We can qu'aquiescer with most of the remarks of the preface of François Kersaudy: rich documentation (Russian side, which is an advantage over other books), extent of investigative particular field. It is not forced, in the same way, saying it lacks "a description of the modus operandi of the two amateur strategists" or subscribe to the idea of an "abject terror" in the top Soviet military command .
As recalled by Nicolas Bernard in his own introduction, the eastern front is approaching arguably the most of this "total war" that began to be thought by theorists of war since the nineteenth century. Gigantic war by the forces and the theater, but as the author points out, misunderstood war in France. The memory of the French barely conflict to leave the national framework and the memorial trial were not highlighted, particularly the eastern front. The archival sources, Soviet side, are difficult to access; also many false also circulate in the secondary sources. For a long time the historiography of the cold war, dictated by the old German defeated dominated production. The fall of the USSR emphasizes the reflux of this current while the war itself is returned as a phenomenon of violence in its social, political and cultural context. German side, several historians have revised the soldiers' behavior, research is less advanced Soviet side. It must be said that memory issues are still sensitive in the former Soviet republics, where the role of employees hardly be recognized, let alone assimilation to good account the Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism. This is why few syntheses on the conflict have been published since 1945, and especially outside of pure military history. This book is probably, as the author says, the first French study to embrace the conflict as a whole, focusing on many unknown aspects, including on the military level, but also, for example, in Regarding the release of war.
On the origins of the conflict, Nicolas Bernard clearly shows the futility of the theory of "preventive attack" supported by the Germans and brought up to date for twenty years by Suvorov. It shows for example that the German-Soviet cooperation from Rapallo weakens in 1926, so soon enough. Hitler, by cons, has synthesized several elements in its expansion program in the east of Lebensraum crossed with racial fantasies. Stalin is the man of socialism in one country, when Hitler, he hopes to conquer Eurasia in order to apply its policy.
The German-Soviet pact serves the interests of the two dictators: the USSR needed time to fortify themselves, as Hitler wants a free hand in the west. But relations between the two allies of circumstance also depend on the fate of arms on the theater ... Stalin is a protective glaze, but the poor performance of his army, including Finland, encouraged Germans in their contemptuous design the coming Soviet adversary. Cooperation in 1939-1940 was only a draft, never pushed to completion. The fall of France Stalin alarm, which hastens to occupy the Baltic states and Bessarabia. The failure against Great Britain, as early as summer 1940, Hitler pushed to turn eastward. The Germans asleep mistrust of the Soviets, whose spies are hard pressed to convince Stalin of Hitler's preparations and rein in the Balkans.
On 22 June 1941, the German army pounces on the USSR largely unprepared. The high command is then completely subservient to the Führer, who organized the conquest plan on economic grounds. The Wehrmacht then implements what we then called the Blitzkrieg: a war of movement, new technologies for the lessons of the Great War based on professionalism, designed to destroy the enemy while conquering territories. But the German staff has neglected the preparation of the campaign, including logistical, and objectives remain ambiguous. The army has certainly strengthened since June 1940, but the military production remains insufficient and the Wehrmacht is not motorized. It must be said that the German economy lacks natural resources to turn more. More seriously, the German intelligence totally underestimated the capabilities of the USSR, both in the military and economic plan. The allies of Germany are necessary but cumbersome to the Führer, who has to manage the sensitivities of the Balkan states, also poorly equipped. Opposite the Red Army at the forefront of doctrinal reflection to the 1937 purges, sacrificed quality and quantity. The staff is poorly trained, hardware problem, arsenal, gigantic, is expensive. The reforms undertaken in 1940 can not be completed, the enormous growth of the Red Army adding a big additional problem. The aviation suffer, doctrine, offensive, around the operational art, operation and battle in depth, leads to neglect and fortified defensive lines. For cons, the Soviet economy was militarized since the five-year plans, although its performance is uneven and if it leaves on the floor needs in terms of consumption.
The initial shock is terrible. The German army is advancing rapidly, destroyed many, but faces also sometimes high part, as the fortress of Brest-Litovsk, in the first days of the invasion. Stalin is for the people that on July 3, to galvanize energies. The Stavka, exceeded the initially succeeded only choose a terribly costly attrition strategy: to use the German spearhead, it runs against attack on attack against the entire front line. The Wehrmacht, however, wears away, and the first signs of slowing appear from the Battle of Smolensk, in July-August 1941. Noting the tightening of relations with the US and hoping for Stalin's peace offer, Hitler neglected Moscow reorients the effort north and south. But Panzer come to die before Leningrad, besieged it takes; Ukraine, the Soviets suffered a complete defeat, but in late September, Germans have more than 500,000 men out of action, and the Luftwaffe was particularly affected. Landsern morale also suffers because the Soviet soldier shows a dull determination.
In the south, the Germans were soon forced to retreat in Rostov and Manstein, Crimea, can not break down immediately Sevastopol. The German offensive on Moscow in early October hit a Red Army against weakened by his many attacks. A breath of panic in the capital on 16-17 October, before being absorbed. Soviet resistance and logistical unpreparedness of the campaign, highlighted by the deterioration in the weather, ultimately because of the German effort. Moscow has not been saved by the Siberian divisions: on the contrary, the Japanese threat leads to strengthening Far Eastern troops. In fact, the unit transfers this front have taken place, but in the month of June 1941. The Soviet generals leading the offensive against-timidly trying to operational art, while Germany comes in war with the United States. Stalin, taken from delusions of grandeur, throws his ill-prepared army against the Army Group Centre, which holds good. However, a serious moral crisis is emerging, leading to a strengthening of disciplinary sanctions. A third of engaged German forces had already been eliminated, since the beginning of Barbarossa. The Soviets suffered more but they can not afford this level of losses, which is not the case of the Germans. Leningrad under siege, suffering from hunger and shortages, despite the efforts of the Red Army, and became the symbol of resistance to the invader.
Is that the war waged by Germany is also a war of extermination. Racial and territorial remodeling adds competition from entities dear to the Nazi state. No way to get along with Slavic subhumans. We must break the industry, cities, and the Germans did not bother to arrange probably due famine. Furthermore, the invasion of the USSR will help to tackle the "solution" to the Jewish problem. The Einsatzgruppen apply what strongly resembles a gradual genocide and programmed from the start. The figures soar in July 1941 and the scale of the killings, which break the nerves of many performers, forced to move to industrial methods. It is likely that Hitler begins to see he can lose the war as a result, the Jews should not survive a German defeat. The Wehrmacht did not flinch before the massacres, starting in 1939, despite a few isolated cases; when it has not made itself complicit in killings. Political commissars, under the famous corresponding order, are exterminated without further ado. 60% of Soviet prisoners died in German camps and captive: not less than 2 million in the first year of war. The Germans maintain order on their back by terror. The army is widely penetrated Nazi precepts through propaganda, coercion and just membership. Compassion has been the exception rather than the rule, as the author points out, even among allies, including the Romanians, who massacred many Jews.
Beginning 1942, time is against Hitler: he chooses to seize Caucasian oil, for purely economic reasons but also in order to corner the USSR and England to peace. Again, the goals are too ambitious, particularly in terms of logistics, for an exhausted Wehrmacht. The Red Army began to reorganize it but lack of training and experience. Witness the front-offensive against Kharkov, which again shows serious deficiencies, and the fall of the Crimea. The offensive was German is disordered in its objectives. For Nicolas Bernard, the great mistake of Hitler rest Directive No. 45, which divides the two German effort on Stalingrad and the Caucasus. The situation was quickly bogged down in the second theater.
Stalingrad, flagship of the Soviet five-year plan, yet poorly defended, will become the grave of the German army. 6. The lack Army to take the city in August in the first attack. The battle turns into bloody street fighting. The Soviets improvise, especially from the Spanish experience; they do it well, but it costs them dearly, too. The Germans are adapting, but their morale is at half mast. The Stavka, she is planning a massive new offensive against, while the two sides fight for the northern factories in the city in October-November. Paulus can not dislodge Chuikov the small plot he still controls. If the March operation is a bloody fiasco, this is not the case of Operation Uranus, which encircles three days 6. Army in Stalingrad. Hitler refused evacuation and condemns to death Paulus and his men, while repatriating the troops in the Caucasus. The human and material losses of the Axis are enormous and no campaign goal has been reached. For Nicolas Bernard, the battle is indeed a turning point, after Moscow, the war in the east.
The industry, the Soviet society held. Not without difficulty. We must urgently move the factories in 1941 and war production collapses, resources are also lacking. But everything is now devoted to the war effort. The USSR became a massive arsenal that Germany catches up just barely in 1944, far too late. This production owes much to local initiative, not the centralized state. The Soviets also know how to use the captured material. Everyone is mobilized, adolescents and women inmates of the Gulag. Agricultural production is a weak link but Stalin loose ballast to increase yields. At the front, Soviet soldiers are brutalized, their living conditions are hellish, resulting in a ratio dead / injured very high. Soviet society, in the back, is a victim of the war effort: famine and shortages are installed, and the company itself is fractured.
The regime has, however, benefited from the support of the working youth and the intelligentsia. The state, by its mobilization and supervision, maintains the social and national cohesion. He made concessions. Desertion is also fraying in the Red Army over the years. Repression only prolongs, for example, the practices of the great purges. Minorities, seen as potential traitors, the brunt of the war. This is not however a genocidal logic behind it, but safe. The German enemy is dehumanized by propaganda. German atrocities grows hatred of the invader and the Soviet soldiers do not always treat the prisoners well, without will, again, systematic extermination ... Stalin plays on the patriotic and nationalist rope, but to consolidate its grip also reassure the Western Allies. Minorities are gradually valued militarily but are subject to discriminatory treatment in the army. The rewards are many for the soldiers, and some freedom is tolerated at the front, all suggesting a softening begins after the war.
The USSR is not alone. She has the support of its Anglo-Saxon allies. Churchill and Roosevelt is rapidly engage in support of the USSR, but the second front Litigation weighs about relationships. A propaganda effort is made to make the Soviets more "friendly" in the eyes of Western public opinion. The help of the Lend-Lease through the Far North, Iran and especially the Pacific. What was its impact? The issue is sensitive, thorny made by the Cold War. The Soviets were undervalued from the conflict. The Allied aid has, in fact, strengthened the structure of the Soviet war economy, particularly in terms of logistics. She helped power the Red Army and allowed the USSR factories to focus on military production. Aid is intensifying especially in 1943-1944, but the effort and intelligence that in the aviation sector also weighed.
After Stalingrad, it becomes obvious that Hitler can not win the war in the east. The Germans crush internal opposition that emerge following the defeat, and play the anti scarecrow to frighten the West as that is the meaning of the discourse on "total war" Goebbels. The discovery of the mass grave in Katyn driving a wedge between the Soviets and Westerners, who acquiesce to Stalin's lies despite the anger of the Poles. Manstein restores the situation in the spring of 1943 but the battle is only defensive: the Axe is returned to its start line 1942 ... the Red Army opened a corridor to Leningrad, but fails to completely clear the city . Hitler and Stalin have similar attitudes in their conduct of the war. German side, human resources are being depleted, while the Waffen-SS is getting stronger. The Red Army, she is recovering and even swells through its reserves. The battle is increasingly a battle of material: the Soviets rely heavily on their artillery, the "god of war" and the defense becomes more and more refined in each camp. The static war however badly sticks to eastern front, including geography favors warfare. In 1943, the Germans also put stress on the tanks, with a race to gigantism which harms the quantities produced. The Soviet armored continues its reorganization: despite persistent weaknesses, performance improves. The Soviet aviation continues to grow and begins to par with the Luftwaffe. To sanitize total war, the Germans and the Soviets are an epic, a game or a hunt, with the creation of the flying ace and tanks, decorations for infantry, etc. War becomes a job like any other and takes a cataclysmic scale from 1943.
Hitler takes the spring of 1943 an idea of Manstein and organizes the attack against the Kursk salient, which responds mainly to political reasons in relation to the allies, propaganda, and the image returned to Western enemies. But the Soviets are ready to receive it. Despite ephemeral tactical successes, the German army can overcome the reservations of the Red Army and worn out of the battle. The Soviets held: they were able to repel a German offensive in the summer, aviation has improved: Kursk is another turning point. Especially since the Soviets launching offensives against planned even before the German attack. The Wall of the East is a mirage over the head of the Führer. The Red Army set foot on the Dnieper in September-October, before going out to reconquer Kiev in November. 1943 has seen the Soviets progress on strategic, operational and tactical. Losses were heavy bleeding but is also sensitive German side, with 700,000 dead.
Stalin begins to clarify his views for the post-war at the Teheran conference. Hitler thus plays the card of anticommunism to break the allied coalition and seeks to undo the landing to come west: unsuccessful in both cases. The Nazis deported the Slavs in Germany to make forced laborers as part of the war economy. However the Wehrmacht can arm anticommunist elements: Only Hiwis and Osttruppen battalions, besides especially committed outside the eastern front, will fight on the German side. The Vlasov army is only symbolic. Conversely, proponents develop on the German rear and are increasingly framed by Moscow in 1942. They first attack the collaborators and reveal the fractures within Soviet society, but their role becomes fighter also increasingly harmful to the occupant. German repression is increasing in proportion.
Stavka continues to progress in Ukraine beyond the Dnieper. The Germans avoid a new Stalingrad in the Korsun pocket, but the result is hardly brilliant. It should occupy Hungary that threatens to defect in March 1944. The Red Army rushes to Romania, which encircles the 1. Panzer however manage to escape. Crimea is released, Leningrad cleared. Meanwhile, Hitler, who wants to defend the conquests for economic and territorial reasons, is going Manstein. But the Red Army plans and executes in the summer, in June, one of the most important operations of the war, Bagration. Deceiving the Germans about their intentions, gathering a huge device, the Red Army smashed the Army Group Centre, in its line of sight for two years. A breach 400km opens towards the Baltic countries and Poland. The Wehrmacht withdrew by evacuating behind her, destroying everything, deporting populations. The Red Army discovers the extent of German atrocities and releases the first extermination camp at Majdanek, in July 1944.
Stalin then built military strategy increasingly based on diplomacy and politics: it is to organize the largest possible protective glaze to the USSR. Finland, attacked in June 1944, was severely beaten but its resistance saves independence. The armistice was signed in September. In October, the Soviets took over the Baltic countries and encased the remains of Army Group North in Courland Pocket, north of Latvia. Stalin leaves the Polish insurgents to their fate facing the German repression, thus beginning his credit in the west. The problem also arises in the same way for the Slovak uprising, overshadowed by that of Warsaw. In August, the Soviets launched a lightning offensive in Romania, which passes into the communist camp; 6. the German Army was again destroyed. The Bulgarians will soon align themselves with the USSR, while the Red Army to cooperate with Tito's partisans to free Belgrade and cut off the retreat Axis troops that drain the Balkans. Hungary, which threatened to defect in turn, must be occupied in October and entrusted to the Arrow Cross fascists. The Soviets arrive at Budapest in November. The city, surrounded in December, resists until February 1945, helped by German against attacks from the outside which do not open. The Wehrmacht launched its last major offensive against Hungary in March, but to no avail: the Red Army entered Vienna in early April.
For his part, Hitler, after the attack of 20 July, again radicalized the conflict. We shoot or they hang the traitors; the mass uprising (Volkssturm) is decreed; propaganda is having a field day. The German army, however, is exhausted but retains its cohesion because of ideological reasons or own conformism to primary groups. The Red Army, it is the highest. There is a shortage of manpower but the equipment is bloated and better, while the supply has improved, which is why the control of increasingly refined the operational art. The Vistula-Oder operation leads the Red Army 60 km from Berlin in three weeks. East Prussia, however, proves to be a harder nut to crack. We must clean the sides, Pomerania and Silesia, which prevents among others to rush immediately to the capital of the Reich.
The year 1945, the Soviet side, leaving a bloody trail behind the Red Army. Theft, destruction, murder and rape accumulate. In reality, the phenomenon remains poorly studied by historiography as difficult to address through primary sources, and suffered exaggerations or political instrumentalization. The hatred of the Soviets is reinforced by propaganda and by German atrocities, that's a fact. The abuses are massive. But it is actually impossible to quantify precisely, even Ehrenburg, often charged with responsibility in this sordid aspect of the conflict, not encouraged to attack civilians. The issue has been a problem in Soviet command, raging since late January 1945 Konev made and shot 40 men in Silesia. Stalin greatly moderated the tone of propaganda, always hoping to see a revolution shake Germany. The Germans themselves are terrorized by fear of Russian long. Goebbels is having a field day on the massacre of Nemmersdorf in East Prussia: the number of victims is multiplied, we add detail and sordid photographs but in reality nonexistent, etc. "The Nemmersdorf effect", as recalled by Nicolas Bernard, however, is relative, because the message is threadbare and the Germans know what happened in occupied USSR. But civilians are fleeing en masse eastern Germany, in hellish conditions. Some also choose suicide. The population has lost confidence in its leaders but the state does not collapse and repression done its work.
After Yalta, Americans are finally beginning to understand the intentions of Stalin, to the relief of Churchill. Berlin is however left to the Soviets, who throw all their forces in the final offensive of April 16, 1945. The battle is daunting to the extent of the challenge. But the Red Army takes over quickly and Berlin surrendered on May 2 On April 30, Hitler committed suicide in the bunker beneath the Chancellery. The Soviet losses were heavy and Berlin is largely destroyed by the recent fighting. Doenitz, who succeeded to the Führer, the capital in turn less than a week later. The situation is confused in Czechoslovakia, where a rebellion broke out against the Germans, backed by supporters of Vlassov folded there (!).
War is not yet over for Stalin. On August 9, the day the second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, the Red Army attack against Japan in Manchuria. Lightning offensive that allows to pocket additional conquests. The Soviet Union appears as one of the big winners of the war: its contribution, through its moral aura (that makes you forget the Stalinist crimes) and its sacrifices -without doubt closer to 30 than to 25 million lives. The damage is immense. That is why Stalin plunders the conquered countries and employs German and Japanese prisoners of war to the task. The Eastern Europe is also affected, and territorial redistributions cause the exodus of refugees, especially German. East Prussia became Soviet territory. Inside, the soldiers struggle to reintegrate into a ravaged country and Stalinist repression their spots, stifling freedom shyly granted during the conflict. The Gulag refills and knows a peak in 1950. The Red Army is bringing to heel, writing the conflict is framed. Germany is soon cut in two by the Cold War.
The war did not disappear yet remembered, marked both by the myth and oblivion. For the USSR, the Great Patriotic War became the rallying point unit. Stalin's death does not signal the end of the myth, which crystallizes under Brezhnev. The end of communism the reactive memory wars. Putin's Russia has finally returned to the myth of the Great Patriotic War, seriously damaged in the Yeltsin era. Cinema contributes widely. In front, two memories develop, FRG and GDR. The first emphasizes the suffering of guilt, the second joined the Soviet official discourse. The FRG rereads the war in light of the Cold War, the German generals, partly recovered by the Americans, propagate the myth of clean and chivalrous war. Construction begins to crumble in the 1970s and collapses over the next decade. The quarrel of German historians and the debate on totalitarianism are extended after the fall of the Communist and reunification. The myth constructed by the German generals is scanned, the participation of the army in Nazi crimes highlighted.
Total war than the eastern front; national war too. But the two opponents if they are interchangeable that some historiography tends to tell? For Nicolas Bernard, the answer is no. The Nazis did not kill more because they have lost. Hitler's war east happens to be her absolute war, as it was apprehended by Clausewitz, the process that was supported by the army. In this sense it is clearly distinguishable from an etched USSR which flows headlong into battle without expense spared in casualties.
Conclude with a summary of what brings the Nicolas Bernard book. The strong point of the book, no doubt, is to embrace the war in the east as a whole, even though the author denies doing "total history" in the introduction. The conflict, it is true, is difficult to define completely in one book. Yet the work of Nicolas Bernard has the immense merit of contextualister the eastern front, placing it back in its social, economic, and even cultural, not to mention historiography. On that score, it's probably a sum that will be difficult to overcome in the coming years. All this backed by a comprehensive bibliography, probably not exhaustive, but including references in many languages, both German and Russian, for example. Bibliography of which I am one with my modestly poor sections of magazines (!). Note also that it is classified, for secondary works by themes, which is appreciable. What he perhaps lost in operational description of military history (although the author does not imbalance the purpose for large events, dealing with those generally flown as the Soviet offensive of winter 1943-spring 1944 or the role of supporters, etc.), favored in other works on the eastern front (one thinks especially the books of Jean Lopez), the book makes up for in depth analysis on what makes the essence of the war in the east: its causes, manifestations, but also its consequences and traces. La méthode de l'historien combinée à la rigueur du discours font certainement de La guerre germano-soviétique un ouvrage indispensable sur le sujet, en français : un outil de travail.
