The racial war in Russia

On the eve of the invasion Das Reich and Totenkopf each had some 16-18,000 highly trained troops. Unlike the ordinary army infantry divisions whose soldiers marched everywhere, Waffen-SS motorized units were provided with trucks to carry their troops on to the battlefield. All their artillery pieces were also towed by trucks, unlike army infantry units whose guns were pulled by horses. SS motorized infantry units were all lavishly armed with automatic machine pistols and bipod- or tripod-mounted MG34 machine guns, as well as 80mm and 120mm mortars. Waffen-SS troops were also some of the most highly motivated on the German side. They had all been thoroughly indoctrinated with Nazi racial superiority theories. To the members of the Waffen-SS, their Russian enemies were racial inferiors to be treated as sub-humans. The SS men were told by their officers to execute immediately any Communist Party officials they captured to break the back of any resistance. This also applied to political officers or commissars serving with Red Army units. The civilian population or captured Russian soldiers had no rights under laws of war because the Soviets had not signed up to the Geneva Convention. They were to be exploited to help the German war effort as forced labourers, and anyone who offered resistance was to be executed immediately. Any Jews who were caught by the Waffen-SS were also to be liquidated. This brutal imperial policy soon alienated most of the civilian population in areas under German control, even in regions that had been anti-Soviet before the occupation.

Himmler summed up his attitude to the Russians during a meeting with SS generals: "It is a crime against our own blood to worry about [Russian civilians] and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and grandsons to have a more difficult time with them. When somebody comes to me and says, ÔI cannot dig the anti-tank ditch with [Russian] women and children, it is inhuman, for it would kill them', then I have to say, ÔYou are a murderer of your own blood because if the anti-tank ditch is not dug, German soldiers will die, and they are sons of German mothers. They are our own blood.' That is what I want to instil into the SS and what I believe have instilled into them as one of the most sacred laws of the future. Our concern, our duty is our people and our blood. It is for them that we must provide and plan, work and fight, nothing else."

The theatre of operations

The fighting on the Eastern Front was also shaped by the huge distances of the theatre of operations. Once the German troops penetrated into the Russian hinterland they found their supplies lines were stretched to the limit. Ammunition, spare parts, replacement troops and equipment all became scarce commodities in frontline German divisions. Food and other basic supplies were commandeered from the local population, no matter what impact it had. As casualties took their toll and the civilian population turned against them, German troops thousands of miles from their homes began to feel isolated and psychologically besieged. They were alone, and with only their immediate comrades to help them.

So the scene was set not only for a conflict of huge size and intensity, but for a struggle that was at its heart a war of annihilation. Few rules of war applied. Both sides set about trying to eradicate each other with a degree of ferocity that had not been seen in a European conflict since the Middle Ages.

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