The Germans take Lenningrad

[DavidFields]

This is inspired by the (to me) incredibly expertise in the "Germans win at Kursk" postings.

For as long as I have played Eastern front games/simulators, I have been intrigued by the Northern front, and like to push there (when the OOB allows). It generally seems like the German High command was right, and that it is a winning strategy. But the weather/terrain can be sobering, if modeled harshly.

I would be very pleased to here your expertise on the following questions.

1. If the Germans had made maximal effort in the north, would they likely have captured Lenningrad?

If so,

2. How would they have managed the population of Lenningrad?

3. After a winter, which would be likely miserable for everyone, poised with the main German units around and East of Lenningrad, now with port supply, attacking south along the Lenningrad-Moscow rail line in 1942, what would their success be?

4. This likely means that the encirclement of the masses of troops by Army Group Central would not have occured. How much would this have mattered? Did all that massive captured men and material actually reduce the fighting power of the Soviet Union?

In short, if the original campaign had been designed to last 18 months, instead of 6, would a more deliberate advance toward Moscow been advisable, and from the north, as well as west?

[rum]

Originally posted by Rankorian:

2. How would they have managed the population of Lenningrad?

From the William Shirer - "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich".

"The Fuehrer has decided to have Leningrad wiped from the face of the earth. The further existence of this large town is of no interest once Soviet Russia is overthrown…

Requests that the city may be handed over, arising from the situation within, will be turned down, for the problem of the survival of the population and of supplying it with food is one which cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for existence, we have no interest in keeping even part of this great city’s population… "

[Sergei]

At one point Germans were promising that Finland could have the Leningrad area (known as Ingermanland before Peter I) after the city was razed.

[SSgt Viljuri]

Sergei wrote:

At one point Germans were promising that Finland could have the Leningrad area (known as Ingermanland before Peter I) after the city was razed.

The point being? The Finnish high command didn't want the city and C.G Mannerheim personally opposed any initiatives to participate to such criminal operations. That was clearly evident in A.F Airo's plans (versions I-III, IV being the only plan to push our borders forward in the Isthmus region in a case of total Russian defeat).

Mannerheim even stated that even if the Germans would burn the city down, the Russians would build it back before long. This happened in 1941, when the situation still looked pretty grim for the Russians.

[von Churov]

The Nothern area of operations was unsuitable for mobile warfare. Too much of forests and swamps, marches and all kind of combinations of those.(Take a look at the map of Northern Russia and you'll have a clearer picture on this)

So, the employment of large armoured troop masses was disabled by the terrain itself.

Theres a huge marshy area going in an arc from Tikhvin-Lake Ladoga-Novgorod-lake Imlen-Staraya Rusa-Demyansk-Kholm-Velikie Luki protecting aproach to Moscow from the North, and denying the passage to any larger armoured units.

So had Leningrad fallen in German hands they still could have a problem of taking advantage of this.

AG North's area of operation was simply not suitable fora attackin operations.

Since both of the sides attacked by massing of armour, large attacking operations were next to impossible to be conducted there.

Therefore, that part of the frontline didn't move that much. None of the sides could attack in a big way.

Notice, while in the south front moved back and forth every couple of months, in the Northern front changes were minor.Lastly, AG North although being weakened, was rather encircled and cut off than pushed back.

The forntline there was almost still in place for 2 years. It was not before early '44. the siege of Leningrad was lifted.

[DavidFields]

Thank you, Von Churov (and all the other respondants).

But if the area was unsuitable for armor operations, then wasn't is unsuitable for either side's armor operations?

In other words, could the Germans have broken though with infantry?

Taking meaningless square kilometers in the south seems less important than having a major port/rail center, cutting off Archangel, and having a more defensible line--or not?

As to the razing of Lenningrad, it is almost literally unthinkable to me. Without a-bomb, or air fire-bombing, or destruction from close fighting, can anyone give me an example of a city the size of Lenningrad being razed if it were captured, for example, intact. The logistics....

[von Churov]

Russia is vast teritorry. The swamps there are not an ordinary swamps...it's miles and miles of marshes and water.

It is (theoretically) possible to attack with infantry there, but very difficult to realise that in practice. The attacking side is supposed to have forces massed and it's just not possible in the marshes.

It's not only a matter of movement. Infantry goes on in foot anyway. But there's an issue of logistics. They are supposed to bring on the tons of provisions there to supply the attacking troops. And sufficient suppling requires sufficient road capacity.

Russian roads in the swamps.

I believe you have seen the pictures or the footage of the Russian roads at the time. Even in the southern stepe those roads look almost like swamps.

Now can you imagine how the russian swamps look like when that "swamp" we all saw on those pictures the Russians called "road".

Now imagine the Russian road through the swamp.

Also, infantry never attacks without sufficient artilery support. How the Germans were supposed to transport their standard heavy support howitzer (150mm SFH) through the marshes?

I just can't imagine those monsters being towed through the swamps.

For example, notice that Pripyat marshed were left almost without a frontline by both sides. because there was no possibility to arrange any adequate kind of defence or attack there.

Later, the partisans and remains of bypassed soviet troops that escaped destruction in number of pockets fleed there for cover.

Anyway, my point is: had the Germans managed to take the Leningrad it would be hard to them to exploit that for attack on the Moscow.

As of your other points.

I don't think that Leningrad would have been entirely destroyed. Hitler would have ordered that, but soon enough, after few major buildings were destroyed, (and of course after Herman Goering have taken his share of artwork from Leningrad museums)the destruction would have stopped.

I supposed that it would have been pillaged anyway. Like in the medieval times.

Maybe even the population would have been relocated in order to make it a ghost city...but here I'm just speculating.

Leningrad was also a big industrial center so it is possible to have it included in German war production.

Part of the population would have been engeged in the factories,a part would have been sent to camps, a part of population would have been sent back to Germany to slave labour...and so.

But this is speculation too. Hitler was a lutantic and it hard to guess what lunatic could do.

As of Soviet loses...Well the logics says that the Sovets couldn't stand the loss of Leningrad and it's manpower and industry production, and the Germans should benefit from their 16th and 18th Army being disengaged form the combat and ready to be engaged elswhere...But...BUT...

The same logic says that the Soviets couldn't have standed the loses of Kiev, Kharkov, Minsk, Smolensk, Rostov etc...and all their manpower and industry production. But they did. They withstood all those blows and fought on. They were a sort of Hydra. The more heads you chop off, the more new heads appears.

So...maybe a loss of Leningrad wold have been just another number in their statistics sheets.

But in the other hand ...could it be just a blow too many?

The one that could turn the tides ireversibly???

Nobody knows. Today, all we can do is speculate.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Rankorian:

I would be very pleased to here your expertise on the following questions.

1. If the Germans had made maximal effort in the north, would they likely have captured Lenningrad?

Probably yes, although it would have been very costly.

Originally posted by Rankorian:

2. How would they have managed the population of Lenningrad?

Killed the lot of them?

Originally posted by Rankorian:

3. After a winter, which would be likely miserable for everyone, poised with the main German units around and East of Lenningrad, now with port supply, attacking south along the Lenningrad-Moscow rail line in 1942, what would their success be?

I doubt this is a likely scenario.

Originally posted by Rankorian:

4. This likely means that the encirclement of the masses of troops by Army Group Central would not have occured. How much would this have mattered? Did all that massive captured men and material actually reduce the fighting power of the Soviet Union?

Why not?

Originally posted by Rankorian:

In short, if the original campaign had been designed to last 18 months, instead of 6, would a more deliberate advance toward Moscow been advisable, and from the north, as well as west?

Different question - the German could have made a real effort and maybe succeed in taking Leningrad in September 1941. No fundamental change to Barbarossa required. The major effect of this is that the Soviets lose a lot of forces at Leningrad, but also a drain on their resources that did not contribute a lot to the fighting elsewhere. While the German assault on Moscow is likely to have a much more secure northern flank, because 16. Armee would have been able to advance further east into the Waldai hills region. With a secure northern flank, Heeresgruppe Mitte may have done better in advancing towards Moscow, and in weathering the Soviet counter-attacks at Moscow.

Taking Leningrad would also have affected Finnish policy, if Ziemke is to be believed, and made for a stronger effort by the Finns east of Lake Ladoga.

I doubt the Germans would have razed the city completely or immediately. As long as the war went on it would have been a major supply centre for operations on the northern and central axis.

[Bigduke6]

The first few questions are relatively easy. In the latter half of 1941 the Germans could, had the focused, have captured practically any strategic goal in European Russia with the possible exception of Moscow - but certainly Leningrad. The issue is at what price.

Leningrad is not like Kiev, where there are all sorts of hinterlands and dry fields to maneuver through and create a kessel. Land at the northeast corner of the Baltic is pine and birch forest, sometimes in slightly rolling hills but frequently swamp. The land is - compared to Ukraine and the Russian Golden Ring - thinly populated and pretty limited in a road network.

This terrain makes infiltration in or out for the Soviets a lot easier. There is Lake Onegin as a means of supplying the place by water. What's more, Leningrad had more arms and machine-building factories, per capita, in Leningrad than any other place in the Soviet Union. There is also the not inconsiderable point that though invaders have captured and burned Moscow, ever since Peter I built the place, the city was inviolate. The city was also the birthplace of the Russian Revolution, which most Soviets took quite seriously.

So to me, all this adds up to a fanatical, draw-out defense of the city, if the Germans had attempted to break in. Panzers can't do it, you need infantry. Just like Stalingrad, and maybe even worse, although of course at that point the Soviets weren't up to setting up a double-envelopement to end the battle. But the fighting would have been brutal, and the place would have been a meatgrinder of the worst sort.

So, if we assume the Germans capture Leningrad say by October 1941, then we pretty much also have to conclude Armee Gruppe Nord is now gutted of infantry. This would have been a doubly bad thing for Germany: first if the idea would be to capture Leningrad so you have a "solid flank" for an advance to Moscow via the high road and railroad, how exactly are you going to make that advance without infantry?

Second, Zhukov's Siberians, who intervened at the end of the year, would arguably have struck not just German soldiers poorly equipped for Winter war, but a whole lot less German soldiers overall, because a good many of their comrades were killed or injured in the fight to capture Leningrad.

I think that had the Germans captured the city it would have been a smouldering remains with almost zero economic potential. The Germans certainly would have followed their civilian policy in Kiev, which basically went like this:

1. Round up all the Jews, card-carrying Communists, university students, non able-bodied, and kill them. In Kiev it was army units using rifles at a big gulch called Baby Yar.

2. If possible find a disgruntled section of the population and make them your bully boys, i.e., Polezei. In Ukraine it was the Galician Ukrainians that collaborated. It is any one's guess which sector of the Leningrad population would have collaborated with the Germans - my guess would be former aristocrats, purge victims, and others who really had it out for the Soviets.

3. The rest of the population becomes slaves, and if you can find a use for them, then that's how you use them. Certainly Leningrad's technical work force - shipbuilders, machine industry laborers, people like that - would have found their way into the German war effort.

As to how all this would have affected Finnish policy, I suspect Germany might have offered Finland bits of the Soviet Union like Karelia, Hangoe, Estonia, and the Kola peninsula, but I doubt the Finns would have accepted. Don't forget Finnland at that point in time had existed as an indpendenent state for only a bit more than a generation, and countries that young usually don't go grabbing peripheral territories, they're still building their own nation.

[DavidFields]

Ok, you have all almost convinced me. It is true that simulations which take into account the forest and swamps of the area, such as World at War, give a sobering picture of trying to advance in the North. Certainly, the area is not just flat and without hills. My guess, also, is that German army doctrine on attacking across frozen swamps or lakes was not well practiced.

But am I mistaken that the German High Command did emphasize Army Group North pre-campaign?

My question 4 was prompted by the idea, such as expressed in another post on this topic, that the Soviet forces were a multi-headed hydra, and that it was a sort of Westmoreland-body-count victory by Army Group Center (American allusion)--I realize I am being a bit provocative--almost equivalent to the meaningless square kilometers captured in the South.

Leningrad needs to be taken. Moscow needs to be taken. Keep your lines, as Germany, as close to Germany as possible--since, in the time frame available, you are not going to derive any significant economic benefit from the captured territory. Dig in.

Did Germany gain anything significant, militarily or economically, by taking anything south of Moscow? Did having the Panzers cloud judgement? (I am reminded of a chess column which read, something like, "In this position, white will inevitably be drawn to attacking on the Queen's side, fail, and thus lose.")

[phil102]

from Barbarossa by Alan Clark

Ch 6 Leningrad: Hypothesis and Reality

Hitlers first 'firm decision' was to 'level the town, make it uninhabitable and relieve us of the necessity of having to feed the civilan population during the winter'

ie murder the entire population.

The Armys views were developed by General Walter Warlimont (Chief of the national defence section of OKW) who wrote extensively on the 'problem' of the civilian population of Lenningrad. Normal occupation was rejected but evacuating the women and children was considered then the Germans would let 'the remainder stave'.

Again, and not unusually, the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people was to be offical German policy.

The 'proper' solution which the Germans finally decided on and which was approved by Jodl (Warlimonts immediate superior was to 'Seal off Leningrad hermetcially, then weaken it by terror (i.e airraids and artillary barrages) and growing starvation. In Spring we shall occupy the town... and remove the survivors to the interior of Russia and level Leningrad to the ground with high explosives'

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Rankorian:

Did Germany gain anything significant, militarily or economically, by taking anything south of Moscow? Did having the Panzers cloud judgement? (I am reminded of a chess column which read, something like, "In this position, white will inevitably be drawn to attacking on the Queen's side, fail, and thus lose.")

I am not sure what these two things have to do with each other. German armour played a major role in getting the Wehrmacht to the gates of Leningrad as well. It was the armoured thrust by Panzergruppe 4 that broke through the Soviet lines and deep into the rear of their positions, while the infantry was either strung out behind, or peeled off north to clear the Baltic states.

[DavidFields]

I was not clear.

I am not doubting the power of the Panzers. I was just wondering if, by having them, one is inevitably drawn toward racing through southern Russia--the weapon driving the strategy.

Instead of: Concentrate and take Lenningrad in 1941. Concentrate and take Moscow in 1942.

In 1943:

The German Northern front is secure, particularly with the Finns on the flank.

The area around and south east of Moscow is backed up by german armour units, adopting defensive doctrines.

The south is simply East-Walled, behind one of the river lines.

I don't mean to irritate anyone. This has to be one of the most analyzed campaigns in history--all WWII is determined by it. And I can see you, rightfully, firing off what me the likely correct response:

1. The Germans, by doctrine and temperment, would not adopt such a defensive posture and tactics.

2. By ceding the strategic initiative, that would allow the Soviets to strike at any point in the line with overwhelming force.

Nevertheless, it is interesting, at least to me, to speculate on a German army not worn out by what, it seems to me, an absolutely fruitless Southern front advance.

We all assume, and it may be correct, that the loss of Lenningrad and Moscow would not have caused a catastrophic Soviet collapse--that economic and administrative functions would be effectively managed elsewhere, and the psychological stamina and cohesiveness of the Soviet rulers would remain intact(the people's being less important, as they can be driven by fear, force, and propoganda). Every simulation I have seen assumes that. Are we too strongly basing our beliefs on then-current Soviet propoganda?

[Bigduke6]

Rankorian,

The problem with the approach you suggest is that it leaves capture of the richest part of the Soviet Union, the part that Hitler said he needed to make Germany a world-class power, unitl 1943, and so leave the Soviets a lot of time to use a lot of industrial potential to make more armies, no matter how many you destroy.

This is a whole lot of industrial potential like the Donbass region, which to this day remains one of the great steel producing centers in the world. It's the black earth steppe inbetween the Danube and the Volga. It's Baku and its oil fields. It's the Nikolaev (now Mykolaev) shipyards. And perhaps most importantly of all, it's the captive Ukrainian population - they're not Russians so there's less pain in killing them, making them slaves, or whatever. The Soviet south was the logical end to Lebensraum.

Hitler argued with some effect that Germany stood no chance against any coalition backed by U.S. economic might, unless Germany controlled the entire industrial potential of Europe (sans Britain, natch) - and its resources. Contrast Ukraine, the Kuban, and the Caucauses with what central Russia or the north had to offer - lower population densities and dramatically fewer resources, and Hitler's logic strangely enough starts to seem to make sense.

The issue of course is the Soviet south is useless if you have to fight for it all the time, and - to use a Stalin turn of phrase - it is no coincidence at all that when the Reds pushed the Germans a bit back from Moscow, and had the initiative, their strategic efforts mostly focused on the south. That's why the Red Army had taken the valuable part of the south back from the Wehrmacht by roughly November 1943, but it wasn't until July 1944 that an offensive cut loose in swampy White Russia, for instance.

Now you can make a pretty good arguement that Hitler's logic was on silly putty because it's just nuts to think Germany could snag the most valuable part of the Soviet Union and get away with it. But then that sort of puts the whole idea of taking on the Soviet Union in the first place into the questionable category.

If the goal was to win the war then the task was to destroy Soviet military potential faster than they could create it. It may have been an impossible task, but it seems to me a more rational step in that direction is the capture of Ukraine, as opposed to the capture of Lenigrad and the Baltic region.

[Panzer_M]

what would have been needed to force a "bitter peace" from the USSR 1941/1942 for Germany?

[Bigduke6]

German evacuation of the SU would have been one approach.

Stick a knife in Scandinavia's back, call off Barbarossa in favor of a German-Soviet invasion of Finland and Sweden - I bet ol' Stalin would have been willing to let bygones be bygones for something like that.

Destruction of the bulk of the Red Army, control of the country up to the Urals, AND capture and/or death of Stalin and most Soviet leaders down through the Central Committee would probably have done it as well - but that's a whole lot harder for the Germans to pull off. They more or less tried that approach and see what it got them.

Given the virulence of the German occupation policy I just can't see the Soviet people argreeing to peace, as long as even a ghost of Russian goverment still exists somewhere. Communism was far from a universally popular idea, but Russians almost always have hated foreign invaders a whole lot more than their own rulers.

The real "what if" isn't even on the Eastern Front. Had the Japanese invaded the Maritime provinces, or Turkey the Caucauses (a bit less viable, true, but had the Turks been equipped and trained, etc.) that could well have forced Stalin and co. to think temporary peace in the spirit of Brest-Litovsk.

The Germans were for centuries outstanding at putting together remarkably efficient military organizations, but at lining up solid allies for when the crunch comes - well, Berlin never was a place to look for excellent diplomacy.

[DavidFields]

Ok, absolutely persuasively argued, BigDuke6.

What always makes the German thrust through the South silly is that they never seemed to gain real industrial advantage from it--they did not have time to. Even if they had reached the Baku oil fields, it is hard for me to believe that (As is asserted in the movie, for example, "Enemy at the Gates") the war for Russia would have been lost--if the Soviet army remained intact, and the will to fight by the Soviets still existed. Getting that oil back to Germany, especially if the Soviets torched the fields, would have been a nightmare?

But if the Germans somehow had a year breather they could have rebuilt the industry in the Donbass region to be truely productive for the Wehrmacht?

I guess I see it now. And I appreciate the explanation, since it makes so much more sense than just having an "objective" point on some board/computer simulation.

Still.... (and I also enjoyed to postings in the Kursk topic, particularly by JasonC, on the fixed mentality of the German war machine) everytime it is 1942-43, and I am on the German side of the simulation, I say to myself, "Please don't make me send my Panzers south...got to be another way." Maybe not.

[Bigduke6]

Well, the Germans got some economic benefit from the Soviet southern regions. They had control of the place very roughly from November 1941 from November 1943, and that's a significant chunk of the war. It is quite true the Soviets hauled off all the factory equipment they could, but they couldn't haul off the dirt and the ore in the ground. That's two seasons of agricultural produce from largest expanse of the richest soil in the world, plus the strategic ores in Ukraine including iron ore, coke, chrome, and I am pretty sure several of those ones you need to make your steel better like molybydm (spelling?) and tungsten. Admittedly the Donbass was lost not in Autumn 1943 but in early Spring, but that's still more than 18 months of ores taken for the Reich.

And don't forget the slave labor. Something like four million Soviet citizens, mostly from Ukraine, were sent to the Reich to work. That's that many Germans made available for more demanding jobs in the war effort. Not inconsiderable.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by Andreas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Rankorian:

2. How would they have managed the population of Lenningrad?

Killed the lot of them?

</font>