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Operation Barbarossa – The Current State of the Debate*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

H. W. Koch
H. W. Koch
Affiliation:
University of York
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The Historical Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 377 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

1 Tobias, Fritz, Der Reichstagbrand: Legende und Wirklichkeit (Rastatt, 1962)Google Scholar. The English translation, for the sake of reaching a wider public, has been so heavily abridged as to make it useless for the historian.

2 Hofer, Walter et al. (eds.), Der Reichstagbrand. Eine wissenschaftliche Dokumentation vol. I (Berlin, 1972)Google Scholar; vol. II (Munich, 1978).

3 Backes, Uwe, Janssen, Karl-Heinz et al. (eds.), Reichstagbrand. Aufklärung einer historischen Legende (Munich, 1986)Google Scholar.

4 Der Spiegel (1960), no. 23, Leserbriefe.

5 Taylor, A. J. P., The origins of the Second World War (London, 1961, second edition 1962)Google Scholar .

6 Niedhardt, Gottfried (ed.), Kriegsbeginn 1939. Entfesselung oder Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkriegs (Darmstadt, 1976)Google Scholar .

7 Hofer, Walter, ‘Wege und Irrwege der Forschung. Erneute Auseinandersetzung mid den “erneuten Betractungen” von A. J. P. Taylor’, Staat und Gesellschaft im politischen Wandel, ed. Pöls, Werner (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 523 ff.Google Scholar ; Hofer, Walter, Die Entfesselung des 2. Weltkriegs (Frankfurt am Main, 1964)Google Scholar .

8 Newman, Simon, March 1939. The British guarantee to Poland (Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar.

9 This is based on the personal experience of the present writer, who – unsuccessfully – tried to arrange for a German translation.

10 Koch, H. W. (ed.), Aspects of the Third Reich (London, 1985), pp. 15 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar .

11 Habermas, Jürgen, ‘Eine Art Schadensabwicklung. Die apologetischen Tendenzen in der deutschen Geschichtsschreibung’, Die Zeit, 11 07 1986Google Scholar .

12 Hillgruber, Andreas, Zweierlei Untergang. Die Zerschlagung des Deutschen Reichs und das Ende des europäaischen Judentums (Berlin, 1986)Google Scholar.

13 Jäckel, Eberhard and Rohwer, Jürgen (eds.), Der Mord an den Juden im Zweiten Welkrieg (Stuttgart, 1985), p. 243Google Scholar, which contained Saul Friedländer's reported concern that the controversial positions adopted by well-known historians might find their way into school text-books.

14 Forschungsamt, Militärgeschichtliches (ed.), Das Deutsche Reich, und der Zweite Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, vols. 1 and 2, 1979, vol. 4, 1983, vol. 3, 1985)Google Scholar.

15 Autorenkollektiv, . Deulschland im 2. Weltkrieg, 6 vols. (Berlin, 1974–1985)Google Scholar.

16 Weinberg, Gerhard L., The foreign policy of Hitler's Germany: starting World War II, 1937–1939 (Chicago, 1980), p. 35 n. 61Google Scholar.

17 Suvorov, Victor, ‘Who was planning to attack whom in June 1941, Hitler or Stalin?’, RUSI Journal, 06 1985, pp. 50 ff.:Google Scholar Victor Suvorov, ‘Yes, Stalin was planning to attack Hitler in June 1941’, ibid. June 1986, pp. 73 ff.

18 Stegemann, Bernd, ‘Geschichte und Politik. Zur Diskussion über den deutschen Angriff auf die Sowjetunion 1941’, Beiträge zur Konfliktforschung, XVII, 1 (1987), 73 ffGoogle Scholar. I am deeply indebted to -J> Dr Stegemann for supplying me with an offprint of his article, which arrived while this article was I being drafted. It has substantially enriched its contents.

19 RUSI journal (March 1986, June 1986).

20 Hoffmann, Joachim (ed.), ‘Die Sowjetunion am Vorabend des Deuschen Angriffs’, Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltrieg, IV, 38 ff.Google Scholar; idem, ‘Die Kriegführung aus der Sicht der Sowjetunion’, ibid. pp. 713 ff.

21 Hoffmann, Joachim, Die Geschichte der Wlassow-Armee (Freiburg, 1984)Google Scholar. See also Andreyev, Catheine, Vlassov and the Russian Liberation Movement 1941–1945 (Cambridge, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Gillessen, Günther ‘Der Krieg der Diktatoren’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (20 08 1986)Google Scholar. I am indebted to Dr Gillessen for supplying me with copies of his article and those of the subsequent correspondence pubnlished in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

23 Churchill, Winston, The Second World War, vol. 3, The grand Alliance (London, 1950), pp. 290 ff.Google Scholar; Sommer, Erich F., Das Memorandum (Munich, 1982), passimGoogle Scholar; also Der Spiegel (1982), no.31, pp. 34 ff.

24 See note 22 above.

25 This is still a very problematical point. Pravda in its Moscow edition of 14 March 1946, p. 1, published an interview with Stalin in which he stated that ‘as a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union lost in its struggle with the Germans, as a result of the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet citizens into German slavery approximately seven million men, women and children’. The same figure given in the Soviet Encyclopedia (Moscow, 1947)Google Scholar has been cited by the Netu Zürcher Zeitung (16/17 August 1986). See also Höhne, Heinz, ‘Russlands Vaterländischer Krieg’, Der Spiegel (1981), no. 38, pp. 204 ffGoogle Scholar. On the other hand, Arntz, Helmuth, ‘Die Menschenverluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, contained in a volume of essays on the Second World War – Bilanz des 2. Weltkrieges (Oldenburg, 1953)Google Scholar – cites the Russian Colonel Kalinov, then a member of the Soviet Military Administration for Germany, whose figure was I3P5 million fatal casualties suffered by the Soviet armed forces, a figure which does not include the civilian losses. Hence, Arntz at that early stage calculated an approximate total figure of twenty million Soviet dead. Th e last time the figure of seven million was mentioned was, its far as this writer could find out, in SED's Neue Berliner Illustrierten (1951), no. 25. The official Soviet, Istoriya Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny Sovetskaya Soyuza 1941–1945, 6 vols. (Moscow, 1960–1965)Google Scholar, does not give any precise figure. On the contrary, in volume one it ridicules the German claim of Soviet prisoners made. Even the current SED standard work (see note 15) avoids giving precise figures, especially those concerning prisoners made by the German army.

26 Letter by DrPietrow, Bianka to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (13 11 1986)Google Scholar.

27 Dr Joachim Hoffmann, ibid. (10 Nov. 1986).

28 Rolf-Dieter Müller, ibid. (31 Nov. 1986).

29 Lothar Jung, ibid. (16 Oct. 1986).

30 Wette, Wolfram and Ueberschär, Gerd R. (eds.), ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’. Der deutsche Überfall auf die Sowjetunion 1941. Berichte, Analysen, Dokumente (Paderborn, 1984)Google Scholar.

31 Seraphim, Hans-Günther and Hillgruber, Andreas, ‘Hitlers Entschluss zum Angriff aut Russland (eine Entgegnung)’, Vierteljahrhefte für Zeitgeschichte (1954), pp. 240 ffGoogle Scholar.

32 Koch, H. W., ‘Hitler's “Programme” and the genesis of Operation “Barbarossa”’, The Historical Journal, XXVI, 4 (1983), 891 ffGoogle Scholar.: reprinted in Koch (ed.), Aspects of the Third Reich: Trial of the major German war criminals (Nuremberg, 1947), XX, 576 ff.; Haider, Generaloberst, Kriegstagebuch, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1962)Google Scholar, I, entry for 30 June 1940; n, entries for 3 and 9 July 1940.

33 Hillgruber, Andreas, Hitlers Strategic, Politik und Kriegführung 1940–1941 (Munich, 1965), p. 535Google Scholar; 2nd edn (Munich, 1982), pp. 726 ff.

34 Ueberschär, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (12 10 1986)Google Scholar.

35 See note 19.

36 Akten zur deutschen Auswärtigen Politik 1918–1945, series D (Frankfurt am Main, 1962), VIII, 474 ffGoogle Scholar.

37 Ibid. pp. 685 ff.; IX, 6. See also Stegemann, Bernd, ‘Hiders Kriegziele im ersten Kriegsjahr 1939/1940. Ein Beitrag zur Quellenkritik’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, XXVII (1980), 93 ffGoogle Scholar.

38 Ueberschür, Gerd R., ‘Hiders Entschluss zum “Lebensraum”-Krie g im Osten. Program-matisches Ziel oder militarstrategisches Kalkül?’, Wette, and Ueberschäar, (eds.), ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’, p. 92Google Scholar.

39 Hill, Leonidas E. (ed.), Die Weizsäcker-Papiere 1933–1950 (Berlin, 1974), pp. 204 ffGoogle Scholar. Hill, in the preceding volume, covering the period 1900–32, states on page 442 under ‘Principles of selection’: ‘Within the framework of this collection it has not been possible for me to indicate the contents of letters and diaries not included, not to point to omitted passages in letters and diaries’. This, of course, reduces considerably the value of the Weizsäacker papers as a contemporary primary source.

40 Stegemann, , ‘Geschichte und Politik’, p. 83Google Scholar.

41 Ueberschär, in Wette, and Ueberschär, (eds.), ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’, p. 94Google Scholar.

42 Speer, Albert, Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1969), p. 188Google Scholar.

43 Ibid.

44 As note 41.

45 That Speer's memoirs and his subsequent writings are a highly unreliable source for the historian has been convincingly demonstrated in Matthias Schmidt's doctoral dissertation at the Free University of Berlin, published under the title Albert Speer, Das Ende eines Mythos. Die Aufdeckung seiner Geschichtsverfälschung. Speers wahre Rolle im Dritten Reich (Bern and Munich, 1982)Google Scholar. See also the evidence provided by one of Hitler's other major architects, Giesler, Hermann, in Ein anderer Hitler, Erlebnisse, Gespraäche, Reflexionen (Leoni, 1978)Google Scholar, passim.

46 Taylor, Fred (ed.), The Goebbels Diaries (London, 1982), p. 42Google Scholar. This edition does not contain all the entries for the period. Once the bulk of the Goebbels diaries came to light, the German publishers Hoffmann and Campe acquired the rights and published Joseph Goebbels. Tagebücher 1945. Die letzten Auf-zeichnungen (Hamburg, 1977)Google Scholar. The venture proved a commercial disaster and publication of further volumes was postponed indefinitely. Via channels still unknown, the diaries, or the largest part of them for 1939–41, were offered to Hamish Hamilton, who published the above volume. The complete set of the Goebbels diaries is now in the archive of the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte at Munich, which evisages publishing them in their entirety.

47 Ibid. p. 51.

48 Stegemann, , ‘Geschichte und Politik’, p. 80Google Scholar.

49 Taylor, in The Goebbels diaries, p. 121Google Scholar, states that the parts of the Goebbels diary from 15 I March to 29 April 1940 are missing. They are not, and have been quoted in Wette, and Ueberschäar, (eds.), ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’, pp. 93, 100Google Scholar.

50 The same applies as in note 49, this time for the period 25 June to 10 August 1940, quoted in ibid. p. 96.

51 Taylor, , The Goebbels diaries, p. 159Google Scholar.

52 See Koch, , Aspects of the Third Reich, pp. 314 ffGoogle Scholar.

53 von Below, Nicolaus, Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937–1945 (Mainz, 1980), pp. 10 ffGoogle Scholar.

54 Ibid. p. 217. As to the faulty logic, my colleague John F. C. Parker drew my attention to it. It had escaped me.

55 Wette, and Ueberschär, (eds.), ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’, p. 91Google Scholar.

56 Below, , Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 247Google Scholar.

57 Wette, and Ueberschär, (eds.), ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’, p. 90, n. 30Google Scholar. See Documents on British foreign policy, 3rd series, VII, no. 314 (enc.) On the entire complex, see Koch, H. W., ‘Hitler and the origins of the Second World War’, The Historical Journal, XI (1968)Google Scholar, reprinted in E. M. Robertson (ed.), The origins of the Second World War (London, 1971), pp. 158 ff.

58 Wette, and Ueberschär, (eds.), ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’, p. 95Google Scholar.

59 Irving, David, Hitler's War 1939–1942 (London, 1977), p. 139Google Scholar; the German translation of Irving's, work, Hitler und seine Feldherren, had been published two years previously (Berlin, 1977)Google Scholar, and it is from that translation that Wette and Ueberschär quote – or rather misquote.

60 Below, , Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 10–11Google Scholar.

61 Among them Hitler's personal secretary Schroeder, Christa, Er war mein Chef (Munich, 1985), pp. 18, 69 f., 188, 226 ffGoogle Scholar.

62 Ueberschär, in Wette, and Ueberschär, (eds.), ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’, p. 98Google Scholar.

63 Salewski, Michael, Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung 1933–1945, III: Denkschriften und Lagebetrachtungen, 1938–1945 (Munich, 1973), pp. 138 ffGoogle Scholar.

64 Wagner, Gerhard (ed.), Lagevorträge des Oberbefehlhabers der Kriegmarine vor Hitler 1939–1945 (Munich, 1973), ‘Vortrag des ob. d. M. beim Führer am 27. 10. 40 16.00 Uhr’, pp. 171 ffGoogle Scholar.

65 Halder, , Kriegstagebuch; Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (Wehrmachtsführungs-stab) 1940–1945, geführt von Helmut Greiner und Percy Ernst Schramm, Studienausgabe, 8 vols. (Munich, 1982)Google Scholar. The first so far to point to serious discrepancies and omissions contained in the I Haider diaries has been Christian Streit in his study Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945 (Stuttgart, 1978), p. 28 passimGoogle Scholar.

66 Stegemann, , ‘Geschichte und Politik’, p. 89Google Scholar; Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg, letter of v. Lossberg to former Field-Marshal Paulus, 16 September 1956, Nachlass Lossberg, M219/5.

67 See note 32, Koch, ‘Hitler's programme’.

68 Ibid.

69 Koch, , Aspects of the Third Reich, p. 321Google Scholar.

70 See note 65, Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos, 1, 257; Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, RW19/85 Aktennotiz von General Thomas über seinen Vortrag vor Göring vom 26. 2. 1941, geheime Kommandosache. See also ibid. (3 March 1940), pp. 340 ff.

71 Ueberschär, in Wette, and Ueberschär, (eds.), ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’ p. 83Google Scholar.

72 Wolfram Wette in ibid. pp. II ff., ‘Eine historische Hypothek. Neue Forschungen zum deutsch-sowjetischen Krieg 1941’.

73 Ibid. p. 11.

74 Ibid. p. 22.

75 Ibid.: Sywotteck, Arnold, ‘Die sowjectische Kriegszielpolitik im Zweiten Weltkreig 1941–1945. Zum Stand der historisch-politischen Analyse und Diskussion’, pp. 237 ffGoogle Scholar.