27Sept04

The Eastern Front

As the 1940s dawned, with the entire world on the brink of conflagration, Hitler, Stalin, and, to a lesser extent, Mussolini, competed for center stag e in history's fleeting dramaturgy. With his daring and brilliantly successful

invasion of Poland in late 1939, which took everyone by surprise, Hitler was

off to an early lead. Britain, under naive Chamberlain, confined its contribution to the Polish invasion to dropping leaflets over Germany!

Not to be outdone, Stalin invaded little Finland in December of the same year, and Mussolini did the same to neighboring Greece the following year. Both the Finnish and Greek invasions were disastrous failures. Heroic Finns fought the Soviets to a standstill and, in concert with winter weather, inf licted hideous losses on the inept invaders. Likewise, in less than a month, ill-prepared Italian troops were unceremoniously thrown out of Greece, agai n with staggering losses.

The "Little Corporal" (an insulting title Hitler garnered fr om his participation in WWI)) began to think himself a strategic genius, far superi or in intellect to any of his generals. Unlike Russians and Italians, his troops were no amateurs. He was at the head of a phenomenal military machine that had been molded and refined since the 1600s. Superbly equipped, trained, and lead, the German Army was easily the best in Europe, indeed the most formid able Europe had ever seen!

On a roll, Hitler next began planning an amphibious invasion of England. However, operation "Sea Lion" was beset with delay after del ay, owing to a grievous loss of German aircrews and aircraft at the hands of British pilots , now under Churchill's command. Anxious for another galvanizing (and easy) victory, Hitler now abandoned his plans for the British Islands and instead

looked east.

Hitler and Stalin were ostensible "allies" during the Polish invasion, but the two were implacable enemies, and Hitler thus had no compunction about double-crossing Stalin with a surprise intrusion into the Soviet Union. Th e invasion was code named "Operation Barbarossa," after Empero r Frederic I (Frederick Barbarossa) of the Holy Roman Empire in the 1100s. Hitler had n othing but disdain for Russians in general and the Russian army in particular. Stalin and his Bolsheviks presided over a decomposing and mostly dysfunctio nal national infrastructure. The poor performance of the Russian army in Finla nd bolstered that belief. Hitler was quoted, "All we have to do is ki ck in the door, and the whole rotten structure will come tumbling down."

He was largely correct. With a swift, Polish-style victory in Russia, Hitler would look unbeatable to the Allies, who, at the time, had only the strength to attack his perimeter in North Africa. But, victory would have to be fast, before winter bogged down his invasion force. It was a critical and audacious gamble, and one that Hitler could have won, were is not for his incessant micromanagement and delusional beliefs about his army's capabilit ies and his equally delusional beliefs about Russian resolve and resiliency. After a spunky start, Operation Barbarossa eventually stalled and disintegrated. Hitler's gamble miscarried, and its failure dealt a fatal blow to the entir e German war effort!

Operation Barbarossa was the largest land invasion ever carry out, before o r since. In the beginning, Hitler's mechanized columns effortlessly brushed aside Russian defenders. Russians, soldiers and civilians alike, particula rly Russian Jews, were routinely rounded up and exterminated, wholesale. Loss of life was on a scale never seen before. Stalin's forces could hardly withdraw fast enough. It seemed Moscow would be in German hands within wee ks, and Russia would be so demoralized, further resistance would be only symbolic.

With the coming of spring, victory could be consolidated.

But, way back in Berlin, with naive exuberance, Hitler decided to take personal command of the operation. He sought minute control over nearly ev ery detail. Commanders were forced to wait days for approval for even trivial decisions. He vetoed the Moscow idea and directed his bewildered and frust rated generals to widen the front to an unsustainable degree and drive on to Stalingrad, the city that bore the name of his arch enemy. Dire warnings a bout deteriorating weather and stretched supply lines were contemptuously dismis sed.

Meanwhile, with monumental effort, Stalin moved factories, indeed entire industrial parks, behind the Urals. There, safe from German invaders, he relentlessly rebuilt his devastated army. Stalin's ruthless and relentless

endeavor paid off. The Russians bounced back with a vengeance!

Weather and geography have historically conspired to impose a massive struggle on all invaders of Russia. Added to the new Russian T-34 tank (in great numbers), the combination brought Barbarossa to a grinding halt in December of 1941. Shivering German solders, with no winter clothing, discovered that willpower has it limits! Ultimately, Stalingrad held out. German General von Paulus was, in the end, forced to surrender to the Russians at Stalingrad 's very gates, or watch what was left of his command freeze and starve to deat h. Even so, few of the over one hundred thousand German soldiers who surrendered, survived captivity. At this point, Russians had little sympat hy for Germans. When they reached Berlin three years later, they had even less sy mpathy!

To Westerners, the Eastern Front is the forgotten campaign of WWII, since i t didn't involve Americans. Few movies have ever been made about it, compare d with hundreds made about D-day and subsequent American and British efforts in Western Europe. However, most historians now consider the Russian victo ry at Stalingrad to be the great turning point of the War. One can hardly say

enough about Russian courage and resolve, nor can most even begin to contemplate the scale of suffering Operation Barbarossa brought to that par t of the world.

Lessons: In warfare, micromanagement is always associated with disaster. Brave and audacious commanders, at every level, need the freedom to be everything that the word "commander" implies. Detached poli ticians, comfortable and far removed from the front, can hardly be expected to make better decisions

that those who are actually in the fight. Even President Lyndon Johnson, many years later, would repeat Hitler's mistake, and suffer a humiliating d efeat in much the same way.

Only fools get drunk on initial successes! Hitler decided the war in Russi a was over upon hearing the first optimistic field reports. Stalin apparentl y didn't hear the bell!

/John

27Sept04

Sagacious comments from a serious and longtime student about one of our recent pistol courses:

"Two observations:

You are right about ammunition. Don't bring crap. Shoot the real stuff. Damn the expense! I brought a case of CCI Blazer, mostly because it is rea dily available and relatively inexpensive. While it did go bang most of the time, it was dirty. Stoppages due to residue buildup started at 150 rounds . Also, the rim diameter was so small the extractor did not hold the case wel l. Considering the cost of travel, lodging, tuition, etc, a few extra bucks fo r best-quality ammo is not much. Next time, I'm bringing Cor-Bon.

I have been fortunate not to have experienced gun failures in the last few years. I was shooting my G36, that had previously worked flawlessly through a thousand rounds (I'm sure you hear that a lot!). I had fooled myself into thinking that my pistol just couldn't fail. Fifty rounds into the course, ejection became erratic. I'm not sure whether it was the gun or the ammo, b ut it really doesn't matter. The lesson here is that EVERY GUN WILL FAIL. Murphy

will doubtless arrange for the failure to occur at the worst possible time! I'll never again go to a course without a backup. I routinely carry a concealed pistol, as you know. I have never carried two. I will now! I'll figure out how to do it."

Comment: Sage advice! Serious training requires a serious and uncompromising commitment from all students. We never train enough. We ne ed to extract maximum benefit from every minute we do.

/John