149 - Fall Blau Begins, Stalin Caught off Guard Again - WW2 - July 3, 1942

Africa?

How come?

Ah yes, the triumphant march into Cairo.

You do realize Rommel hasn’t gotten to Cairo yet?

Yes, he’s counting his chickens before they hatch.

What?

No, I don’t know if that’s also an Italian expression.

That’s an interesting question.

July 3, 1942

The Axis Powers invaded the Soviet Union last June, and 371 days later they launch another

huge offensive there.

This week is the beginning of Fall Blau!

I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.

Last week the Germans crossed the border into Egypt, ready to attack the Allies once again.

The Germans attacked the Soviets with Operation Fridericus, and Josef Stalin refused to believe

the intelligence he’s gotten that says the big German summer offensive is going to not

aim for Moscow, but will attack against the south towards the Caucasus.

But that offensive, Fall Blau- Case or Operation Blue- does indeed begin, this week on the

28th.

Phase One begins with a short artillery bombardment

and Luftwaffe air strike, then at 1000, Army

Group Weichs, a temporary formation, attacks in the north of the region toward Voronezh,

the German 2nd Army on the left, the German 4th panzer army on the right, and the Hungarian

infantry covering the south flank.

They break through both immediately and everywhere.

This comes as a bit of a surprise to those units, but as we saw, Stalin, much like last

year, has chosen to ignore all the intelligence reports from within and from his western Allies,

and even captured ones from the Germans, telling him that this attack is coming, and he has

been fixated on the mistaken idea that it would be toward Moscow.

That and the local German offensives recently further south have the Soviets completely

back footed here.

The German field commanders sure didn’t expect the resistance to be so feeble.

“This was, after all, a breakthrough battle from a standing start, without the great strategic

surprise of Barbarossa.

That had been a bolt out of the blue that literally caught the defenders napping.

Blue, they had felt, was going to require some tough fighting at the outset… before

the Panzer Divisions reached open ground for operational level maneuver.”

(Death of the Wehrmacht)

Weichs’ armor is the northern thrust of a planned double envelopment of the Soviet