Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) constitute one of the major groups that fell victim to Nazi German mass violence. For territories under German military occupation, the Department of Military Administration, Quartermaster General in the Supreme Command of Ground Troops (OKH) was in charge of Soviet POWs, whereas in Germany and areas under German civil administration, responsibility lay with the General Administration of the Armed Forces under the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (OKW). Prior to the attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941, German military authorities had decided that international law would not apply to Soviet POWs (unlike Polish, French, or British prisoners), with minimal provisions made for their shelter, food, transport, and medical supplies. Later Soviet proposals that both sides act in accordance with the Hague and Geneva Conventions were refused by Germany. On OKW instructions, most Soviet POWs were not registered by name in the camps in Soviet areas under German military occupation (Durchgangslager, or Dulags), and consequently no lists were passed on from these camps to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Following the German invasion, huge numbers of Red Army soldiers were captured, especially in July, September, and October 1941. Crammed into camps of up to 100,000 men, poorly fed, often without housing or sanitary provisions, the prisoners soon suffered from debilitation. Certain groups of military personnel were denied POW status: On Adolf Hitler's instruction, the OKW issued its "commissar order" on June 6, 1941, according to which political officers in the Red Army were shot in 1941 and 1942. Other groups killed by German troops included Soviet soldiers shot on the battlefield although they had surrendered, alleged Jews, in many camps so-called Asians, women in the Red Army, and in some camps Soviet officers. Orders for these killings originated from platoon to army command levels. More than 100,000 prisoners were handed over to the SS and police in 1941 and 1942; very few survived. In addition, an undetermined number of Soviet POWs, believed to be in the six-digit range, were shot by military guards because of their fatigue during marches or when unloading trains that had transported POWs. In certain German-occupied Soviet areas, Soviet military stragglers were killed instead of being taken prisoner, as were most Soviet partisan fighters. The Germans arbitrarily interned Soviet civilians in several POW camps in 1941.

The German capture of large numbers of prisoners in similarly short time periods had not led to mass deaths in the German campaign against France in 1940. The majority of Soviet POWs died as a result of the deliberate undersupply of food, consequent starvation, frost, and hunger-related diseases. Prior to attacking the USSR, German authorities had planned the killing of tens of millions of Soviet citizens in "food-deficient" regions and in urban areas through starvation and a policy of brutal occupation. Racist and anticommunist, that scheme was to make good the overall German food deficit and to relieve the critical shortage of supplies for troops at the Eastern Front, perceived as crucial for the success of the giant military campaign. Thus, the plan was backed and co-initiated by the military. As military supplies always took priority, Soviet POWs became one of the specific groups targeted for extinction.

In October 1941 food rations particularly for Soviet POWs considered "unfit for labor" were significantly reduced. On November 13 the German Quartermaster- General Eduard Wagner stated, "Soviet POWs unfit for labor in the camps have to die of starvation" (Notes of the Chief of Staff of the 18th Army, quoted in Streit, 1997, p. 157). In many camps those "fit for labor" were separated from those deemed unfit. Yet as guards often mistreated both groups equally and prisoners were worked to exhaustion with insufficient food, this intended distinction scarcely made any difference and initially fit prisoners perished, too. Death figures shot up to 2 percent daily, especially in the German-occupied Soviet and Polish territories. Nearly two out of three million Soviet POWs had died by the end of 1941. Measures to reduce the mortality rate, adopted from December on, only succeeded in the spring of 1942. However, hard labor, poor rations, and bad treatment continued to take their toll until 1945. Orders by the German leadership were countered with brutality, violence, or gross neglect on the ground. Military and economic considerations, racism against Slavs, Jews, and so-called Asians, and anticommunism were at the core of interrelated motives.

In total, out of 5.7 million Soviet POWs, about three million died in German captivity, almost exclusively at the hands of the German military. Serious calculations, based on the interpretation of fragmentary German documents, range from "at least" 2.53 million to 3.3 million (Streit, 1997), with death figures revised downward for camps inside Germany on the basis of German records discovered in Russia and Germany in the late 1990s. Adding to their suffering, Soviet POWs returning to the USSR encountered collective suspicion and many were imprisoned without proper trial, as about a million had been forced or agreed under pressure to work for the German army, with hundreds of thousands fighting for the German army or SS under arms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Streim, A. (1981). Die Behandlung sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener im "Fall Barbarossa." Heidelberg, Germany: C. F. M端ller.

Streit, C. (1978/1997). Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941-1945, 4^th edition. Bonn, Germany: Dietz.

Streit, C. (2000). "Soviet Prisoners of War in the Hands of the Wehrmacht." War of Extermination: The German Military in World War II, 1941-44, eds. Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann. New York: Berghahn.

Summary: First indigenous Soviet medium tank, but clearly influenced by both the Vickers A6 and German Grosstraktor designs. Intended for an attack role, it had a central main-gun turret and two machine-gun turrets in front to either side. Its suspension was copied from the Vickers tank. It served in the 1939-1940 Winter War with Finland and in the opening weeks of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 but performed poorly in combat. Subsequent variants included the T-28C with increased hull front and turret armor.

Evaluation

Although the T-28 was rightly considered ineffective by 1941, it is worth remembering that when the Red Army was fielding the first T-28s in 1933, the French Army was still largely equipped with the FT-17, and the Reichswehr had no tanks at all. No army had a series-production medium tank comparable to the T-28 for several years.

The T-28 had a number of advanced features for the time, including radio (in all tanks) and anti-aircraft machine-gun mounts. Just before the Second World War, many received armor upgrades, bringing its performance on par with the early Panzer IV, although its suspension and layout were outdated. [5]

The T-28 had significant flaws. The plunger-spring type suspension was poor, but many of the better suspension designs used in World War II tanks had not yet been developed. The engine and transmission were troublesome. Worst of all, the design was not flexible. Although the T-28 and early PzKpfw IV were comparable in armour and firepower, the good basic design of the PzKpfw-IV allowed it to be significantly upgraded, while the T-28 was a poor basis for improvement.

Unfortunately for the Red Army, by the time the T-28 saw combat in 1939, events had overtaken it. The 1930s saw the development of the first reliable high-speed suspensions, the first purpose-designed antitank guns, and a gradual increase in the firepower of tanks. The Spanish Civil War showed that infantry units with small, towed anti-tank guns could defeat most contemporary tanks, and made the under-armoured tanks from the early 1930s particularly vulnerable.

Despite heavy losses, in the Winter War the Red Army's 20th Tank Brigade, equipped with T-28s, fulfilled its mission to break the defensive Mannerheim Line. As an infantry-support tank, designed to support infantry in breakthrough operations, the T-28 in general was successful for an early 1930s design.

Variants

• T-28 Model 1934 or T-28A - main production model with the same machinegun turrets, and similar main turret as the T-35 heavy tank and Model 27/32 76.2mm gun.
• T-28 Model 1938 or T-28B - version with improved L-10 76.2 mm gun (from 16.5 calibres to 26 calibres), improved gun stabilization system and improved Model M-17L engine.
• T-28E or T-28C - 1940 addition of appliquĂŠ armour in response to poor performance in Finland. Total front armour was increased to 80 mm, weight to 32 t, and road speed dropped to 23 km/h
• T-28 Model 1940 - the final batch of about twelve tanks had the same conical turret as late-production T-35 tanks.
• OT-28 - flamethrower version.

Experimental models

Several self-propelled guns, the IT-28 bridging tank, and an engineering vehicle with mine rollers were tested on the T-28 tank chassis, but none was accepted for production. The T-29 was a prototype medium tank, a modernized T-28 with Christie suspension - a later version of this vehicle was considered for the competition of prototypes which led to the T-34, but by then it was outdated (not to be confused with a Grotte tank project also called T-29). The T-28 also served as a testbed for the KV tank suspension.

Production dates: 1933-1940

Number produced: 503

Manufacturer: Leningrad Korov Plant

Crew: 6

Armament: 1 x 76.2mm (3-inch) low-velocity main gun M1927; 3 x 7.62mm DT machine guns (some T-28s mounted a low-velocity 45mm gun in the right auxiliary turret in place of the machine gun)

Weight: 62,720 lbs.

Length: 24'5"

Width: 9'5"

Height: 9'3"

Armor: maximum 30mm; minimum 10mm (maximum 80mm on T-28C)

Power plant: M-17 V-12 500-hp gasoline engine

Maximum speed: 23 mph

Range: 137 miles

Vertical obstacle: 3'5"

Trench crossing: 9'6"

Special models: commander's tank T-28 (V) with radio antenna frame around turret; small number of flamethrower tanks

The first indigenous Soviet medium tank design, the T-28, incorporated multiple turrets and was intended for an independent breakthrough role. Inspired by the Vickers A6 (its suspension was a clear copy) and German Grosstraktor designs, it grew out of the 1932 Red Army mechanization plan and was first produced by the Leningrad Kirov Plant. Intended for an attack role, the T-28 had a central main gun turret and two machine-gun turrets in front and to either side. The T-28 weighed 28,560 pounds, had a six-man crew, and was powered by a 500-hp engine and had a road speed of 23 mph. It had only 30mm maximum armor protection. The prototype mounted a 45mm gun, but production vehicles had a 76.2mm low-velocity main gun and two machine guns. Combat experience with the T-28 led to changes. Armor was increased on the C version to 80mm for the hull front and turret. Some T-28s substituted a low-velocity 45mm gun in the right front turret for the machine gun normally carried there. The T-28 had a poor combat record, however.

Production history

The T-28 was in many ways similar to the British Vickers A1E1 Independent tank. This tank greatly influenced tank design in the period between the wars, although only one prototype was manufactured in 1926. The Kirov Factory in Leningrad began manufacturing a tank, which was based on the British Independent in 1932. The T-28 tank was officially approved on August 11, 1933. The T-28 had one large turret with a 76.2mm gun and two smaller turrets with 7.62mm machine guns. A total of 503 T-28 tanks were manufactured over a period of 8 years from 1933 to 1941.

The type would not have that much success in combat, but it played an important role as a development project for the Soviet designers. A series of new ideas and solutions were tried out on the T-28 and were later incorporated in future models.

Combat history

The T-28 was deployed during the Invasion of Poland and the Winter War against Finland. During the initial stages of the Winter War, the tank was used in direct fire missions against Finnish pillboxes. In the course of these operations it was found that the armour was inadequate and programs were initiated to upgrade it. Frontal plates were upgraded from 50 mm to 80 mm and side and rear plates to 40 mm thickness. With this up-armoured version the Red Army broke through the main Finnish defensive fortification, the vaunted Mannerheim Line.

According to Russian historian M. Kolomietz's new book T-28. Three-headed Stalin's Monster, over 200 T-28s were knocked out during the Winter War, but only 20 of them were in irrecoverable losses (including 2 captured by the Finnish Army). Due to proximity of the Kirov Plant, all other knocked-out tanks were repaired, some of them over five times.

The Finns knew the T-28 as the Postivaunu ("mail wagon" or stagecoach), a name which alluded to Finnish troops' discovery of Red Army field mail sacks inside the first destroyed T-28. Another explanation is that the high profile of the tank resembled the old west stagecoaches of the United States. Finns captured two T-28s during the Winter War and five in Continuation War, totalling 7 vehicles.

The Soviets had 411 T-28 tanks when the Germans invaded in June 1941. Most T-28s were lost during the first two months of the invasion, many of them abandoned after mechanical breakdown. Some T-28s took part in the 1941 winter defence of Leningrad and Moscow, but after late 1941, they were rare in Red Army service; a few were operated by enemy forces.

Today three T-28s remain, two in Finland and one in Moscow. One restored T-28 is on display in Finnish field camouflage in the Parola Tank Museum, Finland.

Launched in the early hours of 22 June 1941, Operation Barbarossa was Hitler's greatest and most ambitious Blitzkrieg gamble of all. Its objective was nothing less than the destruction of the Soviet Union, and the timetable was perilously tight, with but five months to go before the expected onset of the Russian winter.

On their cluster of four fields to the east of Warsaw (which they shared with elements of JG 53), Oberstleutnant Werner Mölders' Gruppen were almost in the centre of the 4480 km-long front that stretched all the way from the Barents Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. Their principal task in this new theatre of operations would be to clear the skies above and ahead of the armoured divisions of Panzergruppe 2, which itself formed the right-hand flank of Army Group Centre's twin pincer advance aimed northeastwards towards Moscow (whose fall, it was confidently predicted, would immediately bring about the collapse of the Soviet state).

But first, in true Blitzkrieg fashion, Barbarossa would begin with a series of pre-emptive air strikes intended to eliminate the enemy's air forces on the ground. The results on the opening day exceeded all expectations. By the time darkness fell on 22 June, it was estimated that although more than 300 Soviet aircraft had been shot down, some 1500(!) had been destroyed on the ground. Even Göring refused at first to believe these staggering claims. But, if anything, they were proved to be conservative after German troops had overrun the enemy's frontline areas - including all 31 of the airfields targeted - and a detailed survey of the damage inflicted could be carried out.

It is not known how many Soviet aircraft the Geschwader accounted for on the ground, but 2./JG 51, whose new Friedrichs - like their earlier Emils- had been fitted with ventral bomb racks, were alone credited with 43 destroyed in four separate ]abo sorties during the course of the day.

In the air, Mölders' four Gruppen (with IV./JG 51 temporarily attached to Stab JG 53) claimed no fewer than 93 enemy machines shot down! The Kommodore himself was responsible for four of the Stabsschwarm's five victories. These took his total to 72, and won him the immediate Swords. The first award of this newly instituted decoration had gone to Adolf Galland, for 69 kills in the west, just 24 hours earlier.

Many other pilots achieved multiple successes during these early hours of Barbarossa. Among them was l./JG 51's Leutnant Heinz Bar, whose trio of kills before mid-morning raised his score to 20. But Bar would have to wait ten days for his Knight's Cross, by which time he had added a further nine to his tally.

The second day of the campaign in the east saw the Geschwader carry out another round of low-level strikes, but in stark contrast to the day before, it resulted in only two aerial victories. One of these provided a first for future Knight's Cross recipient Feldwebel Anton 'Toni' Lindner of 2./]G 5l.

Another 'Toni' opened his shore-sheet 24 hours later. Fully recovered from the injuries he had sustained in the crash-landing at Mardyck three months earlier, the Soviet SB-2 bomber claimed by 6. Staffers Gefreiter Anton 'Toni' Hafner was the first rung on the ladder to his becoming JG 51's top scorer.

In addition to Hafner's opener, the Geschwader had been credited with a further 81 victories on that 24 June, for despite the Luftwaffe's best efforts, the Red Air Force was far from being knocked out. Having recovered from the immediate shock of the first days' savage onslaught, Soviet commanders called up bombers from as-yet untouched rear-area bases and hurled them in waves against the advancing German ground forces. With no frontal fighters to protect them, the Soviet bombers suffered horrendous losses. On 25 June JG 51 alone shot down 83 Tupolev SB-2s. And still the desperate Russians kept up the pressure. It peaked on the last day of the month, when Mölders and his Gruppen claimed an unprecedented 137 enemy aircraft destroyed!

This huge total included several personal and unit landmark scores. The third of the five Ilyushin DB-3 bombers downed by the Kommodore took Werner Mölders' score to 80 level with Rittmeister Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, the legendary 'Red Baron', and top-scoring German fighter pilot of World War 1. Hauptmann Hermann-Friedrich Joppien was also credited with five victories, the fourth of which gave the Kommandeur of 1. Gruppe his half-century.

And 30 June 1941 was the date on which it was announced that JG 51 had become the first Jagdgeschwader to reach 1000 victories!

By now German forces had already smashed through Soviet frontier defences along the River Bug and breached the more substantial 'Stalin Line' some 300 km inside Russian territory guarding the approaches to Minsk. The fighting around the capital of White Russia resulted in the first of the great 'cauldron' battles of the eastern front. When it ended on 9 July, nearly a third of a million Russian prisoners had been taken.

Once again, regardless of cost, the Soviets had thrown in their unescorted bombers in a vain attempt to blast open an escape route for the survivors of the four Russian armies trapped inside the 'cauldron'. And once again JG 51's pilots had exacted a heavy toll. On 2 July an SB-2 had provided Hauptmann Josef Fözö with victory 22, and the immediate award of the Knight's Cross.

Minsk lay at the western end of the major Rollbahn, or supply highway, that linked it directly to Moscow. This formed the obvious axis for Army Group Centre's line of advance. And within 24 hours of the collapse of the Minsk 'cauldron', the Army Group's spearheads had captured the town of Vitebsk, nearly a third of the way along the 88G-km highway to the Soviet capital. JG 51's Gruppen had already leapfrogged forward four times since the launch of Barbarossa in their efforts to keep abreast of General Guderian's Panzers. By 10 July the bulk of the Geschwader was gathered on the complex of ex-Soviet airfields around Bobruisk, some way to the south of the Rollbahn. Only Major Beckh's IV.I]G 51, still operating under the control of]G 53, was based at Borissov, close to the highway itself.

Thus far, the Geschwader's losses had been incredibly light. Only five pilots had been reported killed or missing, including one brought down during a low-level attack on a Soviet armoured train. But the many recent moves, coupled with the multiple missions being flown almost daily, were having a serious effect on JG 51's serviceability figures. Many pilots were also beginning to feel the strain. On 11 July the newly decorated 'Joschko' Fözö crashed on take-off. His injuries were so severe that he would be off operations for ten months. In the meantime, IL/JG 51 would be led by acting Kommandeure.

The following day, one of the three kills credited to Hauptmann Richard Leppla gave the Geschwader its 500th eastern front victory (and, at the same time, took its overall wartime total to 1200). And in that summer of 1941, the greatest Experte of them all was undoubtedly Werner Mölders. On 14 July a trio of Soviet Pe-2 bombers had taken his total to a tantalising 99. Twenty-four hours later, another pair of Petlyakovs assured him a place in military aviation history as the first fighter pilot ever to reach the century!

Having been second in line for both the Oak Leaves and the Swords, Werner Molders' premier position was now firmly established by the immediate award of the newest and highest grade of the Knight's Cross the Diamonds. Or, as the special communiqué of 17 July announced in more formal, if somewhat fulsome terms, 'The Fuhrer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht has awarded Oberstleutnant Molders, this shining example of Luftwaffe heroism and the most successful fighter pilot in the world, as the first officer in the Wehrmacht with Germany's highest medal for bravery, the Oak Leaves with Swords and Diamonds to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross'.

A story such as the defence of the citadel of Brest would have received tremendous publicity in any other country. But the bravery and heroism of the Soviet defenders of Brest remained unsung. Up to Stalin's death the Soviets simply took no notice of the heroic defence of the fortress. The fortress had fallen and many soldiers had surrendered-that, in the eyes of the Stalinists, was a disgrace. Hence there were no heroes of Brest. The chapter was simply expunged from military history. The names of the commanders were erased.

But in 1956, three years after Stalin's death, an interesting attempt was made to rehabilitate the defenders of Brest. The publicist Sergey Smirnov published a little book entitled In Search of the Heroes of Brest-Litovsk. The reader discovers that the author had to go to a lot of trouble to track down the heroes who had survived the hell of Brest: they were all living inconspicuously, because fifteen years after the battle and ten years after the end of the war they were still being regarded as suspect and dishonoured. Smirnov writes:

We have in Russia about 400 survivors of the battle of the citadel of Brest. Most of them were seriously wounded when the Germans took them prisoners. It must be admitted that we have not always treated these men as we should have done. It is no secret that the people's enemy Beria and his henchmen encouraged an incorrect attitude to former prisoners of war, regardless of the manner in which these men became prisoners or how they bore themselves while in captivity. That is the reason why we have not so far been told the truth about Brest-Litovsk.

And what was that truth?

Smirnov found it on the walls of the casemates. There, scratched with a nail into the plaster, he read: "We are three men from Moscow-Ivanov, Stepanchikov, and Shuntyayev. We are defending this church, and we have sworn not to surrender. July 1941." And below we read: "I am alone now. Stepanchikov and Shuntyayev have been killed. The Germans are inside the church. I have one hand-grenade left. They shall not get me alive."

In another place we read: "Things are difficult, but we are not losing courage. We die confidently. July 1941."

In the basement of the barracks on the Western Island there is an inscription: "I will die but I will not surrender. Farewell, native country." There is no signature, but instead the date, 20.7.41. It appears therefore that individual groups in the dungeons of the citadel continued resisting until the end of July.

In 1956 the world was at last told who commanded the defence of the citadel. Smirnov writes: "From combat order No. 1, which has been found, we know the names of the unit commanders defending the central citadel: Troop Commissar Fomin, Captain Zubachev, First Lieutenant Semenenko, and Second Lieutenant Vinogradov." The 44th Rifle Regiment was commanded by Petr Mikhaylovich Gavrilov. Commissar Fomin, Captain Zubachev, and Second Lieutenant Vinogradov belonged to a combat group which broke out of the fortress on 25th June, but they were intercepted on the Warsaw highway and wiped out. The three officers were taken prisoners. Vinogradov survived the war. Smirnov found him in Vologda, where, still unrecognized in 1956, he worked as a blacksmith. According to his account, "Commissar Fomin, before the break-out, put on the uniform of a private soldier who had been killed; but he was identified in the POW camp by another soldier, denounced, and shot. Zubachev died in captivity. Major Gavrilov survived his captivity although, seriously wounded, he had resisted capture by throwing a handgrenade and killing a German soldier."

It was a long time before the heroes of the citadel of Brest were recorded in Soviet history. They have earned their place there. The manner in which they fought, their perseverance, their devotion to duty, their bravery in the face of hopeless odds-all these were typical of the fighting morale and powers of resistance of the Soviet soldier. The German divisions were to encounter many more such instances.

The stubbornness and devotion of the defenders of Brest made a deep impression on the German troops. Military history has but few examples of similar disdain for death. When Colonel- General Guderian received the reports on the operations he said to Major von Below, the Army High Command's liaison officer with the Panzer Group, "These men deserve the highest admiration."

German troops fighting on the outskirts of Brest.

On 22nd June, 45th Infantry Division did not suspect that it would suffer such heavy losses in this ancient frontier fortress. Captain Praxa had prepared his assault against the heart of the citadel of Brest with great caution. The 3rd Battalion, 135th Infantry Regiment, was to take the Western Island and the central area with the barracks block. They had studied it all thoroughly at the sand-table. They had built a model from aerial photographs and old plans from the days of the Polish campaign, when, until it had to be surrendered to the Russians, Brest was in German hands. Guderian's staff officers realized from the outset that the citadel could be taken only by infantry, since it was proof against tanks.

The circular fortress, occupying an area of nearly two square miles, was surrounded by moats and river branches, and sub-divided internally by canals and artificial watercourses into four small islands. Casemates, snipers' positions, armoured cupolas with anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, were established, well camouflaged, behind shrubs and under trees. On 22nd June there were in all five Soviet regiments in Brest; these included two artillery regiments, one reconnaissance battalion, an independent anti-aircraft detachment, and supply and medical battalions.

General Karabichev, who was captured beyond the Berezina very early in the campaign, stated under interrogation that in May 1941 he had been instructed, as an expert in fortification engineering, to inspect the western defences. On 8th June he had set out on his trip.

On 3rd June the Soviet Fourth Army had staged a practice alarm. The report on this exercise, which was captured by German units, had this to say about the 204th (Heavy) Howitzer Regiment: "The batteries were not ready to fire until six hours after the alarm." About the 33rd Rifle Regiment it said this: "The duty officers were unacquainted with the alarm regulations. Field kitchens are not functioning. The regiment marches without cover. . . ." About the 246th Anti-Aircraft Detachment it said: "When the alarm was given the duty officer was unable to make a decision." When one has read this report one is no longer surprised at the lack of organized resistance in the town of Brest. But in the citadel proper the Germans got a surprise after all.

When the artillery bombardment began at 0315 hours the 3rd Battalion, 135th Infantry Regiment, was 30 yards from the river Bug, directly opposite the Western Island. The earth trembled. The sky was plunged in fire and smoke. Everything had been arranged in minute detail with the artillery units which were softening up the citadel: every four minutes the hail of death was to be advanced by 100 yards. It was an accurately planned inferno.

No stone could be left standing after this lot. That, at least, was what the men thought as they lay pressed to the ground by the river. That was what they hoped. For if death did not reap its harvest inside the citadel, then it would surely get them.

After the first four minutes, which seemed like an eternity of thunder, at exactly 0319, the first wave leaped to their feet. They dragged their rubber dinghies down into the water. They jumped in. And like shadows, veiled by smoke and fumes, they paddled across. The second wave followed at 0323. The men reached the other bank just as if they were on an exercise. Swiftly they climbed the sloping ground. Then they crouched down in the tall grass. Hell above them and hell in front of them. At 0327 Second Lieutenant Wieltsch, commanding No. 1 Platoon, straightened up. The pistol in his right hand was secured by a lanyard so that, if necessary, he had both hands free for the hand-grenades he was carrying in his belt and in two linen bags slung over his shoulders. No word of command was needed. Bent double, they crossed a garden. They moved past fruit-trees and through old stables. They crossed the road which ran along the ramparts. And now they would enter the fortress through the shattered gate-house. But here they had their first surprise. The bombardment, even the heavy shells of the 60-cm. mortars, had done very little damage to the massive masonry of the citadel. All it had done was to waken the garrison and give the alarm. Half dressed, the Russians were scurrying to their posts.

Towards midday the battalions of 135th and 130th Infantry Regiments had forced their way deep into the fortress in one or two places. But at the eastern fort of the Northern Island, as well as by the officers' mess and the barracks block on the Central Island, they had not gained an inch. Soviet snipers and machine-guns in armoured cupolas barred their way. Because of the close interlocking of attacker and defender the German artillery could not intervene. In the afternoon the corps' reserve, 133rd Infantry Regiment, was thrown into the fighting. In vain. A battery of assault guns was brought forward. With their 7-5-cm. guns they blasted the bunkers directly. In vain.

By evening 21 officers and 290 NCOs and men had been killed. They included Captain Praxa, the battalion commander, and Captain Krauss, commander of 1st Battalion, 99th Artillery Regiment, as well as their combat staffs. Clearly, it could not be done that way. The combat units were pulled back from the fortress, and artillery and bombers had another go. Carefully they avoided the ancient fortress church: there seventy men of the 3rd Battalion sat surrounded, unable to move forward or back. Luckily for them they had a transmitter and had been able to report their position to Division.

The third day of Brest dawned.

As the sun's rays penetrated the smoke they fell upon an old and wrecked Russian anti-aircraft position. Amid the rubble was Lance-Corporal Teuchler's machine-gun party, belonging to Second Lieutenant Wieltsch's platoon. A painful rattle came from the gunner's throat. He had been shot through the lung and was dying. The machine-gun commander was sitting up stiffly, his back against the tripod. He had been dead for hours. Lance-Corporal Teuchler was lying shot through the chest, slumped over his ammunition-box. The sun on his face brought him round again. Cautiously he rolled over on his side. He could hear agonized voices. He saw a muzzle flash from a casemate some 300 yards away every time a wounded man sat up or tried to crawl behind cover. Snipers! It was they who wiped out Teuchler's party.

At noon a strong assault detachment of 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment, broke through from the Western Island to the citadel church. The trapped German troops were freed; Lance- Corporal Teuchler was found. But the relieving units got no nearer to the officers' mess.

The eastern fort on the Northern Island was likewise still holding out. On 29th June Field- Marshal Kesselring sent in a Stuka Geschwader against it.

[Unit consisting of 3 Gruppen, usually 93 aircraft.]

But the 1000-pound bombs had no effect. In the afternoon 4000-pounders were dropped. Now the masonry was shattered. Women and children came out of the fort, followed by 400 troops. But the officers' mess was still being stubbornly defended. The building had to be demolished piece by piece. Not one man surrendered.

On 30th June the operations report of 45th Infantry Division recorded the conclusion of the operation and the capture of the fortress. The division took 7000 prisoners, including 100 officers. German losses totalled 482 killed, including 40 officers, and over 1000 wounded, of whom many died subsequently. The magnitude of these losses can be judged by the fact that the total German losses on the entire Eastern Front up to 30th June amounted to 8886 killed. The citadel of Brest therefore accounted for over 5 per cent, of all fatal casualties.

General Karabichev, then Inspector of Engineers, was strictly forbidden during his tour of inspection in the Brest area at the beginning of June 1941 to visit the most forward frontier fortifications. Stalin did not wish to create a war atmosphere among the frontier troops; he wanted to avoid anything that looked like war preparations-either to his own troops or to Hitler's intelligence service. Therefore, in spite of the obvious German troop concentrations, the Soviet frontier troops were not on a proper combat-footing; no long-range artillery was in position for use against German reserves beyond the frontier, and no plans existed for heavy-artillery barrages. The consequences of Stalin's disastrous theory were terrible. One striking illustration was the action and destruction of the Soviet 4th Armoured Division.

Major-General Potaturchev, born in 1898-i.e., forty-three years old in the summer of 1941- with his hair and moustache cut Ă  la Stalin, was one of the first Soviet generals in the field to be taken prisoner. Potaturchev was in command of the Soviet 4th Armoured Division at Bialystok, the spearhead of the Soviet defences at a crucial point on the Central Front. The Soviet High Command thought highly of him. He was a member of the Party, the son of a small peasant from the Moscow area. As a lance-corporal under the Tsar he had gone over to the Red Army, and had advanced to the rank of general commanding a division. His story is of considerable interest:

"On 22nd June, at 0000 hours [Russian time-i.e., 0100 German summer time], I was summoned to Major-General Khotskilevich, GOC VI Corps," Potaturchev wrote in the deposition he made on 30th August 1941 at the headquarters of the German 221st Defence Division. "I was kept waiting because the General had himself been summoned to Major-General Golubyev, the C-in-C Tenth Army. At 0200 hours [i.e., 0300 German time] he came back and said to me, 'Germany and Russia are at war.' 'And what are our orders?' I asked. He replied, 'We've got to wait.' "

An astonishing situation. War was imminent. The C-in-C of the Soviet Tenth Army knew it two hours before. But he would not, or could not, give any orders other than "Wait!"

They waited two hours-until 0500 German time. At last the first order came down from Tenth Army. "Alert! Occupy positions envisaged." Positions envisaged? What did that mean? Did it mean that the counter-attacks they had rehearsed in many manoeuvres should now be launched? Nothing of the sort. The "positions envisaged" for the 4th Armoured Division were in the vast forest east of Bialystok. There the division should go into hiding-and wait.

"When the 10,900-strong division moved off, 500 men were missing. The medical detachment, with an establishment of 150 men, was 125 men short. Thirty per cent, of all tanks were not in working order, and of the rest several had to be left behind for lack of fuel."

That was how a key unit of the Soviet defensive line-up in the Bialystok area moved into action.

But no sooner had Potaturchev got his two tank regiments and his infantry brigade moving than a new order came down from Corps: the tank and infantry units were to be separated. The infantry was ordered to defend the Narev crossing, while the tank regiments were to hold up the German formations advancing from the direction of Grodno.

This order reveals the utter confusion in the Soviet Command. An armoured division was being torn apart and used piecemeal instead of being employed as a whole, frontally or from the flank, in a counter-attack. The fate of Potaturchev and his units was typical of the Soviet collapse in the border area. First they were battered by German Stukas. Admittedly, they did not lose many tanks, but the troops were badly shaken. Nevertheless Potaturchev reached his prescribed line. But then things began to go wrong for him. The advancing German armoured spearheads did not attack him, but thrust past him and cut him off. Potaturchev tried to evade encirclement. His companies got into a muddle, they were caught by German armoured forces, and smashed one by one. The infantry brigade suffered the same fate.

By 29th June Stalin's famous 4th Armoured Division was only a heap of wreckage. The password was "Every man for himself." They sought salvation in the big forest. In twos and threes, at most in handfuls of twenty or thirty men, infantry, artillery, and tank troops made for the woods. The few armoured cars of the 7th and 8th Tank Regiments which had escaped destruction hid out during the day and at night rolled towards the forest of Bialowieza. The vast forest was their only hope.

On 30th June General Potaturchev and a few officers broke away from their men. They intended to make their way on foot to Minsk and fight their way through from there to Smolensk. Potaturchev walked until his feet were sore, and, because he did not want to be seen on the roads as a shambling, bedraggled general, he got some civilian clothes from a farm.

Nevertheless, he was intercepted by the Germans near Minsk and put in a POW cage. There he revealed his identity to the officer of the guard.

For days Field-Marshal Kesselring and his Air Corps commanders sat evaluating the aerial photographs and discussing operations. There was just one problem that troubled them-the timing of their attack. Zero hour on 22nd June had been chosen to give the infantry enough light to make out their targets. That was why the artillery bombardment was scheduled to start at 0315 hours. On the Central Front, however, it was still dark at 0315, and air-force operations were therefore not yet possible. The Russian fighter and bomber formations, which would naturally be alerted by the artillery bombardment, would thus have thirty or forty minutes before the first German aircraft appeared over their fields. Needless to say, experienced pilots could have found their targets in the dark even twenty years ago, but the point was that no air forces should be spotted crossing the frontier too soon. For that would have warned the Russians and deprived the ground forces of their element of surprise. At last somebody thought of the solution-General Loerzer, General von Richthofen, or Colonel Mรถlders, nobody remembers for certain who it was. The idea was that the aircraft would approach the enemy airfields at great height in the dark, in the manner of long-range reconnaissance planes.

The plan was adopted. For each airfield from which Soviet fighters were operating three German bomber crews with experience of night flying set out. Flying at great height and taking advantage of uninhabited areas of marsh or forest, they crossed the frontier and sneaked up on their targets, so that they were over the fields exactly at first light, at 0315 hours on 22nd June.

At the same time as the bombers, but very much higher, flew Rowehl's long-range reconnaissance machines, carrying men of the "Brandenburg" Intelligence Regiment. They were to be dropped by parachute near railway junctions and road intersections, for sabotage actions or for work as undercover agents.

The plan went according to schedule. On the Russian fields the fighters were lined up in formation. Row by row they were bombed and shot up. Only from a single airfield did a fighter formation attempt to take off, just as the German bombers arrived. But the Russians were a few minutes too late. The bombs and shells burst right among the formation about to take off. Thus the pilots were written off as well as the machines. Right at the beginning of the war the Soviet fighter strength had been wiped out by a terrible "Pearl Harbor of the air." As a result, the German Stuka and bomber formations were able, on that first day of the offensive, to clear the way for the ground forces untroubled by enemy fighters. They penetrated some two hundred miles into Russian territory and destroyed Soviet bomber bases. Without this blow the Red Air Force would have been a dangerous enemy during the first crucial operations. Anyone questioning this assertion need only look at the losses suffered by the German Luftwaffe in the first four weeks of the war. Between 22nd June and 19th July the Luftwaffe lost, in spite of its shattering opening strikes, a total of 1284 aircraft shot down or damaged. The war in the air on the Eastern Front was therefore no walkover. On 22nd June the three air fleets on the Eastern Front flew 2272 missions, with 1766 bombers and 506 fighters. Seven days later their operational strength had dropped to 960 aircraft. Not till 3rd July did it rise again above the thousand mark.

It is clear that the surprise blow at the Soviet Air Force was of decisive importance for the ground troops.

In order to get a peep behind Russia's walls after all, in spite of the well-nigh insuperable Soviet precautions against conventional forms of espionage, the German Command resorted to a method which was employed twenty years later, in our own time, by the Americans, and which when discovered gave rise to a serious crisis-secret aerial reconnaissance from great altitudes. The idea of spying inside Soviet territory by means of very fast and exceptionally high-ceiling aircraft was not an American invention. Hitler had practised the method successfully long before the Americans. This interesting chapter has so far not had the publicity it deserves. The evidence for it is in American secret archives. It may be assumed that it was the study of these papers which induced the Americans to experiment with their U-2s. The secret documents about German aerial reconnaissance bore the code name "Reconnaissance Group under the C-in-C Luftwaffe."

In October 1940 Lieutenant-Colonel Rowehl received a personal and top-secret order from Hitler: "You will organize long-range reconnaissance formations, capable of photographic reconnaissance of Western Russian territory from a great height. This height must be so exceptional that the Soviets will not notice anything. You must be ready by 15th June 1941."

Feverishly special machines were developed by various aircraft firms from the suitable available types. They were equipped with pressurized cabins, with engines specially tuned for highaltitude flying, with special photographic equipment and a wide angle of vision. In the late winter the "Rowehl Geschwader" began its secret flights. The first squadron operated from Seerappen in East Prussia and reconnoitred the area of Belorussia. The aircraft were He-111 machines with special high-altitude engines. The second squadron, operating from Insterburg, photographed the territory of the Baltic States as far as Lake Ilmen. They used the Do-215-B2, a special model made by the Dornier works. The machine had a ceiling of 30,000 feet. The area north of the Black Sea coast was photographed by the third squadron, operating from Bucharest with He-111 and Do-215-B2 machines. From Cracow and Budapest the special squadron of the Research Centre for High-altitude Flying covered the area between Minsk and Kiev. They employed special Junkers models, the Ju-88B and Ju-86P-magnificent machines capable of reaching 33,000 and 39,000 feet respectively. That was a sensational height for those days.

The plan worked smoothly. The Russians noticed nothing. Only one machine had engine trouble, and made a forced landing in the Minsk area on 20th June, two days before the outbreak of war. But the crew were able to set their secret machine on fire before they were captured. The outbreak of the war caused the incident to be forgotten.

The long-range reconnaissance flights of the Rowehl Geschwader were virtually the only source of really significant intelligence material for the first phase of the campaign. All the airfields in Western Russia, including the well-camouflaged fighter bases near the frontier, were photographed. What the human eye would never have seen was revealed by special films. Surprisingly numerous units were spotted on forward fields, and huge concentrations of armour were made out in the forests in the north.

This information enabled a resounding blow to be struck against the Soviet defensive capacity.

By the end of the twentieth century, estimates of the total Russian war dead were still being revised upward. Most historians had agreed on a figure in the region of around 20 million civilian war dead (including 1 million in Leningrad alone), but recent Russian estimates vary between nearly 17 million and 24 million. The figures for military losses (including as many as 4 million Soviet prisoners of war, who either died in captivity or were murdered on their return to the Soviet Union) tend to be more consistent, at just over 8.5 million. The figures for material losses are equally staggering: 1,710 towns and 70,000 villages almost totally destroyed, 65,000 kilometers of railroads wrecked, as well as countless millions of livestock killed or confiscated and hospitals, libraries, and museums wrecked and looted. The great eighteenth-century palaces at Pavlovsk and Pushkin were reduced to blackened shells, and many of ancient Russia's glorious churches were burned and bombed.

With their operations in the Balkans completed, the Wehrmacht's weight fell on the Soviet Union. Some Luftwaffe units, moving from the Balkans, only arrived at their staging areas for Barbarossa in the week prior to the invasion. Despite the momentous tasks confronting the Luftwaffe in the forthcoming campaign, its force structure reflected the strains of the almost continuous fighting over the past year. On 22 June 1941 the Germans had barely 100 fighters more than they had had on 10 May 1940 and 200 fewer bombers than a year earlier. In the early hours of 22 June Luftwaffe bomber crews flew over the Soviet-German frontier at high altitude and then dived down to hit Soviet airfields at first light. Caught by surprise despite ample warning, the Soviets desperately attempted to fight back. What ensued was a massacre of Soviet air units, as most still had their aircraft parked wing tip to wing tip. Fliegerkorps IV's success on the first day suggests the extent of the surprise; it reported that it had destroyed 142 enemy aircraft on the ground and only sixteen in the air. For the entire front, Soviet losses totalled 1,200 aircraft in the first eight-and-a-half hours. The desperate situation on the ground forced Soviet commanders to throw air units into battle to stem the German tide. Ill-trained, ill-equipped and ill-prepared, Soviet aircrews floundered in tactically defenseless formations and obsolete aircraft. Field Marshal Erhard Milch, the Luftwaffe's chief of supply, recorded Soviet air losses as 1,800 aircraft on the first day, followed by 800 on 23 June, 557 on the 24th, 351 on the 25th and 300 on the 26th. Since many of these aircraft were obsolete, the real loss was in their crews.

By the end of July the Luftwaffe had run into logistical difficulties similar to those plaguing the army: The support structure delivering fuel and munitions was not adequate for Russia's continental spaces, as opposed to the central European distances to which the Germans were accustomed. As early as 5 July, Fliegerkorps VIII's commander, General Wolfram von Richthofen, was noting: 'Supply is the greatest difficulty in this war'. By early August supply difficulties had stalled the ground offensive, while Soviet reserves were putting intense pressure on the German spearheads, particularly around the Yelyna salient.

The Luftwaffe confronted a number of difficulties beyond logistics. The funnelshaped nature of the theater meant that aircraft concentration declined drastically as the Luftwaffe moved into Russia's vast spaces. The same thing happened to the ground forces, which increased their calls for air support. In the first months of the invasion, the Luftwaffe launched a number of long-range raids against Moscow and Leningrad. But as fall approached Luftwaffe strength declined and demands from the ground forces increased. By fall, the Luftwaffe was launching few attacks on major Soviet cities; moreover, because of the distances and the failure of intelligence as to Soviet industrial strength, the Luftwaffe struck few significant targets behind Moscow.

Luftwaffe units found themselves shuttling back and forth from battlefront to battlefront throughout the late summer and fall- a situation that only exacerbated supply and maintenance difficulties on the primitive grass fields of the theater. Visiting bases in the east in fall 1941, Milch discovered a catastrophic situation: aircraft were awaiting repairs at a number of bases, but no work was occurring because the units had moved on and the supply system was providing barely enough bombs, fuel and parts to support operations.

A final drive on Moscow before winter brought the climactic moment of the campaign. Operation Typhoon began in late September and scored spectacular victories against a Soviet high command again caught by surprise. Three panzer armies, supported by more than 1,500 aircraft, slashed through the strung-out Soviet defenses. Flying over 1,000 sorties per day, the Luftwaffe was a major factor in the breakthrough. On 5 October Soviet reconnaissance pilots reported a German column over twenty-five kilometers long driving along the highway between Smolensk and Moscow; the reporting pilots were almost shot for defeatism by the NKVD on their return. In early October the German advance encircled two vast pockets at Bryansk and Vyazma; by the time the fighting had died down, the Germans claimed to have captured over 500,000 enemy soldiers.

But at this point, with the road to Moscow seemingly wide open, the rains arrived turning everything into a morass. On 9 October the Luftwaffe flew only 300 sorties off the sodden grass strips that were its bases. If the Luftwaffe had confronted great difficulties so far, it was now entering a nightmare period. The breakdown in German logistics, exacerbated by a sea of mud, increased demands for Luftwaffe crews to fly in supplies as well as provide direct support to the army. Fog and rain added to the difficulties in finding and hitting targets. Yet so optimistic was the senior leadership that it transferred Field Marshal Kesselring and his Luftflotte 2 to the Mediterranean, to restore the deteriorating situation in that theater.

Only the arrival of cold weather in mid November allowed the ground forces to resume the advance on Moscow. The Luftwaffe, however, was unable to provide much support. Its strength in front of Moscow lay on unimproved airstrips with neither the maintenance nor supply support for sustained operations. The Soviets, however, possessed winter-ready airfields and hangers around Moscow; thus for the first time in the campaign they mounted air operations that provided significant support to the Soviet ground troops. Moreover, Soviet air units were by now receiving newer models from factories in the Urals; consequently, their pilots were flying aircraft that could match Luftwaffe aircraft. In early December the Russian winter brought conditions for which the Germans were completely unprepared, and the Soviet armies went over to the offensive. For the next three months they threatened to destroy the German army on the Eastern Front. The planes the Luftwaffe could still fly became essential to the survival of the hard-pressed ground forces; fighters, long-range bombers, everything was thrown in to supporting the front. By this point the Luftwaffe had become primarily a ground-support force.

But in December 1941 and January 1942, the Luftwaffe was close to collapse. In the first four months of Barbarossa the Luftwaffe lost 36 percent of its Bf 109 fighter pilots and 56 percent of its bomber crews. On the maintenance side, the in commission rate for all Luftwaffe fighters in December 1941 was barely 50 percent, while the figure for bombers had fallen to 32 percent. The figures on the Eastern Front were even worse, as Luftwaffe ground crews attempted to repair aircraft in unheated shelters in temperatures well below zero. Admittedly, the Luftwaffe was never in as bad a shape as the army; at least it had the use of its air-transport system to fly winter clothes, parts and lightweight oils to front-line air bases. But in January 1942 less than 15 percent of its 100,000 vehicles remained in working condition.

By spring, fighting on the Eastern Front had burned itself out; both sides were completely exhausted. Nevertheless, Hitler determined to launch a summer offensive aimed at capturing Stalingrad and at driving deep into the Caucasus to capture and disrupt much of the Soviet Union's oil supplies. Even more than in 1941, the Luftwaffe's role was to support the army's drive with interdiction strikes and close air support. Where the Luftwaffe appeared in strength it could usually dominate the skies. While Soviet equipment had improved noticeably since 1941, Soviet pilots were still not up to the quality of their Luftwaffe opponents - most were rushed to the front with minimal flying training. But the Germans were also hard pressed: new fighter pilots were now serving part of their operational training period in front-line squadrons.