Barbarossa In Ukraine: Stagnation (Part 3)

Why were Guderian's panzers so short of fuel, trucks and tanks when they finally struck south in late August 1941? How did the Germans capture an intact 800-metre bridge over the Desna? Why did Bock decide to abandon the Yelnya salient after weeks of bloody fighting? Join Al Murray and James Holland for part 3 of The Road to Kiev, the culmination of our coverage of Operation Barbarossa, as Guderian's drive south struggles on, Zhukov hammers the German centre at Yelnya, and the Wehrmacht begins to bleed itself white. Become a Patreon member to unlock an exclusive 5th episode of The Road to Kiev, following the war on the ground through the eyes of Wilhelm Prüller, an Austrian soldier fighting his way across Ukraine. Start your free trial at ⁠patreon.com/wehaveways⁠ and unlock exclusive content and more. Enjoy livestreams, early access, ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and a weekly newsletter packed with book deals and behind-the-scenes insights. Get your WHW Merch here! A Goalhanger Production Produced by James Regan Editor: Bruno Di Castri & Lorcan Moullier Assistant Producer: Alfie Norris Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Social: @WeHaveWaysPod Social Producer: Harry Balden Email: [email protected] Membership Club: patreon.com/wehaveways Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 2:23Speaker 04

  Without any considerable armored support, we were reduced to trench warfare along the Desna, which made very heavy demands on the troops. The Russians attacked violently and over and over again succeeded in breaking through our thinly held lines. Tank units had to be called in to make good damage. This taught us that in modern warfare, infantry requires armored support not only in the attack, but also in the defense. When I say our lines were thin, this is not an understatement. Divisions were assigned sectors almost 20 miles wide. Five or more, in view of the heavy casualties already suffered in the course

• 3:06Speaker 04

  of the campaign. These divisions were usually under strength and tactical reserves were nonexistent. And that, of course, was General Gunter Blumentritt, who was the Chief of Staff of Fourth Army, stuck in the center of the line in Army Group Centers, one unit that hasn't been moved, shifted north or south. That's not the story, is it? Al, that's not the story we know and love of German domination on the Eastern Front in the summer of 1941?

• 3:33Speaker 00

  It absolutely isn't. Welcome, everyone, to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with Mel Murray and James Holland for episode three of our series Barbarossa, The Road to Kiev, although I think it should possibly be called The Road to Perdition, really.

• 3:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's much better.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  And this is the story of the German war effort all over, isn't it? But how good a start you might get off to, because you've caught everyone with their trousers down, it then lands you in a series of increasingly untenable situations. You're only getting yourself in the mire.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And in this episode, we're going to basically be looking at two weeks. So this is the last week of August, the first week of September, 1941. And let's be plain about it, we are telling it from the Soviet side of things, but this is this whole series largely been from the German perspective. We're not claiming to be anything else other than that. This two weeks is a crisis point. This is where it is absolutely going down the Swanee big time. I mean, it is a total mess. The whole campaign strategically, operationally, less so tactically, but certainly operationally and strategically, it's going to pot, as we shall see.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  At the end of the last episode, Army Group North was poised about to strike for Leningrad and Guderian and his merry band were about to launch their strike southwards. After all, that he'd had to be furor persuaded to undergo and just as his army has changed direction completely, so has he. Well, his proper strike south, though, is von Schwefenberg's 24 Panzer Corps have been pushing southwards anyway and have been in constant combat since the fall of Smolensk in the 15th of July. But we're gonna, we're gonna leave, we're gonna park Guderian for now. We're gonna liega his forces for the moment and look north first.

• 5:21Speaker 04

  Are we going north? Well, their ongoing offensive is supported heavily by Luftflotte too. Remember him? Kasserling and all that?

• 5:27Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  You know, this is in the days when Kasserling was just a lowly field marshal in the Luftwaffe, not the all conquering, all head honcho in Italy. Also, with the additional weight of von Riechthofen's Fliegerkorps Eight, who attached to them. And on the 15th of August, it's a Luftwaffe that really, really does play a key part in helping 18th Army capture Novgorod. And on the 28th of August, they also take Tallinn. So that is the Baltic States wrapped up at that point. So that's not bad going, really. And the loss of Tallinn, of course, is extremely bad news for the Soviets. You've only taken it the year before. So you know, in the summer, in June 1940, this is when the Soviet Red Army was sweeping into

• 6:10Speaker 04

  the Baltic States. Anyway, the Red Banner Baltic Fleet has been encircled at Tallinn, but not allowed to evacuate until the city fell. Again, this is sort of, you know, Stalin going, no, no one should leave. So 67 vessels then tried to break out, but only 33 make it. So the other 34 are sunk in the harbor by a combination of air attack torpedoes and gunfire all mines. I mean, that's a diving opportunity, isn't it?

• 6:35Speaker 00

  That's quite something, isn't it? But as we see here, Jim, right, later on in the war, Hitler does this thing of, you know, you're not a step back, you've got to hang on regardless. Has he not been offered a series of lessons of how that works out for you by the Soviets in 1941?

• 6:52Speaker 04

  Yes. And Al, do you think Hitler's going to learn these lessons and take note of them and store them away for the future?

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Well, you go tell him. But no.

• 7:01Speaker 04

  Or is he going to have maniacal festings? He insists maniacally that festings should be maintained at all opportunities.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  I think we know where that one goes. But isn't that interesting? That here's a series of prime examples of how that doesn't work. And now you have to maintain a fluid reserve and all that sort of thing, rather than this sort of, these sort of pimples of resistance. Anyway, it just popped into my mind as you laid that out, the disaster that enveloped the Soviets with that policy. Anyway, so on the 23rd of August, and it's interesting this, when in doubt, reorganize. Stalin or the Stavka splits the Northern Front into two, right? The Leningrad and the Karelian fronts. And four days later, Varoshalov's northwestern strategic direction, which sounds like a terrible indie band or a sort

• 7:51Speaker 00

  of experimental electronic dance band, they're also dissolved. Northwestern strategic direction there with their record that went to number 43. They also dissolved and the Stavka took over direct control of Leningrad, the Karelian and northwestern front. So, you know, all right, we'll reorganize then. So this means everyone, all eyes are on.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  We'll reorganize and we'll take greater control.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's the problem, greater control. All eyes in the north are on Leningrad, obviously, which was formerly St Petersburg, it is now St Petersburg again. And then it was Petrograd for 1914, and then Leningrad after Lenin died in 1924. Germans are determined to basically smash Leningrad up, aren't they? It's obviously, it's got that symbolic tinge, isn't it, in Hitler's mind because of the politics of it? And the first long-range shell lands on the city on the 1st of September.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  And by the 8th of September, Germans had captured Schliselberg on the southern shore of Lake Lagoda, which is the huge lake to the east of the city. This now means effectively Leningrad's cut off from the Soviet Union, from the south and the east, from the seaward side and by the Finns to the north. So it's under siege.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  Yes, because the northern side of Lake Lagoda is Finland.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  Have you been to St Petersburg, Jim?

• 9:08Speaker 04

  No, I never have, have you?

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have, yeah, we went about 10, 12 years ago, I think. And went on the train from Moscow. But basically, you wake up in St Petersburg, sort of 10 miles outside, and it's refined, all these horrible, horrible refineries and, you know, giant, squalid factories and petrochemical works, or that's what they appeared to be.

• 9:31Speaker 04

  And what's it like in the centre?

• 9:32Speaker 00

  If it's like anywhere, it's kind of like Prague on steroids. If it's like anything, the Hermitage is spectacular.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  Enormous bridges, you go down to the bit that's reclaimed marsh where we went. Inevitably, we went to the military museum, went around the whole thing, none of which is in English, which is kind of interesting. You know, it's all, there's no concession at all, it's possible to anyone who might speak English might go. I mean, that's fine, but because it's all in Cyrillic, it's got that sort of alienating quality. And the only bit that had any English, and it was an exhibition about the AK-47, there was a special exhibition about the AK-47 with old, you know, video of old Mr Kalashnikov toasting himself for how successful it was. An interesting place, and we were there on Navy Day, the day we left was Navy Day, which

• 10:20Speaker 00

  was a huge bean feast in the city and loads of people wearing their grandparents or relatives' medals and, you know, some destroyer or something had come up into the city. So quite interesting. I recommend it to anyone when hostilities have ceased, of course.

• 10:36Speaker 04

  Well, yes, I mean, you know, hopefully I'll be looked on a little bit more kindly in future years.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, you can't go. Of course, you can't go.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  I can't go, yeah. So Holder, General Holder, Chief Staff of the Army, of the OKH, the HIR, says on the 5th of September in his diary, he goes, "Our objective has been achieved, we'll become a subsidiary theatre of operations." So it's agreed that they're not going to waste their time in Fibua, fighting in a built-up area, they're going to just besiege it and starve them out. No point getting drawn into costly urban fighting. I mean, you know, that actually is quite sensible. The Germans are expecting this to happen, you know, the surrender to happen fairly swiftly. But there is also a sort of vague sense of opportunity lost as well, I think.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  You know, 41 Panzerkorb, 120 kilometres, so what's that, like 75, 80 miles, isn't it, from Leningrad by late July? And General Hopener had suggested an all-fight for us to take it, but obviously, you know, it's the same old problem, the supply chain simply couldn't support it, so the idea's shelved and, you know, they're going to besiege it instead. But by the 11th of September, there are now 452,000 Red Army troops on the Leningrad front, with two-thirds deployed around the south of the city. And, you know, they're now facing similar numbers of Germans, but obviously, as you know, the three-to-one minimum rule for attackers, that you should have three times as many as those defending when you're attacking.

• 12:08Speaker 04

  And now the Leningrad front is just, at the end of the second week of September, is given to Zhukov, who's switched from the reserve front on the 9th of September, which is obviously the day after the siege began. That's where we're at with Leningrad, and we can just sort of park that for the moment, because this isn't the main event on this series. The main event is very much in the centre still, and what is going on in the south in Ukraine. So it's time to turn back there. And Hitler's plans in the encirclement of Kiev, which, you know, has to be said, at the end of August, is not going very well, but we need to recap a little bit, I think.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  But he's a military genius, Jim. We were talking a lot about triangles and salience, weren't we, in the previous episode of exactly what the Germans are trying to nip off and how Zhukov had the intuition that this is what was coming. But even before the Germans' late August encirclement campaign begins, Kripenos's south-west front were already half encircled anyway, because of this triangular salient which Kiev sits in at the apex, sort of like a beak. The south-east of the city, the Dnepa winds its way south-east, and the Germans still weren't to cross it. So they're being pressed, but they are being pressed to the north and the south. Weich's Second Army, north-east of Kiev, and then Guderian's Sekopansikor.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  And to the south, you have Rikenau's Sixth Army, Stupnagels Seventeenth Army, it's one of my favourite names, and then Van Kleist's Panzergruppe 1. So there's lots of moving parts. When you read that menu, it's pretty obvious what the Germans are up to, isn't it? But Stalin, though, is still insisting on protecting both Moscow and saving Kiev. To the south, General Everhard von Mackensen is driving his Third Panzerkorb hard down to Dnepropetrovsk.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  To Dnepropetrovsk.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Dnepropetrovsk, which is a long way to south-east of the city.

• 14:06Speaker 04

  Which the Ukrainians have now just called Dnipro.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  Much more sensibly.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  Much more, much more, well, thoughtfully for us. It's very good of them, that's why I'm on their side, they've made the names easier. And Stalin thinks this move on Dnipro Petrovsk is where the problem is, isn't he? Rather than anything else.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  By the way, do you remember Everhard von Mackensen from Anzio?

• 14:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  Who's constantly falling out with Kesselring.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  He's commander of the 14th Army, Kesselring sacks him. Yep, yep. So all these guys, you know, Lemelson, Fatinghoff, they get around.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Do you think von Mackensen's from an old Scottish family that went to Prussia at some point? It sounds like he could be.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  Hey, the name's Everhard, Everhard von Mackensen.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Everhard von Mackensen, okay. Now, listen.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, get you. No, but he wouldn't, he'd talk like this, wouldn't he, a very sort of, just a light Edinburgh brogue.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  That's right. If my chat could please move on to Dnipro Petrovsk, or please, that'd be nice.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  Everything's better in Third Panzerkorb.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Let's talk about Kiev and where it is, because it sits on the Dnepa, and in 1941, most of it's on the western bank of the river, like Stalingrad, in fact. And it's a big city for the time and for the Soviet Union, it's 850,000 people. It's got a railway network which links the east and west, so this is worth taking. And it had been an impregnable fortress city during the Russian Civil War, and so Stalin isn't going to give it up now. It's deeply symbolic, isn't it? Symbolic of Soviet power over Ukraine, isn't it? That Ukraine as a part of the Soviet Empire, isn't it?

• 15:45Speaker 04

  And the third largest city in the Soviet Union.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  And this means, because it's got a rail heading, because it's where it is, it's an important concentration centre for the Red Army and for Kripenos's front. So, you know, it makes sense not to want to lose it. And there's an outer defensive zone, which is being created to the west of the city on the river Erpen, while the People's Militia and barricades are established in the city. And there is an NKVD man in charge, whose name is Nikita Khrushchev, interestingly enough. And he's First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party. And they've also got, there's three rifle divisions, there's a tank regiment, an airborne

• 16:28Speaker 00

  brigade, an NKVD motorised force, two anti-tank battalions, 29,000 militia. So there's a fair chunk of blokes there to defend the place. But the Germans are going to encircle it, rather, they know they don't want to try and dash themselves on the rocks of the city, they want to encircle it first and proceed from there, don't they?

• 16:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But, you know, the problem with the encirclement, of course, is that it involves vast distances instead, you know, which the Germans are really not at all suited to fulfilling. This rapid advance is also not helped by the scorched earth policy, which has been ordered by Stalin. Generally speaking, I mean, the scorched earth policy is a bit hit and miss, and it tends to be more effective the further east you go. Ukrainians generally are not terribly keen on carrying out the order, because scorched earth means blowing up the bridges, destroying the roads, which then means, you know, your own means of communications are trouts, which then means you're facing yet another famine. So, you know, do you like the sound of that? No, thanks. And also, by the way, we're quite keen on having the Germans in rather than the pesky Russians.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  So it's a bit hit and miss. But having said that, all the rail bridges over the Dnepa River at Cherkasy, Kremenchug...

• 17:44Speaker 04

  Donetsk, Petrovsk and Zaporizhzhya are all destroyed and the factories in the cities have been abandoned and destroyed as well. The results of the scorched earth policy really are felt most by the Germans in terms of logistics and it definitely does make their lives harder. There's no question about it. There's less to plunder and it means that more has to be carried, of course, including not least bridging, which, as we know, and you've just been doing this deep dive into Market Garden engineering and bridging, takes up an awful lot of logistical space in terms of trucks and moveability and oil and fuel and blah, blah, blah.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  And you have to prioritise it as well. You have to bring it forward. So you, you, you know, immediately, whatever, whatever plans or schedule you've got, you need to, you know, you need to either be flexible enough to do that or change what you're doing. So it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a real demand on your operational flexibility.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  But the, the main furthest thrust, so if you think of, of the Donetsk River sort of going backwards, sat in a south easty direction, that means to get to it, you've got to do this big sweep to the southeast. And that's been spearheaded by, by von Mackensen, as we've already mentioned with his third Panzer Corps, which of course is part of von Kleis Panzer Group One. Now, remember there's four Panzer Groups, Panzer Group One in Army Group South, two and three in Army Group Centre and four in Army Group North. And that is it for your, for your, your, your major spearheading Panzer thrust. Anyway, they had reached Donetsk Petrovsk on the 17th of August, after having a pretty clear run. I mean, the, the, the

• 19:17Speaker 04

  constraints are more of logistics and just distance rather than, and you know, terrible roads and all the rest of it and too much dust and running out of fuel and running out of parts than it is opposition from the Red Army. But once they get to Donetsk Petrovsk, there the Red Army resists furiously and drags third Panzer Corps into a kind of one of those sort of awful, ghastly, bitter, attritional kind of urban fights. However, part of the 13th Panzer Division does manage to get across the Donetsk on the 25th of August. So everything happens on the 25th of August. But creating a bridgehead, of course, getting across is one thing, maintaining it and expanding it is quite another.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  And instead of giving third Panzer Corps the rest it desperately needs, because it's going to be part of this encirclement operation, it's now drawn into an attritional fight for a city and a bridgehead of, you know, in the big scheme of things at this moment of limited strategic value. You know, this is a hell of a long way from, from Kiev. You know, it's, it's 300 kilometres or something. You know, what's that? 200 miles from, from Kiev. That's a, that's a long way south.

• 20:28Speaker 00

  But Jim, this is what happened though. You know, that, that is a microcosm of, of the Barbarossa campaign right there. They, they break out, they go a long way because they're not resisted. Then they, they think that's victory and then they do bump into the Soviets and it's bloody and when the Soviets elect to fight, it's bloody and difficult and horrible and they're stuck. And that's like, that's, that's this in a, this whole thing in a micro, microcosm. They can't resist driving on when there's no one resist, when there's no one resisting them. They end up 300 kilometres out of, out of shape.

• 20:58Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And this will be repeated again and we'll, we'll come on to this because this, this is, you've absolutely hit the nail on the head. They can't resist it. They cannot resist the urge to just keep going, even when they shouldn't. When they should just go, right, that'll do. So, you know, the, the problem is, is, is on the, you know, at the moment where, where Guderian is just about to start his drive south, Kleis Panzer Group One are a hell of a long way from offering anything to this planned encirclement. Because the thrust of Panzer Group One, von Kleis Panzer Group One is now at Donetsk Petrovsk, being sucked into this bridgehead on the eastern bank, which it doesn't really

• 21:40Speaker 04

  need. At, at this town, first Panzer Group has fired a staggering 40,000 tonnes of artillery shells by the 6th of September. And what does that speak of? That speaks of very, very tough, heavy fighting.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  And saying, okay, we're going to put all our artillery on the western bank and we're just going to fire it into eastern bank and that, that's, we're going to use that as a full force multiplier.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 04

  Because our, our men in this bridgehead are having a really, really tough time of it. That's what it says to me.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  A one hundred percent.

• 22:10Speaker 04

  You know, and one of the, one of the divisions involved in, in this operation, the 60th Motorised Infantry Division, its supply lines are now between 200 and 500 kilometres away. I mean, that's just ridiculous. You know, the, these are the demands of third Panzer Corps. And, and both Runsted, von Runsted, the commander of Army Group South and von Kleis, the commander of Army Group, of Panzer Group One, are seriously worrying whether it could manage any further operations at all for the time being. You know, they desperately, desperately need this time out of the line for, for R and R, for refit and replenishment. And they're just not getting it. And on the 25th of August, a quartermaster of Army Group

• 22:51Speaker 04

  South notes, for the intended replenishment period of 10 days, it is necessary that the Panzer Corp is provided with 14 supply trains a day. But this is horrendously wishful thinking because the entire Army Group is only getting 12 trains a day and that's on a good day. And very often it's only receiving half of these. So where one Panzer Group is going to get 14 is just ridiculous. And the problem is that now the bridgehead at Donetsk Petrovsk is sucking up much of what supplies they do have. So von Runsted is not in favour of expanding the bridgehead at all, but I actually think it's a much more sensible idea would just be to pull back over the other side and kind of, you know, hold the town and kind of be grateful for what you've got. But he feels he needs to kind of refer it

• 23:36Speaker 04

  to the OKH. So he says, do you want to be Runsted?

• 23:39Speaker 00

  Yes, why not? The commander of the Army Group advises that the bridgehead not be held because it would lead to disproportionately large demand on strength and munitions, which would delay the replenishment of the Panzer Group. Halder isn't persuaded, is he? This is the problem, is that, that, you know, these sorts of voices of protest get nowhere, don't they? And Halder, Halder by this point, and he, Halder's been on quite the journey, hasn't he? Halder by this point is now completely enthralled to Hitler's idea that will will do the trick, that the power of the will will, will winner, will win the campaign for them, which is just so silly. And when you, you know, when you consider that supposedly the Prussian military class is the educated

• 24:20Speaker 00

  military class, they've had a, you know, a military academy since the post Napoleonic times, they supposedly all understand how it works. For them to all be dazzled and overpowered by Hitler is, is not brilliant, is it?

• 24:33Speaker 04

  I mean, this is, it's a terrible, terrible decision, isn't it? I mean, I think that's really blindingly obvious to me.

• 24:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 04

  That this is not a good idea. Same day, 25th of August, 1941, same day that 13th Panzer Division is getting across the Donetsk, Donetsk Petrovsk, Guderian's second Panzer Group is finally getting going on its thrust, which it's already been doing anyway, but just not full, full out. But he's only really doing this with 24th Panzer Corps and Lemelson's 47th Panzer Corps, because von Weytingen's 46th Panzer Corps is still on the central front. Guderian's in a grump already because he doesn't feel he's doing it with the right, right amount. And, and von Trappenberg's 24th Panzer Group start without any time at all for rest and, and maintenance, having been at the spearhead of the whole thing since the 21st of June. But no break whatsoever.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  Yes, Guderian's Panzer Group is weak, but the Red Army is in, is, is in disarray because again, you know, they're, they're, they're going through these paroxysms of reorganisation along with the fact that they, that, that, you know, there's an arse and elbow problem at the Stavka, isn't there? And they disband the central front, that the Stavka disbands the central front and places all its units under Arimenko and his Briensk front. So Arimenko now commands the 3rd, 13th, 21st and 50th Armies, but is now solely responsible for having to deal with most of Army Group Centre, including Guderian. So he's got quite

• 26:02Speaker 00

  a lot on his plate, isn't he? Only 50th Army of that, of that portfolio of commands is in any kind of fighting shape. But Arimenko is then ordered by Shevposhnikov to place the 50th Army on the right, so the northern side. In other words, looking to cover the Moscow possibility.

• 26:22Speaker 04

  Yes, and covering the bit where the centre of Army Group Centre is still. You know, this is 4th and 9th Armies in the, in the centre. Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Because they're, they're hung up on this idea of, the Stavka's hung up on the, Stalin is hung up on the idea of Moscow, which means moving away from where the, the Germans, you know, are actually trying to concentrate what they have of a schwerpunkt to the southwest. This means that Arimenko's attacks on Guderian's left, his eastern flank will be mu, will be much weaker than they could and should have been because, you know, Guderian is vulnerable. And it's not so much the Red Army that's Guderian's problem, it's the terrible roads, the shortages of supply. Because after all, when, you know, we keep coming to this, they're not metalled roads, they're tracks, they've all been, they've

• 27:10Speaker 00

  all been churned up, they're dusty, they're a quagmire. Every, every heavy tank you send over any, any country road like this degrades the road, damages the road.

• 27:19Speaker 04

  Just not designed for this. I mean, that's the point.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Yes, it's for, it's for horse and cart, isn't it? And the, and the

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  Spearheads are also running into lots and lots of small streams, which they can't go, which they can't skirt around, they can't flank around. So this means that they've got to reinforce bridges because the bridges can't take the traffic. Obviously, this means, this means having the stuff to do that or the engineer to do that and the delay. So it's bad roads, bad bridges. The troops are exhausted, they're at the end of their supply lines. All of this means that Guderian's drive south is far from guaranteed to be a success. You also have the Desna River, which runs north to south, which then turns west 90 degrees and which is in the way of Panzer Group Two. And this is a really good

• 28:06Speaker 00

  natural obstacle if you're defending and should, should and could offer you a very good shoulder if you're trying to keep Guderian out. But there's obviously, there's a, there's a however coming because of the sheer state of disarray in, in the Red Army. But there's this thing, we keep coming to this, don't we? That, that, the things that appear to be dazzling German moments are very often, you know, clod hopping.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  Moments of incompetence on their parts of their opponents. The Gazala Line battle, you know, the Gazala Stakes in 1942, you know, that give the Germans what they need and they'll take it, you know. So, leading 24 Panzer Corps, Third Panzer Division, and on the 25th of August, they're approaching Novgorod-Severesky, which is a town on the Desna. The Germans, they, they, they, they seem to think that the bridge has been destroyed, but it hasn't. It's still there. So, and this is the Red Army just not able to tie its own bootlaces at this point. You know, they're inept, so there's a dash of good luck and swift action on the part of two junior officers in Third Panzer, who grabbed the bridge early intact on the 26th.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Sliding doors.

• 29:16Speaker 00

  Sliding doors, but the Red Army's door is probably jammed, is the thing, and won't slide. You know what I mean, right? The Third Panzer War Diary reads, "Given the wide riverbed and swampy banks, the bridge, mit a length of 800 metres, spanned an otherwise almost impassable object." I mean, obstacle. I mean, that's a, that's a big, big bloody water obstacle.

• 29:39Speaker 04

  800 metres, that's nearly a kilometre. It's like over half a mile. And Guderian says, "This bridge is as good as a whole division." There you go. So, so, so he's now secured the bridge, which means that Modell now has to hold on to it and so tries to rapidly expand the bridgehead to a depth of kind of eight kilometres, which is what, just under five miles, isn't it? The next day, 27th of August, they face furious counterattacks and also assaults from the air, and they are forced to give just a little bit of ground, but the bridgehead does hold. The problem, though, of course, is pumping enough troops and supplies into it to keep it both open and then, then, you know, use it as a launchpad to push on again. And following behind the Panzer Divisions were the motorised infantry divisions, including

• 30:22Speaker 04

  10th Motorised Infantry Division, which is struggling to reach them. And the War Diary of the 10th Motorised Infantry Division goes, "Aside from earlier fallout, 30% of the remaining trucks are sitting mit some form of damage und the road north of Surash. As a result of the catastrophic oil shortage from which the majority of these damaged streams, there will be even more trucks lost. Consequently, the battalions in front sometimes consist of just five platoons and are often without heavy weapons. The division will reach the Desna in some cases on foot and almost without heavy weapons." I mean, that's not great, is it?

• 31:03Speaker 00

  No, that's, that's a shit show, right there.

• 31:05Speaker 04

  Because, because the Germans' USP, better training, better kit, you, you, you know, better ability and to think with agility, lightness of foot, to get in there, smash the enemy before they know what's coming. It's kind of hard to do that if you've only got a handful of platoons with no, mit no heavy weapons. I mean.

• 31:25Speaker 00

  Well, they're relying on Wim and Wigger, aren't they? And they don't have the Wim or the Wigger, so to speak.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  No.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  And, and, and obviously, and of course, they're short of oil. Four Panzer Divisions is so short of oil on the 29th of August, it can only field 15 tanks that day, which is smaller than a single British squadron. It's wear and tear. High tempo operations like this, it's about wear and tear, isn't it? You know, cracked axles. The day before the 28th of August, Haldur records 38,000 trucks lost since the beginning of the campaign. Those who recall the first episode was about the, you know, that the ill-fated transportation plan that was enacted to try and sort out trucks.

• 32:03Speaker 04

  Adolf von Schell.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  Exactly. Here, he, he failed, he failed to grip that and here's the, here's the fruits of a campaign anyway. So, combine those two things, they're really up the swany. 50% of these trucks of the 38,000 lost are in the Panzer Groups. So, by now, Guderian's Second Panzer Group is operating at 45% strength of tanks, von Kleist's First Panzer Group at 50%. The total losses of armoured fighting vehicles is now at 1,488 by the end of August with just 96 replacements. German industry is not keeping up pace. I mean, it's amazing, isn't it?

• 32:41Speaker 04

  So, Guderian, is he happy?

• 32:43Speaker 00

  No, poor old Guderian, he's in a right sulk, isn't he? Tough being a genius, isn't it?

• 32:48Speaker 04

  Anyway, General Paulus visits him on the 27th of August. Paulus, of course, we will remember from, from Stalingrad, but at this time, he's the senior quartermaster of the OKH, the Oberkommandant der Hilde, the army. And Guderian demands reinforcements and warns of a 75 kilometre gap, so what's that, about 40 miles, between his forces and Weich's Second Army? And it's not joined up and, and, you know, they're on, it's, it's, it's all going horribly wrong. And Guderian demands that two of Weich's motor corps, plus one, the First Cavalry Division, be handed over to his command in two Panzer Group. And also demands return of the 46th Panzer Corps under Watinghof, which is still in the central part of the centre front of Army Group Centre.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  And Paulus thinks, well, yeah, you know, you're right, you know, this is hopeless situation, I'll do what I can. And the same night, Guderian also harasses Bock's Chief of Staff, "But there aren't any troops to spare." You know, the only consolation that Bock is prepared to concede to Guderian is pushing the First Cavalry Division closer to Schreppenberg's right flank. Guderian's not a happy bunny and Guderian is terribly guilty of thinking that he's the only show in town, you know, forgetting that, of what else is going on. And that's what we're going to be looking at in a minute. But the, but the truth is the same that has been plaguing them since the fall of Smolensk. You know, they've bitten off more than they can chew. You know, the advance has only been going on for three days against feeble, I mean,

• 34:13Speaker 04

  truly feeble Red Army opposition. And already von Schreppenberg is suggesting that it might not be possible to even go on at all eventually. And with huge regret and huge misgivings, von Bock agrees to send the Gross Deutschland Regiment, which is a, is a, not elite, exactly, but, but, you know, one of the, one of the better notch infantry regiments. Guderian, of course, is rather than being, saying, "Thank you, my senior commander for, for helping me out," is, is very, very unimpressed and goes, "It is a drop by drop method of reinforcement." Well, he's right, but what do you, what do you do? I mean, what else can you do? And, and the main reason Bock can't send anything, anything else is because his centre

• 34:57Speaker 04

  in Army Group Centre is getting absolutely hammered.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  We're going to take a, a short break now and we're going to see what the Red Army are up to in the centre. Because although they, although they've, they've offered disarray so far, when they do get to grips with the Germans, they can be quite effective. We'll see you in a tick.

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• 36:30Speaker 00

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• 36:40Speaker 00

  Welcome back to We Have Ways to Make You Talk with me, Almarin James Holland. The Road to Perdition, episode three or 11, depending on how you like your apples. The Red Army is hammering the centre, as you said, Jim, just before the break. Since the second week in August, both Zhukov's Reserve Front and Timoshenko's Western Front have been putting in repeated assaults on Bock's centre. And they're not letting up on this because after all, this is where, this is where the Stavka thinks that the big threat is, isn't it? Lots of Red Army soldiers are killed, but they're, they are grinding down Bock's Fourth Army and Ninth Army so badly that it's mutating, metastasising into a full-blown crisis. And even on the 15th of August, Haldur, as ventriloquised here by James Holland, notes,

• 37:25Speaker 00

  "The front of the Army Group, with its 40 divisions over 730 kilometres, is so strained that moving to a determined defence entails far-reaching considerations which have not been thought through in detail. The present deposition and line organisation is in no way suited for a sustained defence."

• 37:43Speaker 04

  Yep, he's absolutely spot on. So, maybe you could ease things by not having a bridgehead over at Donetsk or Petrovsk, but just, just.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Just saying. So, Hoetz's Panzer Group Three and Ninth Army have already handed over where they are to 39th Panzer Corps, to Army Group North, right? And 57th Panzer Corps are also still to the north-east around Voliky-Luky. So, Hoetz's forces are badly under strength and they're getting smashed up anyway. And this is, this is why, as you said, the cupboard's bare. Bock cannot offer Guderian anything to help. He can't do it. He's got everything committed, he's got no reserve for defending Smolensk. So, the possibility that they might need to fall back. Is at least present, isn't it? It's a distinct possibility. The Stavka, Stalin, and let's be honest now, I mean, you know, it's not a committee, is it? They've ordered a renewed

• 38:33Speaker 00

  effort in the centre. So on the 25th of August, and it's a funny, this is a fateful day. If we were to do our sort of dates top Trump's game, 25th of August is high on that list, isn't it? Because lots happens on this day.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  Well, it's the day Paris falls, of course, in 1944.

• 38:50Speaker 00

  Plus, it's on this day, it's its own trifecta on the eastern front. The Red Army launches its first three-pronged attack, which is Aramenco, Timoshenko and Zhukov all putting in big attacks on the same day. Colossal cracks. The western front, they've been ordered to retake Smolensk. The reserve front, which is Zhukov, to eliminate Yelnya's salient and to capture Roselph and the Brezhansk front, they've got to destroy Guderian's drive south. The fact is, is whatever the Germans are thinking of doing, the Soviets are going to disrupt it. And it's Zhukov and the Yelnya salient, Zhukov, funnily enough, who's having the most effect, isn't it? This is kind of like a bit First World War, but western front First World War, not the Russian

• 39:33Speaker 00

  experience of it. You have this horrible shattered blighted landscape, each attack preceded by an enormous artillery barrage, and then great big human wave infantry attacks. After one attack of the 6th Army Corps, there are at least 3,000 Red Army dead in front of their positions. Jesus. Günther von Schäven, who's a soldier in these battles, he says, "The last few days have placed a heavy burden on me. One cannot comprehend the annihilation of so much life. The desperate and vile breakthrough attempts of the Russians hit, surprisingly to us, in the middle of our front with Panzers, infantry and Cossacks. I am too shattered to grasp it all." Although they are getting mown down in their thousands on the Red Army side, the Germans are suffering too. There's thousands of Germans getting killed as well. And they're even being,

• 40:18Speaker 00

  and he refers to Cossacks there, they're even being attacked by Russian cavalry on horses, who are wielding swords and towing heavy machine guns. Just fantastic. This is crazy stuff, isn't it?

• 40:31Speaker 04

  It's hard to get your head around, isn't it?

• 40:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it is, yeah. And the thing is, the German infantry divisions are exhausted. It's not as bad as, say, at Monte Cassino a few years later. But, you know, we're talking about 1941, aren't we? When supposedly the Germans are running rampant. 161st Infantry Division, they've lost 2,000 men and 57 officers in eight days.

• 40:52Speaker 04

  That's quite a lot.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  Exactly. And officers with experience and all that, you know, gone. By the end, and training, by the end of August, Bock is warning Halder that 9th Army is in danger of collapse, which would mean pulling back 4th Army as well. And he's really worried that they might have to give up Smolensk. It's not just the fighting, but it's the cumulative effect. We've looked at big numbers on the Soviet side, but the Germans have less to play with. As we always keep coming back to, that they're reliant on the pointy end to do the sort of the work. But Soviet Union is too big for that, for just the pointy end to do the fighting. They've lost, by the 26th of August, they've lost 441,000 men,

• 41:31Speaker 00

  which is 11.67% of their entire army. It's a 1 in 10, essentially, casualty rate of the entire army in the east.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, and of course, and the problem, the problem is that that figure, that percentage is far, far higher amongst the lead infantry and of course, the Panzer units.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  Because that's the entire army.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:55Speaker 04

  So that includes your clerks and your bottle washers and your truck drivers. By the end of August, only 217,000 replacements have arrived, leaving a deficit of 197,000. This leaves just 46,000 men left in the replacement army. So obviously, it doesn't take a change nest to realise that the losses are already completely unsustainable. And the German army in the east, the Osthia, is already by this point in terminal decline. And this is the beginning of September, 1941. You have a deficit of 197, but you've only got 46,000 left. So there's also, inevitably, because of the sort of grinding nature of the battle and the lack of hygiene and the difficulties of operating in this vast expanse

• 42:38Speaker 04

  of swamps and rivers and marshes, there's lots of sickness because vermin become rife because you can't clean enough, because you can't get enough to the front, so you can't get enough uniforms replaced, you can't get enough shower units. Then everyone's just constantly in the line, so you're getting more and more dirty, which means you're getting lice especially. Mosquitoes are absolutely horrific. One soldier writes, "The flies and mosquitoes are plague, and I wonder what these blood-sucking pests lived on before we came along, with their nets over our helmets. But the beasts work their way up the sleeves and inside the collar. The halt is to be covered in a mass of these terrible biting insects and the inevitable flies." I mean, it does sound absolutely filthy, you know. So there's rising numbers of cases of malaria, dysentery especially, and of course typhus and typhoid. And typhus is

• 43:21Speaker 04

  a by-product of all the lice, you know. And those sickness figures aren't really included in the casualties. The casualties that we're talking about are, you know, wounded, missing and dead. It's also, I think, worth mentioning the allies that the Germans have here, who of course, they're looking after spectacularly well, and actually ending up being more of a sort of hindrance and a help. But particularly, the Romanians and the Hungarians. So Army Group South is bolstered by the Romanian 4th Army, which is only too happy to come in and strike into the Soviet Union after the Soviet Union had gone in and struck them in 1940, and again in early part of 1941. And they begin besieging Odessa. So they're right on the southern flank from the 3rd to the 25th of August. They batter away at

• 44:04Speaker 04

  Odessa, but even though they've got six times the manpower and six times the artillery power, they're still struggling to make much headway. And they then pause on the 25th of August and renew their attack again on the 28th. But they're using old, out-of-date tactics and suffering as a result. And interestingly, it's at Odessa that the female Soviet sniper, Mila Pavachenko, notches up 180 kills, apparently, and becomes known as the Bolshevik Valkyrie. And between the 28th of August and 11th of September, Romanians lose 31,552. And since the 5th of August, a total of 58,859. And they still don't manage to break through

• 44:49Speaker 04

  the city, which they're sort of besieging. And again, it's just turning into a sort of horror story in the town itself of sort of urban fighting. By the 11th of September, the Red Army has also managed to land reinforcements. So Odessa doesn't finally fall until the 16th of October, by which time the Romanians have suffered nearly 100,000. That's quite a lot, isn't it, for a small country, small army?

• 45:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. There's a complication as well, isn't it, that the Hungarians and the Romanians hate each other? So, you know, and you have the Hungarians on the Romanian flank. So they're not getting along.

• 45:23Speaker 04

  They're the jam in the sandwich of Romanians and Panzergruppenkrieg.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  The Hungarians lose 25% of what the Romanians lose, and the Hungarians are repeatedly being asked to be bailed out by the Germans. And the Germans, they want their allies to get on with what they need to be getting on with, rather than needing rescuing the whole time. And they're brought into the line, south of Dnipro, Prichovsk. And pretty soon, they say they're exhausted and needing help. But given, actually, the German army is exhausted, and I imagine they're not received sympathetically, after all. And they have to be reinforced by the 16th Motorized Infantry Division from Wietersheim's 14 Panzer Corps. So again, they're robbing Peter to pay Paul, and the Germans turn up, they pretty much know what they're doing, and their allies are poorly trained and not massively motivated. So they

• 46:12Speaker 00

  might say, "We need you to hold this," and they don't. Or, "We need you to put in the salt here," and they can't pull it off. So they can't rely on them.

• 46:20Speaker 04

  But it's all right, because the Italians are coming.

• 46:22Speaker 00

  Yes, that's right. The Coppo di Settizione Italiano in Russia, who are a small addition, but they're the third ally now in the line, ready to rock and roll and be helpful. We rejoin our Scottish friend, Mackensons Bridgehead over the Dnipro.

• 46:36Speaker 04

  Hi, Van Mack. It's an increasingly dour situation. But obviously, it's just turning into a massive headache, which is entirely of the OKHs and Halder's making. 198th Infantry Division, which is new to the front, is diverted straight into the Bridgehead to join much of the 13th and 14th Panzer Divisions. But not only is the Bridgehead still to be held, but on Halder's order, it's got to be expanded as well.

• 47:03Speaker 00

  Oh, God.

• 47:03Speaker 04

  So on the 2nd of September, a renewed operation begins. And they do manage to increase the bridgehead by a depth of five kilometres and 11 kilometres wide, you know, with the help of the Luftwaffe, which after all, that's what the Luftwaffe is there to do. But Von Rundstedt realises that Donetsk, Petrovsk is attracting ever-stiffening opposition. So now orders Sixth Army, which is Rikenau up in the north bit, and Seventeenth Army next in, and also the rest of Kleist Panzer Group to try and cross the Donetsk and as many places as possible. But obviously, this is not a very easy proposition with the limited bridging that's come forward. But on the 31st of August, the 52nd Army

• 47:45Speaker 04

  Corps in Stulpnago's Seventeenth Army does manage to get across at Derievka, which is just south of Kremenchuk, which is when Kleist decides this should become the launch place for the eventual drive north to meet Guderian's forces. So they've had a little bit of good fortune there. And this means that Kleist's overworked Grost Transport Traum is ordered to get as many machines back into action ASAP, but again, before little chance to rest and refit. And the, do you think the Quartermaster of Panzer Group One is happy about this?

• 48:18Speaker 00

  Quartermasters are never happy, though, Jim. I think it's fair to say.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  But yeah, no, that is fair to say. But he's especially not happy, isn't he? Or he's unhappy, to put it another way.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. He says, "As a result of the short amount of time, the yielding challenge is extremely low. However, the work done will ensure that the fallout rates in trucks are somewhat reduced in the days ahead." He's doing what he can here. I'm doing what I can here.

• 48:42Speaker 04

  A force of bone. Yeah, exactly. All that. Tanks, trucks, men are by this stage just all being ground down by the incessant cycle of destructive repetition. So there's a culture of rapidly following every success with the next drive to prevent the enemy from regaining balance. You know, this is exactly what you were saying earlier on. So, you know, at Yelnir, at Donetsk, Petrovsk and so on, all along the front, they're doing it over and over again. This, this, we've got to go forward, we've got to push forward, you know, we can't, can't pull back in any way whatsoever. And on the 30th of August, the German soldier Konrad Jarlowsk writes to his friends, "Here, we often ask ourselves,

• 49:25Speaker 04

  what will happen when the operational possibilities have been reached? And then the winter comes. The annihilation of Bolshevism still seems a long way away, and end of the war is less and less foreseeable." Well, he's banging on the money there, isn't he?

• 49:42Speaker 00

  Well, and in the centre, where the Soviets are applying pressure, interestingly, I mean, and it's not long after the Grost Deutschland Division has been sent elsewhere, the Yelnya salient begins to buckle. And the Red Army actually get through, they penetrate 10 kilometres between 10th Panzer Division and 267 Infantry Division. Even with this going on, with this crisis developing in the centre, Guderian is still asking for more blokes and more men. And right now, please, if you don't mind, I'm a genius. And after all, in total, Guderian, he only has the equivalent of half a division's worth of tanks. So, which isn't enough. And he isn't, and he's struggling. So that's why he's asking for help. But Army Group Centre is also really, really in the mire as well.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  It's being smashed up in the first week of September. But amazingly, Bock relents and assigns Second SS Dachreit, Das Reich, to Guderian, which is, which is a peculiar decision, isn't it? Guderian, I suppose, has the blessing of the Führer. So maybe he's able to lean on that and go, you know, I've been sent on this offensive mission by the Führer. So you're going to have to give me what I want. The thing is, is these static battles, because they aren't dramatic sweeps across a map and great lunges, tend to get ignored, don't they?

• 50:58Speaker 04

  They do a little bit. It's just not part of the narrative, which is all one-way driving with the Germans. But it's not like that at all. And, you know, the German units facing this onslaught are becoming massively worn down. You know, with sort of companies reporting that they've only got 20 men left, or 15, or 30, or whatever. And on the 2nd of September, Bock realises that enough is enough at Yelnir. And he goes, "The divisions deployed there are being bled white as tide passes. After several conversations with Kluger, I decided to order the salient abandoned." You're not supposed to go backwards. I mean, this is, this is a massive, massive deal.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  And Halder accepts this decision. But this is, let's be honest now, this is, this is a clear and terrible indictment of German command and leadership. Essentially, the absence of strategic thought in the whole thing. Their making up was a go along, and none of it's working. Yelnir is captured unnecessarily in the first place. There was no point to that. And then defended at ludicrous cost.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  By Guderian.

• 51:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, by Guderian. Exactly. By the great genius. And by early September, there are now 14 German divisions on the eastern front with more than 4,000 casualties apiece. And a further 40 divisions have lost at least 3,000 men. And another 30 divisions have 2,000 dead. They're being properly, properly crushed or smashed up in the process. The retreat is dressed up as a planned withdrawal, but the Soviets see it as a victory. And it's Zhukov, of course, who's done this. Zhukov, who's been shuffled off and, you know, kicked out of the decision-making part of the Soviet war effort, is getting a result.

• 52:35Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  Your Franz Frisch, Franz Frisch, rather, who's an artilleryman and one of those who's falling back. And he says, "I remember well the retreat from the Yelnyan line. We had nearly exhausted our supplies, our artillery ammunition, and did not provide the proper counter-battery support of infantry. As such, our battery received a constant amount of soot, artillery fire, and casualties. I remember we did not receive a resupply of shells. And days later, when the front settled, it was pitch dark, and we tried to make it back to the main front line. Every tractor with its gun, every soldier was on his own."

• 53:12Speaker 04

  I mean, that's a pretty pathetic image, isn't it? I mean, the truth is the word.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  I mean, yes.

• 53:17Speaker 04

  And, you know, manpower is becoming a major, major problem. On the 5th of September, Halder notes that officer casualties now at approximately 200 a day. Officers, you know, which take, you know, three years to train. Loss is also huge for the Red Army. Of course, you know, Zhukov loses 31,853 at Yelnir in about two weeks of fighting. So that's around one-third of those committed. But still, this is very much a fillip for the Soviets. And on the 7th of September, Zhukov issues a pronouncement. "After relenting and bitter battles, brave units of our 24th Army have achieved a great victory. In the Yelnir region, German forces have been dealt a crushing blow."

• 54:00Speaker 04

  Well, that's a bit more like it, isn't it, for the Red Army? Yeah. Stalin is pretty happy with this. But, you know, Guderian is still in big trouble. He's going absolutely nowhere. And because he always wants to push further and further, he has ordered Lemelson to send 47 Panzer Corps. So you've got 27 Panzer Corps under Treppenberg, they're in the sort of, you know, the main thrust. And then on the left-hand flank, the eastern flank, you've got Lemelson's 47 Panzer Corps. And he orders him to go across the Desna. Well, this is just insane, because the obvious course was for Lemelson to use the protection of the Desna's north-south flow to protect his flank. So it goes, you know, it goes

• 54:45Speaker 04

  down and then cuts westwards. Instead, he sends him across. And the reason he sends him across is because he thinks that the Red Army is massing on the eastern side and wants to get in there and wipe that out first before it can develop into something. But instead of wiping out the Red Army there, they instead slap into Eremenko's forces, who are indeed massing for the late August offensive. But they wouldn't have got very far if they got to get across the, across the Desna. So the Red Army troops, obviously, you know, we know that they're not much cop, but there's still plenty of them. And there's plenty of Soviet ground attack aircraft on hand. And there's also plenty of Soviet tanks and plenty of Soviet artillery. So Guderian is then ordered to pull them back, but he just completely ignores the order. And when Hitler gets to hear about it, he expresses

• 55:27Speaker 04

  his displeasure, prompting Guderian to then give a long-winded written explanation. You know, he worried about the great length of his flanks, the bad employment of Weich's Second Army, it's someone else's fault, and felt it was vital to attack the Russians while, you know, massing on the east bank, felt exposed with a lack of reinforcements and the lack of support from Army Group Centre, from Bock, it's everyone else's fault. Bock is absolutely livid and approaches Von Brauchitsch, who's the Commander-in-Chief of the Army at this stage, still, about having Guderian sacked. And Von Brauchitsch thinks this is a bad idea, because Guderian is very popular with his men and, you know, he's a hero figure. But Hitler is unimpressed and issues direct orders on the 5th of September for Lemelson's

• 56:08Speaker 04

  Panzers to return to the west bank, which actually is the right decision. But, you know, I mean, what the heck? What is he thinking?

• 56:16Speaker 00

  Well, he isn't thinking. I think that's what it comes down to. It's because you've arrogance at the core of the way they're making the decisions, this idea of German superiority. But also, you know, and this is the paradox, isn't it, that there are great limitations on what they can actually achieve deep inside the Soviet Union. That, you know, they're well past their culmination point. They're well, well past where they can actually sustain what they're trying, what they're doing. But they don't know what they're doing. They haven't, you know, what's the objective? That right from the start of this campaign, it's not been clear what the objective is. And they've mistaken, they've mistaken Soviet disarray for them to getting it right themselves. That, you know, that rather than...

• 56:57Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  The Soviets are in disarray. They are incompetent. But that doesn't mean that they are competent themselves, because we've seen this, a long, long list of incompetent decisions and poor decision-making, you know, best outlined by what Guderian's just done. It's also clear that the Soviets are getting their act together gradually. You know, the first 10 days of Barbarossa, it's 300,000 Red Army troops go in the bag. But the first 10 days of Guderian's drive south, it's only 30,000. So the Soviets are starting to box much cleverer and not offer up. And for all sorts of different reasons. But then they're just not proving a pushover they were. Which means by the second week of September, it looks like the Grand In circulament might fail, despite Stalin's best efforts to ensure

• 57:41Speaker 00

  that the Germans succeed at this point. And you've got the bridgehead at Donetsk, Petrovsk, which is sucking in way too much German effort. Hungarians are hopeless. Kleist's Panzer Group is still, hasn't got the vehicles it needs and oil and fuel. And the Yelnya salient has been abandoned because of Zhukov's onslaught. And Guderian is not getting very far, very fast, and is making terrible decisions as he goes. So what will happen next? Find out in our next episode. And the easiest way, easiest way to find that is to go straight to our Patreon, become a Patreon member, where lots of stuff is waiting for you, including a bonus episode that will go with this series, where we look at one man's war as he experiences

• 58:24Speaker 00

  being on the sharp end of this phase of Barbarossa. Thanks, everyone, for listening. We'll see you again very soon. Cheerio.

• 58:30Speaker 04

  Cheerio.

• 58:41Speaker 06

  Hello Goalhanger history listeners. This is Marina Hyde and Richard Osman from The Rest Is Entertainment. Hello, everybody. Every Thursday and Friday, we are reacting to the pop culture phenomenon that is The Celebrity Traitors. We'll be on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. And Marina and I are digging into all the castle's twists and turns, giving our expert opinion on what should happen next. Now, which historical figure do we think would be the greatest traitor? It's tempting to think of an actual traitor. Yeah. A Guy Fawkes or a Kim Philby. But then all of those are traitors who got caught. Philby had a great run, though. He did have a great run. I think he could probably see off, you know, Joanne. Yes, maybe. And probably where he ended up in Moscow is probably roughly like where the contestants have to spend every night as well. Yeah. So maybe there's some sort of equivalence.

• 59:26Speaker 06

  So if you're watching Celebrity Traitors, don't forget to tune into our reaction episodes every Thursday and Friday night at 10 p.m. Find us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

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