German Infantry on the Eastern Front in 1941

By Chris Perello

Of the 141 divisions taking part in Operation Barbarossa, 108 of them (76%) were non-motorized infantry. These divisions, plodding along at the speed of a marching man, were incapable of the rapid concentration and deep exploitation that made the blitzkrieg possible. The Germans were aware of their infantry's shortcomings, but their economy was incapable of producing the motor vehicles needed to motorize them, and even less capable of supplying the fuel to run all those vehicles.

After the successful conclusion of the 1940 campaign, the German General Staff had drawn up plans to motorize the entire army, but that would have meant reducing its size to no more than 70 divisions. The invasion of Russia required greater numbers than that, so the marching divisions were retained. In fact, to help equip the 18 new panzer and motorized divisions formed after the fall of France, the infantry divisions lost many of the motor vehicles they had, their place being taken by more horsedrawn vehicles. Thus the infantry of 1941 was less mobile than it had been in France the year before.

The tactics chosen by the Germans for the invasion, the Kesselschlacht or cauldron (pocket) battle, were based on the division of the army into mobile and non-mobile portions. The infantry divisions simply couldn't keep up with the mobile formations on the deep and fast drives called for by the Blitz theorists, but there were too few mobile divisions to defeat the Soviets alone.

Not only could the German economy not motorize the entire army, it could not really support an army of the size fielded in 1941. Few divisions outside the eastern front could be maintained at their full authorized strength. There were only 130 replacement battalions available, representing less than 10 percent of the invading army's strength. In 1942, thousands of skilled workers were scheduled to be returned to the civilian economy they had been "borrowed" from industry to maximize the number of divisions available.

The shortage of trained officers and NCOs was even worse. The limitations of the Versailles Treaty meant a whole generation of Germans had never received military training. The tiny peacetime army of 100,000, though trained to a high standard, was insufficient to lead the mass army of 1941. Only by calling up World War One veterans, Austrian officers, and policemen, could the shortage be made up. Even so, the rapid expansion came at the cost of quality leadership, especially in the infantry divisions, which were at the bottom of the priority list for officers, as they were for manpower, motor vehicles and equipment.

Starting in the mid-1930s, new divisions had been added to the army in "waves." Each wave was organized and equipped in a similar fashion to ease administrative burdens, but the army as a whole had a wide variety of organizations and equipment lists. Only the 42 divisions of the first two waves (plus the mobile divisions, some of which were formed by converting first-wave divisions) had anything like a full complement of leaders and technical specialists. Many officers thought the new divisions compared unfavorably with those of 1914 in marksmanship, nightand close-combat training and fieldcraft.

Organization

The basic German infantry fighting unit was the squad of 10 men, armed with a light machinegun (LMG), a submachinegun and eight rifles. Nearly every major combatant power in WWII used a similar organization, but there was one critical difference: in every other army, the LMG (or automatic rifle) was used to supplement the rifle fire of the squad; in the German army, the LMG was the squad.

On defense, the LMG provided the firepower to stop enemy attacks; the riflemen protected the LMG and helped carry ammunition for it. On the attack, the LMG would pin enemy defenders while the riflemen worked their way forward to assault enemy positions with grenade and bayonet. Built around the concepts of the WWI Stosstruppen (Shocktroops), the squad was expected to operate independently, calling for help only when absolutely necessary.

Each commander above squad level was expected to accomplish much the same. That is, at each command level, the commander was given three or four maneuver units and one or two support units with progressively heavier weapons. Those weapons could be employed en masse or detached to reinforce a subordinate unit for a particular mission. German doctrine emphasized the formation of ad hoc battle groups at every level, which made German units more flexible than comparably-sized units in other armies.

The infantry regiment was the smallest permanent infantry organization. Companies were formed and disbanded at the discretion of the regimental headquarters, and were often transferred from battalion to battalion as the situation demanded. Platoons and squads were consolidated within the company as needed. After mid-1941, battalions also were disbanded and reformed.

The machinegun (or heavy weapons) companies could be deployed as whole units, or could be broken up to provide direct and indirect fire support to the line companies. The machineguns used were identical to the LMGs in the infantry squads, but were mounted on tripods for greater stability and accuracy. They also had larger crews to carry more ammunition and more spare barrels to enable constant firing. (Squad MGs had to fire a series of short bursts or risk overheating). Early in the war, some of these companies were even capable of conducting indirect machinegun fire to create dead zones.

This was an old and honored World War I tactic that disappeared as training standards fell.

The regimental artillery company was equipped with light artillery pieces that were used for direct fire. The purpose of the company was to give the regimental commander heavy fire support for assaults, not as a supplement to divisional indirect fire.

The regimental anti-tank companies were equipped mostly with inadequate 37mm guns or captured French 47mm pieces. The new 50mm gums were still in short supply, so were being parceled out to all units in ones and twos as they became available. After encountering the Soviets' T-34 and KV-1 tanks, these companies were often supplemented by field pieces from the divisional artillery, again in ones and twos.

The remaining support platoons of the regiment were not found in all units. The engineers were actually "pioneers," specialists in the use of explosives and mines rather than construction or bridging. The reconnaissance unit was likely to be bicycle-mounted rather than motorized.

The artillery regiment formed the core of the division's firepower on both attack and defense. In fact, some officers felt the infantry had become too dependent on artillery support, sacrificing speed and wasting ammunition. The artillery's effectiveness was hampered by the fact the guns were horsedrawn, and because the shortage of trained personnel, radios and vehicles prevented formation of observation battalions in most divisions. It was therefore difficult to achieve rapid and flexible concentrations of artillery fire.

Nearly every division had the authorized battalion of truck-towed anti-tank guns, mostly 50mm plus some of the new 75mm pieces. Again, captured French and Czech equipment was used to fill some gaps. The remaining support battalions were found in the 42 first-class divisions, but were weaker or non-existent in the others.

Though the infantry divisions moved no faster than their predecessors in the Kaiser's army, they were trained using the same concepts as the mobile units. The emphasis was on infiltration of enemy lines and exploitation of opportunities. Mission orders were given in broad terms, with subordinate commanders expected to use their initiative in carrying them out, and with the assumption the larger formations would follow and support a successful subordinate unit. The purpose of combat was as much to shock the enemy into submission as to kill him outright.

The underlying weaknesses of the German war machine were brought home by the heavy losses during Barbarossa. By September, the average infantry division in Army Group Center was about 1,600 men under-strength. This represented only 10 percent of total personnel strength, but more than half the riflemen, who incurred most of the casualties. Administrative and support troops were drafted into the squads, but they were inadequately trained and insufficient in number to maintain combat strength for long.

By early December, the average infantry company could field no more than 60 men: platoons, companies, and even battalions were consolidated to maintain company strength. Those under-strength units proved adequate for defense, since the firepower of the LMG was undiminished. In one example from early 1942, a German company of only sixteen men occupied a front of nearly a mile, with each man armed with his own LMG. This company stopped several attacks by a full Soviet regiment.

But attacking was a different story. The machineguns could only pin defenders; they could not take ground. That required assault parties of riflemen. The failure of the final German offensive around Moscow was as much due to a lack of riflemen as anything else.

The German infantry never recovered from the losses of 1941. For the 1942 offensive, only those divisions in the spearhead were brought to anything near full strength. For the rest, official strength was reduced to nine men per squad, 90 per company and two battalions per regiment: a total rifle strength less than half the original. Even that existed only on paper. Many regiments could keep only one battalion on the line, leaving the other in the rear as a depot unit. Companies increasingly became small combat groups formed around a few LMGs and one or two mortars or anti-tank guns, with the regiments constantly forming new companies to maintain a fresh reserve, however small.

From 1942 on, the infantry divisions formed a thin and brittle line, and the brunt of the battle fell to the mobile divisions. The German infantry bled to death in Russia.

Running Total of German Casualties During Operation Barbarossa 6/22/41 - 1/1/42

These figures include killed, wounded and missing. The numbers in parenthesis represent the percentage of the total

German armed forces fighting in the east.

13 July - 92,120 (3.6%)

13 August - 389,924 (10.0%)

26 August - 441,100 (11.6%)

30 September - 551,039 (16.2%)

13 November - 699,726 (20.6%)

31 December 1941 - 930,903 (26.00%).