098 - Has Germany Lost WW2 Already in Mid-1941? - WW2 - July 11 1941

by Panzer
Yeah, yeah it begins this week, but that doesn’t change anything.
Why?
Because it’s not part of the Second World War!
Ok, ok, ok, fine – I'll mention it.
Okay
July 11, 1941
You’ve launched a gargantuan offensive on
your enemy, sending millions of troops forth to crush him, and you achieve rapid success,
taking hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war… but how do you corral them, and
move them, and guard them?
You better figure it out pretty quick.
I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
Last week the Allied invasion of Syria continued to gain ground, and Claude Auchinlek took
over command of Britain’s Middle Eastern Theater of operations.
Of course, the major news was the actions all along the front line from the Baltic to
the Black Sea of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union.
They had advanced on all fronts, but though closing the Minsk pocket took an enormous
amount of Soviet prisoners, they were seeing stiffer resistance than anyone had anticipated.
“…Germany clearly held the strategic initiative…
…It was not enough, however, just to dictate
the course of the ongoing battles; the advantages had to be turned into a final victory capable
of ending the war.
To achieve this, (Chief of Staff Franz) Halder had no recourse to substantial reserves of
manpower or equipment and the intangible factor of time was equally irreplaceable.
With the Soviet Union rapidly mobilising every aspect of its enormous military potential,
Army Group Center had to deliver on the hopes of its leaders and crush the remaining Soviet
resistance in the second phase of its operations.”
They had halted operations in AG Center for reorganisation, but the renewed offensive
by the panzer spearheads began back on the 3rd.
On the 4th, Hermann Hoth made a small bridgehead across the Dvina and Heinz Guderian another,
but these were both subject to intense counterattacks to the point that Hoth is stopped and Guderian
reports to Army C-in-C Walther Brauchitsch the 5th, “As a result of personnel and material
losses the momentum of the attacks by 3rd and 18th panzer divisions has been lost.”
Hoth reports that only 50% of his tanks are combat ready- after just two weeks of the operation.
On the 6th, in the Panzer Corps diary, the 18th Panzer Division is described as “no
longer fully combat ready” because of the losses of men and material.
Major General Walther Nehring, divisional commander, will opine “This situation and
its consequences will become unbearable in the future, if we do not want to be destroyed
by winning.”