Prologue to the German-Soviet War: Political and Military-Strategic Aspects

Abstract

The purpose of historical study is to scientifically reconstruct the international situation, geopolitical and military strategy of Germany and the USSR in the period preceding the outbreak of war between them.

The research methodology is based on theoretical developments of leading specialists in military history, as well as direct participants of military-strategic planning, principles of historicism, comprehensive study of complex socio-political and military phenomena, modern methods of scientific research and conceptual apparatus used by respective modern specialists.

The scientific novelty of the text is determined by the attempt to form the author’s concept of preparing hostile parties for war by involving Soviet and German historical sources of different origins, comparing different visions (leaders and generals of the two countries, military theorists and analysts, historians) on processes in politics, economics, military cases between autumn, 1939, and summer, 1941.

Conclusions. The pre-war foreign policy of the Kremlin resulted in its isolation, while Berlin, with the creation of the Alliance in 1939–1940, assumed control over the economic and human resources of a large part of Europe. Analysis of the militarystrategic situation on the eve of the Soviet-German war shows that the Axis states’ strategic plan for war against the USSR was based on the idea of a sudden and powerful first strike to quickly defeat and destroy the main Red Army forces in the line between border the Western Dvina and Dnipro rivers followed by a rapid advance inland. According to the plan of the military-political leadership of the Third Reich, the southern or Ukrainian direction in the initial period of the war was important, but not the main one. The main forces of the Red Army were concentrated in the west of the country, and there is no doubt that they were preparing for a clash with Hitler’s military machine. The strategic view of the future war was that after repelling the enemy’s offensive, the enemy was to be defeated during the Red Army’s strategic offensive in foreign territory “with few casualties”. Unlike a potential adversary, the Soviet leadership considered the south-western direction to be the main one and concentrated the main strike groups here. The main efforts of the General Staff were aimed at developing only one version of the troops’ actions with the beginning of the war, namely the offensive, although this plan was not fully worked out. As for the other, defensive version of the plan, the question of its development was not even raised. Prepared before the war “Plan for the defence of the state border in 1941” became not a defensive version of the plan of war, but a plan to cover the demobilization and deployment of Soviet forces. The most serious and difficult lesson of the first days of the war was the delay in measures to bring troops into combat readiness. The troops of the cover armies, especially the first echelons, were not withdrawn in time from the areas of deployment and deployed on the planned lines of defence. Their nomination in the conditions of hostilities that began was accompanied by unjustifiably large losses. The unwillingness of the troops of the border military districts to repel the powerful blows of the enemy was the most important reason that determined the unfavourable development of events at the beginning of the war for the Soviet side.