James Holland]

Cheerio.