Panzers East! The Marcks Plan

[kurt88]

They maintained control of the east bank of the Volga throughout the Stalingrad battle, and so had good supply lines

I wouldn't exactly call them good.The Russians were supplying their soldiers on the west bank with the help of small boats and ferries under German artillery fire.Of course their supply sources were much closer to the frontline than the German ones,but mainly the unbelievable perseverance of the Russian infantry in the city kept Stalingrad from falling.

On numerous occasions the Germans were at a short grasp from succeeding.But always isolated pockets of Russian resistance survived.These few soldiers then were supllied and reinforced during the night and the Germans would have to start over again.

In the end the Germans lost the battle due to two things I guess : attrition and the start of operation Uranus.

[JerseyJohn]

Santabear

No book is 100% reliable and he is a bit free at drawing conclusions; the reader needs to pick and choose what he chooses to accept, as always, but basically I agree with most of what he says.

I think the idea of multiple turning points is a valid one. For example, if Germany had avoided the air battle over Britain altogether the Luftwaffe would have been significantly stronger for Barbarossa, which to me is the real significance. Germany's failure to take Leningrad in the opening stages of the campaign, to me, can be viewed as another turning point; Moscow afterwards the same . . .. All through this there are other variables, such as how would the war have continued if Hitler had accepted Stalin's secret offer to end the war by ceding vast tracts of European Russia to Germany before the winter of 1941/42?

I've always felt the War, in either the Atlantic or the Pacific, was too gigantic to hinge on single events. The European Theater is particularly complex and I don't believe a single battle or two decided the outcome. But most of this is little more than semantics. The Germans obviously didn't lose the war at Stalingrad and they didn't win it with the capture of Paris.

I don't believe the Soviet regime, however, could have survived long with Stalin's constant abuses if it had lost Moscow in the Autumn of 1941, especially if they had lost Leningrad as well. Such city losses, combined with the huge casualties, would have sapped morale and confidence beyond the point of endurance. The Russian people might have continued fighting the invasion, but I think they'd have separated themselves from Stalin first, and possibly the whole Soviet system. Here too, there's a missing element -- what if Germany had treated them decently?

What always amazes me is how many what-ifs always emerge from discussion of that campaign.

Kurt

Fine take on Stalingrad and the Volga. The Soviets always had problems moving supplies, even later when they were receiving thousands of American trucks. If they could have kept more current with their supply lines as they moved forward the might have caught the withdrawing Germans in numerous other pockets after Kursk.

The Soviets sitting within easy reach of Warsaw till the SS was finished killing and capturing the Polish fighters is generally attributed to such a supply lag. Not everyone believes it but I think it's the true reason as the Soviets had stopped before the rebellion got started. Of course, there's always the matter of whether or not they received supplies while the fighting was still going on, and chose to stay where they were anyway till it was over.

[ September 16, 2003, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Shaka of Carthage]

JerseyJohn

I don't believe the Soviet regime, however, could have survived long with Stalin's constant abuses if it had lost Moscow in the Autumn of 1941, especially if they had lost Leningrad as well. Such city losses, combined with the huge casualties, would have sapped morale and confidence beyond the point of endurance. The Russian people might have continued fighting the invasion, but I think they'd have separated themselves from Stalin first, and possibly the whole Soviet system.

I'm glad you brought this up. That is a very logical conclusion, so I'd like the chance to expand on why I believe Stalin was the key. The thing that brought it home to me was the pararrels to the current North Korean regime and the former Iraqi regime.

In all cases, but especially in Stalin Russia and North Korea, the nation was controlled by various security forces who not only watched "threats to the state", but watched each other. Russia had its military leadership purged because of the potential threat of the military challenging political control. Stalin made sure that anyone who was a threat was removed. In return, the security forces, then the military got what it needed to survive, even at the expense of civilians dying. There are numerous stories about what Stalin did and how. We are hearing about some of what Saddam did and in the future, I'm sure we'll hear about the North Korean father/son stories.

Without leadership, there can be no revolt. Thats why I believe that the Russian people wouldn't have tried to seperate themselves from Stalin. Who did they have to turn to? Add to that, the Nazi "policies", and its no wonder that the typical Russian peasant fought for Mother Russia and directly or indirectly Stalin. What choice did they have? So even though Moscow would have fallen, Stalin would have just spent more civilian lifes to keep the security and military functioning, as best he could.

In some ways, look at Iraq. While Bagdad and the nation has fallen, there are still Ba'ath members who have no choice but to try and strike back at the Coalition troops while awaiting the return of Saddam. They have no other choice, since the Iraqi's they persecuted will try and kill them anyway. And in Iraq, you have religious dividing lines as well as a "benevolent" invader. Russia wasn't that lucky.

[ September 17, 2003, 02:14 AM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

[JerseyJohn]

Shaka

In large part I agree with what you're saying. The only real differences between Stalinist Russia and present day Iraq or North Korea is the amount of time they've been under their leader's thumb.

The Soviet system in Russia wasn't solidified till about 1925. Stalin began calling the shots even before Lenin's death, so we'll say he was calling them right from the start; that means he had only sixteen years when Germany invaded.

You're completely correct about all three executing anyone who even vaguely appeared to be an opposition leader. During the war the only Russian Axis leaders were captured generals who turned on their former masters. But large segments of the population were ripe for rebellion if the Germans had known how to use it. A point you also mentioned, and that I brought up as a variable in my original remarks.

This is a key point of the War in Russian which Hitler and his ignorant SS psychopaths missed entirely. The Ukranians, who'd felt Stalin's repression the hardest, genuinely looked upon the Germans as liberators, as did the Cossacks and Caucasians and the Latvians-Lithuanians and Estonians of the newly assimulated Baltic States.

In other parts of Russia the population was not overjoyed with the Soviets either. As Army Group Center approached Moscow, and it appeared the capital would be abandoned, ordinary citizens by the hundreds or perhaps thousands jeered openly at commisars on the streets! A Soviet official remarked in the World at War documentary that a handful of German paratroopers dropping on Red Square would have been greeted as liberaters!

However, I agree with your essential point; the Russians had to be presented with an alternative, and the Nazis never gave them one. This, coupled with the entire Holocaust, are the two most imbecilic pieces of tragic stupidity of the entire war.

Interestingly, North Korea and Soviet/Czarist Russia both fall into the same traditional category of treating their ruler as a Father Figure.

In Nazi Germany, Hitler avoided this, whatever his sexual desires or capabilities he steered clear of marrying and having children. Psychologists have said this is because the Nazis, or probably Hitler himself, created a Big Brother image for their Fuhrer. This is one reason why the Hitler Youth was so successful; those adolescent boys weren't looking up to a disciplining father, but rather an adult who constantly praised and encouraged them, a role model who was a decorated war hero and a common man. As common a boy as any of them who had made good, so all of them were expected to do the same.

Stalin, though as all powerful as his rival, kept only one title; Party Secretary. Hitler openly himself The Leader, and made no bones about being Commander in Chief (after accepting von Brauchtischs' resignation in late 41).

Hitler rejoiced in public appearances, loved to touch and be touched by his admirers. Stalin always sat or stood aloof, usually from a Balcony, and always in the presence of numerous guards. An SS sentry posted at Berchtedsgaden commented that Hitler presented a terrible security problem because he did not like to be guarded! Eventually the British came to realize this and attempted an assasination right in his mountain retreat. It failed through a combination of factors, one of which being the ordinary Germans in the area, on their own initiative, told of seeing some strange looking men running about.

-- I believe that was a History Channel Sworn to Secrecy episode. These days I find viewing is usually better than reading; as long as they say what their sources are, which they invariably do.

[ September 17, 2003, 04:24 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[J P Wagner]

BUMP....