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Barbarossa

  

History's largest invasion.

Three million German soldiers began their attack

on Russia with an artillery barrage all along the

1,200 mile front.  It was 3 am, June 22, 1941;

the first days of summer.

There was no better time than now to battle Russia.

Germany was at the height of its military power, having

just defeated the British and French in a matter of weeks.

Stalin was startled by this demonstration of blitzkrieg.

He made urgent demands on his generals and industrialists,

to grow him the most powerful and modern of armies.

Hitler believed Russia to be vulnerable and the time

he had to take advantage of this would be brief.

German troops overwhelmed Russia's defense.

Stalin was blind to the immediacy of Hitler's threat.

So long as Britain remained undefeated, the Germans

would not open up a second front by attacking Russia.

The order of the day had been 'don't antagonize Hitler'.

The Russian troops facing the Nazis weren't ready.

The military was still recovering from Stalin's purge

of the officer corps two years previous.  Most of his

top generals were executed.  Uncle Joe had 

paranoid tendencies.  It came with the job.

It was quickly made clear they were not your friends.

The Germans were your conquerors.

They behaved accordingly.  

Russian guerillas sabotaged German efforts behind the lines.

There were those among the Russian population that were

ready to welcome German troops as liberators from Stalin's

ruthless rule.  Instead they became lethal enemies of 

Hitler's forces.  The Nazis couldn't tolerate help coming

from the Slavs.

Allies.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

It's politics.  You succeed with what you have.

Hitler gambled that he could defeat the Soviet Union

by year's end or lose everything.  

What Germany and Hitler feared most, would 

come to pass.  This alliance of industrial behemoths

could only crush the Third Reich.

And at its leisure.

*  *  *  *  *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

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good morning jeremy

  

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Mussolini

 

The Individual dies and becomes nothing.

The State is eternal.  It is everything.

Charismatic.  A born leader.  A man of destiny.

The people sweep him into power.

Mussolini is now the State.

Junior partner to the Nazi next door.

Near war's end Mussolini and entourage are captured

attempting an escape to Austria.  Italian partisans 

shot them on the spot and strung them up for 

all the world to see.

*  *  *  *  *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

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good morning justin

  

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Paper Tiger

  

It was a long trail of defeat for Rommel 

ever since the loss at Alamein four months previous.

His troops fled the pursuing Eighth Army across

Libya, giving up the major port of Tripoli with 

very little fight.

Hitler and Mussolini were furious

with their rogue commander.

No one cheers a loser.

Field Marshall Kesselring, Smiling Al to the troops,

was Hitler's man running the Mediterranean, and 

Erwin Rommel's boss in North Africa.

Rommel thought he was finally head honcho in Tunisia.

Then he got word of a battle underway that he knew

nothing about.  Smiling Al and Rommel's rival,

General Arnim, schemed together a battleplan without

letting Rommel in on the planning.

Kesselring supported Arnim's insubordination.

Rommel's authority now resembled the thin gloss

of a dime store badge.

Surprise.

 General Montgomery, Monty to most everyone,

knew he had a two to one advantage over Rommel

in most every factor that mattered on the battlefield -

firepower.  Yet it was Rommel's forces that charged

the Brits at Medenine without any hope of winning.

Rommel could only stir things up to buy time.

In the picture above Monty is the cat that just ate

the canary.  He knew Rommel's plan right down

to the when and where.  So much for the surprise

Rommel counted on to win.  It was the Tommy cyphers

that stole German secrets from the Enigma machine.

They were 'listening' in as Rommel gave a detailed

explanation of his plan to his superiors in Rome.

Monty stuffed the area around Rommel's objective

with as much artillery, tanks and anti-tank weapons

as the terrain would allow.

Rommel's three undernourished Panzer divisions

walked into a lights-out experience.  A third of his

tanks were lost in this useless effort to slow Monty.

From here on Axis troops could only back up.

This tactic might be called stretching out defeat.

 The plan to attack Medenine was not Rommel's.

His men no longer listened to him.  He was on

borrowed time.  Rommel was not a military genius.

He'd become a has-been.

The Field Marshal flew to Rome three days 

following the battle.  He made his case for 

evacuating Africa with both Mussolini and Hitler.

Neither man could tolerate this embrace of defeat.

Hitler hospitalized Rommel for a needed rest.

*  *  *  *  *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

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good morning jacob

  

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