Frozen to Death by the Fuhrer

Initially when I saw this headline in the Daily Telegraph, my reaction was that it is already well-known that the Germans were unprepared for the Russian winter. But there are one or two insights that are interesting, and some of the Comments (accessible via the link) give other perspectives.


Second World War: Frozen to death by the Fuhrer - Telegraph


Second World War: Frozen to death by the Fuhrer
In an extract from his new book, historian Andrew Roberts shows how Hitler's troops were fatally ill-equipped for the 1941 invasion of Russia in 1941


Hitler was proud of his hardiness in the cold, boasting how "having to change into long trousers was always a misery to me"
The Russians have a saying that there is no such thing as cold weather, only the wrong kind of clothing. Prior to Operation Barbarossa, the Nazis could have been certain that their invasion of Russia, which began on June 22, 1941, was in for a very cold winter.

It was a matter of simple statistical analysis, the kind at which Adolf Hitler's High Command was supposed to excel. But the German commissariat had hubristically not transported anything like enough woollen hats, gloves, long johns and overcoats to Russia.

Suddenly, there was a desperate need for millions of such items, over and above what could be looted from the Russians and the Poles. On December 20, 1941, Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, broadcast an appeal for warm clothing to send to the troops, saying: "Those at home will not deserve a single peaceful hour if even one soldier is exposed to the rigours of winter without adequate clothing." Yet two years of clothes rationing meant that there was little to give.

In October 1941, Hitler let drop a number of remarks that might provide a clue to why he had not sufficiently concerned himself with his men's welfare when it came to the great Russian freeze. "One can't put any trust in the meteorological forecasts," he told Martin Bormann and others during table-talk at Berchtesgaden.

Believing himself to be as much an expert in meteorology as in everything else, Hitler, a world-class know-all, went on to state that "weather prediction is not a science that can be learnt mechanically. What we need are men gifted with a sixth sense, who live in nature and with nature – whether or not they know anything about isotherms and isobars. As a rule, obviously, these men are not particularly suited to the wearing of uniforms. One of them will have a humped back, another will be bandy-legged, a third paralytic. Similarly, one doesn't expect them to live like bureaucrats."

These "human barometers", as Hitler dubbed them – who don't much sound like exemplars of the Master Race – would have telephones installed in their homes free of charge and would predict the weather for the Reich and "be flattered to have people relying on [their] knowledge". These woodland folk would be people "who understand the flights of midges and swallows, who can read the signs, who feel the wind, to whom the movements of the sky are familiar. Elements are involved in that kind of thing that are beyond mathematics." Or parody.

Hitler was proud of his own hardiness in the cold, boasting on August 12, 1942, how "having to change into long trousers was always a misery to me. Even with a temperature of 10 below zero, I used to go about in lederhosen. The feeling of freedom they give you is wonderful. Abandoning my shorts was one of the biggest sacrifices I had to make… Anything up to five degrees below zero I don't even notice. Quite a number of young people of today already wear shorts all the year round; it is just a question of habit. In the future, I shall have an SS Highland Brigade in lederhosen."

Yet if Hitler was under the impression that the Wehrmacht could withstand sub-zero temperatures in sub-standard winter clothing, he was soon proved wrong.

In some areas, the Germans were well prepared for Barbarossa; they had printed a German-Russian phrasebook, for example, with questions such as "Where is the collective farm chairman?" and "Are you a Communist?" (it was inadvisable to answer the latter in the affirmative).

Yet when it came to proper clothing in a winter campaign in one of the world's coldest countries, there was simply not enough, and what was provided was often not warm enough either. All this springs directly from Hitler's belief that the campaign would be over in three months – by late September 1941 – before the weather turned.

The horrific results of the lack of warm clothing were truly disgusting. The Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte recalled in his novel Kaputt how he had watched the German troops returning from the Eastern Front, and was in the Europeiski Café in Warsaw when "suddenly I was struck with horror and realised that they had no eyelids. I had already seen soldiers with lidless eyes, on the platform of the Minsk station a few days previously on my way from Smolensk.

"The ghastly cold of that winter had the strangest consequences. Thousands and thousands of soldiers had lost their limbs; thousands and thousands had their ears, their noses, their fingers and their sexual organs ripped off by the frost. Many had lost their hair… Many had lost their eyelids. Singed by the cold, the eyelid drops off like a piece of dead skin… Their future was only lunacy."

This was the pass to which their ludicrous lack of preparedness had brought the Wehrmacht. The title of the autobiography of Reinhard Spitzy, Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop's private secretary, was How We Squandered the Reich. For the Germans to be defeated in the field of battle was one thing – and it took another year for it to happen on any significant scale – but for them to have been improperly provided for by their own leadership and General Staff was quite another.

In May 1942, Winston Churchill used the opportunity of the second anniversary of his taking the premiership to mock Hitler over his "first blunder" of invading Russia. "There is a winter, you know, in Russia," he said. "For a good many months the temperature is apt to fall very low. There is snow, there is frost, and all that. Hitler forgot about this Russian winter. He must have been very loosely educated. We all heard about it at school; but he forgot it. I have never made such a bad mistake as that."

Of course, Hitler had heard of it at school as well, and furthermore his library featured large numbers of books on Napoleon and his campaigns, which were covered in extensive marginalia in his own handwriting, as well as several biographies of generals of the Napoleonic era. Yet he did not learn the most obvious lesson from his predecessor.

* Extracted from The Storm of War by Andrew Roberts (Allen Lane, UK Book Shop and Online Bookstore - Penguin Books), which is published on 6 August. © Andrew Roberts 2009. To order your copy from Telegraph Books for £23 + £1.25 p&p, call 0844 871 1516 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk

 

Poor people at the front

As is always the way it was the people at the sharp end who suffered for the ideas of the people sitting in offices away from it all... I have no doubt that Hitler would have brooked no opposition to his plan to invade Russia!

Good article and worth bringing to everyones attention.

Dee

 

There is lots of blame to go around

The German Army had no ideal how to operate in the cold. You could have gave the best of clothing and they still would have been paralyzed in the climate of Russia . There trucks they stole from France and Belgium were flimsy and never meant to leave the hard top roads of western europe. The German trucks were not much better. Everything from guns to cook stoves were out of their element. The soldiers were not trained for winter warfare. Most of them were so under trained they could not even make a proper fire to cook and warm themselves. It was all wrong for the time and place.

Even though Hitler had the last word the blame should be shared by the Army. To a man the entire army said they could finish off the Russians in weeks. So where was the cry for winter clothes when it mattered most, in the planning stages? The dictator may have started the war but the army puts the clothes on their backs.

These master race planners of the high command were considered unworthy if they showed any doubt at all. It was the biggest collection of yes men and frauds ever gathered. Sleeves rolled up planning operations of encirclement against soft targets and unprepared nations. Forget about your flanks just charge ahead, no need to consider what the enemy will do because all they are capable of is responding to our moves. It was pathetic the way they marched their men off to their doom. Not one time in the summer of 41 did the high command ask for reports on Russian capabilities and possible courses of action. Did not need to according to them the Russians will be down and out before they can organize for any action that can possibly stop their total destruction.

No one even gave a millisecond of thought to the possible discomforts of the troops. It was seen as a sign of weakness. Whether Hitler wore short pants in the winter or not had little effect on the overconfidence of the German General Staff. They were blind to anything but their own successes.

The Germans were short of everything as soon as they got started. Unlike their previous opponents the Russians were fighting back with some determination. They had to use more ammunition more fuel more medical supplies and more wounded to transport back, feed and bandage. The supply system was broken shortly after they got started. Corruption started to rear its ugly head. The Administrators had ship their loot back to Germany. Let’s not forget Hitler’s Germany was the integration of corporate interests and the state. Business leaders had a say in Hitler’s government as well. Profits had to be made. Trains stood on sidings waiting to be loaded with foodstuffs to sell for profit and anything else they could steal for themselves or their corporate masters. There were necessary delays.

It is not so simple to say they should have shipped winter uniforms to the biggest invasion horde ever assembled. The Germans would have to gotten started long before the first soldier had crossed the border. This would have strained the pocket book and upset production targets. As stupid as it sounds there were good reasons for the common soldiers to have to freeze to death. Let’s do the obvious and spread the blame around. The time has long past when the German Generals get a free ride because they tell us "I was against it from the first place and never did anything wrong. It was Hitler." My response to that bunk is prove it. They were all in it together until things started to go wrong. Hitler ran with a pack, when things went right the Generals said it was in spite of Hitler and when things went wrong it was because of Hitler. They make a compelling case if it were not for the fact they destroyed the evidence that would have backed up their stories if true and forgot some evidence that says they are liars to the man.

Those men that froze are victims of over confidence. No one in the German Army including Hitler thought they would need winter clothes. The sub-humans could not possibly last until winter. We just have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come falling down. Let’s not forget this was the atmosphere at all levels of command when the ball got rolling for the attack on Russia. So let’s do some real thinking and solid research here. Do not fall into the, it was all Hitler’s fault trap. The dead deserve a more thorough investigation as to why they are no longer with us.

 

Haha well I guess it was a good thing that the Germans failed at Russia. If the Germans were successful in conquering Europe they would be able to aid Japan in conquering Asia too, and we would all be living in fear. Stalin was smart not to take the war out of his country, and bide his time to use the weather to his advantage in Russia. Guess there are many lessons to be learnt from history eh?

 

Believing himself to be as much an expert in meteorology as in everything else, Hitler, a world-class know-all, went on to state that "weather prediction is not a science that can be learnt mechanically. What we need are men gifted with a sixth sense, who live in nature and with nature – whether or not they know anything about isotherms and isobars. As a rule, obviously, these men are not particularly suited to the wearing of uniforms. One of them will have a humped back, another will be bandy-legged, a third paralytic. Similarly, one doesn't expect them to live like bureaucrats."

These "human barometers", as Hitler dubbed them – who don't much sound like exemplars of the Master Race – would have telephones installed in their homes free of charge and would predict the weather for the Reich and "be flattered to have people relying on [their] knowledge". These woodland folk would be people "who understand the flights of midges and swallows, who can read the signs, who feel the wind, to whom the movements of the sky are familiar. Elements are involved in that kind of thing that are beyond mathematics." Or parody.



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No unprepared conqueror could ever beat the Russian Winter!

 

I remember a few things I have heard about how Germans had great disadvantage in Russian winter. One TV show used two dummy clothed in Russian and German winter uniform and measured the temperature inside after putting them in sub-zero temperature for a while. The Germany dummy was measured 7C lower than the Russian dummy...

The Russian winter not only direct freeze the soldiers to death, but it also froze up diesel, gasoline, which means German tanks, other vehicles could not be used. Russians on the other hand had a special chemical at their disposal which allow them to operate their machines in the same cold temperature.

However, I don't believe Hilter was the only one to be blamed for the Germans' failure on dealing with the Russian winter.

 

Thank you for these articles. It is always nice to gather new insight into old history. It is also nice to know that it was a good thing he failed when he did or things could have and would have been a lot worse. Its the small things in a war that count and most often they are blessings in disguise.

 

What happened to Napoleon in 1812 happened to Hitler in 1942. These people never learn anything.

Attacking the USSR was the biggest blunder in the world. Even a school kid will tell you that for undertaking an offensive, you need numerical or technological superiority over your enemy. Because defending your territory is much more easier than attacking another's territory.

Population of USSR was 170.5 million in 1939 and that of Germany was 80.6 million.

Sometimes, people get so much blinded with arrogance that they refuse to take in to account even the most basic things.

Either Hitler should have abandoned his plans to attack the USSR, or he should have provoked Stalin to attack Germany, so that it will be easier for the Nazis to fight the invading Reds.

 

@ Vladimir,

In my opinion, the attacking force has the advantage if the attack is on a national scale. Because since you are attacking, you will be damaging the enemies' infrastructures, industry, as well as causing casualty among their civilians, generally speaking the one nation being attacked will suffer greater as far as economy/production is concerned.

If you are attacking, once you take over some of the cities, towns, farm/land, then you will be able to use these newly acquired resources, while the enemies lose these resources.

Germany was doing extremely well during the initial attack, took over large amount of Soviet land very quickly, it looked like they failed to make use of these newly acquired resources.

 

In many parts of Ukraine and Western Russia, the villagers actually welcomed the Nazis since they thought that the Germans are there to liberate them from the god-hating communists. (Village people and many of the urban folks in the former USSR are still deeply religious).

What happened was just the opposite. The Nazis started rounding up the men and shooting them, since they believed that the Slavs are an Asian race. A large part of the local population soon took up guerrilla warfare and escaped to the forests. The farmlands and factories no longer had ways to maintain sufficient manpower.

 

Does that mean Germans were racists against Asians? If that's the case, why did they sign pack with the Japanese?

As for the Russians, since entire Russia was conquered by Mongol Empire in just four years and was under occupation for a long time, more or less many Russians indeed have at least tiny portion of Mongol gene in them. Many Mongols today have green/blue eyes that their ancestors brought back from Russia and some other Eastern European countries.

Well, I guess the Mongols were the only ones able to conquer all of Russia. Nope, Mongol population was way below Russian population. All the advantages they had were tactics and training, and perhaps some kungfu and gunpowder weapons they picked up from fighting the Chinese.

 

These are the quotes from Mein Kampf:

When the Mongols conquered the territory which is now known as Russia, it was inhabited by a large number of Slavic, Finnic and Turkic tribes. There was no united state known as "Russia" then. The entire region was divided in to small principalities such as Vladimir-Suzdal, Novgorod, Ryazan, Pereyaslavl and Kiev.

 

Well, it didn't change the fact the locals outnumber the Mongols by many hundred times. Current Mongolia has only less than 3 million people.
I wonder if anyone actually tried to take a lesson on how Mongols were able to conquer all of the land what we call Russia today in just 4 years, while Napoleon couldn't.

 

Probably by 4 or 5 times. Not more than that. Because the strength of the combined armies of all the principalities were only some 3 times bigger than that of the Mongols.

Mongols were able to win, because their technology was superior. For example, their siege machines were really good, and caused destruction to numerous Russian fortifications.

 

Do you have the actual number of the population back then? Mongols were always a minority on horsebacks, and their numbers were really few because they had almost no city/town whatsoever, and majority of their population were on the run living in tents.

The Mongols were having really good cavalry. Their kids were already masters on horse back with bows, that's why they are pretty much a professional army of a fighting race...while most other armies are amateurs when they were just recruited as adults and had only been trained for a few years at most when they are considered "trained".

Their siege weapons were good because they acquired Chinese technologies including all the gunpowder weapons when they invaded China. Took them 40 years just to conquer the southern half of China. Even one of their Khans were killed by a siege weapon fired from inside a city of the Song Dynasty. And they were only able to succeed because internal conflict of Song Dynasty caused some generals of Song navy switched side.

 

The Russian population at that time was around 7.5 million. Also, northern principalities, like Novgorod were not conquered by the Mongols. Some 500,000 are believed to have died in the fighting.

I am not sure about the Mongol population, but the Mongol army had a strength of 150,000 during the battle of Kulikovo. So that means that their population must have been at least 1.5 million.

According to Zadonshchina some 300,000 Mongols took part in the fighting.

 

Well, whatever the true number of Mongol population was, it's for sure that Mongols were always fighting outnumbered enemies and they were winning left and right. They defeated the Russians quite easily, conquered such vast land in just four years.

Napoleon and Hitler were not able to achieve the same even with better technologies and more men. Everyone said the Germans were outnumbered by Russians, it it was barely 2 to 1 in population, and the troops on the battlefield were not even 2 to 1. The Mongols could defeat the Russians with much wider gap in number without the luxury of having modern technologies to supply the troops.

Did anyone actually study how Mongol succeeded in conquering such vast territory?

 

Most of the times, but not always. There were some battles in which the Russians were outnumbered very heavily.

Regular troops made only a small percentage of the Russian front-line strength. Al large part of the fighters were forcibly recruited, and they rebelled frequently. Also, a large part of the Russian fighting force was made up of females, and it had a negative effect.

Whatever the reason was, it was possible in the 13th century. Can't be repeated now.

 

I am not sure about that. The Mongols used the males from conquered areas as shock troops. The Tartars were also aligned with the mongols. This was the dark ages people were not organized very well. You may be correct but it warrents looking into further.