Then in the previous issue, the fierce defense of the Brest Fortress ended, and at the beginning of the Soviet-German War, the Brest Defense War became one of the few bright spots of the Soviet army. Because the entire National Border of the Soviet Union is basically a touch of collapse, a collapse of thousands of miles. The German army was like a broken bamboo, destroying the decay. Only the defense of the Brest Fortress influenced the outcome of the Battle of Minsk to some extent. Because of the Brest Fortress he eventually fell even later than Minsk. If all the troops on the Border of the USSR were as tenacious as the Brest Fortress and fought organized. The Germans were certainly going to suffer a big loss, but it was only a good wish.
From the overall point of view, the performance of the entire Soviet army on the battlefield, especially in the face of the German Army Group Center, the Soviet Army's Western Front, can be said to be described as a disaster. Compared with the German army, the German army advanced forward and deepened in mechanized warfare, and the art of war was brought into full play. Therefore, the German offensive can be called a textbook offensive, and the performance of the Soviet army is in stark contrast to the German army. In fact, in the pre-war judgment of the main direction of the German army, there was a deviation at the highest level of the Soviet army. The Soviet high command wishfully believed that the main directions the Germans were eyeing were Ukraine and the Caucasus oil-producing region, which claimed to be the Soviet Union's granary and industrial base. In fact, this judgment is not wrong, because Hitler thought so in the first place. Hitler considered himself a brilliant war economist. But at the suggestion of the officers of the General Staff, he could only compromise. Therefore, based on this strategic judgment, the Soviet Southwest Front has always been the top match, with 58 divisions, including 16 tank divisions, 8 motorized divisions, and the Western Front has only 44 divisions, and the equipment is also very different. Even after the start of the war, the commanders of the armored corps of the Western Front felt that their tanks were targets and could only be used by the Germans. So this judgment is a very serious strategic blunder.
From the promotion of cadres, it can also be seen that if you want to enter the high command, you must be gilded in the Kiev Military District of the Southwestern Front. At that time, the People's Commissar for National Defense, Timoshenko, and the chief of the General Staff, Zhukov, both served as commanders of the Kiev Special Military District. The First Deputy Commander-in-Chief Vatuddin was also from the Kiev Special Military District. Of particular importance is that the southwest region was the land of Stalin's dragons during the civil war in the 1920s. Therefore, subjectively, these people believe that the strategic position of the southwest direction is the most important. Therefore, the Kiev Special Military District received special attention from the Soviet High Command in terms of troop strength and weapons.
But the soviet decision-makers ignored the fact that when Nazi Germany attacked Western European countries, the Germans always blitzed and occupied each other's capitals as fast as possible. Now the German army is also going to take Moscow at the shortest distance and as fast as possible. For this reason, the German army must first eliminate the Soviet Western Front across the German-Soviet border. Therefore, this must be the main direction of the German army after the outbreak of war.
Next, let's see how powerful the German Army Group Center, which is in charge of the main attack, has 50 divisions. Including 35 infantry divisions, nine armored divisions, 6 mechanized divisions. In particular, his panzer divisions accounted for almost half of the German army on the Eastern Front. In order to fight the Soviet Union, the German army formed a total of 4 armored groups, two of which were in Army Group Center, and the commanders were the famous general HermannHote and Guderian, known as the father of the German armored forces.
The two of them can be called golden partners, and they have tacitly performed the tactics of the armored soldiers' two wings to encircle the forward and encircle many times. For the Soviet army at the beginning, it was almost insoluble. Guderian, in particular, has a mind of rushing. Marvels created thanks to the Polish and French battles. The man who is recognized as the founder of Blitz has gained increasing prestige. But such a soldier, his integrity also makes him more and more invincible. Especially when getting along with colleagues and even superiors, it is very discordant. So among his colleagues, Guderian had a slightly better relationship with Hult, and the others couldn't get into his sight at all. In particular, we will talk about him and Marshal Kruger, the commander of the 4th Army, and the two of them do not share the same sky. Guderian did not understand official politics at all, and he had no shelf and was willing to mix with soldiers, so he was deeply loved by his generals, a bit like the later American General Patton.
As a result, every german general was proud to have fought under General Guderian's banner, and all the tanks of Guderian's unit had his first letters written in white paint, a capital G. It can be seen that this rises to the feeling of a cult of personality. Later, even the Soviets saw that this one who was wearing a big white G on the tank did not like to resist, and either ran or landed.
Where there is attack, there must be defense. The German side was a hundred famous generals, with sufficient food and morale. The commander of the Soviet Western Front who defended the opposing side was a somewhat romantic Italian style, with a bit of literary style of Soviet hero General Ivan Grigorievich Pavlovsky.
He became famous in the Spanish Civil War, and after returning to China, he was entrusted with a heavy responsibility and became the head of the armored tank department. He led a very hateful anti-anachronistic policy, that is, to propose the abolition of armored corps, let the tanks be used as support weapons for infantry, and disperse among the infantry in company battalions. Fortunately, in the end, he was promoted to Belarus in time to become the commander of the Western Military District, otherwise the Soviet army would have degenerated to the level of World War I. Why is it said that he is a literary and artistic person? Because he is a die-hard movie lover. On June 22, 1941, before the German attack, when the smell of gun smoke could be smelled in the air, General Pavlov, who was the commander in front, did not watch a movie with his deputy commander and chief of staff in the headquarters, but in the club. At this time, the military intelligence officers on the front line called to say that the General Staff had ordered to strengthen the defense against the German raid. As a result, the commander's response was nonsense and nonsense.
In terms of troop deployment, the commander was more romantic,000, with four armies under the Western Front. Third, fourth, tenth, thirteenth, the commander directly deployed three of the four armies to the Biawistok salient, very, very close to the border.
The Biawistok protrusion, located at the westernmost point of Belarus, is an arc-shaped area that protrudes into Poland. With a width of about 100 kilometers from north to south, it is hard to imagine that a small protrusion should have gathered three-quarters of the troops of the Soviet Western Front. Among them, the Third, Fourth, and Tenth Armies were located in the north, southwest, and north of the salient, respectively, at each other's horns, and in the event of an offensive situation, there should be no problem if such a forward deployment was properly deployed. But now the Soviet Union is the attacking side, so this kind of platooning is to prepare dumpling stuffing for the German army and wait for people to wrap. As early as 1940, General Zhukov, who had just been promoted to chief of the General Staff, had a premonition that the deployment of the Western Front was a problem, and alerted Bablov, who categorically rejected Zhukov's proposal and severely criticized Zhukov. Unconvinced, Zhukov held a simulated offensive and defensive exercise in the Western Military District, with Pavlov playing the Red Army and Zhukov playing the Blue Army, that is, the German Army. As a result of the exercise, as in the full rehearsal of the war a year later, Three Armies of Pavlov were encircled at the Bialistok salient by Zhukov's mechanized corps on the north and south sides without suspense.
But Pavlov did not admit it, the coin has positive and negative sides, and victory or defeat is a common thing for soldiers. Besides, this is an exercise, and the Red Army's fighting spirit to kill the enemy has not been aroused. When we really fight a war, we can definitely do one not be afraid of death, and the other is not afraid of death. The exercises don't make any sense at all. But he didn't even think that this exercise would be a rehearsal of the exact same war results a year later.