Figure 1.--The German Ostheer which invaded the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941) was contarary to the popular image primarily composed of unmotiotized infabntry, moving east on foot with horse drawn carts as we see here. This might have worked in a small country, but the Soviet Union was anything but a small country. Invading the Soviet Union with an army moving primarily on foot is the primary reason that the Germans failed despite stunning victories achieved by powerful Panzer units. As a result, by November the Germans had lost a quater of a million men and nearly half of their tanks. The Red Army had been battered, but not destroyed. This was the German's best chance of winning the war in a lightening summer offensive. They not only failed, but by November were deep in the Soviet Union, beyond the effective logistical support and unprepared for the Russian winter or aed Army winter offensive. .

The two major turning points of World War II have to be Pearl Harbor and the Red Army Winter Offensive before Moscow which occured almost simultaneously (December 6-8, 1941). But by this time Germany could no longer win the War. It should be stressed that this was not just a battlefield turning point in Europe, but a turning point of the entire War because the Ostkrieg was the decisive campaign of the War. This turning point was not apparent to the general public or even Allied and Soviet commanders, but it was to knowledgeable Germans. Wehrmacht logisticans (but not the battlefield commanders) had concluded even before Barbarossa was launched (June 1941) that the Deutsche Ostheer did not have the logistical capability to sustain an offensive drive beyond 300 miles from the start line (the 1941 border of the Soviet Union). And in the ensuing Barbarossa campaign, Germany sustained huge losses of men and equipment. Tank losses were approaching 50 percent. Many of the tank losses were not just due to enemy fire, but to wear and tear driving East over unlike Western Europe the unimproved roads and rough terrain as well as inadequate maintenance. And despite enormous victories, the Deutsche Ostheer had not destroyed the Red Army -- the major objective of Barbarossa. They had battered it to the core, but not destroyed it. Hitler a few weeks before Barbarossa had been shocked by the deaths of a few thousand paratroopers on Crete. Now a quarter of a million Germans were dead (June-November 1941). [German Government, p.78.] This was a loss rate the Germans could not sustain over any period of time. And that was while the Ostheer was winning the battles. Surely Hitler was looking at these statistics, but his thinking was that the Red Army was teetering on imminent collapse, but we now know that it was not. It is at this time that one of Hitler's intimates who he deeply respected, acclaimed engineer and Armament Minister Fritz Todt, asked for a meeting with the NAZI Führer. Todt was a rare Hitler intimate that was not a sycophantic toady. He told Hitler in no uncertain terms that Germany could no longer win the War militarily (November 28, 1941). The War was costing Germany more than $150 billion (1941 U.S. dollars) a sum in excess of the entire German annual GDP. That might have been been acceptable if the Ostheer had destroyed the Soviet Union in a lighting summer campaign as planned, but they had not. Todt after an inspection tour of the Eastern Front had concluded that the German economy could not sustain a protracted War. And that Hitler should negotiate a peace with Stalin. [Kuhn] There is no transcript of this meeting or report on how Hitler responded. Based on similar encounters, it would not have been well. We do know Hitler ignored it. There is a subsequent report on a better documented meeting (February 7, 1942). This time there were stunning battlefield defeats and serious losses of men and equipment. Accounts relate how Todt at the Eastern Front military Wolf's Lair headquarters (Rastenburg, East Prussia) boldly asserting to the Führer that the war could no longer be won. And this was not a private meeting. Todt tried to explain that Germany was now battling the world's greatest land power (the Soviet Union), its most powerful naval force (the British Royal Navy), and the mightiest industrial nation (the United States). [Taylor] Todt repeated his assessment that the War was clearly unwinnable. A furious argument followed between Todt and Hitler. People could be arrested for saying much less. And Todt was no longer just talking about economics and the cost of the War, but military matters. The next day Todt's plane exploded, killing him (February 8). There is continuing controversy about his death. Todt's growing importance and close association with Hitler, made enemies with other NAZI luminaries, especially Hermann Göring and Martin Bormann--two men who knew that their standing with Hitler was to tell him what he wanted to hear. (It should be noted that about half of the German war economy was going to support Göring's Luftwaffe.) Hitler did not usually murder his associates, he normally fired them. This of course was different. Todt openly defied him and a public defection by some one so closely tied to the regime would have been a serious embarrassment. Hitler would give Todt a glowing eulogy at his funeral.

Sources

German Government. Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1960).

Kuhn, Stefan. "Fritz Todt," Deutsches Historisches Museum online (September 17, 2015).

Taylor, Fritz. "Fritz Todt: The mysterious death of the Nazi engineer," Warfare Hustory Network (February 2015).

Created: 6:05 PM 10/2/2022
Last updated: 6:05 PM 10/2/2022