Was the USSR set to attack Germany before Operation Barbarossa??

[Battlefront.com]

Stalin was a dictator of an expansionist empire. Hitler was a dictator of an expansionist empire. Oh, and they were abutting neighbors with interests in being dictator of the same area. I also seem to recall that the two previous incarnations of the two aforementioned empires had fought a bloody war against each other just a few years earlier. Now... hmmm... I wonder... might each one want to attack each other again? Wait, don't tell me the answer!! I'm sure it's in a book somewhere. Damn, someone blew the surprise for me. The Soviet Union did have designs to expand it's empire westward?!? OMG! That is such a HUGE shocking revelation!!!

Now someone told me something else they read in a book. Something about how Hitler wrote his own little obscure book. I forget the name of it, but IIRC it had some stuff in it about how a certain bunch of people to the East were inferior and basically needed to be exterminated so another certain bunch of people, obviously superior in all ways, could make better use of the aforementioned people's lands. I believe the term was something like Lebensraum, but I'm just going from memory on this one.

Apparently, according to a hugely credible guy named Suvorov, who could not possibly be ever proven wrong, theorized that nobody in the capital of the other empire read that little book. What was the name of it? Mime Krump? No, that's not quite right. Well, anyway, since NOBODY read the book they didn't know about the intentions of the expansionist empire to their west and plotted an entire war against them without any reason for it! And likewise, the leader of that western empire never, ever, even once mentioned the ideas in his book to anybody in his government. You know, because if he had made anything in that book state policy it would kinda make it look like there might be a threat to the other empire in the east.

So as I understand it, the western empire was totally peaceful and full of love in their hearts for all mankind. Well, at least after they invaded their countries and subjugated them a tiny bit. This empire had absolutely no intentions of waging war against the empire to the east. Not ever. And therefore, the empire to the east was totally off their rocker to think that they should perhaps maybe prepare for war against the western empire.

Now it turns out that the western empire did in fact attack the eastern empire first, even though the western empire was minding its own business. The eastern empire, so totally prepared for war against the western empire, lost a few million men and vast amounts of territory in a clever ploy to lull the western empire into a false sense of security before launching its attack. And while the western empire had control of the territory they coincidentally did everything that was in the little book that nobody read. I know, what are the odds of that happening? Crazy man.

Anyway, the moral of this story is the western empire was just a victim of all this and the eastern empire was the real aggressor. And that's why they should be excused from murdering tens of millions of people and plundering an entire continent. Because it wasn't their fault just as Suvorov and Irving tell us so.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

With that said, here's what I really think

The Soviet Union wanted control of eastern Europe just as Germany did. And just as every tinpot dictator or regent before them. Conflict in this area was inevitable. Having two ruthless militaristic empires, both of which had already invaded other sovereign countries, lined up next to each other could only lead to one thing... conflict. Both knew this. However, both approached the situation differently.

Nazi ideology was very, very clear on the fact that they wanted to take the territory to the east for their own. In fact, Hitler wanted to do it in 1940 but there was no way he could. He then wanted to do it Spring 1941, however he got distracted by Yugoslavia and Greece. Hitler's writings and interactions with leadership made it clear that everything, including England, was a sideshow to his designs on the Soviet Union's territory.

Stalin might have been a murdering SOB, but he was not an idiot. He knew that sooner or later Hitler would turn east and attack. So he did what any leader of any nation, free or otherwise, would do and that was to prepare for it. Some even thought that they had the time to launch a preemptive attack. The rapid collapse of western Europe proved that time wasn't on their side.

The Soviet plan was simple and it was defensive because they knew they had no chance against the Germans with their existing forces. Because there wasn't enough time to rearm and reequip their military to modern standards on a grand scale, they needed to stall the German attack. They put almost all of their standing forces and equipment into the border region to act as a speed bump while a better force was freshly equipped just east of the border area. This force would counter attack when ready and be joined up by a third force that would be formed even further east. Together the forces would push the Germans out and get the Soviet Union what it wanted in the east as far as their forces could take them.

German had ALWAYS intended on attacking east as soon as Hitler had gained control of the armed forces. He had to bide his time until he thought they were ready to do so, including ignoring Great Britain and dismissing the threat of the US's involvement. June 22, 1941 was the soonest he managed to get things rolling and it obviously wasn't a good move.

But if Germany hadn't attacked first, and Stalin thought they could win a war of aggression against the Third Reich, he no doubt would have tried to invade westward. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. But the fact is Hitler didn't give a rat's arse what Stalin might do in the future because he always planned on attacking first. In other words, why plan on having your cake eaten by a bear next week if you were planning on eating it today?

This is a far cry from what Suvorov and Irving want us to take away from all this. And that is Hitler was an innocent bystander and the real aggressor was Stalin and Hitler was just doing his Christian duty to stand up to those godless hordes. Which means we should excuse everything that the Third Reich did at home and abroad, except for the stuff that they didn't do (i.e. murder millions of Jews). In fact, we should all try to be a little bit more like Hitler. He's a hero, not a villain. Oops... there I go into sarcasm again. Silly me, I keep forgetting this is a high powered intellectual discussion we're having.

Steve

[mjkerner]

Stalin was a dictator of an expansionist empire. Hitler was a dictator of an expansionist empire. Oh, and they were abutting neighbors with interests in being dictator of the same area. I also seem to recall that the two previous incarnations of the two aforementioned empires had fought a bloody war against each other just a few years earlier. Now... hmmm... I wonder... might each one want to attack each other again? Wait, don't tell me the answer!! I'm sure it's in a book somewhere. Damn, someone blew the surprise for me. The Soviet Union did have designs to expand it's empire westward?!? OMG! That is such a HUGE shocking revelation!!!

Now someone told me something else they read in a book. Something about how Hitler wrote his own little obscure book. I forget the name of it, but IIRC it had some stuff in it about how a certain bunch of people to the East were inferior and basically needed to be exterminated so another certain bunch of people, obviously superior in all ways, could make better use of the aforementioned people's lands. I believe the term was something like Lebensraum, but I'm just going from memory on this one.

Apparently, according to a hugely credible guy named Suvorov, who could not possibly be ever proven wrong, theorized that nobody in the capital of the other empire read that little book. What was the name of it? Mime Krump? No, that's not quite right. Well, anyway, since NOBODY read the book they didn't know about the intentions of the expansionist empire to their west and plotted an entire war against them without any reason for it! And likewise, the leader of that empire never, ever, even once mentioned the ideas in his book to anybody in his government. You know, because if he had made anything in that book state policy it would kinda make it look like there might be a threat to the other empire.

So as I understand it, the western empire was totally peaceful and full of love in their hearts for all mankind. Well, at least after they invaded their countries and subjugated them a tiny bit. This empire had absolutely no intentions of waging war against the empire to the east. Not ever. And therefore, the empire to the east was totally off their rocker to think that they should perhaps maybe prepare for war against the western empire.

Now it turns out that the western empire did in fact attack the eastern empire first, even though the western empire was minding its own business. The eastern empire, so totally prepared for war against the western empire, lost a few million men and vast amounts of territory in a clever ploy to lull the western empire into a false sense of security before launching its attack. And while the western empire had control of the territory they coincidentally did everything that was in the little book that nobody read. I know, what are the odds of that happening? Crazy man.

Anyway, the moral of this story is the western empire was just a victim of all this and the eastern empire was the real aggressor. And that's why they should be excused from murdering tens of millions of people and plundering an entire continent. Because it wasn't their fault just as Suvorov and Irving tell us so.

Steve

That book you're thinking of was a bloody discharge! I think it was titled "Mein Kramps". My wife reads it often...about once a month! (Rimshot)

Thank you Ladies and Germs! I'll be playing the Catskills all Winter.

[John Kettler]

mjkerner,

I may need therapy after that pun--ishment! And that's after failing to note I had an extra "R" in "occur."

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Since this is, in part, a kind of Russian historiography review, I was wondering where things stood on the question of Abwehr involvement in inciting the officer purge? I've crossed paths with this notion several times and have seen it described as a huge intelligence coup, but haven't seen any real discussion of the matter.

mbarbaric,

While I take your point about Glantz, I fail to see what relevance the works cited by Beevor and Ryan have to the CPSU and military situation beginning in the two decades or so before the GPW. I read Ryan's book and found it excellent at the time. though I've yet to read any Beevor, I've seen numerous good things said about him and his book, both here and on sites such as Amazon. Shall have to keep a sharp eye out at physical and online haunts for stellar book deals.

Regards,

John Kettler

[dsf]

What was the largest.tank.battle.then?

Here is the Wikipedia article. It was a major counterattack by the South Western Front at the end of June 1941. There were thousands of tanks involved, basically the entire strength of Army Group South versus the entire South-Western Front. The battle went on for days between Dubno and Brody along the axis of the German advance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brody_%281941%29

Regards

Scott Fraser

[George MC]

Here is the Wikipedia article. It was a major counterattack by the South Western Front at the end of June 1941. There were thousands of tanks involved, basically the entire strength of Army Group South versus the entire South-Western Front. The battle went on for days between Dubno and Brody along the axis of the German advance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brody_%281941%29

Regards

Scott Fraser

Did a scenario based on this for CMBB. Part of the Strachwitz series Charlie and I made. Wee article about the action we created (pre Wiki). It also has links to on-line information and also the map of the area.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f60s0fcz10uojbp/Strachwitz%20At%20Dubno%20Historical%20Background.pdf?dl=0

[dsf]

In chapter 22 of "Icebreaker" Suvorov shows the Russians began a titanic series of troop movements so massive they pretty much killed the railway system starting six months prior to Barbarossa and intensifying enormously over time.

John, none of this is a revelation. In May 1941, Stalin ordered a general mobilization as well as the immediate expansion of the Red Army, which included expanding the draft, recalling forces from the Far East, and sending everybody west. The Red Army was swelling at a feverish rate, despite the fact there were few junior officers and almost no NCOs and not enough new tanks or aircraft. The level of training was abysmal, as was the state of repair. Either way, all this was headed west in June, with many units strung out for hundreds of kilometers along the railway line. That was typical of the shambles the whole Army was in.

The result of this was to put 57 divisions (their artillery preceded them) right up on the border of Germany and Romania, with another 114 close behind and in easy attack position. This was the entire First Strategic Echelon. 170 divisions! And where the First Strategic Echelon had been, the Second Strategic Echelon, whose existence the Germans did not know of, and whose movements and arrival were thoroughly concealed, took the former place of the First Strategic Echelon. The upshot? Because the First Strategic Echelon was on and near the border, it was wrecked.

That was its purpose, its raison d'être, to absorb the attack and do as much damage as they could until help (the Second Echelon) arrived.

That accomplished, the Germans thought they were in the clear, the war won. Which was when they ran smack into another wall of armies....

The Second Echelon, or actually the Only Echelon, since the defensive force structure was so far from complete. In reality, the Second Echelon didn't exist except on paper.

He's got fully documented account after account from the various senior COs attesting to things like calling up reserves...

Here's a book by Roderic Braithwaite. He is a journalist who provides an interesting account of the situation following Barbarossa. His focus is on civilians, in large part, but he writes well. There was an atmosphere of tension in Moscow, many young people were joining up or being conscripted, so there is no doubt that the expectation of war was in the air. It's an interesting read.

Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War

'By the end of June 1941, there were 1,320 trains laden with motor vehicles standing on the railways.' (VIZH 1975, No. I, p. 81) The standard weight for a military train at that time was 900 tons (45 wagons each weighing 20 tons). Assuming that there was one vehicle to every wagon, this would mean that at least 59,400 vehicles were expected to be offloaded. However, it often happened that, in conditions where an enemy attack

has not been foreseen (and this one was not foreseen), the vehicles were loaded 'like a snake', that is with the front wheels of each vehicle placed on the body of the one in front. In this way an increased number of vehicles can be loaded onto one train.

Der Alte Fritz has the goods on the Soviet railway system. He has posted a lot of pertinent information on Armchair General in the RKKA Forum. I'll try and roust him to see what he has to say about Soviet rail capacity. It varied in different areas because of the trackage. Suffice to say that the railways were totally overwhelmed.

If somebody can manage to systematically refute the crushing aggregation of evidence Suvorov has so painstakingly assembled over many years, I'd love to see it.

Presumably you have an open mind. I think if you read either Glantz's or Gorodetsky's book, you will see how tenuous Suvorov's thesis is and understand how it collapses completely when compared to archival material, including orders, strength returns, requisitions, transport orders. etc. The proof is not there, and there would be stacks of documents if it were true.

I have no doubt that Stalin became resolved to a war with Germany as early as May 1939, after the French and British did nothing when Hitler marched into Prague. But the timing is manifestly impossible for any attack in 1941, given the state of the Red Army. The leadership was aware of that state, although the severity was greatly underestimated, and they were urgently trying to get defenses in order. All of it makes sense, but only in a longer timeframe.

Regards

Scott Fraser

Regards

Scott Fraser

[76mm]

If somebody can manage to systematically refute the crushing aggregation of evidence Suvorov has so painstakingly assembled over many years, I'd love to see it.

Many Russian historians have systematically refuted Suvorov's "crushing aggregation of evidence". Here's one for starters ("Antisuvorov" by Isaev--in Russian but presumably you know how to work Google Translate:

http://militera.lib.ru/research/isaev_av1/index.html

Isaev addresses most or all of the points you raise, and from what I can see, makes it clear that Suvorov is simply wrong on pretty much everything. Isaev cites several instances where Suvorov takes quotes out of context or only uses partial quotes in a misleading way.

A few responses, mostly from a common sense perspective, but with some reference to Isaev:

The result of this was to put 57 divisions (their artillery preceded them) right up on the border of Germany and Romania, with another 114 close behind and in easy attack position. This was the entire First Strategic Echelon. 170 divisions! And where the First Strategic Echelon had been, the Second Strategic Echelon, whose existence the Germans did not know of, and whose movements and arrival were thoroughly concealed, took the former place of the First Strategic Echelon.

To the extent it is correct (ie, not very much, see Isaev), moving troops closer to the border is fully consistent with preparing for a German invasion.

He's got fully documented account after account from the various senior COs attesting to things like calling up reserves, going "on exercise" out of season and with full war stores, the employment of special orders reserved solely for wartime, rigorously camouflaged encampments already in place in the forests for the arriving units, senior officers running around in much lower rank insignia, same people traveling in (gasp) box cars with their staffs and commo gear, all amid night movement only.

All of this is also fully consistent with preparing for a German invasion.

"But before an offensive, ammunition is stored on mobile transport, which is a very expensive and dangerous thing to do. 'At the small railway station of Kalinovka alone, the South-West Front had 1,500 wagons laden with ammunition.' (Sovetskie Zheleznodorozhniki v Gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny, Izd. AN. SSSRI963, p. 36)"

Sigh...building up stores of arty ammo also fully consistent with preparing for German invasion. Moreover, Kalinovka was 400 km from the border.

Border defenses, right down to barb wire removed? Check?

Mines lifted? Check.

Fortifications in the path of the advance destroyed? Check?

Bridge demo charges removed? Check.

Bridges refurbished to carry the weight of tanks and such? Check.

Transport network built and expanded to accommodate a high speed offensive? Check.

Offensive naval units deployed? Check. Danube flotilla ready to go? Check. Combat aviation forward based to support attack by ground forces? Check. Multiple Airborne Corps, including Zhukov's favorite from Khalkin Gol, brought west, ready to pounce on strategic targets.

Secret mobilizations? Check?

Universal draft? Check.

I've addressed most of these points in a previous post. See Isaev re the "offensive naval units". And given the obvious threat that Germany might invade Russia, mobilization and a universal draft were wholly rational measures for a defensive war.

This is not the combat posture of a defender, who should have actual defenses in place well away from the frontier and be burrowing away like a mole on steroids to make more, better and faster.

The Soviets obviously had a defensive doctrine which did not involve digging in far from the border. Of course it turned out to be a rather poor defensive doctrine, but that doesn't mean the Sovs planned to attack.

In front of that should be a deep security zone, full of military nastiness. Instead, we have no security zone, no mines, no abatis, tank traps or wire entanglements, no bridges ready to blow. No partisans. No stay behind units. No weapon caches or underground bases.

As dsf points out, this was due to redeployment of fortified line from the Stalin line to the Molotov line, with the German invasion falling in the middle of this redeployment. If you were to read histories of the pre-war period, you'd see that most, if not all, Soviet fronts were constructing defenses in their sectors. I am currently reading the memoirs of the chief of staff of the 5th Army (Southwestern Front), and he speaks at length about the fortifications in his sector--the problem was that the troops did not have time to occupy them before being overrun.

The conclusion, based on the information presented, is ineluctable.

Yes, but not in Suvorov's favor.

[Michael Emrys]

...I was wondering where things stood on the question of Abwehr involvement in inciting the officer purge? I've crossed paths with this notion several times and have seen it described as a huge intelligence coup, but haven't seen any real discussion of the matter.

I'm in the same boat. I've seen it attributed not to Abwehr but to Heydrich and the SD, but such evidence as I have come across is flimsy and speculative.

Michael

[sburke]

Did a scenario based on this for CMBB. Part of the Strachwitz series Charlie and I made. Wee article about the action we created (pre Wiki). It also has links to on-line information and also the map of the area.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f60s0fcz10uojbp/Strachwitz%20At%20Dubno%20Historical%20Background.pdf?dl=0

There is a more recent book on the battle as well George, not sure if you have seen it.

The Bloody Triangle: The Defeat of Soviet Armor in the Ukraine, June 1941

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bloody-Triangle-Defeat-Ukraine-ebook/dp/B004JZYBLG/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

A review

Midwest Book Review

"During the summer of 1941, a marshy area of the Ukraine witnessed a battle between over 2,000 tanks in a pivotal, early armor clash of World War II. Victor Kamenir details the little known battle between Soviet and German forces that was a harbinger of things to come on the Eastern Front…Told largely in the words of the men who were there, this informative history shed new light on how the Soviet tank units melted away under the merciless onslaught of their determined and well equipped adversary. From the early planning stages, when German intelligence realized the Soviet command structure would more than likely be slow to respond to a rapidly changing tactical situation, to the final unsuccessful counteroffensive by the Russians, this book offers a complete picture of the entire event. Kamenir's insightful analysis also compares and contrasts the strengths and weaknesses of the equipment utilized by both sides in the struggle."

[76mm]

I've seen it attributed not to Abwehr but to Heydrich and the SD, but such evidence as I have come across is flimsy and speculative.

Robert Conquest's book The Great Terror includes rather detailed information about the German "dossier" implicating Tukhachevsky which was leaked to the Soviets. Apparently the SD lifted Tukhachevsky's signature from an agreement that he had signed with the Germans relating to technical assistance to the Soviet air force, and used this original to forge his signature on a series of letters between Tukhachevsky and senior German generals. This dossier was then "leaked' by the Nazis to President Benes of Czechoslovakia, who informed Stalin of the "plot". A Soviet agent then purchased the dossier for 500k (counterfeit) reichsmarks, and it made its way to Moscow. The purge against Tukhachevsky and his circle soon accelerated.

Despite this apparent success, this dossier cannot be considered a "huge intelligence coup", for several reasons: first, there is some (inconclusive) evidence that the NKVD suggested the whole scheme to the SD. Second, a slow-motion purge against the Soviet officer corps had already started almost a year earlier, with the arrest and torture of some lower-ranking officers to provide some evidence against the more senior officers. Third, the dossier was not used or mentioned in these officers' trials, rather they were convicted of what are generally assumed to be other fictitious charges of plotting coups, etc. Stalin had already decided to purge the army and didn't need the fake dossier to do so--he had already tasked the NKVD to compose their own fake evidence extracted through torture.

So it seems fairly clear that the purge would have happened with or without the German dossier--and indeed had started before the dossier was produced--and that its ultimate impact was probably limited to providing Stalin a pretext to accelerate the purge by a couple weeks/months.

[Michael Emrys]

So it seems fairly clear that the purge would have happened with or without the German dossier--which indeed had started before the dossier was produced--and that its ultimate impact was probably limited to providing Stalin a pretext to accelerate the purge by a couple weeks/months.

Thanks for that. The world of intelligence and counterintelligence is a murky one and littered with more rabbit holes than a Cornish copper field, so I always try to maintain an open mind and take everything with a grain or two of salt. This version at least has the virtue of plausibility.

Michael

[76mm]

Thanks for that. The world of intelligence and counterintelligence is a murky one...

Yeah, reading about the purges is so grim that I think I pick up more than a few grey hairs very time I read about it. Nonetheless in this case I hoped to get what appear to be the facts out there before people started posting the crazy stuff...

[ASL Veteran]

Holocaust Denial must be a very confusing thing for actual National Socialists because Jewish people and Marxism are inherently linked together in the mind of the man himself. It would take some serious mental gymnastics to separate the two. If someone on this forum doesn't want to read the writings of Adolf Hitler please skip the rest of this post. I only post his words in an effort to show the absurdity of a National Socialist who believes in the theories of Holocaust Denial.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

In this period my eyes were opened to two menaces of which I had previously scarcely known the names, and whose terrible importance for the existence of the German people I certainly did not understand: Marxism and Jewry.

You can’t be a crusader against Marxism without being a crusader against people of the Jewish faith. According to Adolf they are both one and the same.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

When I recognized the Jew as the leader of the Social Democracy, the scales dropped from my eyes. A long soul struggle had reached its conclusion.

Social Democrat means Marxist in Hitler’s writings. At first Hitler did make an effort to convince Jews that Marxism wasn’t the best philosophy to adhere to but he quickly became frustrated.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

When, after hours of argument, I was convinced that now at last I had broken the ice or cleared up some absurdity, and was beginning to rejoice at my success, on the next day to my disgust I had to begin all over again; it had all been in vain. Like an eternal pendulum their opinions seemed to swing back again and again to the old madness.

Try as he might, Hitler simply could not debate or reason with Marxist Jews. Please note that he didn’t necessarily disagree with Marxist views entirely and he even says here that he can understand some Marxist views.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

All this I could understand: that they were dissatisfied with their lot and cursed the Fate which often struck them so harshly; that they hated the employers who seemed to them the heartless bailiffs of Fate; that they cursed the authorities who in their eyes were without feeling for their situation; that they demonstrated against food prices and carried their demands into the streets: this much could be understood without recourse to reason. But what inevitably remained incomprehensible was the boundless hatred they heaped upon their own nationality, despising its greatness, besmirching its history, and dragging its great men into the gutter.

This struggle against their own species, their own clan, their own homeland, was as senseless as it was incomprehensible. It was unnatural.

It was possible to cure them temporarily of this vice, but only for days or at most weeks. If later you met the man you thought you had converted, he was just the same as before.

His old unnatural state had regained full possession of him.

Remember that Karl Marx was Jewish and he actually wrote an essay about ‘The Jewish Question’ which can probably be found online easily enough. Once again though poor Adolf simply couldn’t talk sense to these people. They can’t be bargained with and they can’t be reasoned with.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

A single year of my sojourn in Vienna had sufficed to imbue me with the conviction that no worker could be so stubborn that he would not in the end succumb to better knowledge and better explanations. Slowly I had become an expert in their own doctrine and used it as a weapon in the struggle for my own profound conviction.

Success almost always favored my side.

The great masses could be saved, if only with the gravest sacrifice in time and patience.

But a Jew could never be parted from his opinions.

In other words, the only thing you could do with Jewish people is to exterminate them because talking to them is a complete waste of time. However, that shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that Hitler necessarily disagrees with everything the Marxists say. No, quite the contrary, he actually agrees with them in many areas. I have bolded some particularly pertinent bits.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

By my twentieth year I had learned to distinguish between a union as a means of defending the general social rights of the wage-earner, and obtaining better living conditions for him as an individual, and the trade union as an instrument of the party in the political class struggle.

(snip)

For to call the trade-union movement in itself unpatriotic is nonsense and untrue to boot. Rather the contrary is true. If trade-union activity strives and succeeds in bettering the lot of a class which is one of the basic supports of the nation, its work is not only not anti-patriotic or seditious, but 'national' in the truest sense of the word. For in this way it helps to create the social premises without which a general national education is unthinkable. It wins the highest merit by eliminating social cankers, attacking intellectual as well as physical infections, and thus helping to contribute to the general health of the body politic.

Consequently, the question of their necessity is really superfluous.

As long as there are employers with little social understanding or a deficient sense of justice and propriety, it is not only the right but the duty of their employees, who certainly constitute a part of our nationality, to protect the interests of the general public against the greed and unreason of the individual; for the preservation of loyalty and faith in z social group is just as much to the interest of a nation as the preservation of the people's health.

Both of these are seriously menaced by unworthy employers who do not feel themselves to be members of the national community as a whole. From the disastrous effects of their greed or ruthlessness grow profound evils for the future.

To eliminate the causes of such a development is to do a service to the nation and in no sense the opposite.

Let no one say that every individual is free to draw the consequences from an actual or supposed injustice; in other words, to leave his job. No ! This is shadow-boxing and must be regarded as an attempt to divert attention. Either the elimination of bad, unsocial conditions serves the interest of the nation or it does not. If it does, the struggle against then must be carried on with weapons which offer the hope of success. The individual worker, however, is never in a position to defend himself against the power of the great industrialist, for in such matters it cannot be superior justice that conquers (if that were recognized, the whole struggle would stop from lack of cause)-no, what matters here is superior power. Otherwise the sense of justice alone would bring the struggle to a fair conclusion, or, more accurately speaking, the struggle could never arise.

No, if the unsocial or unworthy treatment of men calls for resistance, this struggle, as long as no legal judicial authorities have been created for the elimination of these evils, can only be decided by superior power. And this makes it obvious that the power of the employer concentrated in a single person can only be countered by the mass of employees banded into a single person, if the possibility of a victory is not to be renounced in advance.

Nope, Adolf has no problems with workers uniting in the calling of ‘Social Justice’. Adolf is definitely not of the individual liberty school and is a collectivist through and through as long as he’s the one in charge of the collective. One could probably consider the Marxist and the National Socialist as ideological cousins as they are both born from the same principles.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

Like the woman, whose psychic state is determined less by grounds of abstract reason than by an indefinable emotional longing for a force which will complement her nature, and who, consequently, would rather bow to a strong man than dominate a weakling, likewise the masses love a commander more than a petitioner and feel inwardly more satisfied by a doctrine, tolerating no other beside itself, than by the granting of liberalistic freedom with which, as a rule, they can do little, and are prone to feel that they have been abandoned.

No sir, the main sticking point the National Socialists have with the Marxist comes with the first word in the party name: National. For Adolf the phrase isn’t ‘Workers of the World Unite’, but rather ‘Workers of Germany Unite’ because when German workers unite that makes the Fatherland stronger. He agrees with Marxist doctrine but he can't let go of his love for the Fatherland. That makes Marxism and National Socialism incompatible.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

The question of the 'nationalization' of a people is, among other things, primarily a question of creating healthy social conditions as a foundation for the possibility of educating the individual. For only those who through school and upbringing learn to know the cultural, economic, but above all the political, greatness of their own fatherland can and unit achieve the inner pride in the privilege of being a member of such a people. And I can fight only for something that I love, love only what I respect, and respect only what I at least know.

For Marxists the opposite is true because they want to eliminate the nation state as an entity.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

These men rejected everything: the nation as an invention of the ' capitalistic ' (how often was I forced to hear this single word!) classes; the fatherland as an instrument of the bourgeoisie for the exploitation of the working class; the authority of law as a means for oppressing the proletariat; the school as an institution for breeding slaves and slaveholders; religion as a means for stultifying the people and making them easier to exploit; morality as a symptom of stupid, sheeplike patience, etc. There was absolutely nothing which was not drawn through the mud of a terrifying depths

Please note that his complaint about Marxists is with their relationship with the state and not necessarily Marxisms relationship with the working man. In his mind that isn’t even the worst of it though. If you add the Jew into the mix then you get a rather toxic brew. Not only can they not be reasoned with as shown above, but they … well I’ll let Adolf say it himself.

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

And whatever doubts I may still have nourished were finally dispelled by the attitude of a portion of the Jews themselves.

Among them there was a great movement, quite extensive in Vienna, which came out sharply in confirmation of the national character of the Jews: this was the Zionists.

It looked to be sure, as though only a part of the Jews approved this viewpoint, while the great majority condemned and inwardly rejected such a formulation. But when examined more closely, this appearance dissolved itself into an unsavory vapor of pretexts advanced for mere reasons of expedience, not to say lies. For the so-called liberal Jews did not reject the Zionists as non-Jews, but only as Jews with an impractical, perhaps even dangerous, way of publicly avowing their Jewishness.

Intrinsically they remained unalterably of one piece.

In a short time this apparent struggle between Zionistic and liberal Jews disgusted me; for it was false through and through, founded on lies and scarcely in keeping with the moral elevation and purity always claimed by this people.

So according to Hitler, not only were Jews Marxist with all that goes along with it in terms of eliminating the nation state as we know it, but they even have national aspirations of their own! There are dirty Zionists amongst them!

Originally written by Adolf Hitler

The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature and replaces the eternal privilege of power and strength by the mass of numbers and their dead weight. Thus it denies the value of personality in man, contests the significance of nationality and race, and thereby withdraws from humanity the premise of its existence and its culture. As a foundation of the universe, this doctrine would bring about the end of any order intellectually conceivable to man. And as, in this greatest of ail recognizable organisms, the result of an application of such a law could only be chaos, on earth it could only be destruction for the inhabitants of this planet.

If, with the help of his Marxist creed, the Jew is victorious over the other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity and this planet will, as it did thousands l of years ago, move through the ether devoid of men.

So there it is. According to Adolf Hitler the Marxist and the Jew are inseparable and the choice he is faced with is to destroy or be destroyed. It is a battle of annihilation and anyone who thinks that they can separate the Holocaust from the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 as independent unrelated events is simply delusional. You can’t have the one without the other. In the mind of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists the two events are two sides of the same conflict.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Hi John

Scott prodded from my slumber!

Re Icebreaker: I am afraid that I think Suvurov is wrong in his assertion and here is the reason why. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939 it took western Poland which was modern, well resourced and had a good transport network. It also took half of Eastern Poland beyond the Vistula which was agricultural, a land of Polish overlords and Belorussian peasants with poor transport infrastructure. The Soviets took the other half about 300 km deep which if anything was even in a worse state (as part of their defences the Poles had stripped 70km of the main double railway tracks down to one track reduced the signalling and weakened the bridges. Only local trains. AND ALL OF THIS WAS STANDARD GAUGE.

The Soviet Union then annexed the Baltic States of which only Estonia used broad gauge, the rest used a mix with the main lines in STANDARD GAUGE.

The invasion of Poland and the annexation of the Baltics was carried out by relatively small forces in a hurry and there was no effort made to change and upgrade the railway tracks for the operation. According to some Soviet sources the change of gauge was not even discussed until mid 1940 and there is considerable doubt as to how much work actually got carried out before the invasion, probably only main lines had their gauge changed and tracks upgraded. If memory serves me right I think we are talking about 7,000 km of track that needs to be virtually rebuilt.

Using an easily available source Scott Dunns "Red Army and the Soviet Economy" he makes the point that the mobilization trains travelled in considerable numbers over the Soviet Unions original western railway companies but that there was a capacity fall for the last 300km (ie over the old Polish territory).

This of course is the explanation for the big troop movements in late 1940 and early 1941, the Western military Districts uprooted themselves and moved forward to new positions 300km further west because they were adopting the same positions. The numbers on the railway look large because there are three things happening at the same time:

1) The 1st Echelon is moving into 'old'Poland

2) It has its large daily supply demand met over a crappy railway network

3) All the old frontier defences of the Stalin Line are also being ripped up and re-instated 300km further west.

No wonder the railways were blocked. The reason equipment was left on trains was that there were no facilities such as shed or storehouses, fuel bunkers in Poland - they were all 300 km further east or being dismantled to move forwards.

The reason the occupation of Poland by the full Soviet frontier defences was delayed was because there was not much infrastruture there in Polish days and the Soviets were slow to start building it. When war clouds started to gather it was all done in a rush and a muddle.

Like the fuel trains. In the Western military districts they had deep concrete underground bunkers for storing fuel but in Poland there was nothing so it had to be kept on trains to be moved forward when needed. The station mentioned with 1,300 fuel trains is near Kursk, so it is hardly close to the frontier. Its main claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of Nikita Krushchev.

[Melchior]

Nope, Adolf has no problems with workers uniting in the calling of ‘Social Justice’. Adolf is definitely not of the individual liberty school and is a collectivist through and through as long as he’s the one in charge of the collective. One could probably consider the Marxist and the National Socialist as ideological cousins as they are both born from the same principles.

Much was made of the "Socialism" in National Socialism by big personalities in the party during the 1920s. Particularly Goebbels, Rohm, and Strasser. I think Hitler's conduct and especially his dealings with the big name German industrialists and Junker estates reveals that Hitler didn't really hold the more socialist aspects of his writings all that dear.

It always appeared to me that Hitler never held more than a child's understanding of economics.

[ASL Veteran]

Much was made of the "Socialism" in National Socialism by big personalities in the party during the 1920s. Particularly Goebbels, Rohm, and Strasser. I think Hitler's conduct and especially his dealings with the big name German industrialists and Junker estates reveals that Hitler didn't really hold the more socialist aspects of his writings all that dear.

It always appeared to me that Hitler never held more than a child's understanding of economics.

I don't doubt that his level of economic understanding to be that of a child's. I'm sure their views modified as they gained and held power, but the entire organization of the state is that of a giant collective. You have massive public works programs to employ workers along with the armaments industry (all paid for by the state of course). The Hitler Youth and the mandatory nature of it with the children being thoroughly indoctrinated ... yes by the state. The children were encouraged to view the state as more important than their parents. There were 'breeding programs' to encourage population growth - of the correct type.

He had to deal with the Junkers and industrialists to gain power, but you also shouldn't automatically assume that a Junker or an industrialist isn't a National Socialist just because he is a Junker or an industrialist. Even today many wealthy 'elites' are left of center in their orientation. Probably most actually. There are a lot of theories as to why that is the case, but I haven't looked into it enough to comment on it. German soldiers even called each other 'Kameraden' or Comrade. National Socialist artwork and posters are almost indistinguishable from Communist artwork and posters in both style and color. Both flags are red, one with hammer and sickle of course and the other with the swastika. The similarities are many and both his writings and the party platforms that I can find online explicitly support the connections between the two. I believe, although I'm not sure, that Goebbels was even a Communist before joining the National Socialists. There are differences of course, but not enough to put them on different parts of the ideological spectrum.

If you are interested in reading about the wealthy 'elites' version of .. I think they call it Communitarianism (the third way) .... you should read some of HG Wells works. Perhaps start with HG Wells 'New World Order' and then move on to his 'Open Conspiracy'. It is very dense and complicated reading but he breaks it all down in meticulous detail. New World Order was a little more polished than Open Conspiracy so I'm pretty sure it was written later. I believe it was HG Wells that inspired George Orwell to write his famous book.

[Battlefront.com]

This brings to mind the classic line by line comparison of Fascism and Communism. When you go through and tick off what each has you wind up with a massively common basis:

1. Strong central authority over the minutia of every day life. Local/regional autonomy in any significant way is not allowed.

2. Suppression of individualism through force, intimidation, or other manipulative means.

3. Brutality towards anybody that opposes restrictions or conditions set in #2 above.

4. Personal and corporate property is inherently the state's. If individuals or corporations are allowed to have title to property it is conditional upon it being in the state's interests to do so.

5. Deliberate and pervasive attempt to get people to equate military strength with national identity.

6. Control over all forms of domestic communication to the extent technically possible. Normal practice is to use this control to distort peoples' view of their state and the world around them. i.e. propaganda/brainwashing.

7. A system of cronyism that keeps those working for the state dependent upon "knowing the right people" to secure and keep their jobs. The state gets to define "the right people". It is a system where people are employed based on who they know instead of what they know as the first criteria. There are exceptions for talented specialists, such as scientists and industrialists, but they are generally one step away from major problems.

8. A large scale security apparatus for spying, prosecuting, and imprisoning anybody the state deems to be a threat. The more people viewed as a threat, the bigger and more invasive the security apparatus is.

9. The legal system is designed to protect the state, not keep it in check.

10. An enemy to focus the population's attention on so as to distract them from thoughts of opposing the state. It can be a social class, ethnicity, religion, national identity, or anything else for that matter.

11. A single figurehead for the people to "worship".

12. Obviously no true form of democratic governance. When voting is allowed it is rigged in some way or another.

The list goes on and on.

The primary difference between a Fascist state and one that is Communist has to do with how they diverge from what we consider a moderate Democratic middle. Fascism is based on a highly controlled and largely arbitrarily controlled free market system. Individualism is encouraged up to the point of it interfering or threatening the state. Communism, on the other hand, is based on the notion that individualism is inherently problematic for the state and therefore can not be allowed as a rule.

In the end, both suck They do not work because they are too extreme. Which means sooner or later they fall apart. Almost always after a lot of people have deliberately made to suffer and die.

Steve

[Cuirassier]

Indeed, the free market is entirely imaginary in a Fascist State. There is no personal property in reality, as the State can seize anything you own whenever it wants for whatever reason.

[Battlefront.com]

Indeed, the free market is entirely imaginary in a Fascist State. There is no personal property in reality, as the State can seize anything you own whenever it wants for whatever reason.

Likewise, the notion that there is no free enterprise in Communist governments is also purely imaginary. It's usually limited to mom-and-pop operations, but it is allowed to some degree. Larger industrial concerns can also semi-independent of the state, even if they are ultimately answerable to the powers that be. Because if you do something the Communist authorities aren't happy with, they can arbitrarily arrest you and/or take full control at any time.

This is why examining modern Russia and the Soviet Union is so interesting. Today's Russia is pretty much a Fascist state, yet it's also pretty hard to differentiate it from it's Soviet past. In fact, in many ways all the Russians did is change the names of who is doing what and not what they actually do. Free enterprise is far more prevalent than it was in Soviet times, but if Putin wants what you have he goes out and takes it. If you're lucky you don't get stuck in jail for 10 years for "tax fraud" (which is a joke since just about everybody in Russia, including Putin, participates in tax fraud).

The similarity between Communism and Fascism is underscored by Russia's continued official honoring of its Soviet past. Soviet flags and symbols are still very much a part of the modern Russian state. You don't see that sort of official encouragement of ties to the past in the ex-Warsaw Pact and Baltic countries. You're also seeing the open rejection of it in Ukraine now with the dozens of destroyed Lenin statues. Which, BTW, Russians view with a degree of horror.

Steve

[John Kettler]

Der Alte Fritz,

I appreciate the information you provided, but I must disagree with your 3). The quotes Suvorov provides regarding the fortification situation at the border in no way supports the assertion that the Stalin Line was, in a sense, being moved to the new frontier. Suvorov provides quote after quote from officers involved with minelaying, the creation of defensive lines and more, all of which contradict the assertion. This is what he said:

"Empty territory, even without any technical defence installations, would have served as a security zone after its own fashion, by allowing the main forces ime to get ready for action. But, according to the official Soviet account,

The armies . . . were to deploy directly along the state frontier ... in spite of the fact that its geographical outline was entirely disadvantageous to defence. Even those security /ones stipulated in our pre-war directives had not been technically prepared, (htoriya Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny, Voenizdat 1961, Vol. 2, p. 49)"

NOTE I believe "security /ones" is really "security zones." "Not technically been prepared" was actually "were nonexistent because the defensive scheme left them out altogether."

Armies right on the border--with no security zone as ordered in the regs! Not exactly a new Stalin Line. There's also this.

"The fortified regions of the Molotov Line were built right up against the frontier. They were not protected by a security zone, and in the event of a surprise attack the garrisons would no longer have time to occupy their combat installations and bring their weaponry to full readiness. Unlike those along the Stalin Line, the fortified regions of the Molotov Line were not very deep. Everything which could have been built on the frontier itself, was in fact built there. Defence positions were not built in the rear, nor was it ever planned to build any. (Lieutenant-General V. F. Zotov, Na Severo-Zapadnom Fronte, Moscow Nauka 1969, p. 175)"

The fortifications were not sited on positions which would favour defence, but followed every bend and twist of the state frontier. The new combat installations were not protected by barbed wire, mines, ditches, stakes, hedgehog entanglements or anti-tank tetrahedrons, nor were any engineered defences erected in the area of construction. Neither were the new installations camouflaged. For example, in the fortified region of Vladimir-Volynsk, 'out of 97 combat installations, 5-7 were covered with earth, while the remainder were virtually decamouflaged'. (VIZH 1976, No. 5, p. 91)"

Clearly, this isn't the way to build a defense, and that's being excruciatingly charitable. Further, it's clear from the accounts of those charged with building it that it would never be even a shadow of the Stalin Line. Indeed, the Molotov Line was arguably the antithesis of every tenet of sound defense. I'm no military engineer, but I guarantee that I could lay out a far better defense scheme than the one described. And I flunked the surveying field exercise when I took Archaeology in college! And while rational people would've been worrying about how fast and effectively they could erect border defenses for the frontier, look at the real agenda when it came to dealing with prepared defenses. It was overcoming German ones!

"Everyone had his mind on overcoming such obstacles on enemy territory. That is why, under cover of a TASS announcement of 13 June 1939, some Soviet marshals and leading experts on obstacle clearing made their secret appearance on the western frontier.

Marshal of the Soviet Union G. Kulik, who had secretly arrived in Byelorussia, discussed the situation with Colonel Starinov. 'Let's have mine-detectors, sappers and trawl equipment!' he demanded (Miny Zhdut Svoego Chasa, p. 179) The Marshal was thinking about German territory. All the mines on Soviet territory had already been rendered harmless, and all the obstacles dismantled. 'You have not named your branch correctly,' the Marshal went on to tell him. 'To be in accordance with our doctrine you should call it the branch for the clearance of obstacles and mines. Once we would have thought otherwise, and harped on defence, defence . . . but enough of that!' (Ibid, quoted by Starinov)"

There, again, is the unremitting emphasis on the offensive and not merely disregard of defensive issues but extraordinary animus toward them, as explicitly shown by the above quote and the one below.

"Practically all the Soviet engineering and railway troops were gathered on the western frontiers. Sapper units and units belonging to those divisions, corps and armies which were concentrated on the frontier itself, as well as other units from other formations which had begun to move up to the border, were all operating in the frontier zone before the war began. The Soviet sappers were busy preparing the departure positions from which the offensive would begin; laying down roads for columns to move along; surmounting and erecting engineered defences, creating tactical and strategic camouflage, ensuring that the infantry and tanks which formed part of the assault groups interacted properly; protecting forced river crossings . . . (Sovietskie Vooruzhennye Sily, Voenizdat 1978, p. 255)

Let not the words 'erecting engineered defences' mislead the reader. By the time that the decisive attack on the Finnish Mannerheim Line began, Soviet sappers had also built several sectors consisting of engineered defence obstacles similar to the Finnish ones. Before going into battle, the newly arrived Soviet troops were put through these defences, which had been put there for training purposes. After that, they went over to the real attack."

What I've presented is by no means the full array of intelligence indicators pointing, not to the creation of strong, combat stable defenses, but of assembly areas and jumping off positions for a massive attack against Germany. And as Suvorov notes, the, in a nutshell, defense killing things the Russians were doing, the Germans were likewise doing on their side of the border. Faster. There was no plan to recreated the Stalin Line to cover the frontier, for to do so would've tied up enormous manpower and resources building a very large set of installations smack on the approach route into Germany. As already noted, the most ruthless measures were being applied to clear the way, to include not siting the Molotov Line in strategic areas where it might hinder the offensive and even removing the barbed wire fence at the border.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Der Alte Fritz]

John

The problem with this line of argument is simply that it is logistically unsupported. A major offensive launched from the Kresy (Borderlands in Polish) ie the occupied part of Eastern Poland would have to overcome 300km of poor communications before even entering enemy territory PLUS a change in Gauge to Standard from Broad.

This is a description of the railway by Kovalev (who headed the NKPS throughout most of the war under Lasar Kaganovich)

Traffic routes in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in 1939 were almost destroyed.*The railway network there was a relatively thick: it was created mainly at a time when these areas were part of the Russian Empire (and only a small part of Western Ukraine - the Austro-Hungarian Empire).*According to the cross-border provision of these areas the railway network was designed with the strategic appointment.*However, over the years between the two world wars, according to the general attitudes of the authorities*[24]*bourgeois Poland, see Western Ukraine and Western Belarus as Polish colony, railways these areas derelict.*They have been altered to Western European gauge (1435 mm), with some of the lines was made ​​the second main road, and the rails were used in the construction and reconstruction of roads in Poland itself.*New lines have been built a little bit, and all of them were built in preparation for war with the Soviet Union.*On most of the rail network in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus traffic volume in 1939 was at about 1913 Density of traffic almost everywhere was 1.5-2 million tkm / km or less, and only on the line Lviv - Przemysl exceed 5 million tkm / km.*{61}

Quote:

The length of railways in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus was 6.7 thousand km (including 4.9 thousand km of single track and 1.8 thousand km of double-track lines).*The roads were narrow gauge, and locomotive and car fleet heterogeneous.*Thus, the locomotive fleet of 120 steam locomotive 5264 series fleet of passenger cars - 129 types of freight car fleet - 60 types.*Rails and rolling stock were characterized not only large multi-type, but worn.*Almost 80% of locomotives, mostly foreign-built, were older than 15 years.*The average age of passenger cars was 28 years, cargo - 23 years.*Due to the large excess of the rolling stock (in stock was more than 25% of locomotives and almost 20% of freight wagons), cheap labor and the absence of mechanical means to repair the park in no hurry, repair base was poorly developed.

Quote:

the situation in the border area in the transport relations were not in our favor.*Weak capacity of the railway to the west of the old borders of the USSR was the bottleneck of the transport pipeline.*So, in the east on the six railway lines with nine different tracks to the train Rokad Ovruch - Korosten - Shepetovka - Kamenetz-Podolsk could bring 259 trains a day (and the same to send back).*But to the west of this belt, the railway passes only*five railway direction with six tracks, which was passed only 108 pairs of trains.*Within Western Ukraine total capacity existing there six to eight railway lines of gauge is 168 pairs per day.*Railways in the Baltics, as noted, were low-capacity, stations in areas near the border of East Prussia were not ready for the mass unloading troops.

When the Germans came to cross this area they initially aimed for 25 trains a day each way for each Army Group ie. 75 trains a day, by around September.

So it seems pretty clear from the Soviet accounts that Soviet Poland had just finished converting gauge but had not had much in the way of track improvement or building of new lines, stations, etc before the German invasion of June 1941. Since Soviet Poland has 6,700km of railways of which 1,800 km is double tracked and 4,900 km single tracked the cost of reconstruction of 10,000 million rubles at 1940 prices and a construction time of two years is in line with the Five Year Plan figures of 3,370 million rubles for 1936 investment.

This was clearly a huge project that only started in the Spring of 1941.

[Der Alte Fritz]

What you have to understand about the Soviet occupation of the Kresy is that it involved

1) Stripping out valuable factories from the towns to send back east

2) Removal of around 320,000 politically unreliable people to the interior of the USSR

3) Removal of the Polish Army POWs to Katyn and other places such as Siberia

4) Establishment of a large garrison to control the areas

5) A large programme of political re-education and use of police, NKVD resources to control groups such as the Ukrananian Nationalists

6) A two year reconstruction of the railways costing 3 times the budget allocated for investment in the railways of the entire Soviet Union over 5 years.

The area we are talking about is larger than Belgium and Holland combined, and contains 13,000,000 people. I really do not see this being set up as an offensive base against Germany other than a proposed spoiling attack given the communications problems and the drop by over half between the old Soviet frontier and the new one.

[Der Alte Fritz]

How do we know that this is not just Soviet propaganda?

Because the Germans experienced exactly the same problems on their side of the new border between the Vistula and the San. The Otto programme ran for 6 months, from late 1940 until April 1941, used 90,000 railway men and 300,000 tonnes of steel to build 7 lines that could carry 420 pairs of trains daily from the old German border to the new Soviet border across Poland.

And they had the modern portion of the Polish railway network!

The line up pre-Barbarossa is significant 420 trains a day on the German side and 108 trains a day on the Soviet side. Germans have continuous gauge from the factories to the front, the Soviets do not.

Soviet transportation outside the old borders of the USSR does not support the idea of an offensive and you cannot support an offensive by lorry from railheads at the old border either because the realistic limit is only 250 km.