Lords of War
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don’t pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
Living on command
You’re shaking lots of hands
Kissing up and bleeding all your trust
Taking what you need
Bite the hand that feeds
You kill your memory
- Green Day, Nice Guys Finish Last.
Got one chance, infiltrate them
Get it right, terminate them
The panzers will, permeate them
Break their pride, denigrate them
And their people, retrograde them
Typhus, detriate them
Epidemic, devastate them
Take no prisoners, cremate them
He once had to be all he could be
Now he’s nothing for no one nowhere to see
Funny thing, he’s like you & me
It’s a funny thing, a funny thing
Tears streak his solemn stare
Abandoned for wreckage nobody cares
No one knew what would happen there
No one spoke no one even dared
Don’t ask what you can do for your country
Ask what your country can do for you
Take no prisoners, take no shit
- MegaDeath, Take No Prisoners.
After having appointed Air Marshal Erhard Milch as Armaments Minister, thus leaving Luftwaffe and the Reichsluftfahrtministerium - Reichs Air Ministry -, or RLM for short, in repectively Kesselring’s and von Richthofen’s more than capable hands, an immense power struggle broke out between the top Nazi’s.
With Schacht also more or less forced to retire longside Wever, the Third Reich’s economy and armaments industry were basically in the hands of only four men: Milch, Funk, Himmler and Bormann. Hitler, as custumary, simply keeps his head clear and let the stronger of his underlings emerge as winner. Besdies, he’s more interested in planning Operation Friedrich der Grosse.
Never friends, Bormann, Goebbles and Himmler showed their total dislike of each othert and lack of unity in the brief pause between the wars. Himmler, feeling left behind with far too few victories to show, did his best to undermine the powerfull patron of the Luftwaffe, Plenipotentiary for the Implementation of the Four Year Plan and Reichsleiter of the NSDAP, Martin Borman, in the eyes of Adolf Hitler and to elevated his own person and the SS. Goebbles, feeling far superior to the tough Borman and the, well, rather nutty, Himmler, used his propoganda machine to good effect, sprouting subversive lies about the Slavs and the need for selfsacrify in the name of nationalsocialism. Bormann, himself, was buisy buildng on the success of Luftwaffe and expanding his powerbase even further, thus naturally rubbing more than a few Gold Pheasants the wrong way.
In essence the squabble between Borman, Goebble and Himmelrs boils down to personal ambition and the future course of Germany. Goebbles was an advocate of total mobilization and total war – meaning all resources must be mustered in the coming war angainst the USSR (a view that’s to a lesser extend supported by Milch – who nonetheless knew he was indebted to Bormann). Goebbles sees it as the only way of defetaing the USSR. Then there is Bormann, who will not let the every day life of the average good nationalsocialists family be disrupted more than absolutely necessary – mostly because that is Hitler’s wish and Bormann was very good at judging the Führer’s wishes. And then there’s Himmler who wants in on all the sweet deals and share the power and glory. In Himmler’s eyes the SS should make use of it’s camps and foreign contacts to build an industrial base under firm SS control and based on the camp system, slaveworkers and non-volunteer guest workers. As Himmler saw it, there was no need to further burden the ordinary German, when there were so many others to work to the death for the glory of the Fatherland. Himmler was also somewhat miffed that he could not expand his precious Waffen-SS further with German soldiers due to resistance by the Heer – both von Manstein and Guderian in respectively the OKW and OKH did not budge on this - and thus had to feed his growing military with foreign volunteers and equipment. Bormann tried his best to counter this by letting Ernst Sauckel, one of his loyal gauleiters and newly appointed General Plenipotentiary for the Employment of Labour, recruite foreign workers to work in Germany and thus prove that there was no immediate need for the SS to expand further economically. Funk, not really too keen on getting in the middle of this cock fight, were nonetheless leaning towards Bormann’s view that it was important not to rock the economic boat, so to say, and upset the Germans more than necessary by additional hardship. Funk as Minister of Econimics and President of the Reichsband – German National Bank - also know the costs of Goebble’s total war idea. Funk and to a lesser degree Borman was supported by the influencial head of the DAF – Deutsche Arbeitsfront -, Robert Ley. Ley’s preferences would later earn him both Goebble’s and Himmler’s wrath.
In France especailly this intense rivalty was boht ssen and felt as France’s industrial structure would be reorganized by Milch and Funks ministries respectively and subordinated to Bormann’s Four Year Plan office. As in Denmark, Norway and Holland, the men from the Four Year Office as well as Milch’s subordinates would have a significant say in domestic French affaires. The situation were furtther complicated by the sheer power widlded by the SS in France, Holland, Denmark and Norway.
Meanwhile, the top military commanders were pondering how to bring about the end of the Soviet union. Recently promoted Field Marshals Erich von Manstein, head of the OKW, and Heinrich Guderian, head of the OKH, along with Alfred Jodl, the Chef des Wehrmachtsführungsstabes - Chief of Operations in the OKW -, and a God awfull lot of staff officers and representatives from the FHQ, and at times the Groesste Feldherrn Alle Zeit - Greatest Field General of All Time -, Hitler, himself, worked furiuosly at this endavour. The akronym GROFAZ was coined by Goebbles at a high level Nazi Party meeting in early 1940 as the final preparations for Operation Friedrich der Grosse were taking place, and subsequently used shamelessly by him, his flunkies and the Propaganda Ministry, to fan Hitler’s steadily growing megalomanic warlord-fantasies, and to gain Goebbels some political capaital with the Führer.
While just some years ago, anybody mentioning attacking the USSR would have been carted off to a lunatic asylum, but nowadays few wearing the uniforms of the German Wehrmacht doubted that they could defeat the Soviet Union. The only problem was agreeing on how to do it exactly! And while Manstein and Guderian seemed to get along famously – having alreay worked together on Operation Hermann - the invasion of Western Europe – they did have very different views on how to defeat the USSR.
Field Marshall von Manstein believed that to defeat the Soviet Union, one had to defeat and utterly destroy the Red Army. Therefore a series of binding attacks should be made, to tie up Soviet reinforcements and troops, while the Panzers tore into and right trough the Soviet line and continued to encircled the forward deployed divisons. The Red Army’s frontline units were growing rapidly in numbers at the time, and is rather ironically said to have caused no small amount of joy in the various German staffs.
Field Marshal Heinz Guderian – the Chief of the OKH and former General der Schenlltruppen -, never one for subtlety, saw the need for one concentrated thrust aimed at the heart of the evil Soviet empire. As he is often quoted of saying; “one strikes with a closed fist!” Basically, Guderian meant that the Wehrmacht had to focus narrowly on reaching and occupying Moscow. The Soviet capital being not only the all-important political hub of the Soviet Union, but also the center for nearly all the Union’s railroads, and most other transport ways as well. Thus Moscow was absolutely essential for moving troops and supplies in south-north direction, but also as a vital link to the areas in and behind the Urals. Moscow was also an important national symbol and substantial industrial center as well.
Several other military leaders, among them generals Jodl and Keitel, the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and most of the SS and Nazi-leadership, including both Heinrich Himmler and Joachim von Ribbentrop, for various and often personal reasons held to the opinion that the Ukraine and Baltics should be liberated, as it were phrased at the time, and its people, industries and vast mineral wealth put to work for the greater good of the Reich! The fact that conquering said areas would also deny their use to the USSR played a major part in the argument for this strategy. It seemed like Jodl, really beginning to shine as military strategist and theorist after von Manstein had taken over the OKW – the duo would for most of the War show themselves to be amongst the best high level military leaders ever to take command of an Army -, and Canaris seemed to have a firm idea of the War against Soviet Russia as being a ong term affaire, whereas Keitel just put forth what he believed his beloved Führer wanted to hear. Himmler’s reasons are made clears elsewhere. The Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, along with several high level Nazi Party officials and SS-men – often the same people just wearing two hats, so to say - saw the liberation of the Baltics and a thrust into the southern parts of the USSR as a way of creating a series of vasal states, which of course would place his ministry in the foreground of affaires.
The Kriegsmarine’s fear of being faced with diminishing budgets and influence, now that Britain had been successfully knocked out of the war, so to say, threw their full weight behind the idea of a strong assault along the Baltics, and made a case for liberating Finland. That said, and Raeder being far from stupid, did prepare for other less glamourous types of missions. The Marines began to train in a riverine assault role, and several other Kriegmarines units likewise began to train for a riverine warfare role. To that effect, a series of smaller vessels began construction or modification for use as gunboats for use on rivers and lakes. The Marinefährprahme, MFP, and The Marine Artillerie Leichter, MAL, featured prominently in these endavours. The MFP being a very adaptable universal vessel, but a bit big, and the smaller MAL would prove its usefullness during the invasion of the USSR, where MAL’s were used extensively in the Caspian Sea, Sea of Azov, the Leningrad-area and the Black Sea. The KLK too began to prepare for an amphibious and/or land support role, while asking for more of the newer helicopter models for transport, recon, combat and stepped up the development pace of the dedicated Unterseeboot Jaeger Fl-41 Grief - Griffin.
In the Luftwaffe Oberkommando, Air Marshal Kesselring were acutely aware of the resources located in the Ukraine and the Caucasus further eastwards and strongly felt that it was needed for the Wehrmacht, or more precisely the Luftwaffe, to have access to said resources, be it mineral wealth, oil or industry. Having secure the Ukraine would alos gain Luftwaffe important bases form with the could strike deep into the Soviet rear – the fact the numerous new industrial cities sprung up in the Urals almost weekly were not lost on either Luftwaffe or Abwehr – the interservice German Military Intelligence Agency. Soon Schwere Kampfgeschwader 12 and the newly formed Schwere Kampfgeschwader 22 began training for long range operations. The huge four-engined He-177’s were supported by the versatile two-engined Raubvogels and Ju-88’s, with the latter serving as escorts, pathfinders, pojnt attck crafts and in several other capacities. New downlooking RADARs and navigation equipment, the two tone Oktave system for example, were also tested and put into use.
The political situation did play a role in the preparation of Friedrich der Grosse. Himmler backed th emultiple thrust idea as he saw and opportunity to add the Baltics to his area of recruitement – being populeatd by extremely anti-Soviet aryans, or something close to it. Borman and Funck were rather kken on seing the Ukraine added to the Recih, woiht its huge area of crop land and indutry, not to mention the large deposits of much needed raw materials. Dr. Goebbles were more aware of the significance of Moscow – a glittering propaganda price as Bormann demeaningly called it once. All in all, the many views, opinions, personal likes and dislikes put the GROFAZ in two minds, and the German Führer had a devil of a time deciding which strategy to follow.
In the end, Operation Friedrich der Grosse was a compromise of all three. The operation would start with the panzers spearheading huge encirclements at the front, aimed at cutting off and destroying in detail as much of the Red Army as possible. There after, the bulk of the Wehrmacht would move on Moscow with strong forces attacking the Ukraine and a smaller attack up along the Baltic coastline supported by the Kriegsmarine. The plan would be open for slight readjustments once it got under way if any unforseen opportunities arose. The norther Armeegruppen – Army Group - would be commanded by the aging general Hausser – former head of the OKH –, with the also rather old von Rundtstedt leading the thrust into the Ukraine – his forces were mainly Romanian – and the central front aimed at Moscow being led by Model, von Bock and von Kleist – the latter in charge of the two strong Panzergruppen under respectively Rommel and Hoth. The central attack would move north and south of the almost inpenetable Pripjet Marshes and on to Moscow via two separate axis of advance. The first would roughly be via Brest-Litovsk, Minsk, Smolensk and then onwards towards Moscow, while the second would strike form Lvov via Zhitomir, Gomel and Briansk before moving against the Soviet capital.
Few armoured units were avilable for the Northern and Southern Army Groups, but the decent shape of the Romanian army would nonetheless give von Rundtsted some quite powerfull forces to play with, while the Kriegsmarine would serve to beef up Hausser’s Northern Armeegruppen. Several SS-Legions were detached to the two Army Groups – much to Himmelrs’ dismay as he believed the OKW/OKH did that to keep his Waffen SS-men out of the limelight.
) of OTL's Battle for the Atlanic.
