Issue 70 (Fall/Winter 2011)
TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
WORLD WAR II ON THE EASTERN FRONT
Objective Sevastopol: A Review of GMT’s
Barbarossa: Crimea, 1941-1942
by Jim Werbaneth
A Blitzkrieg of
Quality: Tactics and Command in
Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear, Russia 1941-1942
by Jim Werbaneth
Going Beyond the Classic: Eastern Front Grand Strategy in
Russia Besieged
by LTC Robert G. Smith
Big Box of
Barbarossa: Early Great Patriotic War Tactics in
Panzer Grenadier: Eastern Front Deluxe
by Jim Werbaneth
Ratifying Stalingrad: Why the Decision on the Volga Needed More to be Truly
Decisive
by Jim Werbaneth
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by Jim Werbaneth
This is not just the seventieth issue of Line
of Departure; it is the twentieth anniversary issue. That is twenty years
starting with dot matrix printers, CGA graphics, WordPerfect 5.1, 5.25” floppy
disks, Zip Disk backups, and then working toward what you see here. It has
been that proverbial long, strange trip, sometimes with fits and starts, but one
I consider well worth taking.
To mark the anniversary, I decided about a year ago to
publish a special theme issue, on World War II on the Eastern Front. Call
it that, or call it the Great Patriotic War, it was the world’s largest and
worst war, even without all the other theaters of the Second World War
considered. In addition, it pitted the two of the worst dictatorships of
the twentieth century against each other; only Communist China compares to Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union in terms of long-term, mass murdering evil.
Yet the democracies of the
West were forced into a Faustian bargain: To oppose one of the warring powers,
they had to hold their proverbial noses and support the other. It was not
made more palatable by the fact that the USSR and the Nazis had spent a year and
a half as allies, partners in the conquest and partition of Poland first.
Then came other aggressions, as each tried to expand its power in Europe.
Finally, on 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany turned on its erstwhile partner with
Operation Barbarossa. This did not exactly put the Soviet Union on the
side of the angels, but at least it was forced into opposition rather than
collaboration with Hitler.
Furthermore, the Eastern Front was the decisive one.
This is where the Wehrmacht committed most of its strength, won major victories,
and then suffered its worst defeats. Not just Stalingrad, but the failure
of Operation Typhoon, the failed offensive at Kursk, and the great battles that
eventually broke into the Reich’s borders, and then Berlin itself, all occurred
in the East.
There is no doubt that the
Great Patriotic War gave wargamers some of their most important games.
Like many others of my generation, Panzer Blitz was my introduction to
tactical gaming. Then Squad Leader began with battles in the
streets of Stalingrad, played and replayed over the years. When
Advanced Squad Leader came out, it was with the Beyond Valor
module and with it more urban combat on the Eastern Front.
On
the operational scale, my entrée into this theatre of war came through SPI’s
Karkhov, in Strategy & Tactics in 1978, practically wearing out my
issue. I returned to Avalon Hill for The Russian Campaign and Russian
Front, and with them the Eastern Front on a strategic level. Only later
did I go back and play Stalingrad and the original SPI Barbarossa,
and found them wanting. Others have happy memories of these games, but I
probably found them too late in life for that.
For all
the wargame memories that we have, it is essential not to lose sight about what
the Great Patriotic War was really about. For the Soviet Union, it was a
war of survival, pure and simple. At the top it was certainly about the
survival of the Communist regime, and its own network of gulags, torture and
murder. For the soldiers and civilians, it was no less of a literal
struggle for survival; in the Nazi vision there was no place for such
“inferiors” as the Slavs, even those predisposed to support the Germans against
their own Communist oppressors.
On the German side, the war in the East was for living
room, lebensraum, and against the Slavs, Communists, and Jews.
In Hitler’s vision, it was a struggle to exterminate one set of people and
replace them with another. War in the East was intended to make Germany’s
future marches safe for genocide, and then German settlement of the now-empty
black earth and industrial heartland of the former Soviet Union. Any
remaining Slavs would be present only as slaves.
Then there are the Jews. I find it impossible to
separate World War II in the East from the Holocaust; the first greatly
facilitated the second. I have said it for years, I will say it again: In
Nazi Germany, killing Jews was Job 1. Everything else either served that
purpose, or came in second to making Europe judenfrei. For all
the avowed aims of the Nazis― restoring German power and pride, even peopling
the plains of Poland, Ukraine and Russia with sturdy Germanic settlers― came
back to the goal of exterminating the Jews.
As much as anyone, I enjoy games on the Eastern Front.
At the same time, I find it impossible not to see what was at stake.
Along the way, I grew a certain abhorrence of the Nazi glorification that has
arisen in some quarters, an implicit agreement that it was ultimately a conflict
of civilized Europe against the semi-Asiatic hordes of the East. More
accurately, it was a war of genocide and aggression against other civilized
peoples, who happened to suffer under the yoke of their own monsters. Even
the monstrous nature of the Soviet system, and the great Stalin himself, does
not change this, let alone excuse it. Even so, one might hear a kind of
wistfulness in some conversations about the war, regretting that the good guys
did not win, as though there were any good guys on the Axis side.
So while we can all
enjoy games on Russo-German war, it is doubly important to remember the history.
It is never value neutral, like some eighteenth-century contest between absolute
monarchs.
I planned for a World War II Eastern Front theme issue
of Line of Departure for a long time, years even, and with an idea of
putting it into print to commemorate one of the magazine’s important
anniversaries. It was not in spite or in denial of the savage, deeply
disturbing contest of the conflict. Rather, it was because of it. We
can play games on the Eastern Front, we can have fun with them, but we should
always remember what, in the end, they are really about.
So welcome to the twentieth
anniversary issue of Line of Departure, and the seventieth as well.
I will admit that it took me a little longer than usual to get this into print;
much of that was due to my determination to focus on one subject. Most
unusual, this is the second theme issue in a row; it is unlikely that that will
happen again, not for a long while. In the meantime too, I updated the
Line of Departure Online Features web site (http://www.jimwerbaneth.com/online_features/index.html),
and will continue to do so through 2012. Last year I started adding more
academic, serious features, written due to my teaching jobs, and growing out of
history assignments in the graduate courses that I’m taking at
American Military
University. I am not only a member of the faculty there, but pursuing
a second MA degree, this one in military history, concentrating on World War II.
When I was in the banking industry, we used to call using the company’s own
product as “eating your own cooking.”
For me, that means getting an advanced degree that
I’ve wanted since I was in grade school, and as part of the benefits of my job,
I can do that at no cost. For you the readers, there are some benefits
too. The first is that I intend to share the best and most appropriate
material with you, the readers. In 2011 that was two articles based on
papers submitted as class assignments, one on the
historical accounts of the Battle of Shiloh, and the other an examination of
how
Winfield Scott’s Mexico City campaign of 1847 reflected the theories of
Jominí and Clausewitz. There is a third article too, this one on teaching
military history in an undergraduate environment. That was not written
for a class, but was founded on my own experiences teaching at
La Roche College.
I expect more of this in
2012. More than that, the new features will be on World War II as well as
other subjects. Along with the new academic articles too, I expect to put
more game features too; it’s been a while since I covered real time strategy
games in
Line of Departure Online Features, and perhaps it’s time to return to that
genre. Plus, there is always a call for scenarios, for everything.
So that’s where things stand
right now. What’s next? Besides all that I mentioned above, I’m
planning on at least another twenty years of Line of Departure.
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