Operation Barbarossa: Winning To Death (Part 8)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Operation Barbarossa: Winning To Death (Part 8)

Podcast: WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Hosts: Al Murray & James Holland
Date: August 3, 2026

Episode Theme

This episode continues the deep dive into Operation Barbarossa, focusing on the German offensive’s frustrations during July 1941 as Army Group Centre attempts to force a rapid victory against the Soviet Union. Al Murray and James Holland, combining sharp analysis and dry wit, dissect the growing operational chaos, failures of planning, hubris, severe logistical problems, and the irrepressible Soviet resistance. The central motif: what happens when early wins lead to overconfidence—“winning oneself to death”—as strategic objectives blur, supply lines overextend, and misjudgments mount.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The Smolensk Pocket and Overreach

• Discussion starts [03:15–07:38]:

  • After rapid advances, Guderian’s Panzer Group seizes Smolensk (15 July), expecting a repeat of their triumph in France.
  • The advance creates large “pockets” (notably around Smolensk) where Soviet armies (20th, 16th, 19th) remain trapped yet fiercely resist.
  • German spearheads push ahead, leaving exposed “tentacles”—overextended, fragmented lines, with rear areas far from safe:

    “The problem is, they’ve advanced too brilliantly... their military history, essentially. They’re high on their own supply, aren’t they?” —Al Murray [08:28]

• Supply troubles:

  • Germans failed to secure enough Soviet locomotives and rolling stock.
  • Soviet railway gauge is wider, requiring conversions and new water/coal stops; all this consumes precious resources and time.
  • Increasing supply chain problems as distances grow:

    “Just thinking about this is making my head hurt.” —James Holland [06:13]

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2. Hubris & Mistaken Assumptions

• Comparing to the Battle of France [09:13–09:47]:
  • The generals chase a blitzkrieg repeat, not realizing Soviet distances and manpower make this unworkable.
  • German formations are spread thin—“they look like free-roaming amoebas.” —Al Murray [09:47]
  • The rear areas are under constant partisan threat.
  • The Prussian skepticism about overextended panzers is drowned by dazzling initial victories—the army “believes its own success.” Their belief in technological and racial superiority blinds them to reality.

    “They’ve just started to completely believe their hype.” —James Holland [15:13]

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3. The “Perfect Storm” of Bad Doctrine and Arrogance

• Military culture and strategic failings [15:13–20:21]:

  • Old-school leadership (Rundstedt, Bock, etc.) had doubts about rapid tank thrusts, now dismissed after early wins.
  • The Nazi leadership ignores the Clausewitzian principle of stretching lines decreasing effectiveness.
  • Fails to consider political context:

    “They’re not dealing with a government like the French or British... There’s no way the Soviet government is going to go, ‘you know what, let’s do a deal.’” —Al Murray [17:57]

  • Annihilation, not negotiation, is required against Stalin—a fact seemingly ignored.

• Alternative German approach discussed:

  • Perhaps they could have advanced in phases—secure, consolidate, win over locals, rest, then try for a renewed push; instead, overreach rules.

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4. Breakdown on the Front

• Operational chaos [20:21–36:43]:

  • Hoth’s Panzer Group 3 is dangerously overstretched northeast towards Veliki Luki—an exposed strategic distraction.

  • Individual corps become too weak due to dispersion and attrition; targets become unfeasible.

  • Assault on Yelnya: A microcosm of the disaster, with Panzer formations isolated and vulnerable.

  • Famous participant quotes:

    “We are now positioned outside the city of Smolensk and have penetrated the highly acclaimed Stalin lines. I would imagine within eight to ten days this campaign will be over. Giddiness. Success is still kind of ruling the route.” —Carl Fuchs, 7th Panzer, 15 July 1941 [21:24]

  • The reality: Soviet resistance only stiffens, with elite Panzer units unable to maintain supply or momentum.

    “They move off at seven in the evening... every time a Panzer approaches, artillery opens up. It’s the idea that they’re not fighting the French here.” —Al Murray [25:42]

  • Command confusion: Diverted objectives, supply breakdowns, and disagreements among senior German commanders.

  • Soviets are reinforcing far faster than Germans can adapt.

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5. Command Dysfunction & Hitler’s Meddling

• Crippling leadership breakdown [38:46–44:15]:

  • The German high command, lacking clear strategic purpose—debates, contradicts, and bickers as Hitler begins “meddling.”

    “What you need... is an intervention from a self-styled military genius.” —Al Murray [40:57]

  • Hitlers’ directives (33 and 33A) [41:03–44:15]:

    • Orders Panzer Group Hoth to divert north (Leningrad), Guderian’s group south (Kyiv), only two infantry divisions left for Moscow.
    • 33A is even more specific—directly contradicting the strategic necessity. Halder is appalled, but Hitler is intractable.

      “The delusional appreciation of the situation is quite remarkable.” —James Holland [44:15]

  • Panzer spearheads (the “crème de la crème”) battered: severe tank, truck and manpower losses, supply disasters.

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6. Soviet Resilience, Rapid Reinforcement and Counterattack

• Soviet side [38:46–43:13]:
  • Soviets (Stavka under Stalin) respond not with collapse but by creating new armies for concentric counterblows—mass over quality starts to matter:

    “Not one army, not two armies… Four. Four bloody armies. It’s amazing.” —Al Murray [39:27]

  • Red Army resistance only grows, with local counterattacks forcing Germans to “firefight” instead of maneuver.
  • Introduction of newer Soviet equipment (KV tanks, T-34s) and the terrifying Katyusha rockets:

    “It was the most terrible and shocking thing I have ever encountered.” —German soldier on Katyusha barrage [54:16]

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7. Supply Collapse & Strategic Stalemate

• Warnings signs & direct costs [47:06–49:41]:
  • Dire shortages: Lack of oil and ammunition noted in divisional diaries; repair rates for tanks critical.

    “Barbarossa is only a month old, and already the leading panzer divisions are struggling to function. Not win—function.” —James Holland [47:45]

  • Attrition and debilitation:
    • Panzer unit strengths dropping below Western army norms for combat effectiveness.
    • Even with reinforcements, many units are below 20-40% effectiveness.

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8. Dissension and Blame Game Among Commanders

• Collapse of trust and unity [49:41–51:46]:
  • Hoth, Guderian, Kluge, Bock all blame each other.

    “It’s just an absolute mess.” —James Holland [49:41]

  • Commanders locked into local “firefights” rather than strategic movement, making withdrawal or redirection impossible.

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9. The Yelnya Carnage & Weapon Shock

• Brutal realities [51:46–54:21]:
  • Descriptions of hellish combat at Yelnya: dwindling supplies, intense artillery, and psychological trauma.

    “Now it was clear to every one of us that this Russia would be a very hard nut to crack... here in the Yelnya bend we lost the fragile innocence of youth.” —Helmut Gunter, SS Das Reich [53:02]

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10. Strategic Paralysis and Looming Failure

• By late July 1941 [54:48–59:12]:

  • Continuing Soviet attacks, massive German supply and morale problems.
  • Hitler’s orders result in splitting forces across hopelessly broad fronts.
  • Halder, in despair, writes home:

    “He is playing Volod again and proposing such absurd ideas that he is putting in question everything our splendid operations have won so far... The Russian won’t simply go away like the French. Then he has been operationally beaten. He has to be killed van at a time. In a country that is half forest and marsh. This takes time and Hitler’s nerves won’t stand it.” —Halder’s letter [57:41]

• The Smolensk pocket finally closes but at tremendous costs and with massive operational confusion unresolved.

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11. Episode Conclusion: Why Failure Was Baked In

• Final Assessment [60:14–62:28]:
  • No clear central objective, muddled planning, and total misreading of the enemy result in self-defeat.

    “There’s nothing like embarking on a thing like this without actually knowing what your central objective is to cause you loads of problems.” —Al Murray [61:28]

  • Allies, by contrast, were able to pivot and adapt; the Germans had no mechanism for a political or strategic rethink.
  • Summary from James Holland:
    “The immense gargantuan demands and the scale of the conflict—all of which were entirely predictable—are coming home to roost. And the point of the spear has been severely blunted and the senior commanders are all fighting one another rather than The Red army and the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front has become a busted flush.” [59:12]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On overextension:

  “They believe their own success, don’t they?” —Al Murray [08:43]

• On the failure to account for Soviet political reality:

  “There’s no political outcome on offer here like there might be in France... There’s something else at work in the Soviet Union that’s never, ever going to happen.” —Al Murray [17:57]

• On delusion at the top:

  “The delusional appreciation of the situation is quite remarkable.” —James Holland [44:15]

• On German command dysfunction:

  “What you need now, Jim, is an intervention from self-styled military genius. That’s what we need.” —Al Murray [40:57]

• On German spearhead exhaustion:

  “Barbarossa is only a month old and already the leading panzer divisions are struggling to function.” —James Holland [47:45]

• On the psychological shock of Soviet resistance:

  “We lost the fragile innocence of youth... this Russia would be a very hard nut to crack.” —Helmut Gunter [53:02]

• On missed strategic clarity:

  “There’s nothing like embarking on a thing like this without actually knowing what your central objective is to cause you loads of problems.” —Al Murray [61:28]

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Important Timestamps for Segments

• [03:15] — Opening analysis of the Smolensk pocket, setting the scene
• [09:47] — Visualizing the front: “free roaming amoebas”
• [14:13] — On the strategic principle of the diminishing force of the attack (Clausewitz)
• [21:24] — Carl Fuchs' diary: Confidence after Smolensk, “campaign will be over in 10 days”
• [25:42] — Panzer unit experiences intense Soviet fire at bridge crossings
• [30:39] — Hitler’s and high command’s growing confusion and squabbling
• [39:27] — Soviet reinforcement: “Four bloody armies. It’s amazing.”
• [44:15] — Hitler’s Directive 33/33A: Strategic delusion
• [47:45] — Statistical rundown on tank and manpower depletion
• [53:02] — German troops at Yelnya: “We lost the fragile innocence of youth”
• [57:41] — Halder’s letter home: Foreboding and despair
• [59:12] — The big conclusion: Army Group Centre as a “busted flush”
• [61:28] — Closing summary on strategic failure

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

The tone combines erudition and cutting humor, with contagious exasperation at the arrogant errors and chaos of German command, underscored by a recurring theme: the fatal consequences of believing one’s own hype and failing both to prepare logistically and understand the enemy—politically and militarily. Each anecdote and quote demonstrates how early success turned into a quagmire through overconfidence and lack of strategic clarity.

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For Further Episodes

The hosts promise to resume the narrative to cover the shift into Operation Typhoon and the fight for Moscow. The saga of Barbarossa’s mounting disaster continues—one “winning” blunder at a time.

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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[James Holland]

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[Al Murray]

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[James Holland]

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[Al Murray]

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[James Holland]

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[Al Murray]

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[James Holland]

If you're a driver in the UK,

[Al Murray]

visit refundclub.co.uk whw that's refundclub.co.uk whW for your free check. Hitler went to war believing that the struggle against Bolshevism might lead the Anglo Saxon countries to end a conflict. Von Ribbentrop did not agree. In fact, he was convinced that Churchill is ready to make an alliance even with the devil himself if he can only destroy Nazism. This time he was right. Now the struggle is hard and bloody, and the German people, who are tired, wonder why. Frau Molier used harsh terms. She said Hitler is a blockhead. In fact, the war is harder than the Germans had foreseen. The advance continues, but it is slow and harassed by the very vigorous Soviet counterattacks. Colonel Ame and General Squero, who made a report on the military situation today, believe that the Russians will succeed in maintaining a front even during the winter. If this is True, Germany has started a hemorrhage that will have incalculable consequences.

[James Holland]

And that, Jim, of course, Count Galeazzo Ciano. It's an incredibly prescient entry in Chano's diary, which I don't know if anyone's ever read it, but they're, they're just brilliant because, you know, he's a reluctant warmonger and he was against Italy going to war in the first place. And he is also, of course, Mussolini's son in law and he is also, of course, executed by the Italians at German insistence.

[Al Murray]

That quote is from the 18th of July 1941, not even a month into this, into the Barbarossa adventure. So welcome to episode eight of our Barbarossa series. Winning Oneself to Death is the title of this set the scene, James, with the Smolensk pocket.

[James Holland]

Well, yes. So Smolensk, the city in Belarus, or Belarusia as it then was, has fallen on the 15th of July, which is a great victory. And it's fallen to Guderian's Panzer Group. Guderian, Panzer Group 2, or more informally Panzer Group Guderian. Remember the. In Army Group center. And we're going to be focusing largely on Army Group center because it is the progress of Army Group center, which is the largest of the German army groups by far. It has two of the Panzer groups which are the spearheads of these, these three groups. You've got Army Group South, Army Group North, Army Group Centre. It's got two of the four that are available leading the charge. And you know, in the original plan, this was the Army Group that was going to basically see the destruction of the absolute hard core of the Red Army. What they've been doing is they were discussing in the, in the, in the episode before last, before we did the Wilhelm Proulla, is that it's all well and good that they're making this huge progress and they are capturing cities and they're going down these roads. But these are little kind of fingers of that of bites. So there's lots of little sort of prongs going into, into Soviet Union, but it's not, not joined up. Guderin's forces have taken some less and then they've just charged onwards. And what you get is a massive pocket north of the sort of northeast, northwest of the, and to the east of Smolensk. The front is by no means cohesive. Still in the Smolensk pocket, get this, are the Soviet 20th, 16th and 19th army. So that's three armies. It's a huge force and they're now fighting absolutely furiously and tying down plenty of Hoth and Guderian's troops. So Hoates is Panzer Group 3 or Panzer Group Hote more informally, and Kadira's troops and it, and it just can't be ignored. You can't bypass that. You've got to turn and face it. And obviously the Red army is better placed to rapidly reinforce this front than the Germans are because they've got shorter lines of supply. You know, all their territory is Soviet, whereas the Germans have now got these fingers, these prongs going into the Soviet Union which are not sort of not conjoined. And German planning had also assume that they'd capture plenty of Soviet locomotives and rolling stock. But this isn't really the case because most have either been moved east by the Soviets or they've been destroyed. And what's more, Soviet locomotives are much larger. So for a larger loading gauge, of course, because we've talked already about the fact that the Soviet loading gauge, the width of the railway is wider than that of the European one, so they can take more coal and they have greater water capacity than the standard Reichsbahn, the German railway train, which is known as the Kriegslock, which can do 50 miles an hour forward, 50 miles back. It's the Krieglock, that standard German workhorse. And this means that not only do the Germans have to narrow the railway lines, they also have to establish more water stops and coal dumps, all of which of course then uses up precious resources of all of the Gross Transportal, which is, you know, the army of the Wehrmacht transport system and takes more time and adds to the rapidly increasing stretched lines of communication. I mean, I don't know about you, Al, but just thinking about this is making my head hurt. And you can see, can't you, how this hubristic assumption before Barbarossa that we're just going to wipe them out because we're better than them and we're going to smash them completely within 500km and it's going to be a cakewalk is now coming home to roost in a very, very dramatic way because the lines of supply are stretched. Motorized divisions are rapidly in decline, both from battle and wear and tear and discordant deployment of each of these panzer spearheads is problematic because it means they're fanning over a wide area in which they're no longer mutually supporting and that is denuding them of the all important concentration of force, the Schwerpunkt, as the Germans call it.

[Al Murray]

And these tentacles are not uncontested either, are they? They've expanded massively into, into the Soviet Union, but you've still got, you know, loads of Russian stragglers, Soviet stragglers, all sorts of people. So, so the, the rear that the Germans are trying to create isn't necessarily safe, is it? Is the other thing, as well as being overstretched, it's not safe either. So they've, they're basically. The problem is, is they've, they've advanced too brilliant, they've been too brilliant, they've been too dazzling, Jim, that they're smash and grab, Bavagan's Creek style, which has worked work well in France, in the Soviet Union under the different, completely different conditions, has had this weird effect of creating what looks on the map. If you're looking at this on a map and you're a Panzer commander, you're thinking, well look at this, we've beaten everything we did in France. We've out, we've within a month we've excelled ourselves here. And that's how they see it. Rather than thinking, oh my God, we're completely overstretched here. We're surely going to culminate any second. The losses are colossal. How can we keep this together? They're Guderian, basically, and hurt, although some people might call him Hoth, he's the one, you know, the ice planet German General, but basically Kadarian and Hote. They believe their own success, don't they? That rather than, rather than going, hang on a minute, what's our actual situation here? They're looking at the great big arrows on the maps and thinking they're making military history, essentially. They're high on their own supply, aren't they?

[James Holland]

Well, they're trying to relive France, aren't they? They're trying to relive France but what they're failing to understand is, is, is that France is much smaller and the more sophisticated infrastructure of France is what enables them to achieve what they, what they do achieve. And the barriers to this are just too huge. We can post this up, but you and I have got the benefit right now of looking at a situation map at 2300 hours. So, 11pm on 22 July 1941. It's quite hard to make sense of it, isn't it? So there' of continuous, sort of continuous line to the northeast of Smolensk.

[Al Murray]

They look like free roaming amoebas. The formations on this, it looks like

[James Holland]

such a good description. There's another sort of reasonable bit of line, front line immediately south of Smolensk by about sort of 75 miles, something like that, 100 miles south of Smolensk, then at Yelnya, you can see this is Guderian's lead formations and that is the 46 Panzer Corps, which we'll return to later on in the, in the, in the episode. And it's completely isolated, isn't it? Yeah, there's, there's troops to, there's, there's Russian troops to their, you know, Red army troops to their rear. There's little pockets all over the place. I mean, it is an absolute mess. And what, what you're not getting is any sense of clear cohesion whatsoever. There's no kind of, you know, clear line where the, where the ground and territory behind it is completely secure in the hands. And I think it's worth just talking through the two Panzer corps of Army Group Central and talking about what, what they're doing. So Panzer Group haute, Panzer Group 3, one of its Panzer corps. So you have the group, which is effectively a large panzer army, is divided into, into core. It's got three corps within it, Panzer Corps within it. And 57 Panzer Corps is heading off far to the northeast to a place called Veliki Luki. Von Bock, who is the commander in chief of Army Group Centre, is getting increasingly concerned that these individual Panzer corps, which are not divisions, are becoming too weak to operate alone. But these anxieties are not being met with any kind of coherent action. So instead, 57 Panzer Corps under General Adolf Friedrich Kunsten is getting into massive trouble at Veliki luka, which is 235 kilometers north of Smolensk. So that's about 150 miles.

[Guest Historian]

Right?

[James Holland]

I mean, that's a, that's a long way and is veering into Army Group North's patch. So striking at Veliki Luki is not entirely insane because it's a key nodal point. What we mean by that is it's a crossroads, it's a rail hub. You know, it's a significant urban centre. So it's a sort of transport hub. And that would give Army Group centre a whopping 300 kilometer frontage in addition to the 500 km from the border. And the town is strategically important, but it's not worth the potential loss of two divisions, 19 Panzer and 14 motorized division for. I mean, it's just not, and not at this critical stage where you still got the Smolensk pocket. It's like, deal with one thing first, get your front sorted out, then move forward and it's at this moment that the second wave of Soviet forces, all of which have been discounted before the invasion by the Germans, start to kick in because the new 29th army is forming up just to the east of Veliki Luki. What had at first seemed to hope like a bold forward operation now seems insane folly. Yeah, so just to get to Veliki luki, because it's 235 kilometers from Smolensk, requires all resources of the 57 Panzer Corps with absolutely no wriggle room at all. And what this basically means is truckage, you know, this. This is transport and the ability to maintain the effort with the forward supply of fuel, with the forward supply of ammunition. And just to remind everyone, okay, so at this stage, you're not talking Tiger tanks and Panthers, you're talking Panzer IIIS and stugs and Panzer IIs and a handful of Panzer IV. But these tanks use a heck of a lot of fuel, particularly when they're in combat. So 19th Panzer Division is going all out for the town. It's just spurning off down the road, kind of taking a very sort of narrow finger either side of this road. I mean, it is absolutely, you know, 30 Corps in 1944 on the way to Arnhem, while the 14th Motorized Division is stretched out protecting the corridor. But it's just too thin, you know, and it's just. He can't do it. And by the 19th of July, the 14th motorised division is being attacked all along the way while its own material is completely worn out. And that's the words of 14th Motor Division, War diary.

[Al Murray]

Well, but what's interesting about this, Jim, because the Red army then attack and they break through the German line in multiple places, forcing 19th Panzer Division to fall back to help out. And you have here in the notes a clause Fitz quote, right? The diminishing force of the attack is one of the strategists main concerns. His awareness of it will determine the accuracy of his estimate in each case, the options open to him. Now, if Klaus Fitz has said that they all know this, the Prussian military school that's supposedly the envy of the world, right, that everyone's copied and that everyone attributes Prussian militarism to and so on. They all know this. They all know about his principle of, you know, strategic elastic, where the closer you are to your home base, it's. The easier it is to fight, the further away you're a greater stretch and it's more difficult, right? They all know this. So what the bloody hell's going on for them to ignore. Well, you know what I mean, there is a kind of mystery in all this.

[James Holland]

I think it's kind of threefold. So the first thing is, is that right at the top of, of the kind of old school Prussian elites, the von Rundstedts, the box, you know, the von Leebs, all these types who played such a critical role in, in the Blitzkrieg era, you know, fall of France, Poland, Balkans, all the rest of it, they were very skeptical about, about this sort of rapid panzer deployment. You know, Panzer divisions, which as we've said many, many times over, are not just panzers, they're an all armed motorized outfit in an army that is predominantly not motorized. So that's, that's the usp. They were very skeptical about it and, and their skepticism was confounded because. Because it was. They've had this great victory. Whereas people like Hote and Guderian, who were the advocates of this Panzer warfare, Guderian especially, but Haute also, you know, he was. Haute had one of the, one of the Panzer corps that was driving Army Group A, the main bulk of the Panzers in, in the, in the Blitzkrieg in France. They've now doubled down on it because it was successful. They're like, yeah, we can freaking do this. So, so you've got these two strands. You've, you've got, you've got the old school skeptics who are now kind of completely won over, and then you've got the people who were already, who were the pioneers taking it onto another level and they've just started to completely believe their hype. Then you add into it, and this is the third element of this problem, their racial superiority and their military superiority in their own minds and the woeful lack of planning and the planning to fit your own intentions rather than the reality that we saw with Paulus and Gail Thomas and all the rest of it. What you've got is a perfect storm. And they've also, their heads have been turned by those early days of the campaign where they're absolutely running rampant. And we've explained in previous episodes why that was. So. So they've just got ahead of themselves. And the problem is, Al, is that now they're there, they're so deep in, they can't go back. Because this is all about driving forward and you can't retreat, you can't consolidate, because the whole USB is about constantly driving, pushing forward. But what works in France, what works in the Balkans isn't going to work here because your enemy in this case The Red army.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

Has infinitesimal numbers of manpower compared to them. And the distances are just too huge and the infrastructure is so backward. And they, and they, they are not realizing that yet. Although the penny is starting to drop and they're stuck. They can't, they can't. Yeah, you can't wheel back, you can't go forward. What do you do? It's just, it's, it's a nightmare of their own making.

[Al Murray]

There's also the political dimension as well, which is this kind of victory they im would deliver a political outcome that the Soviet government will go, you know what? Ain't worth it and fold. But the problem is they're not dealing with a government like the French government which thinks it's not worth it, or the British government which thinks, let's get the hell out of here. They're dealing with the Soviet government that's because of the revolution. And that probably, you know, a big factor this is because their own cruelty and appalling treatment of their own population. There's no way that the Soviet government is going to go, you know what, let's do a deal. Because they have such resources at their disposal and also they are so hard. They're as hard baked in as the Nazi government. In their position. They're never going to get a political decision out of this, are they? And no one is operating thinking about the political element here at all, are they? And you know, if war is put, if war is politics, you know, diplomacy by other means. Right, again, back to Clause Fitzgerald. They've all forgotten that as well. There's no political outcome on offer here like there might be in France, you know, if you'd got 500km into France, the French government's going to, yeah, fine, okay, we give up, right? Because it's a democracy that's answerable to its population. There's something else at work in the Soviet Union that's never going, never ever going to happen. And none of them are thinking about that. None of them seem to have that in mind, unlike Ciano as we started, whether he gets it.

[James Holland]

The only way they could, they could do this differently is, is to, is to do chunks. So you have this huge effort. You, you get to the Dnieper and the Dvina and you stop and you then harness the local population. And yes, you can want to annihilate communism, so you do that. So you do, you, you politicize them and you do political training, but you also show generosity to the places you've done. You, you start bringing infrastructure you improve the roads, you improve their lives. You harness the locals that you've taken over onto your side. Then you're increasing your own population, your own workforce and your own. I mean, and then you do that for a bit and then, you know, you hope that you've got enough to be able to hold that line on a river should be pretty defensible. And then you do another chunk, you know, some, some months or even, dare I say, the following summer, you can't

[Al Murray]

win completely against Stalin. You're going to have to kill him, not the Red Army.

[James Holland]

But at this stage in the, in the third week of, of July 1941, they're not accepting this, although they're starting to think, you can see it, they're starting to think, yikes, yeah, this isn't quite working. Anyway, let's have a look at. Because we've only just done one panzer call when that. That's on the way up to Veliki Luki. And we need to look at what 7P Panzer is doing, you know, which of course is Rommel's old Panzer. And in Panzer group Panzer Group Haute, it was also in Panzer Core haute back in 1940. And on that, Smolensk falls on the 15th of July. 7 Panzer is surging ahead and taking the main Moscow Smolensk railroad and highway at Yartsevo. This is potentially a decisive game, but the area to the south of this is not secure because Yartsevo is 40 miles beyond Smolensk. Yet again, the leading panzer troops are out on a limb. And Carl Fuchs is a tank gunner in seven Panzer, and he noted we

[Guest Historian]

are now positioned outside the city of Smolensk and have penetrated the highly acclaimed Stalin lines. I would imagine that within eight to

[James Holland]

ten days this campaign will be over giddiness. Success is still kind of ruling the route. But don't forget, you know, he's writing that on the 15th of July, 7th

[Al Murray]

Panzer then ordered to thrust south to try and close the pocket from the north. Within seventh Pants, it's Hans Von look,

[James Holland]

great friend of the show, I think. I think we can say that sort of the good German, he spun a

[Al Murray]

good line after the war anyway, and he's the adjutant at divisional headquarters. And Von look had been apprehensive before the invasion began. And he says the Euro mountains, which are nearly 2,000 miles away, vermilion is the end of the European part. We were not actually afraid, but neither were we sure of what our attitude should be towards an opponent whose strength and potential unknown to us and whose mentality was completely alien. He starts Barbarossa Von looks Barbarossa as the adjutant with 7th Panzer Division headquarters. It's. And it's his birthday on the 15th of July, the day they capture Yardseva. So happy birthday, Hans with that and that evening, him and some of his officers, they climb a hill only a thousand yards from the Soviet lines and they set up a table and have a great big dinner and a meal that basically underlines how cocky and confident they are really. They think, they think this is all going very well.

[James Holland]

Yes. And also it's ostentatious and it's saying we have fine dining because we're sophisticated and slick. You Russians are scum in a kind of hole in the ground, you know, that's basically what it's saying, isn't it?

[Al Murray]

Yes, well that's what he means when he says their mentality is completely alien. What he means is they're not as good as us. But over the days that follow, the battle continues without very much progress. So yeah, they capture yacht saver but Soviets aren't throwing in the towel, which is to the point we were making earlier. The battles at the Artsevo lasted longer than we would have liked. The Blitzkrieg seem to be over. They don't really succeed with their southern thrust to try and close the pocket mainly because the Soviets are putting them under pressure from the east seventh Panzer off for a good, a good, you know, microcosm of the problems, the problems that army groups are experiencing because they're so spread, they're so dispersed they can, you know, whatever they do, they're creating a hole in their own line and exposing or a flank, offering a flank to the Soviets. And it shows that, you know, when you've got limited resources, both Hoth and Guderian, you know, are too exposed. And the marching infantry of course is still foot slogging their way from the border and can't catch them up and help.

[James Holland]

So let's talk, talk with von Schreffenberg's 24th Panzer Corps. Yeah, remember him from, from Normandy. Things are not going particularly well for Panzer Group Guderian either is is the truth of it. Following the fall of Spain, Smolensk, you know, numerous places where leading Panzers are dangerously overreaching. So now far to the south of Smolensk is Schweppenburg's Panzer Corps and this obviously includes the fourth Panzer Division of Rickard von Rosen, who's we've been sort of following right from the very start of our first episode, weren't we? And Von Rosen was noticing, as they all are, that resistance is stiffening. So not only are they now trying to hold off the relentless Red army attacks, they're also trying to keep their, their roll barn, their line of supply open. You know, this is the problem. They got these roads coming down which they're using and then the Russians are coming around the back and just sort of pecking at them and, and it makes it very difficult because of course supply troops are, are famously under armed, so they're going around in trucks, which makes them very, very easy meat. Of course, you know, typically the troops and you know that maybe a few cannons and machine guns and stuff, but basically it's small arm stuff, so. So that's not enough. And von Rosen and his comrades have been told they were going to pause for a refit, but despite having only five functioning Panzers left, were told on the evening of 17 July that they had to make ready for battle again,

[Guest Historian]

no information was forthcoming as to why we had been promised several days rest here. Later we discovered that the Russians had recaptured the Roban in our area and

[James Holland]

surrounded the panzer pioneers who had camped on it. And they have in a nutshell the entire problem with this kind of charging finger prongs.

[Al Murray]

You know what this is reminding me, reminding me of, Jim, And I'm sure anyone who listened to the, our series about the Ardennes, about the Ardennes offensive, it's like that, it's just reminding me of that this thing of we'll speed forward. Then what, what happens when you get

[James Holland]

to Moscow with your one, you know, with your one blitz and a Kubel wagon?

[Al Murray]

Exactly, exactly. It's exactly like that. So they move, they move off at seven in the evening with three company in the lead. Old route, they have to cross back over a bridge that since first crossed and it's been zeroed by Red army artillery every time a Panzer approaches.

[Guest Historian]

Course it has.

[Al Murray]

Of course it has. Because, because they're not, it's the idea that they're not, they're not fighting the French, let's just put it that way. They're not fighting the French here. That's the important thing to remember. As we came to realize into fighting around the Popovsk bridges, the struggle was now becoming fiercer. Part of this impression is obviously because when they first, when they first entered the Soviet Union, they zoom off because there's no one in front of them.

[James Holland]

But now the Red army knows exactly what's going on and they can, you know, and you know, the bottom line is that the forward Units of Panzer Group Guderian are now facing a further three Red armies. So, so, you know, under Timoshenko, in addition to the three armies in the Smolensk pocket. So they're now up against the 21st, 13th and 4th, as well as the 16th, 19th and 20th. Yeah, so six armies they're facing here. And this is just the lead elements of these panzer groups at this stage. So, you know, as we were saying, you know, there's no clear front at all. And another argument over deployment is now developing because 2 Army was now following and von Schweppenberg asked for 2 Armies, XII Corps to be hurriedly sent to his aid. And General Maximilian von Weichs, the two army commander, wanted to send most of his forces south and strike with of Schreppenberg at a town to the south called Gomel. But Bock ordered Vikes to keep heading northeast towards the Smolensk pocket because he know, Bock knows that rather than swanning off far to the south, what you really need to do is get rid of this pocket as quickly as possible. But instead Vyke's orders to core south and to just so completely ignores Pock's orders. Who after all is the field marshal in charge of the army group. And Bock understandably is incensed when he finds out and then countermands the orders. So it's a complete mess. And Bock believes that the Red army strength is exaggerated, but he's back several hundred miles and disregarding the intelligence. And only on the 21st of July, the day after von Rosen and 4th Panzer Division had hurried back to try and rescue the situation at the, at the bridges, at the Propoisk bridges that Bock changes his orders again, noting in

[Guest Historian]

his diary, the situation facing 24 Panzer Corps on the southern, southern wing was so threatening that I had to order

[James Holland]

two army to restore it. But you could say, why is 24 Panzer Corps 100 miles south of Smolensk? What's wrong with being 30 miles south of Smolensk?

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Holland]

But then there is the main drive of Guderian's Panzer Group, which is the drive on Yelnya. And Yelnya is a high. Is a town on a sort of high ground about 75 miles further east from Smolensk. And Yelnya is going to become a place of total carnage. This is a name which is going to go down in the annals and it is going to see Panzer Group Guderian almost, but not quite broken.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely crazy this, isn't it. So he sends off von Fighting Off's 46 Panzer Corps, even though there are three armies, Soviet armies, in the Smolensk

[James Holland]

pocket still, which basically means behind them,

[Al Murray]

behind them in their rear.

[James Holland]

It is insane, because under no circumstances are your rear areas remotely secure.

[Al Murray]

But Guderian thinks no. Fortune favors the brave. You know, it's time to be bold. Klotz, Kirk and all that, right? And interestingly, Bok sort of is pushing back on this. He says we, we should only secure one. The front first. You know, on the 18th of July, he tells Kluge, Fourth army, who's coming up behind that, you know, we've got to close his pocket as soon as possible. And on the 19th, the following day, Bock asks Guderian to act on the audience of three days earlier to close the ring around Smolensk. You know, could you please. We need to tidy all this up. And then Kluger gets in a strop with Bock for meddling. I mean, I, you know, I find all this very interesting, that as well. One of the aspects of the interesting is, you know, we talked about the German approach to orders Ausfractique. You just do what you need to do. Crack on at the top. No one thinks that they're all going, I want to do what I want to do and shut up.

[James Holland]

Do you know what all this is reminding me of? It's reminding me of the, of the, of the desert generals at war in the summer of 1942. You know, this is, this, this is to Brook and, and, and the Gazala Line and everyone bitching behind each other's back and complaining and, you know, and getting str. One corps commander to another corps commander and all the rest of it was. Yeah, and that's. And why are they all getting on a cross of each other? Because it's all starting to go pear shape.

[Al Murray]

Guderian had been trying to close the gap, but it wasn't going very well for him.

[James Holland]

Well, because he hasn't got enough, has he? Because he sent most of his forces off, off to Yelnya.

[Al Murray]

And he's been doing this with the depleted 18th Panzer Division, which is driving north of. Of Jelnya to Dorogobush. But 18th Panzer is down to 25% of his Panzer strength and 60% manpower. He's also lost 1300 trucks since the start of the campaign. These are all absolutely, wildly precious resources. And he's ordered them to close the pocket without offering any reinforcements and with their tail vulnerable, because the tail is. Because there's no safe rear. And in effect, by sending 18th Panzer Northeast to Dora Gebusch. He's trying to close one pocket, but opens another one because there's not. They're spreading the butter too thin on the toast. And Guderian won't. He's not willing to use his Panzer divisions in static and defensive roles. Kluge is furious at this decision, but. And immediately countermands guderian by ordering 18th Panzer back to hold the line east

[James Holland]

the city, so they then can't go to Doricabusch. So poor old 18th Panzer, which has got almost no panzers left, it's just going, you know, what do you want me to do? But either option is bad and either option is stretch them too far. So Guderian now sends part of the 10th Panzer, which is currently on a drive to Yelnya, to Dora Gabush instead. But all you're doing is you're splitting up your forces, you're denuding that concentrated of force. If you're spitting up Tenpanzer, that means that Tenpanza is not operating at max strength and it's already not at max strength because it's been attrited on its way this vast distance. So, so these are really, really bad decisions by people that absolutely should know better and who have, have, you know, their arrogance, hubris and believing their hype is sort of getting the better of them. So, so 10 Panzer is struggling really badly at Yelnya. So the commander says to, to von Vitinghoff that his division could do one or other of the missions, but not both. And, and, and Vitinghoff just goes, goes, forget that, just get on with it. Guderian then changes his mind and orders Yelnya to be the main objective, not Dora Gebusch. And by this time, it's five whole days since 7 Panzer had reached Jartsevo. But since then, the Smolensk pocket is still not closed and vast numbers of Red army troops are escaping eastwards. So Bock notes in his diary, at

[Guest Historian]

the moment there is only one pocket on the army group's front and it has a hole.

[James Holland]

But I mean, you know, it's sort of black humor, you know, Bok is not amused at all.

[Al Murray]

Despite this, Kadarian carries on pressing at Yelnya, does catch the town, and then starts talking about going further east. Like, you know, roll on, it's go. It's, it's going well. Right from the beginning of Barbarossa, there has been a muddle and, and a lot of indecision about which way to go. And that has filtered its way all the way down across the board. Isn't it that the indecision that Barbaross was characterized in terms of what's its objective? Leningrad, Moscow, Ukraine. We don't know. Right. So no wonder the generals feel they can change their minds and do what they like, because the whole thing hasn't been gripped from the beginning. This is why they're able to get away with it. It's that the entire command structure is corrupted from. From the top down. Bok sends a staff officer to tell Guderian that, you know, pushing east further is a. Is a. It's not important. What we need to do is close the pocket. Actually, they haven't foreseen any of this because the big idea is that they will have shattered all remaining Soviet resistance in the second phase of the operations east of the great rivers yet. But they haven't done that. It's just not happened.

[James Holland]

No.

[Al Murray]

And not only are Red army forces in the pocket still fighting, but more are appearing. It's not the French Army. They're not throwing in the towel. And Bock on 20 July says repeated attacks on the elements of Panzer Group 2 from the east, southeast and south. Panzer Group 32 has not only been attacked from inside the pocket or from Smolensk and Vest, but from the east and northeast as well.

[James Holland]

I don't know about you, but that sounds to me like they're surrounded. Do you know what I mean?

[Al Murray]

I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Holland]

I mean, Box diary is absolutely fascinating. It's published and you can get an English translation as I've got, which is nice big fat fat book. And it is amazing. You know, he. He puts in these incredibly dry kind of rye comments in his. In. In his diary, and it's clearly. He's absolutely tearing his hair out trying to manage a situation. He's got Hitler on one side and the army and he's got how and Brow Kitch on another. He's got Keitel breathing down his neck and he's got all these, you know, he's got Kluger and Guderian at loggerheads, you know, Hope running off to Veliki Luki and, you know, it's just. Just completely uncontrollable. But suddenly there are setbacks all along this totally disconnected front from. If you look at it all, I mean, we've just been through them. But you think about. Von Schreppenberg is struggling to the south as he's fighting towards Rossaval and Gommel, and then Veintinghoff's panzers at Jelnyar 7 Panzer to 57 Panzer Corps at Veliki Luki. The stiffening of resistance, the counter punches, the assaults on rear Rollbahns and the rapidly diminishing numbers of Panzers all are a taste of what is to come. But this stubborn tendency to underestimate the enemy continues. It's kind of hard baked into German minds from the very top to the bottom. And now a worrying concern is that they're being too slow to learn the lessons. And all that blitzkrieg success, plus the relentless brainwashing is badly undermining the efforts. You know, they're deep, deep into the Soviet Union on a mission that has to succeed, but which is clearly by the 20th of July, July 1941, unraveling. And there's a Waffen SS general, Max Simon, who ends up commanding 16th Panzer in Italy.

[Guest Historian]

He says very soon we had to admit that we were up against a very different adversary from the one we had expected. And I believe that this underestimation was one of the reasons for the unfortunate course which the campaign in Russia took.

[James Holland]

And it's about to get a whole load worse.

[Al Murray]

So we're going to take a break now. I love the way that we're talking about Barbarossa falling apart and getting a whole lot worse. And we're only really a month into it, you know that.

[James Holland]

A month into it.

[Al Murray]

For the connoisseur of the historiography, this is not the. Not the way this is normally told. We will see you after the break.

[James Holland]

This episode is brought to you by

[Guest Historian]

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[Al Murray]

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[James Holland]

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[Al Murray]

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[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. We have ways of making you talk. And Jim promised us before the break that things are about to get worse. So let's go, Jim. Let's make it worse. And we need to go to the other side of the hill, really, don't we? Just to find out why.

[James Holland]

Far from facing the final throes of the Red Army, Stavka, which you may remember from one of the early episodes, is the sort of combined general staff, really, in Moscow, is about to throw in a load. More new armies. It's a high command, basically. So, yes, that means they're poorly trained, but mass is massively starting to count against a Wehrmacht that is rapidly getting short of mass. That's the truth. And under Stalin's direction, Stavka has decided to mount a major counteroffensive by sending in four new armies. The 29th, the 30th, the 24th, and the 28th.

[Al Murray]

Not one army, not two armies, not three armies, James. Four. Four bloody armies. It's amazing.

[James Holland]

How many armies does Britain have in North Africa at this point?

[Al Murray]

Well, kind of one. Kind of. Not a great big fat one like a Soviet one.

[James Holland]

Anyway, you've got the three armies facing Fac. Von Schreppenberg. You've got three armies in the pocket, and you've got another four. My reckoning adds up to ten. Anyway, Stalin places them under Timoshenko. So Timoshenko had been at Central Command in Moscow, but is now commanding the Western Front. And Stalin says, until now, you have counted on help in the form of two or three divisions at a time,

[Guest Historian]

but nothing really has come of this.

[James Holland]

Therefore, it is time to give up this practice and to begin to create

[Guest Historian]

a fist of seven to eight divisions

[James Holland]

with cavalry on the flanks. In other words, punch back with as many men as you can. Zhukov, who is the Chief of the General Staff, now plans a series of simultaneous concentric blows against Army Group center from each of the four new armies. So the Germans don't know it, but they've already reached a high point of the Barbarossa offensive. And that's, you know, I'm just saying it right there and then. They've got victories to come.

[Guest Historian]

Sure.

[Al Murray]

What's the point?

[James Holland]

What's the point? What's the point? Well, because they haven't got any choice. Cause if they just stand idle, Stalin's gonna get, you know, the Red Army's gonna get bigger and bigger, and they're gonna counter punch, and the Germans are gonna lose. So they've gotta keep Going is the truth of it. But at this point great enemy of the show, Adolf Hitler starts to wade in and starts to meddle.

[Al Murray]

What you need now Jim is an intervention for self styled military genius. That's what we need.

[James Holland]

That's exactly what you want. That's what you want into this confusing situation. What you need is some clarity of thought. So anyway, so he delivers not one but two directives. Yeah, I mean, you know, so he, he's now at his East Prussia headquarters at Rastenberg, the Wolfgance or the Wolf's Lair. And he is about weighed in with from what this moment onwards is going to be increasing interference.

[Al Murray]

His sort of push and pull that he's already had on Halder has had enough of an effect in the, in, in the conception of Barbarossa, but he basically just doesn't, he doesn't trust the army senior commanders. And there's been this unresolved difference to strategic outlook between him and how he's

[James Holland]

an autocrat, he's a dictator, he doesn't trust anyone. Of course he doesn't. Yeah, you know, that's how dictators behave. They're, they're the genius, they're the only right ones. You know, my way is the best way. It's the only way. I'm the master of everything. I'm the cleverest person on the planet.

[Al Murray]

And he'd been consistent about prioritizing Ukraine and Leningrad but how to wanted that, you know, thought that army group center would make the drive on Moscow and so on. And the thing is is how does done that Anyway, it's quite clear that Hitler wasn't aware of okh's scheming, of how to scheming. So now he's thinking about diversion, diverting panzer groups that the way that he'd always wanted. Hitler's now trying to get what he wants out of the campaign now that they're, now that they're a month in and really now is not the time for someone to, I mean it's all going badly anyway but now's not the time for meddling as you said. And on the 19th of July, and I love the way he issues two directives here, the 19th of July issues war directive number 33 which orders Panzer group Hut north to help army group north on the drive to Leningrad. And then he's orders Guderian south to help crush the fortress city of Kyiv. And there are only two infantry divisions to continue the march of Moscow. Two divisions and four days later after Brauchic has gone to see him to Try and talk him out of this, you know, siphoning off these panzer groups. From Army Group C, Hitler then issues Directive number 33AMy final word is being amended.

[James Holland]

Yes, I mean, I should say that number 33A is signed by Keitel, but obviously Keitel is Hitler's mouthpiece and it is, it is Hitler.

[Al Murray]

It's the same, but it's got more specific instructions. For Panzer Group 3, for HOTH to come under the command of Army Group north, and for Panzer Group 2 to go to Army Group South. And it says, after mopping up our operations around Smolensk and on the southern flank, Army Group center, whose infantry formations drawn from both its armies are strong enough for the purpose, will defeat such enemy forces as remain between Smolensk and Moscow by advancing on the left flank, if possible. It will then capture Moscow.

[James Holland]

That first line, after mopping up operations around Smolensk. Okay, these are not mopping up operations. These are against 10 Red Armies. Red army armies. I mean, you know, there's nothing mopping up about it at all. And, you know, at the same time, your, your spearheads, which are supposed to do, you know, 90% of the fighting, are absolutely screwed.

[Al Murray]

So.

[James Holland]

So, you know, what is so interesting about directive number 33 and 33A is their total disconnect from reality. I mean, the, the delusional appreciation of the situation is quite remarkable. But of course, 33A having very specific, you know, in 33, it doesn't. It says, you know, send some. You know, we can divert some, some pans groups north and south. Now it's saying, I want them to go and come under the command of Arm north and Army Group South. You know, it's much more specific. So this means an end to von Brauchitsch and Holder's plan for Moscow. So Holder visits Hitler on 23 July and tries one more time to persuade him to focus on Moscow. But Hitler's not for budging. The problem was the infantry divisions alone are not enough to take Moscow. They're not enough to do anything, to be honest, because they're largely on foot and there's these huge armies, you know, because it's so much. The task is so much more than mopping up. So suddenly, having had this, this great kind of confidence, they've gone from the highs to the lows. And Halder and Brauchic are in total despair, as they really did believe that striking at Moscow was the best means to destroy the Soviet Union. So if they're not going to, they feel that, let's all go all out for Moscow, topple Moscow and then we can deal with the rest of Ukraine, then we can deal with oil fields, then we can deal with Leningrad, etc. But diverting, you know, all the main thrust of the effort should all go in one giant thrust towards Moscow. And I've got to say, I'm kind of in their camp on this. I mean, I think the whole thing is batshit crazy, obviously, and was never going to work. But I mean, you know, this would have given the best chance, I suspect. And also because once you get past the Privet marshes, the kind of road is sort of. It's not clear exactly, but it gets a lot easier. You know, going up into, up into Leningrad, the terrain is problematic. You know, going down into Ukraine, you've got the Dnieper, which is, which is enormous. But Hitler's decision now prompts huge disputes as the news of, of these directives starts, starts to filter through. And of course, Panzer Group Kadarian is now in real, real trouble with the help. The difficulties of then having to pivot south and the logistical complications of doing that. You know, you're all in on, on, on, on Yelnya and suddenly, and on the southern flank where you're battling just to survive. And suddenly you've got to kind of organize yourself, pull back, get, get yourself into gear and move for a drive. Saf. It's just, it's not easy. And the, you know, his men are absolutely exhausted because they've been at this since 22nd June 21st, 22nd of June. And the casualties are absolutely horrendous, aren't they? I mean, it's incredible.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. 830 officers in Panzer Group 2 alone, 562 in Hoates Group. And Panzer Group Guderian has a total casualties of 15,228. In Hoates lost 10,509 men. I mean, these are, these are big numbers, aren't they?

[James Holland]

Well, they are in precious spearheads. Exactly.

[Al Murray]

And we've been saying over and over again the supply situation has been difficult, but it's completely critical. Now they're running out of ammo because it's got to come up from supply depots 440k to the rear and on supply lines that are not safe. So the 10th Panzer War Diary notes, On the 21st of July, in spite of all efforts by the corn, in the coming days, there will be no oil for zapanzas. So munition situation is also strained. In particular, artillery shells must be used sparingly. So all the, all the problems that are coming home to roost, aren't they? And laying great big fat difficult eggs.

[James Holland]

Do you remember that 10 Panzer is the one that's been split into two and is trying to go to Daroga Bush and also go to Yelnya. And it's also at the same time as it's trying to do that. It's already been denuded quite a long way and now it's being told that artillery shells have to be used sparingly. I mean, what the heck. So Barbarossa is only a month old and already the leading panzer divisions are struggling to function. Okay, not win, function. So on the 22nd of July, 18 Panzer division is given 30 new Panzer threes and fours, which brings it back up to 20% strength. So before that it was below 20%. On the same day, 17th Panzer and 4th Panzer divisions are operating at at 40 and 35% strength. Panzer Group hoax total panzers are as follows. On the 21st of July under repair 31% combat ready, 42% total losses 27%. And can I just point out that, you know, we mentioned this when we were doing all our Casino series, but, but 30 to 35% of any unit in any western army would basically be considered that you can no longer function at all.

[Al Murray]

And the thing is, the Red army in the meantime is getting stronger and beginning to dominate. And as we said, there's four armies on their way. And I think it's really interesting, isn't it? Because the culture at the very top is to point finger, blame, bully, dominate, argue rather than work in sort of, you know, consensus or in a collegiate style. Well, that's how it is at the top. That's going to seep down, isn't it? It's going to be how people are operating lower. So the lead, all the commanders in army group center now start blaming one another. Hot blames Guderian for not closing the spolence pocket. Guderian blames Kluger for interfering and overriding his orders. Kluge blames everything on Bock. Bock loads Kluge. It's a perfect circle, big time.

[James Holland]

It's just an absolute mess. And in the meantime, despite all their efficiency deficiencies, the panzer and motorized divisions are remain bound to the front front, enduring the daily grind of relentless battle and hardening of the strategic stalemate that's gripping the whole army group. So it's not surprising at all that without the ability to concentrate and deal decisively with the enemy, these motorised and panzer units of Army Group Centre finding themselves embroiled in ever more costly struggles which are just constantly eroding their strength in an inescapable war of attrition. I mean, I mean, this is about as bad as it gets. And just, just to really stress the point, these units are the creme de la creme. This is the elite, this is the spearhead, this is the, the main fighting effort of the Wehrmacht. So you denude them, what are you left with? And that's the problem. Meanwhile, you've got the Soviet counter strike because the enemy has a vote and there's now lots of armies and they're, they're, they're beginning, and, and this begins on the 23rd of July. It's back badly coordinated because they're rushed to the front and they're not coordinated. And a lot of these troops are new and they're not properly trained and all the rest of it, but they've got immense firepower. And it begins as a sort of blunt hammering of the front rather than a massive coordinated blow. But it's still grinding down those Panzer divisions and motorised divisions yet further in the narrative of Barbarossa, Timoshenko's counterattack has been seen as a failure. But you can't really say that because it is stopping Army Group center dead in its tracks. And in a war where speed of movement is everything and where those leading panzer units are absolutely the creme de la creme, anything you can do to blunt that and to destroy even a portion of it is going to pay dividends later on down the line. Instead of pausing and gathering for the next stage and moving south and north, the Panzer groups are forced frantically to front the, to firefight. They can't move south because they can't organize themselves because they're engaged, you can't disengage very easily.

[Al Murray]

And in Yelnya, which, which is a, you know, where, where Guderian has bitten off his chunk to the east of St. It's really, really, really, really brutal fighting. Hyde Ruel, who's a soldier in 2nd SS, Das Reich Notes the gunners, working like fury, finally beat off the Russian tank attacks. But these then were renewed in greater strength. And then our motorcycle battalion came under heavy pressure. We were smothered in a drum of gunfire such as we have never experienced before. Because of the severe losses which it had sustained, the motorcycle battalion had to be taken out of the line and was replaced by an East Prussian engineer battalion. With the help of that formation, we stemmed the Russian advance, albeit only temporarily, for soon ammunition for the guns began to run out and we were only allowed to fire at certain specified targets.

[Guest Historian]

I mean, that's not great, is it?

[James Holland]

I mean it sounds like an absolute mess, doesn't it? I mean, I mean this is, this is, this is reminiscent of, you know, beleaguered Hitler. Eugen Divi, you know, SS Hitler, you can. Division, you know, Epsom, isn't it or something. I mean, I mean it's this kind of language. Helmut Gunter, who is also in the. Das right, ss Das right notes.

[Guest Historian]

Now it was clear to every one of us that this Russia would be a very hard nut to crack if

[James Holland]

some of us had not, not already lost it.

[Guest Historian]

Then here in the Yelnya bend we lost the fragile innocence of youth.

[James Holland]

You know, there is this sense of breaking this, this, this elite force that had caused so much damage of. In the Blitzkrieg years. This is it, isn't it? So the death strike is actually hammered at Yelnyar. And so to the GROSS Deutschland Division, 18th Panzer is trying to be in two different places at once. Panzer Group Guderian is, is buckling badly under the strain of relentless Red army attacks. And also, you know, the Russians aren't only introducing KV1s and KV2s, these huge tanks and the forward sloping armor of the T34 tanks, you know, all of which are bigger and more effective than most of the German tanks, but they're now introducing the famous infamous Katyusha rockets which are now entering the battlefield. And each one of these Katyusha rocket systems is capable of delivering 320132 millimeter rockets in a 10 second barrage. And when it first enters onto the, onto the battlefield, it is a massive shock to the Germans. And one. One German soldier noted that it was

[Guest Historian]

the most terrible and shocking thing I have ever encountered. I mean, can you imagine coming up

[James Holland]

against that for the first time? You're not going to know what's here, are you?

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, particularly as you've been told the enemy's crap endlessly. I mean, this is the thing.

[James Holland]

Yeah.

[Al Murray]

You know that they're not going to put up a fight. And Hitler is also, while this is all going on, he's instructing his generals to give up on large encirclements and carry out smaller ones instead. Thanks, boss.

[James Holland]

Cheers. Now that's really helpful.

[Guest Historian]

Yeah.

[Al Murray]

Holder's getting depressed and by the 26th of July it's clear that things are, aren't working out, are they?

[Guest Historian]

No. And he says if striking at small local enemy concentrations becomes our sole objective, the Campaign will resolve itself into a series of minor successes which will advance our front only slowly, by steps. Pursuing such a policy would eliminate tactical risks and enable us to close the

[James Holland]

gaps between the army groups. The result would be that we use

[Guest Historian]

up our strength, expanding the front in Vith at the expense of depth, and end up in position of warfare.

[James Holland]

Yep, that's exactly what's going to happen. But you have made your rod and you know.

[Al Murray]

Yes, yeah, yeah.

[James Holland]

If only you'd paid a bit more attention during the planning stage.

[Al Murray]

All, all three groups, Army Group Center, Group, Army Group north, and Army Group south, are all basically paralyzed by this, by this Soviet intervention. And Rundstedt is making really slow progress to Kyiv and the Dnieper. And Lieb is worrying about how he can get to Leningrad because the ground is totally unsuitable for Manstein's 56 Panzer course. So Manstein even suggests, let's just give up on Leningrad and let's go for Moscow, which strikes me as probably the right thing to do if you need a political decision, which you do, right, because after all, that's why you're doing it anyway. So on the 27th of July, Yodel then speaks to Hitler in favor of going to Moscow too. But he's told, don't be ridiculous. That is not happening. By this time, Hitler's not sleeping well. Oh, dear. He's not sleeping well. And he's feeling torn between political and economic objectives. And he's. He thinks that by now they'll be. They should be in Moscow. They should have taken Ukraine, Crimea and Leningrad and that, you know, by the 15th of August, the whole thing, you know, they will have taken those by the 15th of August, by the end, by the beginning of October, it all ought to be over. But this is obvious, even to Hitler, that this isn't going to happen. Blitzkrieg has had the. You know, the air's come out of the balloon. I think it's very interesting, this, because Hitler's career has always been about momentum. His political career was always about pushing forward, probing, pushing forward, momentum, relying on the tumble of events to get into the next place and gambling. And you can't do this in warfare. Things don't operate like that. They had. They appeared to in France, but they don't really know why they won in France. And so by the end of July, he's dithering and he's aware that this victory, this victory is slipping from his grasp, but he doesn't know what to do. So there's another big conference on 28 July, after which Halder, as played by James Holland, currently appearing in the. In the Chichester Theater as Franz Harder, he wrote to his. He wrote to his wife and really sums it up.

[Guest Historian]

He is playing Volod again and proposing such absurd ideas that he is putting in question everything our splendid operations have won so far. The Russian won't simply go away like the French. Then he has been operationally beaten. He has to be killed van at a time. In a country that is half forest and marshall. This takes time and Hitler's nerves won't stand it. Every few days I have to go there. Hours of empty talk with the result that there is only one man who knows how to wage wars. I am on the brink of despair because I can predict exactly where this nonsense will end. If I didn't have my faith in God and my self assurance, I'd be like Bri, who is at the end of his tether and hides behind his rank so as not to betray his inner helplessness.

[James Holland]

Well, I would. I would venture that the tone has changed somewhat, wouldn't you?

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah. He must be regretting not having got his pistol out when. When he had the opportunity.

[Guest Historian]

Good.

[James Holland]

He could have done it. November 1939.

[Al Murray]

So it's all very well the. The day before this conference, the Svalntz pocket is finally closed. But it means. But at the same time, Guderan's forces are having this life and death struggle in the Elnya salient. Bach holds a conference with his senior commanders to discuss what they're going to do next and the divergence of, as a result, the divergence of his panzer groups. Guderian, you know, throw blows a gasket, throws a shoe. Can't believe what he's hearing. His men are barely containing the relentless onslaughts where they are so moving on. And let's not forget they're there. They're where they are because of him, because of his decisions.

[James Holland]

Well, yes, but. But this is the first time he hears about this split from directive 33 and 33A, you see. So he. This is all news to him. So suddenly you've got this situation where five weeks into a war that's supposed to be the decisive blitzkrieg campaign to secure control of all Europe and crush the communist hordes. The immense gargantuan demands and the scale of the conflict, all of which I think we've laid out were entirely predictable, are coming home to roost. And the point of the spear has been severely blunted and the senior commanders are all fighting one another rather than The Red army and the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front has become a busted flush. Let's just say it, that that is what it's become. Its best men and officers are dead or maimed, its tanks battered, blackened and broken. But we are going to leave that this series here at the very end of July 1941, but needs to say there's plenty to come on the Eastern Front and we will be returning with this, won't we?

[Al Murray]

We're returning because, after all, we're only really a month into it. It's fantastic, isn't it? But when you start looking like this, in this sort of putting aside the sort of standard narrative and then. And not because we're trying to be cussed, but because why did the Germans fail in the fighting the Soviet Union? Well, here, here's why that this initial, the entire project and the fact that the way it was schemed, the way it was laid out, the way there was no actual decided central objective. There's nothing like embarking on a thing like this without actually knowing what your central objective is to cause you loads of problems. You know, look at the other side. The Allies chop and change and do, you know, do compromise and think, actually, no, we can't go to France this year. We'll go to, you know, for instance, we'll go to North Africa instead. And then they, and then, and then they chop and change and they decide where they're, you know, but they follow their strategic momentum, but they know what they are planning to do next. They have clear objectives that are clearly laid out, that they observe and pursue. In a way, none of it's clear. So no wonder this thing's a disaster. And I think that's the thing that's really leaping out. And also their opponent. When we talked about unconditional surrender, you know, when we were looking at the end of the war, Jim, we said that, you know, unconditional surrender fits the Nazis as an opponent for the Allies because you can't negotiate with them, they're going to go down swinging, whatever. So the Allies have cut their. They cut their political understanding to the cloth that's offered them. Hitler simply doesn't understand and the Germans don't understand that they've left a political component out of this completely. They're not fighting a democracy who's not got the stomach for it. They're fighting the most ruthless dictatorship on the planet. That leaves them for dust. Right. In terms of ruthlessness, that's a brilliant

[James Holland]

summary and exactly where we are. But as we know, with the Eastern front war. There's plenty to come. And so we're gonna be returning with this as Barbarossa merges into Operation Typhoon and the midnight snow in Moscow.

[Al Murray]

Well, thanks for listening, everyone. And in fact, thanks to everyone who's signed up as a result of this series. We know that many people have joined as members in order to gobble this up as quickly as they possibly can. And that's what you get from membership. You get to listen. It's ad free. If you become a patron on our way of ways to make you talk Patreon, you get this ad free. You get audiobooks, you get other tidbits, you get live casts and ticket and merch offices. It's been. This has been fantastic to do, Jim. We're one month into Barbarossa. If we carry on with the Eastern Front campaign, I'm doing eight episodes a month.

[James Holland]

We might get there by 2031.

[Al Murray]

Exactly. This podcast will never end. It's as simple as that. That. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you soon. Cheerio.

[James Holland]

Cheerio.