Summer, 1941
Chapter 10
Blitzkrieg in the East
July - September
Operation Barbarossa was the largest invasion in human history, and despite the completion of some of its initial objectives was not yet complete. The cities of Leningrad in the north and Kiev in the South remained in Soviet hands for the time being, although the Red Army remained unable to counter the German advance. Elsewhere, the war in Africa and the Middle East continued as well, as did the ongoing Battle of the Atlantic.
The Eastern Front
A German soldier on the banks of the Dnieper near the dam
German Federal Archives
With the destruction of the last Soviet forces encircled near Smolensk, the Germans were able to turn their attention to the north and south. The front was by 28 July only one hundred miles from Leningrad, and Finnish forces also continued to push southward across the Karelian Isthmus toward the old Russian Imperial City. Attacks also came days later on the outer defensive perimeter at Kiev in Soviet Ukraine, as Romanian forces besieged the port city of Odessa. The capture of Krivoy Rog on 14 August placed the Germans closer to the Dnieper River in the south, all while serving to push the Red Army further away from the trapped garrison of Kiev, which would soon be enveloped.
The port city of Mykolaiv fell on 16 August, with the incomplete Soviet battleship Sovetskaya Ukraina being taken along with it, and the Germans rapidly approaching the Crimea as they reached the Black Sea coast. The deteriorating situation led to orders being issued by the Soviet Stavka on 18 August for the destruction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Dam on the river at Zaporizhzhia, with the dam that had been a symbol of Soviet industrial progress being dynamited in order to flood the Dnieper River below, causing mass casualties of both German and Soviet troops as well as civilians, but delaying the German advance in southern Ukraine.
A German sentry in Kiev watches as the city burns
German Federal Archives
German forces began to enter the city of Kiev after heavy fighting on 23 August, while reinforcements contracted the Soviet perimeter by taking the Chernobyl area days later. Heavy fighting would rage around the Ukrainian capital for weeks, but the situation inherited by Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, former People’s Commissar for Defense, when he took command of the Southwestern Front was growing desperate. The Germans soon took the village of Lokhvitsa, completing the envelopment of Kiev, and the city fell to the Wehrmacht on 19 September. Some isolated Soviet units near the city would continue to fight for several days, but were destroyed by 26 September, a day before the Germans reached the edge of the Crimean Peninsula.
The Soviet battleship Marat, sunk by German Stukas at Leningrad
The German attack on Leningrad to the north jumped off on 8 August, attacking from their line on the Luga River toward the city with the intent to cut off the city as they had with the other major population centers on their line of advance. A Soviet counterattack near Smolensk was quickly repulsed, and ten days later Novgorod had fallen, as had Narva in Estonia. With the Red Army now cut off on the Baltic coast, a frantic naval evacuation from Tallin was launched by the Soviet Navy, which would continue until the end of August.
Meanwhile, the village of Mga near Leningrad would change hands several times between 30 August and 1 September, ending with the Germans finally cutting off the last rail link to Leningrad. A Soviet counterattack further south near Yelnya managed to win a small victory, pushing the Germans back from a salient there, but was of little more than morale value. The last road links into Leningrad were cut by 8 September, leaving the city to endure what was to be the one of the longest sieges of a city in history. As the Germans set about their siege in the north, further south they prepared for what was to be the coup de grace: Operation Typhoon; the capture of Moscow.
North Africa
British General Claude Auchinleck, the new commander of the Allied Forces in the Middle East, confers with his predecessor, General Archibald Wavel
With the situation in North Africa deteriorating for the British since the arrival of the German Afrika Korps, which had effectively reversed all the gains they had made against the Italians and pushed them back to the Egyptian frontier, General Archibald Wavell was relieved of command in the theater by Churchill, replaced by General Sir Claude Auchinleck. Allied forces remained besieged at Tobruk, with the Australian led forces there continuing to put up heavy resistance despite the German and Italian encirclement, and otherwise the front was relatively quiet as both sides reorganized for a new phase of the campaign.
Ettore Bastico inspects local forces in Libya
At Tobruk, British Commandoes and Australian sappers had launched a successful raid to destroy an Italian position known as the “Twin Pimples” in mid July, but despite that victory the siege continued. The Australians began to withdraw by sea in August, replaced with Czech and Polish troops.
The British were not the only ones to undergo a change of command during this period. Citing a lack of cooperation with the newly arrived Germans under Erwin Rommel, Italian theater commander and Governor of Libya General Italo Gariboldi was relieved of command and replaced with General Ettore Bastico, who would, at least nominally, serve as Rommel’s superior as the campaign continued.
The Middle East
British soldiers amongst Roman ruins in Syria
After the short lived attempt by Iraq to join the war the British had launched an invasion of Vichy French Syria and Lebanon from both Iraq and British Palestine in early June following the French support for the Iraqis during the conflict. By July Damascus had fallen as the British continued to push further northward, with Palmyra falling on 1 July, followed by Damour falling to the Australians on 9 July after a three day siege. This led the the beginning of the collapse of the Vichy forces in the Levant, with the Fall of Beirut on 12 July bringing about the end of the campaign.
British troops and a Soviet armored car in Iran
The war in the Middle East was not yet over, however, as the German Invasion of the Soviet Union created a pressing need for a land route for supplies from the British as well as the American Lend-Lease materials to enter the USSR, as well as to ensure that the oil fields of Iran could not be used to support the German war effort. To that end, the British and Soviets launched a joint invasion of Iran on 25 August, with the outgunned Iranian forces collapsing and surrendering by 9 September, leaving the British to install a new Shah that was more sympathetic to their goals, as well as setting up a limited occupation with the Soviets.
Africa
Belgian officers inspect captured Italian guns after the fall of Saio in Ethiopia
The campaign in Africa proper also continued. The Italian garrison at Saio in Ethiopia, which had been besieged by Belgian forces for months, surrendered on 3 July, leaving the Italians with only the area around Gondar under their control. Having run out of provisions and facing a superior force of Belgian Congolese forces, General Pietro Gazzera capitulated, with more than 6,000 Italian troops being taken prisoner.
The War at Sea
The USS Greer
The Battle of the Atlantic continued despite the destruction of the Bismarck in May. That operation had caused the leadership of the Kriegsmarine as well as Hitler himself to reconsider the viability of surface warfare, while the U-boat campaign continued to escalate.
This escalation would see on 11 September the American destroyer USS Greer was fired upon by a German U-boat off Iceland, after being led to the submarine by a British bomber. The RAF plane had depth charged the German craft, and this possibly led the U-652 believing the American ship was attacking them. A torpedo was launched, leading to a short battle before both disengaged. The incident would stoke outrage in the United States, leading to an order for American warships to engage U-boats on sight, and a similar order from German and Italian naval commands. Thus began an undeclared naval war for the United States, despite the country officially remaining neutral in the conflict.
The Air War
Civilians inspect a German bomber shot down and placed on display in Moscow
Russian International News Agency
The German bombing of Britain had tapered off during the leadup to Operation Barbarossa, with the Luftwaffe redeploying its forces to support that campaign as well as those in the Balkans and North Africa. The Soviet Air Force, or VVS, had been crippled in the opening moves of the German invasion, although the Germans were never able to entirely destroy the VVS. Indeed the Soviets had managed to raid Berlin in early August, joining with the increasing number of RAF raids over Germany and occupied Europe.
Douglas Bader (center) with his Hawker Hurricane in 1940
In another interesting note, British fighter ace Douglas Bader was shot down on 9 August during a mission over France, leading to his capture. He was subsequently met by German ace Adolf Galland, who took him on a tour of the base of the German fighter squadron JG26, letting the British flyer sit in the cockpit of a Bf109 fighter. Bader had lost his prosthetic leg when he bailed out, and Galland helped to arrange for a British bomber to have safe passage to bring a replacement, which was dropped from a passing RAF bomber. After escaping from a German hospital in France, Bader would be moved between various POW camps until his constant escape attempts led to his transfer to the maximum security POW facility at Colditz Castle in Germany.
The Homefront
Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen
Diocese of Münster
On the German homefront, a Roman Catholic Bishop from Munster, Clemens August Graf von Galen, gave a sermon during Mass on 3 August, vehemently denouncing the Nazi practice of euthanasia on the disabled in hospitals across Germany. He also spoke out against the Gestapo and various other Nazi government organizations and programs in July and August, with copies of these sermons distributed illegally throughout the Reich. Despite a desire to do so from both local Nazi officials all the way up to Hitler, Bishop von Galen could not be arrested for fear of causing a collapse of morale amongst the Catholic population in Germany, and led to the Nazi euthanasia program being slowed down in order to hide it from the population. His sermons would also serve to galvanize the anti-Nazi movement within Germany itself.
Lili Marlene, the most famous song of the Second World War
Meanwhile, in Belgrade, the German radio station there would for the first time play a little known song over the airwaves. Recorded by Lale Andersen in 1939, the song about a young soldier standing guard and remembering his lover had originally performed very poorly, with less than 1,000 copies selling in total. A copy was purchased by one of the German soldiers assigned to the Belgrade station along with other records from a second hand shop, and became a massive success, with Lili Marlene used as the nightly sign-off for Radio Belgrade and listened to by both Axis and Allied soldiers.
Elsewhere, governments were moving against those who were descended from enemy nations, with the Soviets moving against ethnic Germans while the Canadian government required citizens of Japanese descent to register with the government.
Occupied Europe
Captured German soldiers are led away by Yugoslav partisans
In occupied Europe the Germans were running into difficulties in their territories. French, Polish, Dutch and Norwegian insurgents continuously disrupted operations, while in Yugoslavia an open rebellion broke out on 7 July, as communist partisans opened fire on German military police in Bela Crkva in Serbia. Soon the communist Partisans were joined by royalist Chetniks in a general uprising, and by 31 August had engaged in open warfare with the Germans. In late September the communists took the town of Užice and declared a socialist state, but the reinforcing Germans soon laid siege, a situation compounded by the increasing infighting between the Partisans and the Chetniks.
The “V for Victory” painted on the nose of an RAF Hurricane fighter
In late July the British would embark on one of the most iconic propaganda campaigns of the war, with the V for Victory. Encouraging the people of occupied Europe to use the letter as well the hand gesture as a sign of defiance as well as belief in Allied victory, soon the symbol began to appear across Europe and the world.
Reinhard Heydrich
German Federal Archives
The Germans were making moves of their own inside the increasing territory under their control. Jews and others considered undesirable by the Nazis were being more directly targeted across the Reich and its occupied territories and puppet states. Property was confiscated, and in the east the SS Einsatzgruppen continued their systematic campaign of murder. Thousands would be killed in Hungary by the SS and local forces, as well as across the occupied territories of the USSR. On 1 September the government issued orders that all Jews would be forced to wear a yellow Star of David badge at all times, as the massacres in the east were joined by mass arrests in the west, while in the concentration camp at Aushwitz in occupied Poland the SS began to experiment with the use of poison gas to murder prisoners.
In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (the occupied Czech territories of the Reich) the Prime Minister of the puppet administration, Alois Eliáš, was removed from office on 27 September and executed for supplying information to the resistance as well as the Czechoslovak Government in Exile in London. The German Reich Protector, Konstantin von Neurath, had been sidelined by Hitler for his lenient policies, and SS Obergruppenfuhrer (General) Reinhard Heydrich, often considered one of the most brutal men in the Nazi government, was sent to take his place, promising a reign of terror over the population.
Around the World
General Douglas MacArthur speaks at a ceremony in the Philippines
The global situation was growing increasingly dangerous as 1941 entered its second half. The United States and the Japanese Empire both remained neutral for the time being, but both were becoming increasingly involved in the conflict. American supplies were flowing to the Allies in ever increasing amounts, US warships were targeting German submarines in the Atlantic, and the Japanese were moving against the French possessions in East Asia. In addition, the United States took control of Greenland and Iceland for the duration of the conflict.
In late July all Japanese assets in the United States were frozen as a sanction on their aggressive actions, followed by a similar move by the British the day after. An oil embargo from the US against Japan would follow in early August, with the Americans also moving to reinforce their Pacific possessions. US Marines were deployed to Wake Island in the central Pacific on 19 August, and General Douglas MacArthur had been sent to the Philippines, where the American controlled Commonwealth was also readying for a possible conflict.
Roosevelt and Churchill together for the Atlantic Conference
On 9 August, at a naval base in Newfoundland, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with US President Franklin Roosevelt. The purpose of the meeting was to outline the post-war goals for Britain and the United States, which included affirmation of the right of self determination for the peoples of Europe and a pledge to disarm aggressor nations to ensure lasting peace. The resulting statement, known as the Atlantic Charter, would form a basis for the post war United Nations and western policy for the remainder of the century.
Timeline
7-1-1941
Palmyra in Syria falls to British forces
Riga, capitol of the Latvian SSR, falls to the Germans
The German cruiser Prinz Eugen is disabled in a French port by an RAF raid
7-2-1941
Romanian forces cross the Soviet border to retake Bessarabia
7-3-1941
290,000 Soviet soldiers surrender as the Bialystok Pocket collapses
The Italian garrison at Saïo in Ethiopia surrenders to Belgian forces after a four month siege
Stalin calls for scorched earth tactics as the Germans continue to advance into the USSR
7-4-1941
The Germans cross the Dnieper River in the USSR
7-5-1941
General Sir Claude Claude Auchinleck takes command of British forces in North Africa
7-6-1941
Australian forces engage Vichy French troops defending Damour, the capitol of French Lebanon
The Germans begin to envelop Smolensk in the USSR
7-7-1941
The United States officially takes control of Iceland for the duration of the war
An open revolt against the German occupation begins in Yugoslavia
7-8-1941
American reporter Richard Hottelet, arrested earlier in the year by the Gestapo, is released
7-9-1941
Damour falls in Lebanon, and the Vichy forces in Syria and Lebanon begin to collapse
7-10-1941
Finnish forces begin to drive south toward Lake Ladoga and Leningrad
Stalin and Churchill commence talks to formalize an alliance
7-12-1941
Beirut falls to the British and Australians, ending resistance by Vichy forces in Syria and Lebanon
The Anglo-Soviet Alliance is formally signed in Moscow
7-14-1941
Despite Soviet counterattacks at Zhytomyr and Soltsy the Germans bridge the Narva River
7-16-1941
Smolensk falls to the Germans
7-17-1941
British Commandos raidan Italian strongpoint at Tobruk, but do not lift the ongoing siege
The Germans cross the Dniester River in the USSR
7-19-1941
Stalin takes direct command of the Soviet Armed Forces
General Ettore Bastico is appointed to command Axis forces in North Africa
7-20-1941
The British begin their famous V-for-Victory Campaign, urging the use of the “V” sign across Occupied Europe as a symbol of defiance
7-21-1941
Moscow is bombed by the Luftwaffe for the first time
7-22-1941
A defensive pact is signed between Vichy France and the Japanese Empire
7-25-1941
The US Government freezes all Japanese and Chinese assets in the country
The Germans establish an occupation administration in the Baltic States
7-26-1941
The British freeze all Japanese assets in the Empire
General Douglas MacArthur takes command of the US Army Forces in the Far East, with his headquarters in Manila, Philippine Commonwealth
7-27-1941
The Smolensk Pocket is destroyed, with almost half a million Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans
British Commandos raid Northern France
7-28-1941
The Germans are less than 100 miles from Leningrad
7-29-1941
The Japanese move additional troops into French Indochina for “mutal defense” with the weakened colonial administration in Hanoi
The Canadian Government sends troops to break a strike at an aluminum factory in Quebec
7-30-1941
The British Fleet Air Arm attempts to bomb ports in Finland and Occupied Norway
German troops attack the Soviet defenses around Kiev
7-31-1941
Finnish troops reach the pre-Winter War border, having retaken the Karelian Isthmus
8-1-1941
The US commences an oil embargo on Japan
8-2-1941
The US begins sending Lend-Lease equipment to the USSR
8-3-1941
Catholic Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen gives a sermon against the Nazi euthanasia campaigns in psychiatric institutions. He is almost arrested by the Gestapo, but the orders are rescinded to avoid angering German Catholics.
8-4-1941
At a major conference, Hitler overrides his general’s wish to drive on Moscow, instead ordering a focus on consolidating lines and destroying encircled Soviet troops
8-5-1941
The final pockets near Smolensk are destroyed by the Germans
8-6-1941
The Croation puppet state massacres 600 women and children by throwing them into a deep pit
8-7-1941
The Soviet Red Air Force raids Berlin
8-8-1941
The Germans and Romanians besiege the Soviets in the port of Odessa in Ukraine
The Germans launch an offensive toward Leningrad, jumping off from their line at the Luga River
8-9-1941
Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt meet in secret in Canada
Famous British fighter ace Douglas Bader is shot down over France and captured
8-11-1941
The Red Army launches a counterattack near Smolensk
8-12-1941
Vichy French leader Philippe Petain abolishes political parties and mandates that all government personnel must swear an oath of loyalty to him personally
The RAF makes its largest daylight raid to date on Germany
Canada issues regulations for the registration of Japanese Canadians
8-13-1941
The Germans order the confiscation of all Jewish property in the Baltic States
8-14-1941
Roosevelt and Churchill announce the Atlantic Charter; a list of post-war goals of the two nations
The city of Krivoy Rog in Ukraine falls to the Germans
8-15-1941
The Philippine Army Air Corps is absorbed into US command as the diplomatic situation in the Far East deteriorates
8-16-1941
The Soviet naval base at Mykolaiv is taken by the Germans. Among the assets captured is the hull of the incomplete battleship Sovetskaya Ukraina
Order No.270 is issued by Stalin, mandating the Red Army fight to the last and forbidding surrender
8-17-1941
Novogorod falls to the Germans
Narva in Estonia falls to the Germans
8-18-1941
The Soviets destroy the Dnieper River Dam to flood the area and delay the German advance. this causes enormous casualties of both German and Soviet troops as well as civilians
The German military radio station in Belgrade plays Lale Andersen’s Lili Marleen, and it instantly becomes a hit. It will become the most famous song of the war, loved by soldiers of both sides.
8-19-1941
The US establishes a garrison of the United States Marine Corps on Wake Island in the Central Pacific
8-20-1941
The Gestapo commences a mass arrest of Jews in Paris
8-21-1941
Hitler issues orders for the surrounding of Leningrad
A German officer is assassinated in Paris by the resistance, leading to major reprisals
8-22-1941
The Germans ban communist organizations in occupied Denmark
The Germans in France announce that French prisoners would be executed in retaliation for any further assassinations of Germans in France
8-23-1941
The Germans begin to push into Kiev, while also encircling the Red Army forces in the city
The Vichy government forms military courts to punish resistance fighters
8-25-1941
British and Soviet forces invade Iran to secure overland trade routes and remove the pro-German Shah from power
Almost 2,000 Jews are massacred by the SS at Tykocin in Poland
British and Norwegian troops raid the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, destroying coal mines and evacuating civilians before retreating with no losses
Vichy minister Pierre Laval is wounded by an assassination attempt as he oversees the departure of Vichy troops for the Russian Front
Mussolini begins a tour of the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia, meeting with Hitler and touring the Eastern Front
8-26-1941
Chernobyl falls to the Germans
8-27-1941
The Soviets begin to evacuate their forces by sea from Tallin in Estonia, where they are now against the coast of the Baltic and cut off by the Germans on land
The Germans, aided by Hungarians and Ukrainian collaborators begin the slaughter of 23,600 Jews in Kamianets-Podilskyi
8-28-1941
Four Soviet destroyers are sunk by mines as they try to evacuate the Red Army from Estonia
Stalin begins to move against ethnic Germans within the Soviet Union
8-29-1941
Viipuri falls as Finnish forces advance on Leningrad from the north
Arthur Fadden takes office as Prime Minister of Australia
The Germans establish a puppet government in Serbia
8-30-1941
The Soviets launch a counteroffensive at Yelnya near Smolensk to destroy a German salient
The Germans take Mga, cutting the last rail line from Leningrad
8-31-1941
Soviet evacuations from Estonia come to an end
The Soviets retake Mga and reopen the railroad to Leningrad
9-1-1941
Mga is again retaken by the Germans, again cutting off Leningrad
Leningrad is within range of German ground fire
The Nazis order that all Jews in the German territories will be forced to wear yellow Star of David badges
9-2-1941
The Germans massacre 3,700 Jews at Polyarny in Lithuania
9-3-1941
The Germans experiment with the use of gas to exterminate victims at Auschwitz concentration camp
9-4-1941
A German U-boat attacks the American destroyer USS Greer in the Atlantic
Finnish troops consolidate their hold on Karelia
9-5-1941
Soviet forces retake Yelnya near Smolensk
9-6-1941
Hitler issues orders for preparations to begin for an offensive to take Moscow at the end of the month
9-8-1941
The Germans pull back from the Yenya Salient, granting the Red Army its first victory
The Germans cut the last road into Leningrad, beginning the siege of the city in earnest
9-9-1941
Iran surrenders to the British and Soviet forces invading the country
9-11-1941
Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, recently relived of his post as Commisar for Defense when Stalin took direct command, is placed in command of the Southwestern Front in Ukraine
In response to the attack on the USS Greer President Roosevelt orders all US Navy ships to consider German submarines hostile, with clearance to fire
9-12-1941
The German and Italian governments respond to Roosevelt’s order by issuing a similar one to their navies, beginning an undeclared naval war with the United States
The American isolationist movement takes serious damage from anti-Semitic comments by Charles Lindbergh
9-13-1941
General Georgy Zhukov takes command of the besieged Leningrad garrison
9-14-1941
The Germans take Lokhvitsa, completing the envelopment of Kiev
US warships begin escorting convoys in the Atlantic
9-16-1941
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi takes the Iranian throne as Shah after the Allies force the abdication of his father
9-18-1941
The Soviets begin conscription of all males over 16
The Luftwaffe raids Cairo
9-19-1941
The city of Kiev falls, although Soviet forces outside the city continue to resist
9-21-1941
The first German U-boats enter the Mediterranean
9-22-1941
The Greek government is re-established in Britain
9-23-1941
The Soviet battleship Marat is sunk by German stukas at Leningrad
9-24-1941
At an inter-Allied meeting the British, Soviets, Free French and exiled governments all ratify the Atlantic Charter
Yugoslav communist partisans take the city of Užice and declare a communist state
9-26-1941
The last Soviet pockets near Kiev are destroyed by the Germans
9-27-1941
Free French forces take control of Syria from the British
The Germans besiege the communists in Užice
The Germans reach the edge of the Crimean Peninsula
Reinhard Heydrich is placed in control of Bohemia and Moravia (the occupied portion of Czechoslovakia)
9-28-1941
An uprising begins against the Axis occupation in Greece
The British begin sending supply convoys to the USSR
9-29-1941
Soviet, British and American representatives meet in Moscow
33,771 Jews are killed at the Babi Yar Ravine near Kiev by the SS
The Greek uprising is put down
The Czech leader of Bohemia and Moravia, who has been secretly working with the Allies, is arrested and killed by the Nazis
9-30-1941
Operation Typhoon, the German drive on Moscow, begins
The Soviet cruiser Aurora, which had famously fired the first shots of the October Revolution, is sunk in Leningrad Harbor