Waffen-SS: Northern Russia, 1941

Background

At dawn on 22 June 1941, German aircraft and artillery began the opening bombardments of Operation Barbarossa. From the Baltic to the Black Sea, more than three million German troops attacked, taking five million Red Army soldiers largely by surprise. The Waffen-SS motorized divisions and brigades poised to attack Russia were some of the most powerful available to Hitler.

The onslaught was the beginning of almost four years of "total war" that would ultimately bring the Red Army to the gates of Berlin. Everything about the war on the Eastern Front was on a titanic scale: the distances, the number of troops involved, the intensity of the fighting and the horrific extent of the casualties.

The invasion force

The initial line-up of forces was of a scale that had never been seen before in the history of warfare. On the German side were 153 divisions, including 21 panzer and 14 motorized divisions containing some 3417 tanks. In the air, the Luftwaffe had almost 3800 fighters, bombers and transport aircraft available. On top of this force was added the contingents from Finland, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia and Romania that mustered several hundred thousand troops to help the Wehrmacht.

The Red Army

Opposing Hitler's invasion force was the Red Army, which appeared on paper to be a formidable force of some 180 divisions with some 20,000 tanks and air support from 10,000 combat aircraft. However, the Red Army was a hollow shell after many of its best officers had been executed in the purges that Stalin had unleashed in the late 1930s. Fewer than 2000 of its tanks were modern T-34s or KV-1s that could take on the latest German Panzer IIIs or IVs on equal terms. The majority of the Red Army's soldiers were from rural peasant stock or were ill-educated factory workers. Many had received only rudimentary training to fire their rifles and had little experience operating sophisticated artillery, tanks or heavy weapons. Although Stalin loved to show off his military might in parades through Red Square or in showcase field exercises, the bulk of the Red Army rarely participated in large-scale manoeuvres or rehearsals of defensive plans. Discipline was brutal to ensure the Red Army remained under Communist Party control. Food and other provisions were in short supply. Division for division, the Red Army was hopelessly outclassed by its battle-hardened opponents in the Wehrmacht.

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