Tapping Hitler's Generals

It was incredible what the Russians achieved in the way of reserves. We realised that in the winter of 1941/42 when the roads were just mud tracks. If I remember right we had about a hundred different types of trucks manufactured by a variety of firms,[175] each having its own special spare parts; so the spare parts of one couldn’t be used for others, and those were vehicles naturally intended for use on European roads; the Russians only had three types of Ford trucks, a small one, a medium one and a large one; consequently all spare parts could be used for any of them.[176] One of the most amazing features is that the Russians were an out-and-out peasant nation up to the outbreak of the World War; they were an agricultural people; Bolshevism transformed their Soviet Nation of peasants into a nation of technicians within a period of 20 years; so the Russians must possess a natural technical talent. People who knew RUSSIA well told me that the Russians, even the peasants were always very handy craftsmen who used their primitive means to fabricate things, motivated by an inner urge to create. For instance in RUSSIA, at the time of those large pockets when thousands of their trucks and vehicles were either completely destroyed or damaged, two or three Russians used to be got together and told to make one vehicle from the wreck of four others. They achieved it too. One reason of course was that any part of one vehicle could be used for another and because they had a natural talent and were undoubtedly trained for the job. It was one of the major surprises. The Ford vehicles probably with cooperation from FORD, were constructed along entirely different lines from the ordinary ones in EUROPE. They were higher off the ground, giving them more freedom of movement; they all had two rear wheels and two rear tyres each side, besides which they had a special peculiarity; you know the so-called snow-chains used here; they had similar mud-chains which were somewhat different; the Russians, knowing what their winter is like, had organised them accordingly. We didn’t do that. We went there with absolutely normal central European vehicles and consequently we got stuck everywhere.

Our Air Force made terrific efforts to destroy enemy transport by attacking big railway marshalling yards or railways in narrow valleys. Undoubtedly these attacks were effective for quite a time but it was incredible how quickly repairs were carried out; our recce aircraft reported that the entire population of the neighbourhood was being collected, given spades and pickaxes and everything was put in order again. Sometimes our pilots were quite desperate because they realised that the damage they had once more caused would be repaired within two or three days, and the trains would be running as usual everywhere. In this respect the Russians had recognised the meaning of total warfare, and put it into practice to a far greater extent than we had, we who talked such a lot about it.

Russian women are far better and more reliable workers than Russian men. For that reason the Russians usually recruited great numbers of women to carry out road work. This system was capable of coping with the circumstances; our system as it gradually developed would have been equally efficient if it had gone the whole way and regarded human beings as cyphers. It was exactly the same under the Czars. The terrific problems of road and rail transport were thus solved by the Russians throwing in all their forces with relentless energy.[177]