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77 3 Onslaught The night of 21–22 June, Goebbels noted in his diary, was oppressively hot and humid, and he worried, with no hint of irony, that “our troops will not have it easy in battle.” At the front, it was not the heat but rather the nervous anticipation that burdened many—most—of the men. Those in the first wave studied maps, surveyed the terrain in front of them, prepared their weapons, reviewed their tasks, and looked anxiously for any sign of enemy activity. Some expected quick victory; a few pondered the example of Napoléon; most were unenthusiastic but determined to do their duty. An unnatural silence hung over the front; movements had halted, vehicles were quiet, and men spoke in hushed tones. With muted voices officers read the Führer’s rather pedestrian appeal to small groups of troops, ending with the portentous words: “Soldiers of the eastern front, you are about to enter a difficult and all important struggle. The fate of Europe, the future of the German Reich, the existence of our people henceforth lie in your hands.” The troops stood silently and seriously . For some dawn would bring their baptism of fire, for others their last passage. Then, again in silence, with no talking and no clanking of equipment to betray their movement, the men entered their jumpingoff positions. The silence, now an inward muteness, was stifling. Then, at 3:15 A.M. on the morning of 22 June, exactly 129 years after Napoléon had launched his invasion of Russia, the entire thousand-mile front from the Baltic to the Black Sea erupted: a thunderous cascade of artillery fire, tank engines roaring as they jolted into action, waves of droning aircraft filling the sky, the clatter of machine-gun fire, the sharp burst of mortars and hand grenades, and the earth rumbling and shaking amid the shrill shouts of racing men released from an almost unbearable nervous tension.1 Deploying over 3 million men, 3,600 tanks, 600,000 motorized 78  OSTKRIEG vehicles (as well as 625,000 horses), 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft (a number that was actually smaller than that employed during the invasion of France), the Germans had launched the largest military operation in history. Just as Friedrich Barbarossa over seven hundred years earlier had taken up a crusade against the Muslim presence in the Holy Land, so Hitler now launched his own crusade against the JewishBolshevik menace. Astonishingly, the Wehrmacht found itself opposed by an even larger force: the Red Army possessed well over 5 million men, 24,000 tanks (of which almost 2,000 were new type T-34 and KV models ), over 91,000 artillery pieces of all types, and over 19,000 aircraft (of which over 7,000 were based in the western districts). Given the willingness of Stalin to mobilize ruthlessly all elements of his population, the Red Army could also exploit an enormous pool of manpower to make good its losses. By contrast, the Wehrmacht could draw on a population less than half the size of its adversary and one from which the prime manpower had already been conscripted.2 As in France, the Germans again gambled on assembling all their available resources in hopes of deciding the outcome of the battle in the first few weeks. Ironically, while in 1914 the German military had overestimated the Russians and underestimated the French, in 1940– 1941 it would prove to be the other way around. If France, the great foe of the First World War, had been defeated easily, the reasoning now went, the Soviet Union, weakened by communism and Stalin’s irrational purges, must surely collapse at the first blow. If, however, the Red Army did not disintegrate and survived the first weeks of combat, the Wehrmacht would not have the resources to pursue and destroy it. Barring the expected Soviet collapse, the German forces were simply too small, too poorly equipped, and too badly supplied to accomplish their task of defeating the Red Army before the onset of winter. The initial assault, however, matched German expectations of a rapid campaign. “Tactical surprise of the enemy has apparently been achieved along the entire line,” Halder noted drily in his diary. “As a result of this tactical surprise, enemy resistance directly on the border was weak and disorganized, and we succeeded everywhere.” That the Soviets had been caught unawares despite numerous warnings to Stalin throughout 1941 has long been recognized by...

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