Barbarossa planning: Winter clothes

[wosung]

On this forum there has been lots of reasoning about scripted winter effects on German troops 1941, which are seen as too rigid.

According to the OKH planning from August 8, 1941, in the winter 1941/42 only 58 (of the 120) German divisions were to stay as occupation troops in the to be defeated and conquered Russia. Thus, when the winter 1941 begun the Wehrmacht had only full-winter clothes for 58 divisions at all. Those were stored in Generalgovernement (Eastern Poland). (FN 1)

When Hitler visited the Finnish Fieldmarshall Carl Mannerheim on his birthday in June 1942 (FN 2), after giving an official speech full of lies (FN 3), he was freely talking about Wehrmacht and weather: “All our armament was ... it’s just an armament for nice weather, it’s efficient and good but unfortunately it’s an armament for nice weather. This we’ve now seen in the war [against Russia]. All our weapons certainly are tailored for the West. And we all thought … that was just our opinion … so to speak ... since the earliest times ... in winter you can’t wage war." (“Unsere ganze Bewaffnung war ja ... es ist eine Schönwetterbewaffnung. Sie ist sehr tüchtig, sie ist gut aber es ist leider eine Schönwetterbewaffnung. Wir haben das jetzt hier ja auch in dem Krieg gesehen. Unsere ganzen Waffen sind natürlich auf den Westen zugeschnitten. Und wir alle waren der Überzeugung, das war ... wie gesagt, das war unsere Meinung eben, seit den ältesten Zeiten her, im Winter kann man nicht Krieg führen.”) (FN 4, 03:38).

Back in Aug. 1941 OKH was preparing for winter on „Führer“ order No. 32 (June 11. 1941), which was about future war aims after the defeat of Soviet Russia. Therein, Hitler planned to gear up the war against Britain by massively reinforcing Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine and by occupying the Middle-East with fast troops. On that order at an OKW conference with the leaders of all military branches on Aug. 8, 1941 the commander of the Ersatzheer Fromm envisioned disbanding some 50 divs. in late autumn 1941 to get back 300k workers for the armament industry and to dismiss another 200k older soldiers. (FN 5)
Also based on Order No. 32. tank reinforcement for the Ostfront was handled very restrictive in 1941: The production was to be used rather for creating new Panzer divisions (for attacking the Middle East), than to resupply those fighting at the Ostfront. (FN 6)

Sources:
(1) Bernhard R. Kroener, Die personellen Ressourcen des Dritten Reiches im Spannungsfeld zwischen Wehrmacht, Bürokratie und Kriegswirtschaft 1939-42 [Third Reich’s personnel ressources between Wehrmacht, bureaucracy and war economy], in: Deutschland und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 5.1, pp. 693-1001, esp. pp. 867-868.
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gusta ... Mannerheim
(3) An audio doc. of this very conversation, recorded by Finnish recording technician Thor Damen, survived the war – the only privat audio doc of Hitler. It consits of an official Hitler speech, a reply from Mannerheim and an 10 min long private informal monolog by Hitler about unbelievable gigantic Russian productian capailities, German winter performance, etc.
http://www.archive.org/details/OnlyKnow ... licVersion (German)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,214 ... 79,00.html
(4) http://de.sevenload.com/videos/2ZxJwFp- ... Mannerheim (German)
(5) Bernhard R. Kroener, Die personellen Ressourcen des Dritten Reiches im Spannungsfeld zwischen Wehrmacht, Bürokratie und Kriegswirtschaft 1939-42 [Third Reich’s personnel ressources between Wehrmacht, bureaucracy and war economy], in: Deutschland und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 5.1, pp. 693-1001, esp. p. 867.
(6) Ibd., p. 868. Rolf-Dieter Müller, Das Scheitern der wirtschaftlichen "Blitzkriegstrategie" [The failed economic Blitzkrieg strategy], in: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 4, Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion, pp. 936-1078, see pp. 974-975. tm.asp?m=2684171&mpage=1&key=�

Given those facts, plus the transportation issues, how could the German winter performance be modelled in the game? For an all out offensive? For more cautious operations?

Regards

[Commanderski]

Good information to know and help understand more about what actually happened. I think the game models pretty close to reality in a lot of respects, this helps understand that.
Thanks for doing the research.

[Jakerson]

Germans expected to defeat Soviet Union to submission just in 6-7 weeks after start of the Operation Barbarossa. German had virtually zero preparations for longer war than this they expected as fast victory than what offensive against Poland, France, Yugoslavia and Greece had already given to them earlier.

After Finland beat Soviet Union back in Winter War 39-40 and remained independent Hitler said that Soviet Union is giant that is standing with clay legs.

This is historical context we are simulating in this game. Germans attacking Soviet Union is led by the leader Hitler that believes that Soviet Union is giant with clay legs and longer war than two months are impossible.

Germans had no plans for longer war as they believe that to be impossible if they would have believed longer war possible they would not invade in the first place. German started operation Barbarossa as they expected easy and fast victory.