Clausewitz / Operation Barbarossa Operation

Clausewitz / Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa No one starts a war -- or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so -- without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war… (Clausewitz).

War is an act of violence intended to compel our enemy to fulfill our will, according to Carl von Clausewitz, and it is "not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means." Clausewitz's study Vorn Kriege (on War) (1976) established numerous maxims on war; however, the idea that war is a political instrument and is used to carry on "political intercourse" as well as Clausewitz's other theories on war illustrated in on War, provides a useful intellectual framework through which to examine Operation Barbarossa -- Hitler's German invasion of Soviet Russia on June 22, 1941.

This paper will examine how Operation Barbarossa was a political instrument and in what ways Hitler used the operation as political intercourse and how Clausewitz's theories on war can aid in understanding the cause and effect nature of war with special emphasis put on Clausewitz's ideas about the factors of chance in war. June 22, 1941 -- a day that Hitler predicted would cause the world to hold its breath: Operation Barbarossa.

A mass of 3 million German soldiers (Ziemke (203) estimates 3,050,000 men; Stokesburg (314) estimates the total size of the Allied Expeditionary Force assembled in England for the Normandy invasion at 2,876,000 and Napoleon assembled at least 450,000 in June 1812 for the invasion of Russia. Thus, Operation Barbarossa was on a much grander scale than Clausewitz could ever have predicted), more than half a million vehicles and over 3,000 tanks were lined up along a 1,500-mile stretch from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

It is considered one of the greatest military machines every put together in the history of war. Some think that Hitler was obsessed with a Russian invasion as he wrote in Mein Kampf over 15 years prior, "We terminate the endless German drive to the south and the west of Europe, and direct our gaze towards the lands in the east…if we talk about new soil and territory in Europe today, we can think primarily only of Russia and its vassal border states" (Copeland 124).

Hitler was worried about the Russians turning on him and his 1939 pact with Stalin was meant to give Hitler the time Germany needed to prepare for war -- thus, Operation Barbarossa took the U.S.S.R. By complete surprise, which is somewhat confounding as Stalin was given warning of the invasion. There is no doubt either that Germany's military strategy was seriously flawed as there were so many goals and three main targets rather than one and the front was simply too big to traverse.

Hitler signed Directive Number 21 on December 18, 1940 -- known as Operation Barbarossa. The first sentence of the plan was quite frank: "The German armed forces must be ready before the end of the war against Great Britain to defeat the Soviet Union by means of Blitzkrieg" (i.e. bombardment) (Copeland 120).

Looking at this first defining sentence from through Clausewitz's reasoning, defeat of the Soviet Union is the sole mission -- and to defeat fully, the enemy must be disarmed, and disarmament becomes therefore the immediate object of hostilities in theory" (Clausewitz & Maude 2). Therefore the planning of this disarmament needs to be considered as it had an enormous planning stage.

Hitler's rationale for turning against his Russian ally in Stalin must also be examined as well as the way he used political discourse in the Non-Aggressive Pact as a means to an end -- invasion. Josef Stalin was sufficiently forewarned about Germany's invasion, which makes it confusing, as noted, to comprehend how Operation Barbarossa could have been deemed as a surprise. "Rapacious Panzer Groups, supported overhead by the Luftwaffe, recorded daily advances of 30 and 40 miles.

The bulk of the Wehrmacht marched on foot behind, closing off pockets of many hundreds of thousands of Red Army captives" (Kirchubel 1). The Panzer group were to carve up Russia, "the slower moving infantry and artillery were to force their surrender" (Clark 46). Hitler didn't want to fight in the cities; the battle of France was won by striking for the Channel rather than Paris, after all. There is reason to believe that the operation was the end result of a long adopted program for expansion into Russia.

Clausewitz believes that there are two motivations for war: instinctive hostility and hostile intention (Clausewitz & Maude 3), however, he tends to lean toward hostile intention as the main motivator as it is the most general. Operation Barbarossa was an extreme act of force replete with a prolonged period of planning and since it is an act of force -- it therefore also belongs to feelings, in Clausewitz's definition.

He says: If it does not originate in the feelings, it reacts more or less, upon them, and the extent of this reaction depends not on the degree of civilization, but upon the importance and duration of the interests involved.

Therefore, if we find civilized nations do not put their prisoners to death, do not devastate towns and countries, this is because their intelligence exercises greater influence on their mode of carrying on War, and has taught them more effectual means of applying force than these rude acts of mere instinct (Clausewitz & Maude 4).

Operation Barbarossa was Hitler's surprise message of violence, as it tried to fulfill its will of defeating Russia before it could defeat Germany, dictating its laws onto Russia, which ignited a reciprocal action, which then, of course, led to extreme fighting (i.e., war). Before this, Germany and Russia were diplomatically on friendly terms as they had signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (otherwise referred to as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) a bit before Germany and the Soviet's invasion of Poland.

In fact, the pact was a bit of a shock to most of the world as the two nations had opposing ideologies and mutual hostility toward one another; however, the pact heralded a new degree of cooperation between the two nations, while the secret agreement on spheres of influences in Easter Europe and Finland had the important ramification of ensuring security for Germany's eastern border (Stahel 33).

For Hitler, the pact meant very little and it was simply a means to an end -- appease Russia until Germany is ready to attack and then go forth with its ideas taking over the Soviet Union. The pact was a short-term pact in their overall plot to take over Russia. Clausewitz believes that in order to understand the true nature of war, one must be able to understand the tension between moral and physical forces.

One cannot have a pragmatic theory for the conduct of war unless one can understand the association between ends and means; "in particular the political end of war and the military means used to attain it" (Howard 34-5). This brings us to Clausewitz's theory -- that was, in fact, one of his last and probably most important: "war was nothing but the continuation of policy with other means" -- or more explicitly, "simply the continuation of policy with the admixture of other means" (36).

Operation Barbarossa with its ferocious army and massive machinery attempted to put Russia into an oppressive position. This is an attempt at discourse via violent means and Germany -- as Clausewitz would say -- was trying to put Russia into an position where Russian would be forced to succumb to Germany's forces; yet what Hitler did not expect was that Russia would hold out rather than yield.

Clausewitz states that "as long as the enemy is not defeated, he may defeat me; then I shall no longer be my own master; he will dictate the law to me as I did to him" (5). The fact that Russia was more prepared than Germany thought her to be is an archetypal example of Clausewitz's theories about war and how the offensive side must know the strength of the defensive side. The enemy force in the case of Russia was much stronger than Hitler could have imagined.

By mid-July, however, the message was coming across loud and clear and Russia wasn't exhausted by Germany's attack, which was gradually waning in strength. "Far from shattering the Soviet front in the main operation towards Smolensk, the Soviet forces reeling under the German onslaught were now being aided by new Soviet armies moving up from the east (Stahel 261).

Clausewitz says that if we want to defeat an enemy, then the coarse of action has got to be in proportion to the efforts in relation to the defense's powers of resistance (Clausewitz & Maude 5). This is expressed by the product of two distinct elements that can never be divided: "the sum of available means and the strength of the Will" (5).

The sum of the available means can be approximated in a measure, as it relies -- however, not completely, upon numbers; yet, the strength of volition is much harder to determine, and it can only be estimated by the strength of the motives (6). Some contend that Hitler order Operation Barbarossa because there was the threat of imminent Soviet aggression toward Germany. This claim has been dismissed, for the most part, as Nazi propaganda.

Whether or not Russia was going to attack Germany and whether or not Hitler's reasoning for wanting to preemptively strike or simply he had his eyes on the prize, both of these thoughts are make-believe thoughts. What this shows in the terms of war is that discourse is not just between two nations or territories, but discourse often goes on inside the minds of individuals in a somewhat abstract way. Thus, Hitler was obeying his own inner rules by choosing to go forward with Operation Barbarossa.

It was attack or be attacked; kill or be killed. Take or be taken. "Thus reasoning in the abstract, the mind cannot stop short of an extreme, because it has to deal with an extreme, with a conflict of forces left to themselves, and obeying no other but their own inner laws" (Clausewitz & Maude 6). Operation Barbarossa was supposed to last a mere 6 to 10 weeks, but it went on for almost four years and it ended in the complete defeat of the German nation.

"…war is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means" (Clausewitz 84). The fact that Operation Barbarossa lasted so long was undoubtedly one of the causes of its failure. Clausewitz notes that a conquest cannot be carried out too quickly, but to spread it out over a period of time longer than what is needed makes the conquest much more difficult rather than easier.

Hitler's plan was that 120 to 130 divisions would defeat Russian by summer's end in a very efficient and decisive campaign. This way of going about the operation was most definitely in keep with Clausewitz's approach to war. Yet, there is always chance in war -- or rather -, chance is the very nature of war itself and via the element of chance, "guesswork and luck come to play a great part in war " (85).

Hitler did not consider chance with Operation Barbarossa as the German soldiers were not even outfitted with appropriate winter clothing. There were about 14,000 German soldiers who had to endure amputations because of frostbite during the winter of 1941 to 1942. The whole plan was to create great forces under this veil of secrecy and then strike with swift and efficient force, defeating the Red Army in the process (Ziemke 11).

The Russians were to be thrown off balance at the start and remorselessly pressed from that moment on; they were never to be permitted a breathing spell, a chance to gather their strength (Ziemke 11). Hitler described what the intention of Operation Barbarossa was in his Directive #21: "The bulk of the Russian Army stationed in Western Russia will be destroyed…Russian forces still capable of giving battle will be prevented from withdrawing into the depths of Russia" (Trevor-Roper 49).

The attack was meant to be 3-pronged in that massive groupings would destroy the Red Army, which would leave the way to Leningrad, Moscow and the Ukraine completely open. This large forward area was meant to push the enemy forward while spreading him quite thin at the same time. This would also allow the protection of German lines of communications all the way to the very rear. Hitler used three very important strategic principles of smaller though still great significance: size, shock, and speed.

These characteristics are oftentimes considered to be tactical concepts, but Hitler was able to develop and execute them on a whole different level, which turned them into strategic tactics. They were so effective at the onset of Operation Barbarossa that it gave them a great importance -- strategically speaking. Size, first of all, created a giant surprise -- or shock -- effect.

Hitler worked with Clausewitz theories in mind: "…superiority varies in degree…it can obviously reach the point where it is overwhelming…it thus follows that as many troops as possible should be brought into the engagement at the decisive point" (Clausewitz 94). Clark (46) views this as: The head-on crash of the two greatest armies, the two most absolute systems, in the world. In terms of numbers of men, weight in ammunition, length in front, the desperate crescendo of the fighting, there will never be another day like 22nd June, 1941 (Clark 46).

There was almost complete security surrounding Barbarossa. Hitler's top men were even told from the beginning that the operation was simply going to be precautionary. Hitler as well as Ribbentrop denied -- despite gossip -- that there was any truth in the rumors that Germany was going to invade the Soviet Union. but, both British and American intelligence gave forewarning to the Kremlin directly. Stalin refused to consider those warnings, believing that American and England were simply capitalists merely trying to mislead him.

Rather, Stalin transformed and carried on the laborious work of meeting the agreed export levels of strategic material to Germany at a large forfeit to Russia. In fact, the last trainload of strategic material reached Germany in the same hour that Hitler began Operation Barbarossa. (Austin 11). A while after the onset of war, German radio operators were still checking on messages to Moscow: "We are being fired upon; what shall we do?" (Clark 44). It was, perhaps, because of Stalin's stubbornness that the Russians were completely ill-prepared for the German invasion.

However, their ill-preparedness would not turn out to be a problem for Russia -- but rather for Germany. The Germans perfected Blitzkrieg warfare in Poland, France and the Balkans. Clausewitz (Clausewitz 358) notes that "…the defensive form of warfare is intrinsically stronger than the offensive," however.

Clausewitz appears to have predicted the course of the Russian campaign when he notes: If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object. Bonaparte may have been wrong to engage in the Russian campaign at all; at least the outcome certainly shows that he miscalculated (358).

Looking at Operation Barbarossa, it is imperative that it is remembered that Hitler was an accomplished politician. Hitler knew, as Clausewitz insisted, that war is simply an expansion of policy. The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 gave Hitler the ability to carry out his goals in Poland and Western Europe by stopping an alliance with Russian, Britain and France from occurring. However, when Europe was finally under Hitler's power, it was then time for Stalin to make his emergence onto the scene.

When the orders were mandated to prepare for an invasion of the U.S.S.R., the German General Staff decided that they had to plan for Operation Barbarossa. Looking at it from today's perspective, it is a perfect example of Clausewitz's theory of how to approach war. There was a perfectly defined political objective -- to destroy Soviet Russia, as well as a very well-defined "center of gravity" (as Clausewitz aptly called it) -- the Russian Army needed to be crushed as well.

There was, finally, a strategic application of size, efficiency and shock (Austin 9). There may be some who would argue that the political objective -- the taking over of Russia -- was wrong from the get go; but Clausewitz would say that that would remain that it is up to Hitler, just as he did not have any opinions when it came to Napoleon's determination to attack Russia. "…we argue that if he was to aim at that objective, there was, broadly speaking, no other way of gaining it" (Clausewitz 628).

If Hitler and Clausewitz would have been able to talk about Operation Barbarossa during the initial plotting stage of Barbarossa, Clausewitz most likely would not have been against the invasion once the political choice had been decided upon. Clausewitz said of Napoleon approximately 100 years earlier, "The risk of losing his army in the process had to be accepted; that was the stake in the game, the price of his vast hopes" (Clausewitz 268). Crushing the Red Amy was Hitler's main objective and his extension of political policy -- or discourse.

The Red Army was Russia's "center of gravity." The Red Army stood in Hitler's way in some very real ways -- security of his regime most importantly. Hitler completely understood the very hearty association between the Red Army and the despotic regime of Stalin. In fact, Hitler believed that the Russian lower-class -- or peasants -- would probably revolt even before he could have invaded Russia. Undoubtedly, Hitler was looking at the enormous potential of the Russian territory with its plentitude of resources and its.