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If It Weren’t for Winter! y 265

e command has only very limited resources. . . . We have thrown our last forces into
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battle.” e blitzkrieg was already choking in August. e Germans were running out of
strength, and the advance stopped. Hitler’s army was so weak and unprepared for war that
two months after the start of the war offense was out of the question. On August 22, 1941,
Halder wrote: “ e Fuehrer’s note is full of contradictions. . . . e OKH’s position became
insufferable due to the Fuehrer’s meddling and attacks. No one else but himself can bear the
responsibility for the contradictory orders. . . . In the afternoon, our arguments and discus-
sions were interrupted by a telephone conversation with Field Marshal von Bock, who once
again stressed that his troops will be unable to defend themselves for long in the positions
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they took when they counted that an offensive on Moscow was coming.” September 5,
1941: “Our units surrendered to the enemy [at] the bend of the frontline near Elnya.” In the
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most strategically significant region of the theater of operations, the Army Group Center was
unable to resist the pressure of the Soviet 24th Army and surrendered the staging ground
they needed for an attack on Moscow.
Marshal K. K. Rokossovskii remembered: “Upon a realistic evaluation of the situation
and a consideration of the coming winter, the enemy was only left with one choice—imme-
diate retreat covering great distance.”
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Why didn’t the Germans retreat? On September 13, 1941, Halder wrote: “At the cur-
rent moment, we cannot forecast the number of troops that can be freed from the Eastern
Front upon arrival of winter, and the number of troops that will be needed for conducting
operations in the following year.” is entry shows that the blitzkrieg was already over before
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the snow, before the mud. e war had already turned into a war of attrition—a prolonged
war lethal for Germany.
On May 29, 1942, Hitler watched the famous Soviet film German Defeat near Moscow.
In Henry Piker’s Hitler’s Table Conversations, Hitler’s comments are recorded in the entry for
that day: “ is winter we experienced especially harsh trials, because our soldiers’ clothing
[and] the level of their motorization and supply did not in any way correspond to the condi-
tions of that winter, when the temperature dropped below 50 [degrees] Celsius.” “ en the
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first German prisoners come, who form hordes without coats, gloves, without winter cloth-
ing. ey dance from the cold, their hands thrust deep into their pockets, which they take
out from time to time to rub their ears and noses! . . . Finally, the frozen German tanks,
trucks, and cannon stretch in an endless file; all are abandoned, because the General Staff
of land forces did not prepare in time sufficient amounts of frost-resistant fuel and winter
clothing.” 10
e following year brought Stalingrad. Moscow in 1941 didn’t teach Hitler anything. In
Stalingrad, German troops once again were left without warm underwear. e main question
is: what conclusions did Hitler and his generals draw from their catastrophic performance in
the Russian winter? In 1941, they took no measures to supply their military operations dur-
ing the winter. What was done to prepare for the following winter? On April 5, 1942, Hitler
said: “In the central zone, we must immediately plant all the marshlands and swamps with
cane, so that with the coming of the next winter we can stand the horrible Russian frost.” 11