JUNE 25, 1941
REDS HERE URGE LEASE-LEND AID
Full aid under the lease-lend act to the Soviets in their attempt to stem the Nazi invasion was urged yesterday by The Daily Worker, Communist newspaper, in a front-page editorial.
While the editorial termed Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles’s condemnation of the Nazi attack as inadequate because it “proposed no plans of action,” various groups, while rejecting Communist aims and tactics, released appeals for aid to the Soviet Government. The groups included the Legion for American Unity, Union for Democratic Action, Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League and the Socialist Courier, organ of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party.
The one organization that counseled against aid to Russia was the Keep America Out of War Congress. Through its executive director, Mary W. Hillyer, this group said: “We oppose giving military aid to the Soviet Union. The predatory struggle between the two bloodiest dictators can result in the domination of either equally abhorrent despotism or in unimaginable chaos and disintegration.”
The Daily Worker editorial declared: The sentiment of the American people requires that there be full aid and support to the Soviet Union in its fight against Hitler’s attack; that there shall be, for example, application of the lend-lease provisions for such aid; that all restrictions and obstacles to United States–Soviet trade, such as have recently blocked machine shipments, for example, shall be immediately lifted; that Soviet credits be freed from restrictions, and that the government take all other necessary measures to implement a policy of aid and cooperation to the Soviet Union in its just defense against Hitlerism.
“The American people will ask why it is that Secretary Welles, speaking in the name of the government, proposed no plans of action, offered no concrete measures of aid with which to implement his characterization of the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union.”
The Legion for American Unity, 103 Park Avenue, of which Supreme Court Justice Ferdinand Pecora is the head, warned America’s 30,000,000 citizens of foreign birth and ancestry to be “on guard against fifth columnists and Quislings.”
Warning against the “Communist party line which may shift again,” the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League added: “We must not make the mistake of blindly clasping the Communists to our bosoms now that they have become anti-Nazi since Sunday. Let us by all means aid the Soviet in its fight, however, because the greatest danger which must be fought by every means, with every ally, is the threat of Nazi world domination.”
JUNE 29, 1941
NAZIS TRY THE BLITZ ON RUSSIANS
Their Old Strategy Is Being Applied On a Huge Scale
By HANSON W. BALDWIN
Germany’s invasion of Russia a week ago today brought to a sudden climax the struggle that is now twenty-two months old. The new campaign—measured by area and number of troops engaged, the greatest campaign of this or probably any other war—may shape Europe for generations to come. The German-Russian fighting marks a turning point; for Britain it provides a military opportunity which probably will not come again; for Hitler’s Reich it marks the fork of the road toward smashing conquest or perhaps ultimate defeat. Hitler knows, and the Germans know, that if their plans miscarry and their campaign bogs down into Napoleonic futility, they have not only lost the Russian campaign, but quite probably the war.
It cannot be too much emphasized that the start of this new struggle means a breathing spell for Britain—one that was desperately needed; it means intensified British bombing raids in the West; it means a new ally—though one of uncertain strength and faith—for Britain; it means the main military strength of the Germans must now for at least a period of weeks, perhaps of months, be extended to the East; it means a further extension of that strength over vast area.
Heavy Russian bombers shortly before the German invasion of Russia, June 1941.
THE STRENGTH ENGAGED
Not all of the strength of either side, of course, can be utilized in the fighting, since Russia must maintain large forces in the Far East and Germany throughout Europe and in North Africa. The forces believed to be involved and the strengths and weaknesses of each side follow:
GERMANY
Planes—4,500 to 6,000. Many dive-bombers and other types designed for land cooperation work. Fliers thoroughly trained and with great combat experience. The best of Germany’s new types, including a new Heinkel fighter, in action in the East.
Army—About 151 divisions, plus ten Finnish and twenty Rumanian divisions, plus twelve German divisions in Norway, one or more of which might be used. These were disposed about as follows at the start of hostilities: Four German divisions in Northern Finland; ten Finnish divisions in south and central Finland; twenty-five German divisions in the East Prussia-Lithuania area, with fifteen more farther south in the Lodz-Warsaw area. These were backed up by fifty more divisions in reserve. Approximately twenty-five more German divisions were based on South Poland; twenty on the horseshoe of the Carpathians; twelve German plus twenty Rumanian in Rumania. The strength of the German infantry division is almost 16,000 men; the armored division is about 12,000. Probably twenty armored divisions plus motorized divisions are being used on the whole front. Total strength of Axis forces probably between 2,800,000 and 3,600,000 men.
Navy—The new battleship Tirpitz, sister ship of the Bismarck and the new German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, plus possibly two pocket battleships, two obsolete training battleships, seven cruisers, twelve destroyers and numerous torpedo boats and submarines are in the Baltic. A number of submarines, motor torpedo boats, reinforced by light craft of the Rumanian Navy, are in the Black Sea.
RUSSIA
Planes—Between 2,500 and 4,000. Few dive-bombers and relatively few types designed for land cooperation work. Many long-range but slow bombers. Plane types generally not on a par with German designs and represent essentially copies of other nations’ designs. Fliers good and brave but air staff work spotty and coordinated training as a combat air force of dubious quality.
Army—About 170 to 215 Russian divisions (thirty to fifty-odd in the Far East, ranged against Japan’s eleven in Manchukuo), a total of about 2,000,000 men, were mobilized when hostilities started. About 2,000,000 of these were available in the West. Mobilization of other classes may almost double this number, though it is doubtful if full equipment is available for all, and Russian mobilization is very slow. Troop dispositions in West were approximately as follows: Twenty-three plus divisions in the Leningrad area opposite Finland; twenty-four plus in the Minsk-Smolensk-Gomel-Pinsk area; forty-two in the Baltic States area, plus twelve in reserve; forty-eight in the Kiev military district and from Southern Poland to the Black Sea; eighteen in reserve around to the southeast of Moscow. The Russian Army has a large proportion of horsed cavalry—more than any other army in the world; probably one-eighth the number of divisions in the West are cavalry. The Russian infantry division varies in size between 10,000 and 20,000 men; the standard is 18,000 but the average size is not much larger than the German. Tanks are generally organized in brigades, roughly about half the size of the German armored division, of which the Russians have about forty available for the West. There are probably 25,000 to 50,000 parachute troops and some airborne infantry divisions.
Navy—One obsolete battleship; seven cruisers; twenty-odd destroyers; fifty to sixty submarines in the Baltic; perhaps a few submarines, torpedo boats, etc., in the Arctic. Two obsolete battleships; one aircraft carrier; sixteen destroyers; fifty to ninety submarines in the Black Sea; a few light vessels and patrol craft in the Caspian.
TANKS NOT MATCHED
Only in numerical size, therefore, do the Russian armies approximately match the German. Russian tanks are numerous; some are technically good but on the whole they are not as modern or effective as German tanks, and there is little evidence that the Russians have developed the plane-tank team which has spearheaded the German conquests.
The Russians are stubborn and good defen
sive fighters; their best troops unquestionably have a high morale. But in staff work and leadership, in training and equipment they are no match for the Germans; Timoshenko and Budyenny and Stern are not of the same caliber as Keitel and Brauchitsch. Purges and politics have hurt the Red Army.
The German Army has proved itself in its twenty-two months of unparalleled victories; the Russians revealed major weaknesses in the campaign against Finland. Yet the concluding Russian offensive across the Karelian Isthmus was conducted with skill and Russian artillery fire was particularly effective. The Russians are impressive in the type of “glacial offensive” which depends upon mass; they are determined, defensive fighters, though sluggish in manoeuvre, and the transportation, communication and industrial system which backs up the Red Army is liable to failure under stress.
THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE
Operations last week indicated that they would, indeed, have to fight desperately if the German thrust was to be parried at all. Using the same type of tactics which had won them their previous victories, the Germans launched an offensive along 2,000 miles of front. Thousands of German planes struck at Russian air fields and communication and transportation centers without warning, and, by mid-week, the Germans had claimed—probably truthfully—clear-cut air superiority.
Panzer divisions, cooperating with Stuka dive-bombers and motorized infantry, drove through the Russian lines and fanned out in the rear areas to cut communications and disrupt the Red Army.
Troop dispositions and early operations gave some indications of the German strategy. As expected, the heaviest blows were delivered from Poland as a base. Two offensives—the one north of the Pripet Marshes, the other south of them—were in the direction of Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow, and in the direction of Kiev. Another drive spearheaded north from East Prussia along the Baltic Coast littoral toward Leningrad. Still another was expected to develop from Finland across the Karelian Isthmus toward Leningrad, accompanied perhaps by land and sea operations against Murmansk.
In the south two drives across Northern Bessarabia toward Kiev, across Southern Bessarabia toward Odessa were apparently developing.
It was evident, however, that territory occupied and cities taken meant little in the fighting, except when these cities were important in the mobilization, transportation and communication scheme of the Red Army, as Minsk and Kiev are. The primary objective of the Germans is annihilation of the Red Army; they hope to accomplish it by the same tactics of mechanized infiltration, disruption of the enemy into segments and encirclement and destruction which they have used previously.
Thus began the greatest battle in history, of which the outcome, despite early German successes, is still uncertain. Most military observers believe that the only adequate strategy the Russians can follow is to fight delaying actions and to withdraw gradually—careful to keep their army as nearly intact as possible—deeper and deeper into the interior. If they can do this, keeping their army in being and mobilizing more men, and still retain part of the industrial area upon which they must depend for military supply (most of which, except for the Ural Mountain development, is roughly south and west of the Volga), the German attempt to win a quick victory has failed; Britain has gained much time, and perhaps eventually with United States help will win the war. On the other hand, if the Germans destroy the bulk of the Russian Army quickly and completely—say before Sept. 1—it seems quite probable that the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler will be in an even more powerful strategic position than it was before the two great totalitarian ideologies came to clash of arms.
JULY 3, 1941
TEXT OF STALIN BROADCAST
By The Associated Press.
MOSCOW, July 3—The text of the broad-cast address by Joseph Stalin, Premier and chairman of the State Committee of Defense, as translated by Tass, the official Russian news agency, follows:
Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and Sisters! Men of our Army and Navy!
I am addressing you, my friends!
The perfidious military attack on our fatherland, begun on June 22 by Hitler’s Germany, is continuing.
In spite of heroic resistance of the Red Army, and although the enemy’s finest divisions and finest air force units have already been smashed and have met their doom on the field of battle, the enemy continues to push forward, hurling fresh forces into the attack.
Hitler’s troops have succeeded in capturing Lithuania, a considerable part of Latvia, the western part of Byelo-Russia [White Russia] and a part of the Western Ukraine.
The Fascist air force is extending the range of operations of its bombers and is bombing Murmansk, Orsha, Mogilev, Smolensk, Kiev, Odessa and Sevastopol.
A grave danger hangs over our country.
How could it have happened that our glorious Red Army surrendered a number of our cities and districts to the Fascist armies?
Is it really true that German Fascist troops are invincible, as is ceaselessly trumpeted by boastful Fascist propagandists? Of course not!
‘NO INVINCIBLE ARMIES’
History shows that there are no invincible armies, and never have been. Napoleon’s army was considered invincible, but it was beaten successively by Russian, English and German Armies. Kaiser Wilhelm’s German Army in the period of the first imperialist war was also considered invincible, but it was beaten several times by Russian and Anglo-French forces, and was finally smashed by Anglo-French forces.
The same must be said of Hitler’s German Fascist Army today. This army has not yet met with serious resistance on the Continent of Europe. Only on our territory has it met serious resistance, and if as a result of this resistance the finest divisions of Hitler’s German Fascist Army have been defeated by our Red Army, it means that this army, too, can be smashed and will be smashed as were the armies of Napoleon and Wilhelm.
ENEMY ‘ARMED TO THE TEETH’
Our troops are fighting heroically against an enemy armed to the teeth with tanks and aircraft. Overcoming innumerable difficulties the Red Army and Navy are self-sacrificingly disputing every inch of Soviet soil.
The main forces of the Red Army are coming into action armed with thousands of tanks and airplanes. Men of the Red Army are displaying unexampled valor. Our resistance to the enemy is growing in strength and power. Side by side with the Red Army the entire Soviet people is rising in defense of our native land.
What is required to put an end to the danger hovering over our country, and what measures must be taken to smash the enemy?
Above all, it is essential that our people, the Soviet people, should understand the full immensity of the danger that threatens out country and abandon all complacency, all heedlessness, all those moods of peaceful, constructive work which were so natural before the war but which are fatal today when war has fundamentally changed everything.
The enemy is cruel and implacable. He is out to seize our lands watered with our sweat, to seize our grain and soil secured by our labor.
ISSUE OF ‘LIFE OR DEATH’
Thus the issue is one of life or death for the Soviet State, for the peoples of the U.S.S.R.: the issue is whether peoples of the Soviet Union shall remain free or fall into slavery.
The Soviet people must realize this and abandon all heedlessness, they must mobilize themselves and reorganize all their work on new, wartime lines, when there can be no mercy to the enemy.
Further, there must be no room in our ranks for whimperers and cowards, for panic-mongers and deserters; our people must know no fear in the fight and must selflessly join our patriotic was of liberation, our war against the Fascist enslavers.
Lenin, the great founder of our State, used to say that the chief virtue of the Soviet people must be courage, valor, fearlessness in struggle, readiness to fight together with the people against the enemies of our country.
This splendid virtue of the Bolshevik must become the virtue of millions and millions of the Red Army, of the Red Navy, of all peoples of the Soviet Union.
All our work must be immediate
ly reconstructed on a war footing, everything must be subordinated to the interests of the front and the task of organizing demolition of the enemy.
The peoples of the Soviet Union now see that there is no taming of German Fascism in its savage fury and hatred of our country which has insured all working people labor in freedom and prosperity.
The peoples of the Soviet Union must rise against the enemy and defend their rights and their land. The Red Army, Red Navy and all citizens of the Soviet Union must defend every inch of Soviet soil, must fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages, must display the daring initiative and intelligence that are inherent in our people.
FIGHT ON SPIES AND SABOTEURS
We must wage a ruthless fight against all disorganizers of the rear, deserters, panic-mongers, rumor-mongers, exterminate spies, diversionists, enemy parachutists, rendering rapid aid in all this to our destroyer battalions. We must bear in mind that the enemy is crafty, unscrupulous, experienced in deception and dissemination of false rumors.
We must reckon with all this and not fall victim to provocation. All who by their panic-mongering and cowardice hinder the work of defense, no matter who they are, must be immediately hauled before a military tribunal.
AIM OF THE WAR
The aim of this national war in defense of our country against the Fascist oppressors is not only elimination of the danger hanging over our country, but also aid to all European peoples groaning under the yoke of German Fascism.
The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945 Page 50
