I must say that during the Second World War, the leadership of Nazi Germany, in addition to many crimes against humanity, also made a huge number of administrative mistakes. One of them is considered to be a bet on the wunderwaffe, that is, a miracle weapon, whose superior performance characteristics will supposedly be able to ensure Germany's victory. From source to source, the quote of Reich Minister of Arms and Armaments Speer wanders: “Technical superiority will ensure a quick victory for us. The protracted war will be won by the wunderwaffe. And it was said in the spring of 1943 …
Such a little mouse …
Why is the bet on the "wunderwaffe" considered wrong, because the Germans, whatever one may say, in the course of work on it have made great progress in terms of the development of cruise, ballistic and anti-aircraft missiles, jet aircraft, etc.? There are several answers to this question. Firstly, none of the serious weapons systems developed by German scientists (the notorious "death rays", etc. do not count), even if its implementation was completely successful, had the potential of a "god from a machine" capable of change the course of the war. Secondly, many of the "notions" of the Third Reich, although they anticipated later weapons systems, in principle could not be implemented in any way effectively at the then existing technological level. And, the most important argument - the creation of the "wunderwaffe" diverted the already limited resources of the Third Reich, which, otherwise, could be used with greater efficiency elsewhere - and at least aimed at increasing the production of conventional, propeller-driven fighters, or extremely successful PzKpfw IV or something else - not striking the imagination, but capable of providing real assistance to the troops on the battlefield.
However, the question with the wunderwaffe is not as obvious as it might seem at first glance.
On the date of the collapse of the Third Reich
First, let's try to figure out exactly when the Germans lost the war. We are talking now, of course, not about the night from 8 to 9 May 1945, when the final act of Germany's unconditional surrender was signed.
Famous photo: Keitel signs the act of surrender
We are looking for a moment before which Adolf Hitler still had chances to achieve military success, and after which there was no longer any chance of winning the Third Reich.
Soviet historiography traditionally points to the famous Battle of Stalingrad as this turning point, but why? Of course, in the course of it, both the German troops and their allies suffered heavy losses. Kurt Tippelskirch, a German general, author of "History of the Second World War" described its results as follows (speaking, however, about the results of the 1942 offensives in general, that is, both to the Caucasus and the Volga):
“The result of the offensive was amazing: one German and three allied armies were destroyed, three other German armies suffered heavy losses. At least fifty German and Allied divisions no longer existed. The remaining losses amounted to a total of approximately twenty-five more divisions. A large number of equipment was lost - tanks, self-propelled guns, light and heavy artillery and heavy infantry weapons. Losses in equipment were, of course, significantly greater than those of the enemy. Losses in personnel should be considered very heavy, especially since the enemy, even if he suffered serious losses, nevertheless had much larger human reserves."
But is it possible to interpret the words of K. Tippelskirch so that it was the losses of the Wehrmacht, SS and Luftwaffe that predetermined the further failures of Germany?
Column of German prisoners of war in Stalingrad
Of course, they were of great importance, but nevertheless, they were not decisive; Hitler and Co. could well make up for these losses. But the Germans lost their strategic initiative, and did not have the slightest chance of regaining it until the end of the war. Operation Citadel, undertaken by them in 1943, had mostly propagandistic significance: in essence, it was a desire to prove to itself and to the whole world that the German armed forces were still capable of conducting successful offensive operations.
In order to come to this conclusion, it is enough to assess the comparative scale of German operations on the Eastern Front in the first three years of the war. In 1941, it was supposed to plunge the USSR into dust, that is, using the strategy of "lightning war", to win it in just one campaign. In 1942, no one was planning a military defeat of the USSR - it was about seizing important oil regions of the Soviet Union and cutting off the most important communication, which was the Volga River. It was assumed that these measures would greatly reduce the economic potential of the Country of Soviets, and maybe someday later, this will be of decisive importance … Well, in 1943, the entire offensive part of the strategic plan of the Germans was to destroy the Soviet troops in the Kursk region protrusion. And even an unbridled optimist like Hitler expected nothing more from this operation than some improvement in the unfavorable balance of forces in the East. Even in case of success at the Kursk Bulge, Germany still switched to strategic defense, which, in fact, was declared by her "infallible" Fuhrer.
The essence of this new idea of Hitler could be summed up in a short phrase: "Hold out longer than the opponents." This idea, of course, was doomed to failure, because after the US entered the war, the anti-fascist coalition had literally overwhelming superiority both in people and in industrial capacities. Of course, under such conditions, a war of attrition, even theoretically, could never lead Germany to success.
So, we can say that after Stalingrad no "recipes from Hitler" could lead Germany to victory, but perhaps there were still some other ways to achieve a turning point and win the war? Obviously not. The fact is that the Second World War, both earlier, and now, and for a long time to come, will serve as the object of careful research by many historians and military analysts. But so far none of them has been able to offer any realistic way of Germany's victory after its defeat at Stalingrad. The best general staff of the Wehrmacht did not see him either. The same Erich von Manstein, who is revered by many researchers as the best military leader of the Third Reich, wrote in his memoirs:
“But no matter how heavy the loss of the 6th Army was, it didn’t mean the loss of the war in the east and thus the war in general. It was still possible to achieve a draw if such a goal had been set by German policy and the command of the armed forces."
That is, even he assumed, at best, the possibility of a draw - but not a victory. However, in the opinion of the author of this article, here Manstein strongly twisted his soul, which, in fact, he did more than once during the writing of his memoirs, and that in fact Germany had no chance of bringing the war to a draw. But even if the German field marshal was right, it should still be admitted that after Stalingrad, Germany could not win the war for sure.
So what does it mean that the Battle of Stalingrad is that "point of no return" in which the Fuhrer lost his war? But this is no longer a fact, because according to a number of researchers (which, by the way, the author of this article also adheres to), the war was finally and irrevocably lost by Germany much earlier, namely, in the battle of Moscow.
The fate of the "thousand-year" Reich was decided near Moscow
The reasoning here is very simple - the only chance (but not a guarantee) of a victorious peace for Germany was given only by the defeat of the Soviet Union and, thus, complete Nazi hegemony in the European part of the continent. In this case, Hitler could concentrate in his hands enormous resources that would make it possible to extremely prolong the war and would make it completely impossible for the Anglo-American armies to land in Europe. A strategic stalemate arose, the way out of which could only be a compromise peace on conditions suitable for Germany, or a nuclear war. But you need to understand that the United States would not have been ready for such a war even in the early 50s, since it required the serial and mass production of nuclear weapons. However, all this is already a completely alternative history, and it is not known how everything would turn out there. But the fact is that the death of the USSR was an obligatory prerequisite, without which the victory of Nazi Germany was impossible in principle, but if it was achieved, the chances of such a victory became noticeably different from zero.
So, Germany lost its only chance to defeat the USSR in 1941. And, according to the author, although neither in Germany nor in the USSR, of course, they did not know it yet, Hitler did not have the opportunity to achieve a military victory since 1942.
In 1941, according to the "Barbarossa" plan, the Nazis threw three army groups into the attack: "North", "Center" and "South". All of them had the potential to conduct deep offensive operations, and had strategic tasks ahead of them, the implementation of which, according to A. Hitler, should have led to the fall of the USSR or, at least, to such a critical reduction in its industrial and military potential that it could no longer resist the hegemony of Germany.
All three army groups have made great strides. All of them captured gigantic territories, defeated many Soviet troops. But none of them was able to complete the tasks assigned to it in full. And most importantly, the ratio of the military potentials of the USSR and Germany from the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War began to change, and not at all in favor of the Germans. Of course, in the summer and autumn months of 1941, the Red Army suffered colossal losses, and the country lost many important industrial and agricultural regions, but Soviet soldiers and officers gradually learned military skills, gaining the most important combat experience. Yes, the Soviet army in 1942 no longer had all those tens of thousands of tanks and aircraft that were in the units before the war, but its real combat capability, nevertheless, gradually grew. The military potential of the USSR remained large enough to almost crush Army Group Center during the counteroffensive near Moscow and cause a full-fledged crisis in the German high command. The same K. Tippelskirch describes the current situation as follows:
“The force of the Russian strike and the scale of this counteroffensive were such that they shook the front for a considerable length and almost led to an irreparable catastrophe … There was a threat that the command and troops, under the influence of the Russian winter and understandable disappointment in the rapid outcome of the war, would not withstand morally and physically.
Nevertheless, the Germans managed to cope with this situation, and there were two reasons: the still insufficient combat skill of the Red Army, which the Wehrmacht at that time was still superior both in experience and in training, and the famous "stop order" of Hitler, who took over the post commander-in-chief of ground forces. But in any case, the result of the 1941 campaignit became that two groups of three armies ("North" and "Center") actually lost the ability to conduct strategic offensive operations.
That is, of course, they had tanks, cannons, vehicles and soldiers who could be thrown into a new offensive.
But the balance of the opposing forces was such that such an attack could not lead to anything good for Germany. An attempt to attack would only lead to the fact that the troops would be bled without having achieved a decisive result and the balance of forces would become even worse for Germany than it was.
In other words, in the summer of 1941 the Wehrmacht could advance with 3 army groups, and a year later - in fact, only one. And what did this lead to? To the fact that the plan of the German campaign for 1942 just wants to be called "The offensive of the doomed."
What was wrong with the German plans for 1942?
Military science is based on several important truths, one of which is that the main goal of hostilities should be the destruction (capture) of enemy armed forces. Capturing territory, settlements or geographic points is inherently secondary, and has value only if they directly contribute to the main goal, that is, the destruction of the enemy army. Choosing from operations to destroy enemy troops and capture the city, there is no point in capturing the city - it will fall anyway after defeating the enemy soldiers. But by doing the opposite, we always risk that the enemy army, untouched by us, will muster up its forces and recapture the city we have captured.
So, of course, although the "Barbarossa" and was distinguished by excessive optimism, stemming, among other things, from an incorrect assessment of the size of the Red Army, but at the heart of the plan had completely sound provisions. According to him, all three army groups had as their task first to crush and destroy the Soviet troops opposing them, and then strive to seize such settlements (Moscow, Kiev, Leningrad, etc.) that the Red Army could not but defend. In other words, the "Barbarossa" plan provided for the destruction of the main forces of the Red Army in parts, in a successive series of deep operations, and in this respect fully corresponded to the basic military canons.
But in 1942 Germany no longer had sufficient forces to defeat the Red Army, and this was quite obvious to both the top generals and the country's leadership. As a result, already at the planning stage, A. Hitler and his generals were forced to abandon what the Wehrmacht needed to do (defeat the main forces of the Red Army) in favor of what the Wehrmacht could do - that is, capture the Caucasus and Stalingrad. That is, although the 1942 campaign plan still retained its "offensive spirit", there was a fundamental shift in priorities from the destruction of the USSR's armed forces in favor of seizing some, albeit important, territories from it.
“On the Internet,” many rushes have been broken about what would have happened if Hitler's troops had nevertheless fulfilled the tasks assigned to them in 1942 and had seized Stalingrad and the oil-bearing regions of the Caucasus. Many lovers of military history undertake to argue that such a German success would have hit extremely hard on the industrial and military potential of the USSR, but, in the author's opinion, this is an incorrect point of view. The thing is that its supporters usually assume a priori that the Wehrmacht could not only capture, but also hold Stalingrad and the Caucasus for a long time, so that the loss of these regions could seriously hit the economy of the Soviet Union.
But this is not the case. Suppose the Germans did not make any mistakes during the planning and implementation of their offensive operations, they found enough forces somewhere, and still would have captured Stalingrad. Well, what would it give them? Possibility, having come to the bank of the Volga, to cut this waterway? So, even without capturing Stalingrad, they went to the Volga (14th Panzer Corps), and how did it help them? Nothing. And what else?
Even in the event of the fall of Stalingrad, the German army thrown into its capture would still be "suspended in the air", when its flanks would be provided only by Romanian and Italian troops. And if the Soviet commanders found resources to encircle Paulus's army, then he would have captured Stalingrad, straining his last forces, or not captured - the fate of the troops entrusted to his command would have been decided in any case.
Here the author asks to understand it correctly. Of course, there can be no question of some kind of revision of the heroic defense of Stalingrad - it was extremely necessary and important in literally every respect, both military, and moral, and in any other. The conversation is only about the fact that even if Paulus suddenly found a couple of fresh divisions and he still could fill up our bridgeheads near the Volga with the bodies of German soldiers, this would not be the fate of the 6th Army, which is extremely sad for the Germans. influenced.
Fight on the streets of Stalingrad
In other words, it can be assumed that the capture of Stalingrad and the Caucasus would not have given the Germans any strategic gain, because even if they could do it, they no longer had the strength to keep these "conquests" for some time, but the Red Army was strong enough to knock them out. Therefore, there was some nonzero meaning of the German troops' offensive on Stalingrad and the Caucasus only if on the way to them the Germans could be drawn into battles and defeat large masses of Soviet troops, weakening the Red Army to the point of being unable to carry out in 1942 how many then serious offensive operations. This is exactly what K. Tippelskirch meant when he wrote about the German military plans for 1942:
“But such a strategy, pursuing primarily economic goals, could acquire decisive importance only if the Soviet Union used a large number of troops for stubborn defense and at the same time would lose them. Otherwise, there would be little chance of holding the vast territory during the subsequent counterattacks of the Russian armies."
But this was completely impossible for two reasons. First, the German troops, thrown into battle in diverging directions, did not have sufficient numbers for this. And secondly, they were already opposed by another enemy, not the one whom the experienced guys who had passed through Poland and France in the field police crushed in the Battle of the Border in the summer of 1941. What happened?
Of course, Hitler with his famous "Not one step back!" saved the position of Army Group Center near Moscow, but since then this slogan has become an obsessive motive for the Fuehrer - he refused to understand that tactical retreat is one of the most important military techniques to avoid encircling troops and getting them into cauldrons. But the military leaders of the USSR, on the contrary, by the end of 1941 began to realize this. K. Tippelskirch wrote:
“The enemy has changed his tactics. In early July, Tymoshenko gave an order in which he indicated that now, although it is important to inflict heavy losses on the enemy, first of all it is necessary to avoid encirclement. More important than defending every inch of the ground is the preservation of the integrity of the front. Therefore, the main thing is not to retain our positions at any cost, but to gradually and systematically withdraw."
What did this lead to? Yes, the German offensive went on quite successfully at first, they pressed the Soviet troops, sometimes they were surrounded. But at the same time K. Tippelskirch wrote about Soviet losses: “But these figures (losses - author's note) were strikingly low. They could not be compared in any way with the losses of the Russians, not only in 1941, but even in the relatively recent battles near Kharkov."
Then there was, of course, the famous Stalinist order No. 227, but one must not forget: he did not forbid retreat at all, but retreat on his own initiative, that is, without an order from the higher command, and these are completely different things. Of course, an impartial analysis is able to demonstrate a large number of mistakes made by the commanders of the Red Army. But the fact remains - even yielding to the Wehrmacht in experience and combat training, our army did the main thing: it did not let itself be exhausted in defensive battles and retained enough strength for a successful counteroffensive.
What conclusions suggest themselves from all of the above? First, already at the planning stage of military operations in 1942, the Germans actually signed for their inability to defeat the Red Army. Secondly, a somewhat positive result from the offensives on Stalingrad and the Caucasus could be expected only if at the same time it was possible to defeat the bulk of the Soviet troops, but to do this at the expense of superiority in forces, technology, experience, operational art, or something else the Wehrmacht no longer had. There remained only the hope, usually attributed to the Russians, for "maybe": maybe the Soviet troops would substitute and allow the Wehrmacht to crush them. But a military plan, of course, cannot be based on such hopes, and in fact we see that the Soviet troops "did not justify" such hopes.
Well, the conclusion here is quite simple. In view of the above, it can be argued that in 1942 there was no longer a strategy that would allow Nazi Germany to achieve victory - she missed her chance (if she had one at all, which is rather doubtful), having failed the plan of a "lightning war" against the USSR. the final point at which was put by the Soviet counteroffensive near Moscow.
Of course, the author does not claim to be the ultimate truth. But, regardless of which point of view is correct, it should be admitted - maybe already in the winter-spring of 1942, but certainly no later than the beginning of 1943 the moment came when Germany completely lost all chances of achieving victory in the world war unleashed by it - or at least reduce it to a draw.
What could the top leadership of Germany do in this situation?
The first option, the best and most correct, was this: surrender. No, of course, one could try to bargain for more or less acceptable peace conditions for Germany, but even an unconditional surrender would be much better than a few more years of the already lost war. Alas, to the great regret of all mankind, neither Hitler, nor the other leadership of Germany, nor the NSDAP were ready for such an end to the conflict. But if surrender is unacceptable, and it is impossible to win with the available resources, then what is left? Of course, only one thing.
Hope for a miracle.
And from this point of view, the diversion of resources to all kinds of wunderwaffe, no matter how projectile it may be, is completely normal and logically justified. Yes, Germany could, for example, abandon the winged and ballistic FAUs, increase the production of some other military equipment, and this would allow the Wehrmacht or the Luftwaffe to resist a little better, or a little longer. But this could not help the Nazis win the war, and the work on the wunderwaffe gave at least a shadow of hope.
Thus, on the one hand, we can recognize the work to create a wunderwaffe in the Third Reich as fully justified. But on the other hand, one should never forget that such works looked reasonable only for people unable to face the truth and accept the true state of affairs, no matter how unpleasant it may be.
