In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

405 9 Disintegration The end of the prolonged fighting into the spring of 1944 had left the eastern front dangerously skewed from the German perspective. South of the Pripet Marshes, Soviet advances in Ukraine had pushed a huge bulge far to the west, only 150 miles from Warsaw. North of the great swamp, however, Army Group Center’s success at holding off the Red Army in the winter fighting meant that German troops not only occupied most of Belorussia but also still held a bridgehead east of the Dnieper. The front line now ran roughly where it was in mid-July 1941, at the end of the first German leap into Russia. German possession of this so-called Belorussian balcony posed both grave risks and, to Hitler, strategic possibilities. The danger was obvious to anyone who looked at a map: a breakthrough at Kovel, at the southwestern edge of the Pripet, would allow the Soviets two great opportunities. Red Army forces could be turned to the southwest , with the goal of striking deep into Hungary and Rumania, knocking these German allies out of the war, and encircling and destroying Army Group South. If, however, they pushed to the northwest through Warsaw and on to Danzig, both Army Groups Center and North might be bagged in a giant pocket, the heart of the German position in the east ripped apart, and the way to Berlin, only 320 miles to the west, completely open. In a single action, the OKH feared, the Soviets would strike the death blow to the German war effort.1 Hitler was not unaware of the dangers, but he preferred to focus on the opportunity afforded by the German position. In effect, he modeled his behavior on that of his rival dictator, Stalin, who in the summer of 1942, in a similarly dangerous position, had issued his famous “Not one step back” order and insisted on holding bridgeheads across the Don, with the result that a decisive Soviet counterattack had reversed the situation at Stalingrad and allowed the Red Army to sweep to the west. Now, 406  OSTKRIEG in the summer of 1944, Hitler counted on pulling off a similar feat that would restore the initiative to Germany. Believing that the prolonged, costly Soviet winter offensive in Ukraine had finally bled the Red Army dry, much as the Wehrmacht had been ground down by persistent Soviet resistance at Stalingrad, Hitler hoped to blunt the anticipated Russian offensive, then launch the game-changing German response. Human memory, of course, can be dangerously selective, and, although Hitler correctly remembered the success of the Soviet counterstrike in the autumn of 1942, he ignored the key contextual background that allowed that achievement. The Soviets’ triumph had depended on German weakness , failures of leadership, and distraction by events elsewhere as well as a good bit of aid from their Western allies. In 1944, as two years earlier, the balance of all these factors again favored Stalin, not Hitler. From the OKH’s viewpoint, both options available to the enemy had much to recommend them since, if executed properly, either could lead to a decisive, war-ending victory for the Soviets. Here, perhaps, German analysts were guilty of a bit of hubris since they thought that the Soviets would act as they would in a similar situation—to seek to win the war in one bold, decisive blow. OKH staffers originally believed that the Soviets would push the so-called Balkan solution since Ukraine had been the focal point of enemy action for the past year, the bulk of Red Army tank units remained in the south, and Stalin was known to have a desire to get his forces into the Balkans before his Western allies could get a foot in the door. In addition, Southeastern Europe and the Dardanelles had been the traditional focal point of Russian expansion, while the Germans feared that the loss of Rumanian oil would cause a quick end to the war. Much, then, supported the notion of a push to the southwest . By spring 1944, however, many in German intelligence had begun to favor the Baltic solution, not only because of reported enemy troop movements, but also because it was the sort of operation that appealed to German sensibilities. If the Soviets broke out at Kovel and raced to the northwest, they could, in a single bold stroke reminiscent of the brilliant German victory in France four years earlier, end the war by trapping Army Groups Center and...

Share