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A Blitzkrieg against Russia? y 239

e challenges for the Germans wouldn’t end there. Even in the supercritical conditions
of the summer of 1941, the Soviet system of mobilization worked perfectly, and an additional
5.3 million people joined the ranks of the Red Army within one week of the war, before July
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1, 1941. After one week of the war, the Red Army consisted of over 10 million people. Even
if Hitler continued to destroy a million per month, the war would still last a year. But the
Soviet mobilization continued in July, August, September . . . “Our forces are innumerable,”
Stalin once said. e mobilization resources of the Soviet Union were almost 20 percent of
the population, meaning 34.5 million people. is resource was fully used during the war. It
was even surpassed. How long would it take to destroy such an army?
Germany was not ready for a war against Russia, and Stalin knew it. In 1940, British
aviation already regularly bombed German cities, ports, railroad stations, and factories. Hitler
couldn’t secure even Berlin’s safety from the British bombers. Did he have nothing better to
do in these conditions than go conquer new lands in the east? Was Hitler ready to fight on
two fronts?
We find some answers in the diary of the Chief of General Staff of Germany’s land
army, Colonel General F. Halder.

October 7, 1940: “An air war on two fronts is impossible.”
November 26, 1940: “Horse-drawn carriages for anti-tank weapons. We have no limbers.
. . . We have no capacity to supply our troops in Bulgaria with mountain equipment.
. . . We have not a single snow-cleaning machine. . . . It is impossible to maintain a strict
control over the large cities of France. . . . e empire’s railroads in the future will be un-
able to work under such strain as today.”
November 27, 1940: “Operations to take over the endless Russian spaces will not be
successful.”
December 3, 1940: “ e fuel situation is bad. e tire situation is very bad.”
December 4, 1940: “Too little artillery.”
December 13, 1940: “Capturing Moscow does not have much significance (in Hitler’s
opinion). . . . e air forces are facing a war on two fronts.”
December 23, 1940: “ e situation with rubber is difficult.”
January 16, 1941: “Anti-aircraft gun battalions of the land army, forty battalions. e
special personnel for them have yet to be prepared. is is feasible only by autumn.”
January 28, 1941: “ e fuel situation is serious. We can count on fuel supply dur-
ing the period of concentration and deployment, and two months of operations. . . .
Automobile tires. e situation is very serious.” 2

Even though the German command knew that “an air war on two fronts was impos-
sible,” they still decided to start a two-front air war. Not only Halder but Hitler himself un-
derstood that taking Moscow did not mean the end of the war. And yet, Hitler’s entire plan
boiled down to taking Moscow in the belief that the rest of Russia would crumble. Hitler’s
generals planned to destroy Russia in three months, but they had only enough fuel for two.
“Operation Barbarossa. e goal of the campaign is unclear. It does not at all affect
England. Our economic base does not improve from this. If we are tied down in Russia,
the situation will become even more difficult. . . . Operation Barbarossa is extremely risky,”
Halder wrote. Stalin had iron logic, and when he was warned of a possible German invasion,
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