World War: BATTLE OF RUSSIA: Dwindling Capital

Of all military assets which German military writers list, the most precious is something they call siegerringendes Blutkapital (“Capital of victory-achieving blood”). If an army spends too much (say 40%) of this precious capital too quickly, it is incapable of further offensive action until it has passed many months filling out its ranks with new blood.

This week, as five months of war in Russia draw to a close, it appeared that Germany had spent such a quantity of its blood-capital that a good long period of rest may be indicated.

Germany’s blood losses can only be estimated. Joseph Stalin’s assertion that the Germans lost 4,500,000 men by Nov. 1 can be dismissed; it is axiomatic that a retreating army has no knowledge of its enemy’s losses. But the only alternative official information is Hitler’s.

The German High Command has announced that German casualties for the first two months and nine days of the war in Russia (up to Aug. 31) were 402,865 men. This was probably propaganda, but it may be accepted as a minimum figure. Assuming that the Germans have lost as many again since Aug. 31, then German losses would have been 805,730 men.

In the first four months of World War I, when Germany was staging the great initial offensives, the Germans suffered 677,440 casualties. In the especially grim months toward the end (March-June 1918). they lost 688,341 men. Therefore, in spite of the fact that advances in World War I were largely made with great waves of unprotected men, the German losses in Russia have probably been heavier than during bloodiest periods of World War I.

In terms of blood-capital, the losses have been hard. Best estimate of the total German force in Russia at the outset was about 3,100,000 men. Losses of 805,730 would be 26% of that total. The loss of one man in every four leaves the margin of victory-achieving blood-capital temporarily very narrow—if the German admission of September was honest.

All this suggests that Adolf Hitler may lay off Russia during the severe winter months, indulging only in minor tactical attacks. Last week’s German attacks were of this nature. German forces tried to close leaks in the siege of Leningrad, tried to improve their position on the flanks of Moscow, tried to clean out the Crimea to neutralize Sevastopol, Russia’s next-to-last naval base in the Black Sea (last: Novorossiisk in the Caucasus). At Leningrad and Moscow the Russians held fast; in the Crimea Sevastopol held out, but the Germans drove east to Kerch, which is only six miles from the Caucasus. But even in these minor operations, Adolf Hitler was spending his blood-capital.