Page 305 - The Chief Culprit

250 y e Chief Culprit

could begin a war with such fuel against a country where in the winter a temperature of –20
Celsius was the norm. Soviet intelligence did not consider the German generals to be mad-
men, and it concluded that Germany was not preparing for war.
Hitler’s soldiers also needed boots, warm underwear, sweaters, special tents, hats, heat-
ers, skis, ski wax, masking robes, oil and lubricants that would not freeze, devices for heating
water, frost-resistant car batteries, and winter fuel for tanks, cars, and airplanes. ey needed
tanks with broad caterpillar tracks, thousands of cars that could drive in poor road condi-
tions, and so on. ey had none of these. eir lack of preparedness was total, shameful, and
scandalous. e argument was that Hitler did not need coats, because he planned to end the
war in three months. However, he still needed to prepare for winter. . . . Hitler’s Colonel
General H. Hoth, commander of the 3rd Tank Group, wrote: “ e objective of destroying
the centers of the war industry located farther east was delegated to the air force. ese were
utopian plans. e radius of action of German bombers then was one thousand kilome-
ters. Even if it had been possible to reach the projected Volga-Arkhangelsk line (which was
planned for one campaign, i.e., three to four months), the radius of [the] bombers was not
sufficient to disrupt the functioning of industry in the Ural and the Sverdlovsk regions. And
even Sverdlovsk is not the end of the world.”
12
Colonel General H. Guderian, commander of the 2nd Tank Group, recounted: “When
they unfolded a map of Russia before me, I could not believe my eyes. Everything that I
considered impossible I was supposed to make into reality?” Guderian knew that Germany
13
couldn’t defeat the Soviet Union. Defeat was impossible not only in three months, but in
general.
“Just look at these vast territories,” said General Field Marshal Karl von Rundstedt,
Commander of Army Group South. “We cannot crush the enemy and occupy all of western
Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea in just a few months.” 14
Stalin and Golikov reasoned in a similar manner. ey all expected Hitler and his field
marshals to behave reasonably—in other words, to prepare for a prolonged war, including a
war in winter. But reasonable actions were not being taken.