World War: EASTERN THEATER: Decision in a Week?

(2 of 4)

The Communiques were not, however, like any previous High Command announcement. They came from Adolf Hitler's headquarters at the front and were obviously written by his fine, un-Italian hand. They were not only half political but full of bombast and they tried to demonstrate that the Russians had planned to pour their troops and their Bolshevism into Germany: "It is likely that, at the last minute, Middle Europe was spared an invasion, the consequences of which cannot be conceived. The German people truly are duty bound to give deepest thanks to its brave soldiers." German figures of losses and gains, especially as to planes, had to be taken with a whole shaker of salt. But even salted down, they told a story of quite probable victory. The High Command admitted the loss of 150 planes, admitted in general "moderate losses" — instead of, as in all previous campaigns, "light" or "surprisingly small" losses. But it claimed to have put 4,107 Russian planes out of action, to have destroyed or captured 2,233 tanks, to have captured 40,000 men, to have taken 600 cannon and mountains of uncounted anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, machine guns, rifles, various vehicles. The Russians admitted losing 850 planes, claimed 1,500 German planes.

Green Fields, Blue Sky. Terrain and season defined the campaign. The easiest area for attack was the central plain just above and below the vast Pripet Marshes. The two main German drives developed there — one headed for Minsk and Moscow, the other for Kiev and the Ukraine (see map) — over land flat as a billiard table, through fields still too green to be burned, under a sky clear enough for half-blind pilots. The weather would stay fine for three months, within which the Germans intended to attain their objectives.

The war's most important offensive was aimed at Minsk, where the Russians had concentrated 24 of their best divisions. Steel columns shot out in the familiar pincers operation, only this time they moved far deeper and far wider than usual. Early this week the steel jaws bit together behind Minsk, and within the maw the Germans claimed to have two great armies; not only the Minsk divisions, but frontier divisions as well.

Below the Pripet Marshes, the offensive went more slowly, because before it could roll, the formidable frontier fortress of Przemysl had to be stormed. And near Luck the Russians offered up a Gargantuan tank battle.

Because the land ar<5und Finland is as pitted with water as Swiss cheese with air, because Russia is naturally defended from Rumania by the Prut and Dniester Rivers, Germany's two stooges on the flanks did little. Finland toppled reluctantly into the war as German drives developed on Murmansk in the far north and on Lenin grad across the scarred Karelian Isthmus.

Rumanian forces, goaded on by German support, had trouble crossing the Prut, and Russia's most successful counterthrust made its way across the Danube toward Constantsa. The Germans seemed to be gathering forces for a seaborne flanking movement on the Russian naval base of Odessa.