If Hitler had been unnerved at all by what he had heard from his commanders in the west during his short and turbulent visit a few days earlier, he had shown not the slightest trace of it during his private discussion with Goebbels. And when, the next afternoon, he again addressed his generals — adumbrating once more his belief in the survival of the fittest, emphasizing that no internal revolution was possible since the Jews were ‘gone’ and that he would mercilessly wipe out the slightest hint of internal subversion, stressing that to give in always meant ‘destruction… in the long run complete destruction’, that the current struggle was for Germany’s very existence, and, underlining his unshaken belief that he had been called by Providence, that the dangers would be surmounted, that ‘this new state will never capitulate’ — he again performed to perfection the role of Führer, with no hint of weakness or doubt.175 He could still enthuse his audience — at least momentarily.176
That same day, 22 June 1944, exactly three years since the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army launched its new big offensive in the east. Hitler had predicted that Stalin would not be able to resist the appeal of launching his offensive on that day.177 The main thrust of the massive Soviet offensive — the biggest undertaken, deploying almost 2½ million men and over 5,000 tanks, backed by 5,300 planes, and given by Stalin the code-name ‘Bagration’ after a military hero in the destruction of Napoleon’s Grand Army in 1812 — was aimed at the Wehrmacht’s Army Group Centre.178 Based on fatally flawed intelligence relayed to Chief of Staff Zeitzler by the head of the eastern military intelligence service, Reinhard Gehlen, German preparations had, in fact, anticipated an offensive on the southern part of the front, where all the reserves and the bulk of the panzer divisions had been concentrated. Army Group Centre had been left with a meagre thirty-eight divisions, comprizing only half as many men and a fifth of the number of tanks as the Red Army had, in a section of the front stretching over some 800 miles.179 Only belatedly, it appears, did the realization dawn, against the continued advice of Chief of the General Staff Zeitzler, that the offensive was likely to come against Army Group Centre.180 But when Field-Marshal Ernst Busch, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Centre, recommended shortening the front to more defensible limits, Hitler contemptuously asked whether he too was one of those generals ‘who always looked to the rear’.181
The relatively mild beginnings of the offensive then misled Hitler’s military advisers into thinking initially that it was a decoy.182 However, the initial opening was sufficient to breach the German defences around Vitebsk. Suddenly, the first big wave of tanks swept through the gap. Others rapidly followed. Bombing and heavy artillery attacks accompanied the assault. Busch appealed to Hitler to abandon the ‘fortified places’ (
Hitler’s answer could have been taken as read. The ‘fortified places’ were to be held at all costs; every square metre of land was to be defended.184 Busch, one of Hitler’s fervent admirers among the generals, accepted the order without demur. He sought to carry it out unquestioningly as a demonstration of his loyalty. The consequences were predictable. The Red Army swept around the strongholds, and the German not Soviet divisions were tied down, then encircled and finally destroyed by the forces following in the wake of the advance troops.185 The Wehrmacht divisions lost through such a disastrous tactical error would have been vital in defending other parts of the front.186
Within two days of the start of the offensive, the 3rd Panzer Army in Vitebsk had been cut off, followed a further two days later by the encirclement of the 9th Army near Bobruisk. By the first days of July, the 4th Army faced the same fate near Minsk. Reinforcements drawn from the southern part of the front could not prevent its destruction. By the time the offensive through the centre slowed by mid-July, the Soviet breakthrough had advanced well over 200 miles, driven a gap 100 miles wide through the front, and was within striking range of Warsaw. Army Group Centre had by then lost twenty-eight divisions with 350,000 men in a catastrophe even greater than that at Stalingrad. By this time, devastating offensives in the Baltic and in the south were gathering momentum.187 The next months would bring even worse calamities and, together with the unstoppable advance of the Allies in the west, would usher in the final phase of the war.
