The ten Stalinist blows

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The ten stalinist blows (also: the ten shattering blows , Russian Десять сталинских ударов ) was the name for the Soviet offensives of 1944 in World War II during the Stalinist era . It is a propaganda term that was used to celebrate Joseph Stalin as personally responsible for the successes of the Red Army .

Operations

The following operations make up the "ten beats":

  1. Leningrad-Novgorod operation in January 1944
  2. Operation on the Dnieper-Carpathian Mountains in February – March 1944
  3. Odessa operation in April – May 1944
  4. Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Operation June 1944
  5. Operation Bagration in June – July 1944
  6. Lviv-Sandomierz operation in July – August 1944
  7. Operation Jassy-Kishinev in August 1944
  8. Baltic operation September – October 1944
  9. Budapest operation in October 1944
  10. Petsamo-Kirkenes operation in October 1944

These were listed for the first time by Josef Stalin in his speech on the 27th anniversary of the October Revolution on November 6, 1944.

background

Soviet military science rejected the strategy of combining all forces into a single blow, as Germany practiced with the strategy of the Blitzkrieg . She preferred to distribute the forces over a series of blows of increasing strength without giving the opponent a respite. She also rejected the German Cannä ideal of a single "annihilation battle " and advocated a "annihilation campaign".

rating

Soviet historiography saw the principle of successive strategic operations as "an outstanding achievement of the Soviet art of war"; the operations were linked by a "uniform strategic idea" to form a "harmonious system".

Garthoff, however, judges that this strategy is in part only a reasonable explanation for the necessity of a series of operations in a war and that the Soviets would hardly miss a favorable opportunity for a single destruction. On the other hand, he explains the principle from the Bolshevik emphasis on sober calculations, anti-"adventurism" and the need to feed the increasing forces of an operation with reserves.

The military historian Karl-Heinz Frieser sees behind the principle a “risk aversion” after previous attempts by the Soviet leadership, e.g. B. in the winter offensives of 1941 and 1943 to force a decisive battle failed. In Operation Bagration , the main blow in the summer of 1944, she had "lost" her strategic potential by not taking part in the great encircling battle in the direction of Warsaw to include Army Group Center and Army Group North .

The Field Marshal Erich von Manstein saw in the "ten Stalinist blows" the realization of the "Russian steamroller". This picture was taken at the beginning of the First World War and expressed the then disappointed hope, especially in France, that the Russian army would crush the Central Powers with their numerical superiority and advance to Berlin. In 1941 and 1942, according to Manstein, the Red Army had not yet achieved the necessary “force of the mass”, but the steamroller had been prepared both materially and personally by the industrial relocation. From 1943 to the beginning of 1944, the steamroller was able to push back the German troops, but not destroy them. In 1944, however, the steamroller began to “roll”. Manstein writes:

"These 'ten blows from Stalin' actually appear to symbolize the 'Russian steamroller', which inexorably rolls forward, crushing the enemy with its heavy weight."

literature

  • Raymond L. Garthoff: The Soviet Army. Essence and teaching . Cologne 1955, pp. 187-189.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andrea Zemskov trains: Between political structures and time witness. Historical images of the siege of Leningrad in the Soviet Union 1943–1953 . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, p. 124.
  2. ↑ Stalin's speech on the 27th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution on November 6, 1944
  3. ↑ Garthoff, p. 188.
  4. ↑ DF Ustinow (chairman of the main editorial office): History of the Second World War 1939-1945 . Volume 9, p. 610 f.
  5. ↑ Garthoff, p. 189.
  6. ↑ MGFA (ed.): The German Reich and the Second World War . Stuttgart 1990, Volume 8, pp. 602 f.
  7. ↑ Erich von Manstein : The further development of the Red Army from 1943-1945 In: Liddell Hart : The Red Army . Bonn undated, p. 152 ff.