Page 227 - The Chief Culprit

188 y e Chief Culprit

the German advance to the Minsk-Kiev Line; third, the conclusion of the war and destruction
of the Red Army’s last reserves, if such were found to the east of the Minsk-Kiev Line. e
Germans didn’t work out how they would reach Kursk, Moscow, and Stalingrad. e generals
thought that one blow would bring down the entire Soviet Union and send the Red Army on
the run. In Berlin, a debriefing followed each stage of the game. e main debriefing of all
stages of the game ended on December 13, 1940. Nineteen days later, the strategic games in
Moscow began, the second of which, as we know now, ended on January 11, 1941.
History is written by the victors. e Red Army seized the archives of the Wehrmacht
Heer, and Soviet historians demonstrated the aggressiveness of German imperialism to the
rest of the world, exposing their terrible plans. Meanwhile, Soviet archives were carefully
locked. is gave the Communist propagandists and agitators the opportunity to say that
Soviet generals, admirals, marshals, and Stalin himself suffered from a chronic love of peace. 11
However, that love of peace was only pretence. e Soviet generals did not sleep. Like their
German peers, they prepared an invasion.
Of the two Soviet games, the first one was decisive. “ e debriefing of the first one is
12
concluded at the highest political leadership level in the country.” e “highest political
leadership in the country” meant, of course, Stalin. He carefully followed the course of the
first game and became convinced that the army would get bogged down in Eastern Prussia.
erefore, immediately after the first game, Stalin decided that a strike on Europe should be
delivered from Ukraine and Moldova, and not from an area north of Polesye.
e second game, which dealt with “retaliatory measures” of the Red Army in Germany,
Hungary, and Romania, took place between January 8 and 11, 1941. ere were insignificant
changes in each group of players. Certain generals were switched from side to side. A number
of generals did not participate in the second game at all, others replaced them. But the main
opponents remained the same. Only this time, Zhukov commanded the Soviet troops and
directed the “retaliatory blow” on enemy territory, whereas Pavlov commanded the German
and Romanian troops and tried to repel the Soviet advance. Why did they need to conduct
two games?
Polesye—the biggest region of swamplands in Europe, possibly even in the world—lies
between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Polesye was unsuitable for the mass movement
of troops and the conduct of military operations. e area divided the western theater of
operations into two strategic directions. If one tried to be equally strong to the north and to
the south of Polesye, then one had to simply divide one’s forces in two. However, the main
principle of strategy was concentration. e drive to be strong everywhere causes the dissipa-
tion of forces and general weakness. erefore, forces had to be concentrated in one of the
two directions to deliver the decisive blow, while in the other direction they delivered just a
secondary, auxiliary attack.
e question then was which direction should be considered primary and which secondary.
e arguments about this did not end. Both options had their pros and cons. Invasion into Central
Europe, north of Polesye, would be a direct blow on Berlin. However, in the attacker’s way lay
heavily fortified Eastern Prussia and Koenigsberg. A blow to the south, however, was a diversion
to the side, a roundabout route. However, it would be a blow to almost unprotected Romania,
the oil heart of Germany. On synthetic fuel alone, Germany could not survive. erefore, it was
decided to play two games, compare the results, and make the choice. In the first game, the
main attack on Central Europe was carried out north of Polesye, from Belarus and the Baltic.