Page 307 - The Chief Culprit

252 y e Chief Culprit

By the evening of the first day I had completed four trips beyond the frontline to the
area between Grodno and Vokovysk. We saw huge masses of tanks and trucks here. We
mostly saw KV-1, KV-2, and T-34 tanks. We bombed tanks and antiaircraft guns. . . .
e next day, we first flew out at 3 , and finally returned at 10 . One had to forget
about normal rest during the night, so we made use of every available minute to fall
down on the grass by our airplanes and to sleep. . . . Even on my first mission, I noticed
innumerable fortifications built along the borderlines. ey stretched for many hundreds
of kilometers deep into Russian territory—and yet, they were partly unfinished. We flew
over unfinished airbases: in some places, the concrete landing strips were just being con-
structed. Even at such airbases, however, one could find a few aircraft waiting. We saw,
for example, along the road to Vitebsk, which our troops were advancing upon, one such
almost-finished airbase with many “Martin” bombers. ey either did not have enough
fuel or enough crews. While flying over these numerous airbases and fortifications, we all
had the same thought in our heads—how lucky we were to have struck first. It seemed
that the Soviets were feverishly readying the groundwork for an attack against us. And
which other Western country could Russia have attacked? If the Russians had complet-
ed their preparations, there would have been almost no hope of stopping them. . . .
e highway [from] Smolensk [to] Moscow was the target of many raids; it was packed with
huge amounts of Russian military equipment and supplies. Trucks and tanks were lined up
one after another almost without any intervals, often in three parallel columns. If all this mas-
sive machinery had attacked us. . . . ere were no difficulties in attacking so enticing a target.
In a few days, the entire road was transformed into piles of rubble. 2

In the German pilot’s description, there is one phrase about the construction of defense
structures that might create some confusion. Perhaps the Red Army was preparing defenses?
No, it was not. If it had been preparing for defense, the arriving troops would not have been
kept in columns along the roads, they would have been sent immediately to the trenches.
Rudel also mentioned the “Martin” bombers. Indeed, military supplies from the United
States and Great Britain began to arrive in the Soviet Union long before June 22, 1941.
“Strategic defense was born out of necessity during combat, it was not planned ahead
of time,” says official Soviet military-historical research. e defensive operations of the Red
3
Army in the summer of 1941 were pure improvisation. Before the war, the Red Army neither
prepared for defense nor conducted any training in defensive operations. Soviet field manuals
don’t contain a word about defense on a strategic scale. Not only did the Red Army not have
any defense plans, but even in a purely theoretical sense the issues involved in conducting
defense operations were never worked out or discussed.
Moreover, the Soviet people and army were not ready for defense, even psychologi-
cally. “It is precisely the interests of defending the USSR that will demand the conduct of
broad offensive operations on enemy territory, and this does not in any way contradict the
character of defensive war,” wrote Pravda on August 19, 1939. From the first moments of the
German invasion, the Red Army tried to go on the offensive, or carry out counterattacks and
counteroffensives. But this was also improvisation. Counteroffensives were not worked on at
any of the prewar training exercises; they were not even discussed in theory: “ e question of
counteroffensive . . . was not posed before the Great Patriotic War.” 4