This was, obviously, D+1 in Operation Barbarossa.
Acting U.S. Secretary of State Sumner Welles stated on this day:
If any further proof could conceivably be required of the real purposes and projects of the present leaders of Germany for world-domination, it is now furnished by Hitler's treacherous attack upon Soviet Russia.
We see once more, beyond peradventure of doubt, with what intent the present Government of Germany negotiates "non-aggression pacts". To the leaders of the German Reich sworn engagements to refrain from hostile acts against other countries--engagements regarded in a happier and in a civilized world as contracts to the faithful observance of which the honor of nations themselves was pledged--are but a symbol of deceit and constitute a dire warning on the part of Germany of hostile and murderous intent. To the present German Government the very meaning of the word "honor" is unknown.This Government has often stated, and in many of his public statements the President has declared, that the United States maintains that freedom to worship God as their consciences dictate is the great and fundamental right of all peoples. This right has been denied to their peoples by both the Nazi and the Soviet Governments. To the people of the United States this and other principles and doctrines of communistic dictatorship are as intolerable and as alien to their own beliefs as are the principles and doctrines of Nazi dictatorship. Neither kind of imposed overlordship can have or will have any support or any sway in the mode of life or in the system of government of the American people.
But the immediate issue that presents itself to the people of the United States is whether the plan for universal conquest, for the cruel and brutal enslavement of all peoples, and for the ultimate destruction of the remaining free democracies, which Hitler is now desperately trying to carry out, is to be successfully halted and defeated.
That is the present issue which faces a realistic America. It is the issue at this moment which most directly involves our own national defense and the security of the New World in which we live.
In the opinion of this Government, consequently, any defense against Hitlerism, any rallying of the forces opposing Hitlerism, from whatever source these forces may spring, will hasten the eventual downfall of the present German leaders, and will therefore redound to the benefit of our own defense and security. Hitler's armies are today the chief dangers of the Americas.
We have no intent of making this the "World War Two Day by Day Blog". Indeed, this blog is still focused on the 1890s through 1920, but we are noting notable events that occurred 80 years ago, just as we do when we hit them that happened 50 years ago.
We note that is noting a couple entries that will appear here today. The first is actually an advertisement email I received yesterday from that vender called At The Front which specializes in World War Two reproductions of clothing. Their focus is on reenactors, which I am not, but I'm on their email list and indeed their blog, which is not often updated, is one of the ones that's linked in on this site. The advertisement read:
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Barbarossa |
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80 years ago today, the Germans made a grave error, disregarded the results of their own war games and many intelligence assessments and invaded the Soviet Union. A little less than 4 years later, T-34's were in Berlin. The consequences of their decision to attack are still affecting much of the world to this day. The early battles in the East are often brushed over in the history books as quick and relatively easy German victories, often due to the studies having been written in the 50's and 60's by former Wehrmacht officers working for allied historical departments. With the opening of the the Soviet archives in the 1990's, more recent works have been able to shed more detail on the subject and it's now clear that the Wehrmacht had a much rougher time of it and the Soviets were often far less incompetent than previously thought. Twenty years ago, during a rough Winter (the tickets were cheap.), I visited Stalingrad. It was the kind of weather where your face freezes the moment you walk outside. Studying the War for years is one thing- but standing on Mamayev Hill in January adds a perspective that no books or films can offer. At the museum, the granny guarding the displays looked at me indifferently until we told her I had come from the US to see how Russia won the War. Talk about the royal treatment...I got to meet the director, look at anything I wished, and got invited over for tea. No veterans were available, but everyone there had parents or grandparents who had been in the battle. It was an interesting trip. For those interested in the Eastern Front, among the best are the works by David M. Glantz. |
I haven't read Glantz, but those who have read him often make similar recommendations.
I note this as what is noted here deserves some consideration. The typical story you hear is that the Germans simply ran over the Soviets up until winter hit in 1941. It seems, now that we know more, that isn't really true. We do know that the Germans took absolutely massive casualties in Barbarossa, something we'll discuss further in a moment.
Anyhow, on this date in 1941 the Germans encountered the KV1 and T34 tanks for the very first time.
Today in World War II History—June 23, 1941
The Germans encounter the KV1
The Germans were still advancing, and doing very well at it at that. By the end of this day they'd advanced up to fifty miles in some locations, which in military terms is a very rapid advance. But they were taking heavier casualties than generally believed outside of German circles at the time, and they were finding that Soviet equipment was much better than they expected. The Germans were not unfamiliar with Soviet equipment, but had been fooled by the overall poor performance and quality of equipment used by the Soviets in the Winter War and the 1939 invasion of Poland.
Among the rude shocks were the quality of new Soviet armor.
The Germans destroyed a massive amount of Soviet armor in the early days of Barbarossa, but a lot of it was of the prior generation of Soviet armor that was being phased out. For that matter, the Germans were still extraordinarily dependent on their early generation of armor themselves and all of their armor was light compared to what the Soviets were just starting to introduce. The KV1 and the T-34 can be regarded as the first modern tanks in history, and the T-34 was the best tank of the war. Regarding an encounter with a T-34 that occurred on this day, a German field report would note:
Half a dozen anti-tank guns fire shells at him, which sound like a drumroll. But he drives staunchly through our line like an impregnable prehistoric monster... It is remarkable that lieutenant Steup's tank made hits on a T-34, once at about 20 meters and four times at 50 meters, with Panzergranate 40, without any noticeable effect.
Indeed, new Soviet armor was a massive leap ahead of anything anyone else was deploying in every respect. It's armor protection was superior and the guns heavier. The tanks clearly outmatched anything anyone else had. The only problem was that it was brand new, and the Soviets were in the process of reorganizing their armor deployment strategy.
The battles of Brody and Raseiniai, both German victories, commenced on this day. Brody was a Ukrainian battle, and Raseiniai a Lithuanian one. At the latter, a single KV1 or KV2, in a battle that was much like that depicted in the move Fury, held up the entire German 6th Panzer Division for a day.
The Germans took Vilnius, the city that had been contested just after World War One between the Poles and the Lithuanians.
It should be noted that a person can take this too far. A lot about the Soviet defense in these early days was disorganized, a mess, haphazard and ineffective. The Soviets took many, many, more casualties than the Germans did. Soviet losses were outsized and massive, including armor losses. Indeed, that was in part because the Soviets were just in the process of switching to a massed armor doctrine, like that used by the Germans, from a dispersed armor doctrine, like that used by the French (and which ironically would be partially implemented by the Germans).
Even that, however, revealed a long term German problem. The Germans had to win quickly, which right then they were doing, which probably, in their minds, justified the high losses. The Axis had invaded the USSR with 3,500,000 troops. The problem was, even at that point, the Soviets had over 5,000,000 men under arms, a massive increase from the year prior. The Germans committed over 5000 aircraft to Operation Barbarossa and destroyed nearly 4,000 Soviet aircraft on the first two days, but the Soviets start the war against the Germans with over 14,000 aircraft themselves. The Soviet losses, however, were so high in aircraft in 1941 that virtually their entire airforce was destroyed.
Again, none of this is to suggest that early German operations weren't a giant success against the Soviets. But the success had to be complete and total in 1941 in order to be retained. And now they were learning that the Soviets had surpassed theme in armor, and by a large margin.
The Soviets, on this day, reorganized their military command and recreated the Stavka, or central military command, which had not existed since Tsarist times.
Hitler took up quarters at the mosquito infested "Wolf's Lair" in East Prussia for the first time on this day in 1941.
That's interesting in and of itself as the construction of the East Prussian fortress suggests that somewhere in the recesses of his mind he know that the war against the Soviets was going to be a long one. The facility operated as an eastern based command center and was built to sustain any kind of attack. Building a fortress to withstand an attack doesn't make a lot of sense unless you expect to be attacked.
Slovakia declared war on the Soviet Union. The Provisional Government of Lithuania formed in anticipation of receiving its recognition from the advancing Germans and their allies, and regaining Lithuanian independence. It would last only a little after a month until Lithuania was simply incorporated into the occupied German territories, slated for future German colonization.
Eastern Herzogovina rebelled against Italian occupation and against the collaborationist government there. It had been inspired to do so by the German invasion of Russia, with the Orthodox Russians being the traditional protectors of the Orthodox Serbs. It's interesting to note that, of course, this assumed early on a German defeat at the hands of the Russians, which was correct, but which would in no way occur so rapidly as to be able to allow the rebels to hold out until the Russians arrived. And, moreover, it failed to take into account that while Russia continued to look upon the Serbs as people in their sphere of influence, the government in Moscow was hardly sympathetic to Orthodoxy.
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