Barbarossa (81 page)

Read Barbarossa Online

Authors: Alan Clark

Tags: #Non-Fiction, #War, #History

BOOK: Barbarossa
5.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Mueller,
Heinrich, Obergruppenfuhrer SS

Official
of the Munich political police under the Weimar Republic; head of
the Gestapo 1935-45; last heard of in Hitler's bunker 29th April,
1945; still alive.

Mussolini,
Benito

Born
1883. Duce, or head, of the Italian Government; deposed 25th July,
1943; rescued from the Badoglio party 13th September, 1943; head
of a puppet Italian government till the end of World War II;
murdered April 1945.

Paulus,
Friedrich, Field Marshal

Surrendered
with the German 6th Army to the Russians at Stalingrad; broadcast
for the Russian Free Germany Committee; gave evidence at Nuremberg
for the Russian prosecution; permitted by the Russians to live in
East Germany 1953.

Philip,
Prince of Hesse

Obergruppenfuhrer
SA; married to Princess Mafalda of Italy and employed by Hitler as
a reliable Party man on missions to Italy; sent to Sachsenhausen
concentration camp September 1943; liberated at the end of World
War II.

Pohl,
Oswald, Obergruppenfuhrer SS

Head
of the economic administration of the SS (WVHA), including the
concentration-camp inspectorate, 1942-45; hanged at Landsberg 8th
June, 1951.

Popitz,
Professor Johannes

Acting
Finance Minister for Prussia 1933-44; member of the Resistance
circle who tried to gain Himmler's adherence; executed February
1945.

Reichenau,
Walther von, Field Marshal

Played
an uncertain role in the blood purge of 1934 as head of the German
Army supply office; a Party general; commander of the 6th Army,
June-December 1941; Army Group South, December 1941; died of a
mysterious infection 17th January, 1942, soon after being made
Field Marshal.

Reinecke,
Hermann, Colonel General

Chief
of the general Wehrmacht office throughout World War II;
responsible for Russian prisoners of war; chief of the National
Socialist Guidance Staff (NSFO) from 1943 (the
Oberpolitik);
sentenced to life imprisonment 28th October, 1948; still in
Landsberg.

Ribbentrop,
Joachim von

German
Ambassador to Great Britain 1936-38; Foreign Minister 1938-45;
hanged Nuremberg 16th October, 1946.

Rosenberg,
Alfred

Chief
of the foreign political section in the Nazi Party office 1933-41;
Minister for Eastern Territories from April 1941; hanged Nuremberg
16th October, 1946.

Rundstedt,
Gerd von, Field Marshal

Commander
in Chief of the centre group of German armies against France 1940;
commander of Army Group South (Russia), June-December 1941;
Commander in Chief of the West, with two short intermissions, from
March 1942 to March 1945; died 24th February, 1953.

Sauckel,
Fritz von

Gauleiter
of Thuringia; made plenipotentiary for labour recruitment March
1942; conducted slave raids in Russia and other occupied
countries; hanged Nuremberg 16th October, 1946.

Schellenberg,
Walter, Gruppenfuhrer SS

Deputy
chief of Amt VI, foreign intelligence section of the SD, 1939-42;
then chief till 1944, when he became head of the united SS and
Wehrmacht military intelligence and Himmler's personal adviser;
released from prison December 1950; died 1952.

Schlabrendorff,
Fabian von, Major

German
staff officer in correspondence with the Resistance circle;
arrested after July 1944 plot; acquitted the following March, but
kept in a concentration camp till the liberation.

Schleicher,
Kurt von, Colonel General

Reich
Chancellor for a few weeks, at the end of 1932; planned to get
back by intriguing with Roehm and Greg-or Strasser; murdered by
Hitler 30th June, 1934.

Schorner,
Ferdinand, Field Marshal

Commander
of German Army Group South in the Ukraine, April-July 1944: Army
Group North, July 1944— January 1945; commanded an army
group in Czechoslovakia and Silesia from January 1945, which was
expected to relieve Berlin; returned from captivity in Russia 24th
January, 1955.

Shaposhnikov,
Boris M., Marshal

Career
officer in the Tsarist army; joined the Red Army 1918; worked
chiefly on the staff and planning side; Chief of the General Staff
1928-31 and 1937-43; advised Stalin throughout the crisis of 1941
(though not always heeded); retired November 1942 owing to ill
health; died 1945.

Speer,
Albert, Professor of Architecture

Hitler's
architect; Minister of Armament and War Production 1942-45;
convicted of procuring slave labour 1st October, 1946; at present
serving a life sentence at Spandau.

Stalin,
Joseph

Born
1879. Joined the Russian Social Democratic Party 1896. Several
times exiled to Siberia for Bolshevik political activity 1904-13;
imprisoned 1913-17; freed after the February Revolution. Took part
in the October Revolution. General Secretary of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party from 1922; after Lenin's death in
1924 overcame the opposition of Trotsky and others, to be
dictator. Made a nonaggression pact with Germany, annexed eastern
Poland after the German invasion of Poland 1939. Started war with
Finland 1939. Annexed Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bessarabia 1940.
Met with Roosevelt and Churchill at Teheran to discuss
international affairs December 1943; at Yalta, February 1945. With
Truman, Churchill, and Attlee at Potsdam, July 1945. Died 1953.

Stauffenberg,
Klaus Schenk von, Colonel

Chief
of Staff to Fritz Fromm, commanding the German Replacement Army;
tried unsuccessfully to blow up Hitler in his staff conference
room 20th July, 1944; murdered by Fromm the same night in the
Bendlerstrasse.

Thomas,
Georg, Colonel General

Chief
of the armaments section at OKW (Wi Rii Amt); member of the
Resistance circle; arrested July 1944, but not brought to trial;
liberated by the Allies.

Timoshenko,
Semen K., Marshal

Distinguished
combat record in the Russian Revolution and Soviet-Finnish War;
commanded the central front June-October 1941; took over Budenny's
command October 1941 and remained in southern Russia throughout
1942, though fell somewhat into obscurity after the failure of his
attack on Kharkov in May 1942; held training commands for the
remainder of World War II.

Tresckow,
Henning von, Major General

Successive
Chief of Staff to the commanders of German Army Group Centre,
Kluge and Bock; creator of the Valkyrie plan for a
Putsch
against Hitler; walked into the Russian field of fire after
the failure of the plot in 1944.

Vaslov,
Andrei A., Colonel General

Russian
army commander; captured 1942; allowed to set up a Free Russia
Committee and eventually to command two divisions of Russian
deserters; executed Moscow 1st August, 1946.

Voroshilov,
Kliment E., Marshal

Early
member of the Russian Social Democratic Party (1903); fought with
distinction in the Revolution; Commissar for Defence 1925-40;
commanded the Leningrad armies 1941 (see Ch. 6); removed from
operational command 1942 and held various ceremonial posts until
disgraced by Khrushchev 1959.

Warlimont,
Walter, Lieutenant General

Led
the German volunteers for General Franco; chief of the national
defence section in OKW 1938-44; sentenced to life imprisonment
28th October, 1948; sentence commuted to eighteen years; released
from Landsberg 1954.

Zhukov,
Georgi K., Marshal

Served
under Timoshenko during the Russian Revolution; commanded Russian
forces against the Japanese, Khalkin Ghol, August 1939; Chief of
Staff of the Red Army, January 1940; organized defence operation
at Leningrad, October 1941, winter counteroffensive at Moscow,
December 1941, Stalingrad in November 1942. Thereafter commanded
the strongest Soviet front in the advance into Germany. Demoted by
Stalin after World War II; brought back by Khrushchev 1955, but
again disgraced 1957.

CHRONOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EASTERN CAMPAIGN
1941-45

1941
June 22nd Invasion starts.
End
July Panzers diverted to attack Kiev.
October 2nd Germans resume
advance on Moscow.
December 2nd Failure of the "last heave"
at Moscow.
December 5th Zhukov's counteroffensive opens.
December
7th (Pearl Harbor)

1942
April Russian winter operations
peter out.
May 9th-26th Russian offensive against Kharkov
defeated.
July 28th German summer offensive opens.
August 30th
Germans reach outskirts of Stalingrad.
September-November Street
fighting in Stalingrad.
November 18th Russian winter offensive
opens.

1943
February 2nd German 6th Army
surrenders at Stalingrad.
February 22nd Manstein's
counteroffensive starts; Russian winter operations halted.
July
4th
Zitadelle
, attack on the Kursk salient, starts.
July
10th (Allies land in Sicily.)
July 25th (Mussolini overthrown.)

1944
June 6th (D-Day; Allies land in
Normandy.)
June 21st Soviet summer offensive opens.
August
1st-October 2nd Warsaw uprising.
August 20th-October 31st Collapse
of German position in the Balkans.
December 16th (Start of German
offensive in the Ardennes.)

1945
January 12th Start of Soviet
winter offensive.
February Russians reach the Order.
March 28th
Guderian dismissed.
April 25th U.S. and Russian forces join at
Torgau on the Elbe, splitting Germany.
April 30th Hitler commits
suicide.
May 2nd Surrender of Berlin to General Chuikov.

THE COMMISSIONED RANKS
OF THE WAFFEN SS AND THEIR ARMY EQUIVALENTS
Untersturmführer
—Second
Lieutenant
Obersturmführer
—Lieutenant
Hauptsturmführer
—Captain
Sturmbannführer
—Major
Obersturmbannführer
—Lieutenant
Colonel
Standartenführer
—Colonel
(Oberst)
Oberführer
—Brigadier
General
Brigadeführer
—Major
General
Gruppenführer
—Lieutenant
General
Obergruppenführer
—General
Oberstgruppenführer
—Colonel
General (Generaloberst)

There were no field marshals in the SS, but Himmler held the
special supreme rank of Reichsführer, equivalent to Goering's
rank of Reichsmarschall as senior officer of the armed forces. Many
of the higher SS officers had double ranks, as members both of the SS
and the police, e.g., Obergruppenführer and General of the
Police.

There were four regular SS divisions which passed through the SS
training school at Bad Tölz, and these are referred to in the
text by their titles:
Das Reich, Leibstandarte, Totenkopf
, and
Viking
. The "Police Division" was also granted the
substantive title of Waffen SS, but had not passed through Bad Tölz.
After 1943 the rapid expansion of the SS (to twenty-nine divisions in
1945) was achieved by the incorporation of ethnic Germans and other
racially "pure" nationalities. Very few of their members
passed through Bad Tölz, and in view of this and the constant
overlapping of commands and staffs in the last years of the war these
units are referred to by their numbers and not by their titles.

GLOSSARY OF MOST
FREQUENTLY USED ABBREVIATIONS

AK—Polish "Home Army" (organised by the London
government)
AL—Polish "People's Army" (independent
left-wing sympathisers)
AWA—General Armed Forces Dept. of
the OKW
E.L.A.S.—Communist-dominated Greek guerilla
force
GBA—Special German office of labour
"allocation"
GESTAPO—German Secret State
Police
G.O.C.—General Officer Commanding
GOKO—Soviet
Committee of the Defence of the State
GPU—Soviet Secret
Police (title held until 1938)
G.S.O.—General Staff
Officer
KV—Kirov plant (tanks)
MVD—Soviet Secret
Police (1948-55)
NKVD—Soviet Secret Police
(1938-46)
NSZ—Nationalist Polish Armed Forces (extreme
right-wing force which had broken away from AK at first sign of
impending compromise with Russian power)
OKH—High Command of
the German Army
OKW—Organisation of the Supreme Command of
the German Armed Forces (including Luftwaffe and
Kriegsmarine)
PAL—Communist-dominated Polish guerilla
force
RSHA—SS Main Office for State Security
SA—"Brown
Shirts," Nazi private army under Roehm, purged in
1934
SD—Security and Intelligence Service of the
SS
SHAEF—Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary
Forces
SS—Elite Nazi armed force concerned with security and
intelligence (SD, etc.) and actual combat (Waffen SS). Originally
Hitler's personal bodyguard.
Stavka
—Soviet equivalent
of Combined Chiefs of Staff
WVHA—Economic Administrative
Head Office of the SS

Other books

Sounds of Yesterday by Pacheco, Briana
The Splintered Gods by Stephen Deas
Player Haters by Carl Weber
Tamed by Stacey Kennedy
WEBCAM by Jack Kilborn
Crónica de una muerte anunciada by Gabriel García Márquez
The Light-Kill Affair by Robert Hart Davis