Next on American History tv, historians present talks on two aspects of what the soviets aspects of the operation. Ready toow getting hand the stage over to an associate professor in the department of history at the university of windsor in canada. We met rob last year when he came down for our 2018 conference as an attendee. We are delighted to have him back with us to moderate our first session of the day. Without delay, dr. Nelson. [applause] good morning. Bout. E to the heavyweight these three major fronts for those of us, he saved the biggest one for last. Operation, one of the greatest, the most significant with a name that none of us can pronounce. I dont speak russian. I can say it in french way. Then there is the funny, easy pneumonic device. Operation bag of rations. Can kind of spell it out along the way. Words spelling out the with the emphasis on the final syllable. About the Eastern Front and how significant it is, difficult to bring the numbers and figures and the size of the armies and landscape, really make it graspable to my students. Speaking in hundreds of thousands of troop members. One set of figures that i find most powerful for my students to use. I will only use one set of figures. Very difficult to calculate exactly these figures, but in general, they hold true. The combined western allied british,he americans, ddayans, french from until the end of the war, the combined western allied armies faced 25 of the german army. Quarter of the a german army. The soviets faced 75 of the german army. How big and powerful was that soviet army . They still got to berlin before we did. , theis the kind of scale significance of how big these battles are. How significant these battles are, you think i am using hyperbole. Quote is along the lines of, it is perhaps the destruction of the German Army Group center is the greatest defeat in all of world history. All of World Military history. That is the level of significance. We are going to change the order, we decided it made more sense to change the order of the talks this morning. We are going to begin with david , he received his phd in berlin and focuses on the history of the german army. He teaches at the university of new south wales. He has written or edited eight books and with the level of , davidin his books appears to be writing what will be the seminal multibillion history of the Eastern Front in the second world war. Reyna pennington teaches military and russian history at the nations oldest private military college. A former intelligence officer, she served as a soviet analyst. Sovietlications include air women in world war ii combat. She is working on a book about broad patterns and Russian Military history, what russia can teaches about war. Seriesappearing in the greatest events of world war ii along with several of our speakers. [applause] good morning. Can i just say to begin with what a pleasure it is to be at your National WorldWar Ii Museum . This institution is remarkable. Programbe part of a with so many esteemed historians. It is a career highlight. Thank you to everyone who has had a role in organizing my participation. I want to single out rob because he is far too modest to say it, i have benefited over the years from you and many of my younger colleagues would say the same. It is a pleasure to be here. It is my task today to talk about the collapse of Army Group Center and that is the title and all of your programs. Say, and oneould of the points another speaker made yesterday, we should never forget our historical actors, they do not know what is coming. They only know what they have been through. It is good to have context when we are trying to understand these events as they take place. The service of doing that, i where aregin with we at and where have we come from . Know, germansall have been fighting on the Eastern Front for three years. This has been a meatgrinder of a war. Army group center has been in the middle of that. Is the most1, it important of these army groups. Three quarters they are driving into the soviet union. Kia. , the northern arm of iev. E december 1940 one, from that point on, with very few exceptions, through june of 1944, Army Group Center is on the defensive. That is 2. 5 years long in the center of the Eastern Front. The first part of that defensive period is probably well known to you. That is the winter of 1941, 1942 when the soviets launched their winter offensive. If you are curious about that, i have a book on that. Someone said, dont shamelessly plug, david. This is america, land of the free. You have to sell yourself. [applause] those three months where we see Army Group Center defending itself. After that, even speaking to an audience i suspect is completely well read one of the things i , neverup by being here underestimate the reader. And yet, i think it is fair to say that Army Group Center was dark after that. 1941, 1942,nter of what are they doing for the next 2. 5 years . Where areo everyone, the germans fighting . Stalingrad. What is Army Group Center doing . Ofm january 1942 until march 1943, they fight a battle. It is a 15 month long battle. If you take the aggregate number of soviet casualties in that at the end of the 15 months, 1. 3 million soviet sustained. Have been 1943 evacuate that salient. What that tells us is how hard the defensive fighting is on the Eastern Front, even in areas where it seems not much is happening. How many books have been written on that . Few in german, if you and russian a few in russian. We canemarkable that stand here 75 years after the war. I know how many forgotten battles on the Eastern Front there are. You have 1. 3 million casualties hardly traced in the literature. At many casualties stalingrad . 1. 2 million. They arep center fighting for their lives and they are doing it successfully. What happens . The risk offensive, we know about that. Back on the defensive fighting. Ofober 1940 three to march 1944, heavy fighting. To illustrate how much fighting, david just produced a book. How many pages . 950. 1944, it to june of when we get to june of 1944, what did the germans understand . Notink it is fair to say, reading history backward but understanding in the context of its own time, a lot of german officers might have felt soviets havesay, material superiority. They have been fighting for their lives for 2. 5 years. Maybe that breed the degree of arrogance. It is important context. Here we are. Of 1944, what did the germans understand to be the soviets strategic conception . I put the question mark up there because they do not know. Do, whathat commanders could they be thinking . The german plan reflects German Military thinking. On the first day, the germans built a point of concentration and they try to plan war winning solutions. Other commanders can be more plotting. When they tried to imagine what the soviets will do, Army Group Center is per judy into the soviet is protruding into the soviet center. Soviet options . To attack south of Army Group Center. Anticipation you can see the soviets, germans, their anticipation is twofold. It could be a normal strike which would punch through Army Group North ukraine. It would cut off Army Group Center. Army group north and open a road to moscow. Alternatively, they may try for a leftwing down toward the adriatic that would cut off Army Group South ukraine and would cut off German Forces occupying yugoslavia. It seems like a credible option. This is what they think. This is not what the soviets do. It is the real problem of a mistaken strategic perception. The germans have a big problem. Forces on the Eastern Front, while numerous, they are not mobile and they recognize the advantage of the soviets mean you cannot innovate after the fact. You have to guess which way they are going to go and have to be ready to receive them. When the soviets dont oblige and they dont go through these two options, that begins to explain it reason i like this map is a busy map, it does not matter if you can see the detail. I like it because it is the kind of map that people like hitler are looking at. It shows you where the divisions are. The boxes on the soviet side are instantly problematic because there are multiple divisions to record. The problem for hitler is each one of those designations denotes a division but it does not tell you how strong they are. Therefore it is extremely deceptive. A division is not just the marker. Hitler loves the idea of a panzer corps or panzer armies. It has almost no tanks. That sounds great. These maps are problematic. It kind of explains the problems. The first thing is strategic misconception. The second thing we have to understand what i like about this map is a gives you a much better representation than the previous map of the actual situation. We have to remember german commanders in june of 1944 dont always have this context. They could intelligence reports and have a sense the soviets are building up. Some of the local intelligence for Army Group Centre gives them the impression something is in the wind. There could be an offensive. They dont have an idea of how significant the offensive could be. The numbers tell us a story. 118 german tanks. Sometimes in military history, if you are well read in these things, you have to be a little bit skeptical of the numbers because they dont tell the whole story. If you have a good tactical strategicr a good response, sometimes numbers can be turned on their head. That is not going to be the case with Army Group Centre, far from it. Factrd reason beyond the that incorrectly assess where the soviets will attack is they are dealing with adolf hitler. Idea ofup with the fortified places about identifying towns and villages he thinks, if they are strongly defended and absolutely under no circumstances abandoned, we might just be able to hold the front. Time, one has to understand how the east works. The east has far less infrastructure. Large at that time, a germaneep swamps advantage when youre are on the defensive, it appears to be part of their solution for survival. These are the fortified places. Is with limited infrastructure, if we can defend cities,rge towns, small this could be the key to holding the Eastern Front. It is a fools errand. Those cities were largely damaged when the germans went through them in 1941. There was heavy urban warfare. Germans are now in for positions and they could well be and they would prove to be death traps for the soldiers assigned to try to defend them. Bush, the field marshal in command of Army Group Centre, is a True National socialist. He is to some extent a realist. A month before the soviet offense of to begin he goes to hitler and tries to convince them to build defensive positions in the rear. Hitler in front of bush to his staff makes derisive comments like, another general looking over his shoulder. Bush goes back to Army Group Centre and then says categorically we need to fulfill the wishes of the fuhrer. This is interesting, though, because it means it is not just generals after the war thought to shift the blame to hitler. They are complicit in their own destruction. He likes to on some level try to believe if we just follow him we can hold it down. He does not have a choice. Something about irony, the stubborn inflexibility was precisely what the germans scorned in 1941 as they were attacking soviet armies part the soviet armies seek to hold the front. You could drive behind them and encircle them. Three years later, this is precisely what the germans are doing. Something of an irony. Disintegration is what is to follow. Appreciation for the time before this, it is shocking to look at how quickly Army Group Centre will fall apart. Not a lota lie of time to go through it blowbyblow. Army,e the third panzer the soviet offensive coming from the north and one from the east. It cuts off one of the cities. It had been at the center of ferocious fighting through the winter and spring of 1944. The commander of the Third Panzer Army it all falls apart. They are already getting behind the city. Five divisions are trapped in there. Can they pull out . Absolutely not. Reinhart is desperate to get them out. Will agree to four divisions pulling out. The problem is soviets and their exploiting they try to move to the rear. That means forces dont get out. No other army has greater casualties. No other army suffers more losses. Some of the forces in the Third Panzer Army do get out. And gettingn behind. And then we have the ninth army in the south. Same scenario. Soviets driving around it. It is supposed to be the case. The only way through the east is along the infrastructure that is built. Look at where the arrows are. The soviets are not conforming. It speaks to the degree that soviet operational art has changed. If you facilitate the movement, transport Logistics Command control, the soviet war machine is to by no means be underestimated. As the arrows continue to roll down, you continue to see they are not just cutting off german armies at the front, they are exploiting at rapid speed. How fast do they exploit . We are zoomed out. The dates, fourth of july, you can see the line at which they have reached. June,ave taken 22nd of fourth of july, roughly two weeks. Germans50 of what the took in 1941. It took them 2. 5 years to take back have and two weeks to take back the other half. Russia is one of the hardest areas to operate for any army. It is not like ukraine, where you can operate your tank armies with some degree of freedom. It continues much further. 31st of july, where are the soviets . Germans have not only been pushed back sorry, i have gone too far. The germans have not only been pushed back, but they have had Something Like 400,000 casualties and the Eastern Front has been blown wide open. For all his reputation, ultimately what stops the soviets after a 700 kilometer advance and delete 500 kilometers to berlin is sheer exhaustion. The lack of logistics and the fact they are trying to bring up an enormous amount of reserves to hold the line. That is what buys germany time. The soviets dont have the forces to just keep going. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes my presentation. I will sit thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity. [applause] 4 all of these tall people here. Be here and talk about the operation. Yount have to explain to why you need to be looking at the easter front in 1944. Our other speakers have established that for you. Encapsulate some of the most important points about this. I know people are skeptical about russian sources. He describes this as catastrophe of unprecedented proportions, one whose drama and huge losses far overshadows the battles in the west. Author on 1944 on the western front and Eastern Front rights that the germans are increasingly being outgeneral. Flexibilityed by and such developments made the germans greater tactical competence word existed largely irrelevant. The mostlled strategically important, but operation of world war ii. I am going to quote rob citino but it was already done for me. He makes a comment that this ertaking was of such vast it challenges the limits of human understanding. It is quite difficult to summarize this in 20 minutes but lets do our best to set the stage for this. You see various maps of this and we will come back. The main thing to take away is the reversal of fortune on the Eastern Front had occurred in 1943. 1944 was a series of continuous operations all the way to the end of the war. We will be coming back to that. Pulling back even farther to look at western and Eastern Fronts. You can see what is going on and 1944. At the tehran conference at the end of 1943, churchill and roosevelt promised stalin there would be an invasion into german occupied territory in 1944. Stalin promised to conduct an operation to support that on the Eastern Front. They were doing a series of operations as we will see in a minute. On this map, the yellow and purple areas show you what is going on in the summer of 1944. Orange is what happens during the rest of 1944. It is described as 10 blows. It is a nice sound bite. He talks about the 10 blows that drive axis forces out of soviet territory. Annihilates a german grouping. Worth study in its own right. We will not go through these. If you look at the winter and spring operations, those are shown here on this map in orange. Leningrad is liberated, there are significant advances in ukraine and the front lines are pushed far forward. Armies have been deployed to ukraine for these operations. That is part of the deception far operation bagration later on. The summer operations of these and bagration if the centerpiece of what happens in the summer of 1944. Those are shown on the map in purple and in blue, the summer operations. There is another series of operations that occur in the fall of 1944, those are shown in green, and that is when the army ends up deep in the balkan states and prussia. 1944 is a significant year. Is one of many significant operations that year. To set the stage further for the numbers there are a lot of stereotypes about numbers and ratios on the Eastern Front. We should point out that in 1944, it is not just the germans who are suffering manpower shortages. Everyone is trying to cope with that and to understand that you need to look briefly at what is the population of countries in the size of their army forces. Do