Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

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Urmel
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Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#1

Post by Urmel » 27 Aug 2013, 16:19

Triggered by this book review:

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/poli ... 37032.html

and my recent reading of Zetterling's 'Drive on Moscow'

http://www.amazon.com/DRIVE-MOSCOW-1941 ... 1612001203

I was wondering if those members of the forum who have looked into the intelligence side of the Russo-German war have some views on the errors made by FHO in the initial period?
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

paspartoo
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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#2

Post by paspartoo » 27 Aug 2013, 17:22

I think one of the German speaking members who has read the book or similar books has to give us their opinion.

I used google translate to read the review but can’t say that I understood much. From what I’ve read Gehlen seriously erred in 1942 when he predicted operation Mars but not the Stalingrad offensive (despite having clear indications from signals intelligence) and in 1944 when he expected the main Soviet attack to come in the South.
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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#3

Post by ljadw » 27 Aug 2013, 21:18

For those who understand German : available sources : Forum der Wehrmacht,Paner Archiv and Der Spiegel :
in Der Spiegel (7/76) I read that the only who was suspicious and was warning about a possible Soviet attack against 6 th Army at Stalingrad,was Adolf 8O ,not Gehlen .The source of Der Spiegel : Kehrig.

Given the political tendency of Der Spiegel and the PC in Germany (some one who would write something not negative about Adolf would be a candidate for tar and feather),my opinion is that the statement (with as source Kehrig) is worth to be investigated and discussed .

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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#4

Post by paspartoo » 28 Aug 2013, 11:18

I definitely remember reading that Hitler was afraid of a Soviet attack similar to one that took place in the Russian civil war.
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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#5

Post by paspartoo » 29 Aug 2013, 11:15

To keep the conversation going here is something from ‘Foreign intelligence literary scene’ article: The legend of Agent Max’

Apparently Gehlen miscalculated badly in summer ’44.
Attachments
agent-MAX-2.jpg
A simple economist with an unhealthy interest in military and intelligence history.....
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Michate
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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#6

Post by Michate » 02 Sep 2013, 17:40

I think one of the German speaking members who has read the book or similar books has to give us their opinion.
If you mean the book by Magnus Pahl, I have read some parts, but far from all, of the book a couple of months ago.

The parts I did read made a good impression on me, balanced and informative.
I used google translate to read the review but can’t say that I understood much. From what I’ve read Gehlen seriously erred in 1942 when he predicted operation Mars but not the Stalingrad offensive (despite having clear indications from signals intelligence) and in 1944 when he expected the main Soviet attack to come in the South.
It depends. Gehlen did predict attacks at Stalingrad and against AG Center in summer 1944, but in both cases underestimated their strength.

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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#7

Post by paspartoo » 03 Sep 2013, 19:35

Can you give us a more detailed review? It is an interesting subject.
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Michate
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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#8

Post by Michate » 09 Sep 2013, 16:04

Unfortunately not, except that you may imagine in structure and style a well written dissertation, with introductory chapters on the state of research and on relevant sources, and summaries to each chapter.

I was mainly interested in the technical aspects of Gehlen's intelligence work so far, and it has well written sections on liaison with air force intelligence (Fremde Luftwaffen Ost), which became very important and consequently was fostered and streamlined by Gehlen, as well as radio traffic interception. As I know you to be strongly interested in the latter (this is not meant to flatter you, but I like your blog very much), that chapter may be particularly worthwhile for you.
A bit on unit index keeping (the "Zentralkartei", becoming a valuable asset for the Americans after the war) as well, IIRC (I recently read some of Dunn's work as well, which made heavy use of FHO documents, so I may have actually read about it in the latter).

I also read a little into a chapter on German deception measures in the last periods of the war, the photos of canvas fake tanks in the snow may cause a smile.

There is a substantial chapter on Gehlen's preparation for the continuation of his work witth he Western Allies after a foreseeable German defeat, but I did not delve into it.

There is also a substantial case study on a case study of intelligence procedures in a particular operation (the failed attempt to adequately predict the Soviet offensive against Pommerania in February 1945). It looks very promising, but is also quite long, so far I have not read it.

My impression from that, all in all, was that the author is a bit more positive about Gehlen and his work than other authors, such as David Thomas (who wrote an interesting article about FHO to be found at JSTOR), but I cannot give any of the author's judgments about particular operations, like Taifun, or Stalingrad.

That is basically what I can say at the moment, not much, as I already mentioned.

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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#9

Post by paspartoo » 09 Sep 2013, 20:19

Well let’s hope the book is translated in English. Gehlen got radio intelligence reports from the Army’s Horchleitstelle Ost and the similar unit of the Luftwaffe. I doubt that the author got a lot of information on those aspects since the relevant documents were declassified recently and are in English.

About David Thomas it is true that his articles have painted Gehlen in a bad light. Apart from ‘Foreign Armies East and German Military Intelligence in Russia 1941-45’ I also have his ‘The legend of Agent Max’ (the page i posted above is from that article).
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Michate
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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#10

Post by Michate » 13 Sep 2013, 11:26

Well let’s hope the book is translated in English. Gehlen got radio intelligence reports from the Army’s Horchleitstelle Ost and the similar unit of the Luftwaffe. I doubt that the author got a lot of information on those aspects since the relevant documents were declassified recently and are in English.
Considering all the material you have collected (and kindly made available to us :D ), I guess the section about radio intelligence will not tell you anything you do not already know. Perhaps the references might be helpful as a guide to further, more specialized sources.
About David Thomas it is true that his articles have painted Gehlen in a bad light. Apart from ‘Foreign Armies East and German Military Intelligence in Russia 1941-45’ I also have his ‘The legend of Agent Max’ (the page i posted above is from that article).
I found Thomas's article on FHO relatively fair, all in all, but I think this "Max story" overemphasized. I have a dissertation by one Thomas Kröker, with the title "Die Fehleinschätzung der sowjetischen Operationsabsichten im Sommer 1944 - der Zusammenbruch der Heeresgruppe Mitte". It goes into much length giving the intelligence picture on the various levels - FHO, army group Center, and all field armies of army group Center. Intelligence was clearly based on a variety of sources, like radio, air, and artilery reconnaissance (all of which were sparse during the lull in spring/sumer 1944). While it is probable that Gehlen may have taken agent reports like that of "Max" as an additional source there is nothing to suggest that this may have been considered enough to overrule these other sources of information.

Also, IMHO one has to be careful to Soviet postwar descriptions of their strategic deception and its results. It seems really solid and exhaustive information on Soviet strategic decision making processes during the war has still not made publicly available (this in contrast to documentation of operational importance, up to the level of the Soviet fronts, for which now plenty of information exists).

At least there is an article in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, titled "Feeling the full weight of a four front offensive" (or omething like that), which makes this point and argues, based on the idiosyncracies of the Red Army's battle order in summer 1944, that the main, or most important, offensive was indeed that delivered by 1. Ukrainian Front against army group North Ukraine.

It is of course true that the offensive against army group Center involved more forces, but it was also spread over a larger sector of the front. One also has to take into account that the particularly strong left wing of First Belorussian Front, while traditionally included to the Bagration offensive, was actually located south of the Pripyat and attacked only in July, thus being related more closely to the attack against army group North Ukraine, than army group Centre.

The article contains a lot of praise for Maskirovka and Soviet operational art, nevertheless my (perhaps heretical) thought on reading the article was: oh, so Gehlen was not that wrong, after all.

Niepold in his discussion of Soviet planning for Bagration also shortly mentions that the forces south of the Pripyat were very strong, and he also lays out that Bagration was initially (in April) intended as an attack in scale similar to what the Germans expected to come against army group Center, but was later (in May) upgraded.
Last edited by Michate on 13 Sep 2013, 11:41, edited 2 times in total.

ljadw
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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#11

Post by ljadw » 13 Sep 2013, 11:33

:thumbsup:

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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#12

Post by ljadw » 13 Sep 2013, 11:47

There is also : Nachrichtennaaufklärung (Ost) und sowjetrussisches Heeresfunkwesen bis 1945 (=Einzelschriften zur militärische Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges)

Source : Forum-Panzerarchiv.de :Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost P 2 ,where this Thread has been discussed,a.o by Michate .

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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#13

Post by paspartoo » 13 Sep 2013, 15:22

Michate wrote:
Also, IMHO one has to be careful to Soviet postwar descriptions of their strategic deception and its results. It seems really solid and exhaustive information on Soviet strategic decision making processes during the war has still not made publicly available (this in contrast to documentation of operational importance, up to the level of the Soviet fronts, for which now plenty of information exists).
Good point. Unfortunately there is too much talk of maskirovka, deception etc regarding Soviet operations. I think it’s mostly a result of Soviet cold war propaganda (look we were so good in spying we tricked the stupid Germans…) and inability of the authors to properly evaluate the objective issues (manpower, tanks, logistics, etc).

The same point is true for Western historians. Once they don’t understand something it can be attributed to intelligence, ultra, codebreaking, deception etc (no1 case is Normandy invasion)
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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#14

Post by steverodgers801 » 15 Sep 2013, 04:42

The Germans consistently failed in predicting where and when Soviet offences would come. I would say that reflects on the ability of the Soviets to disguise their forces and intent.

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Urmel
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Re: Performance of Fremde Heere Ost during Barbarossa/Taifun

#15

Post by Urmel » 15 Sep 2013, 08:00

Michate wrote:The article contains a lot of praise for Maskirovka and Soviet operational art, nevertheless my (perhaps heretical) thought on reading the article was: oh, so Gehlen was not that wrong, after all.
Well, but being right on one of two things when you have to be right on two doesn't win you any prizes in the game Gehlen was playing.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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