How Germany could of defeated the S.U. during Barbarossa?

[Richie]

I don't think Hitler was too worried about unrest. He had the Gestapo and they were pretty good at what they did. Mind you the fact that members of the army tried to kill him shook his belief in the military and perhaps himself, but in his opinion it was their treason.

Hitler was building the Thousand Year Reich. It was his idea of the German idealistic society where life at home would be Utopian while the warriors of his fascist state fought for the cause elsewhere.

There is a certain lack of reality about that to start with.

He was stupid not to listen to his generals.

He was stupid not to consider the worst case scenarios.

He was stupid not to prepare for it, just in case.

He was also a maniacal murdering dictator that ruled by lies, deceit and the gun. No sane, rational person who isn't totally skewed murders people in the way he did.

You guys can try to break down Hitler's psyche into the nice bits and the nasty bits but it's whole that makes up the story.

In fact from what I understand, people in Nazi Germany who liked to think and considered themselves intellectuals had to be careful about the opinions they expressed and what they thought in public. Because people who didn't like or questioned what Hitler thought tended to be arrested by the Gestapo. Those people generally told everything they knew under questioning and other people who reportedly thought likewise also disappeared.

Maybe we should all think about that for a bit...

[Richie]

Originally posted by Krautman:

Jason is the closest to a Nazi in this forum of whom I know of...

...Jason keeps twisting the words in my mouth

Krautman

Do you think?

At least he wasn't calling you a Nazi!

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by JasonC:

URC at least started by acknowledging that Hitler screwed the pooch by underestimating the Russians. He just thinks that was somehow easy to do or rational.

a great many things were screwed up, but the reasons you give for the failures (lazyness, insanity and colossal stupidity), and the way you emphasize them, are in my opinion incorrect.

i remember when you found out the reasons why Soviet Mechanized Corps just melted away in 1941. it was not because they didn't bother to try hard enough or because they would have been so crazy or stupid. there were more concrete reasons, more concrete failures and mistakes. these reasons weren't as dramatic as the tales of Slavic subhumans, but they were the real reasons nonetheless.

in my honest opinion it's just the same with many military failures of Nazi Germany we have been talking about. sure there's all the stupid crap, but there are more concrete reasons behind some of the key failures than just simple stupidity, insanity and lazyness. it doesn't cease them from being mistakes and failures, many on colossal scale. causes are just a bit more down-to-earth.

all nations made huge stupid mistakes in WW2. one doesn't have to be a monstrous megalomaniac to be able to make a row of stupid mistakes. on the contrary, it is to be expected from humans, especially in warfare.

in my opinion German invasion of USSR was rational and based on sound ideas. the real stupid pigheadedness came later in the war. saying that USSR won just because Hitler was as crazy as he was takes away quite a load of well deserved credit from the Soviets.

[Richie]

To the contrary,

Stalin learned from his mistakes, listened to his best generals and mobilised everything considering he was already facing the worst case scenario.

[Krautman]

Richie,

indeed I think so. Twisting words? As opposed to most other posters, he rarely ever quotes, but rather takes up some point and twists it to fit his argumentation. He said I was doing Nazi ideology excuses, ergo he said I am a Nazi, don't you think? And why would Jason have something in common with a Nazi (I did not say he is one, as you inferred!)? Well, the following is from Haffner, on Hitler (my translation):

"Indeed he read a lot, though he only adopted what he thought he knew already. [...] He was really well-versed only in the area of military strategy and technology. [...] For the rest, he remained the typical half-educated person- someone who always knew everything better and spread incomplete and false knowledge, best in front of an audience which he could impress because they knew even less. [...] He totally lacked the ability of self-criticism..."

Add zero tolerance of other people's opinion and a stubborn faith in one's own worldview. Plus considerable rhetorical skill and taking pleasure in causing distress. Now make of this what you want.

[ January 24, 2006, 01:13 PM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[Krautman]

For those that have a genuine interest in the history of Hitler and Germany. You'll find answers to the issues discussed.

Sebastian Haffner. (excellent entry into the topic, easy to read, short book, brilliant writer)

Haffner

Was Hitler stupid? See esp. chapter "Achievements"

Joachim Fest. (huge work, advanced, excellent writing, great references, still benchmark in many aspects. Bullock is obsolete by now)

Fest

Wehler and Aly, sadly, are not available in English.

Edit: Links shortened

[ February 02, 2006, 02:48 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[chiavarm]

If I remember correctly, Hitler had ignored words of caution from his generals in the past and had huge success. Not because he was a genius or the generals were wrong, but because the Allies were incompetent and slow to move. I would also be willing to guess there was a great deal of fear after his success in Poland.

There was a battle in Russia where the Germans were surrounded and they were supplied by the luftwaffe. The size of the army was substantially smaller than that at Stalingrad and the battle took place in the summer, which made supply by air feasible. The notion has been put forth that Hitler believe he could duplicate this success at Stalingrad.

In a sense, I believe Hitler’s early successes were due to his audacity and good use of propaganda compounded by Allied incompetence.

[civdiv]

This is certainly a complicated topic, and I don't have time to read through the whole string here. But I will throw in my $.02 here, just as my fiance claims I always do. I think the broad front approach may have been the best bet, with some of the pincer action to trap huge numbers of soldiers and equipment. But I think they pushed just a little too far in '41. They should have saved Moscow for the Spring of 42. And there is still a huge argument going on in regards to the winter '41 'stand fast' order of Hitler. Some historians claim he probably saved the army with the order. Others claim a limited retreat to defensible terrain and a 'tidying up' of the lines would have saved a lot of men and material.

But there are a number of other factors that would have helped. Proper winter equipment would have saved probably several hundred thousand German soldiers. Decent treatment of the Ukrainians, who originally welcomed the Germans as liberators, would have helped to free up the LOCs from partison attack, and possibly brought several hundred thousand loyal soldiers into their cause. The shifting of forces from western Europe a bit faster, those that were poised for Sealion, would have helped a great deal. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 German troops plus alot of equipment was lost in their half-hearted attempt in N. Africa. And the focusing of the military complex on actual current technology rather than on wonder weapons would have helped a great deal also. Add all of these factor together and you have another 1,000,000 well-trained soldiers and several thousand tanks by the spring of 43., and incrementally, all the way to the beginning of Barbarossa. IMHO, Russia is fighting out of the Urals in late '42 or early '43, and Japan is rolling in the backdoor.

Or, keep a tighter rein on Mussolini so he doesn't go into Greece, Barbarossa take place a month or more earlier, Moscow falls in '41, and Russia sues for a temporary peace. Rommel gets beefed up, tosses the Brits out of Egypt, and keeps rolling, shutting the backdoor for lend lease through Iran. And then Russia and Germany go at it again, this time for keeps, but Germany starts in a much improved situation. But then we can debate whether lend lease really helped keep Russia in the war.

[Bigduke6]

Be it far from me to defend uncle Adolf...

But let's look at things from his point of view, shall we? Because if we do, I think it becomes clear there is a bit less ground than we are assuming is the case, for the arguement that economics, manufacturing, and mobilizations should have been driving Hitler's decision-making.

As of Spring 1941, the following is the recent history, the actual historical background the top German was working with:

1. Repeatedly, the German general staff estimate of the difficulty of a prospective war turned out to be overestimated. Poland, France, Low Countries, the Balkans, Norway; every single time the operations are getting hung on a thread, and paying off with jackpot victories. The victory comes faster and with less blood than the generals expect. Conclusion: The military advisers are too conservative; in fact the Wehrmacht is more capable than they give it credit.

2. Political and public will to resist the German onslaught, or more exactly the lack of it, is a critical factor in those successes. France, Germany's greatest opponent, folds so fast in part because the country doesn't have the grit to fight to the last Frenchman. They'll fight on the battlefield, sure, but as insurgents? No, for practical purposes the European populations conquered by the Germans up to Russia, as of Spring 1941, had acquiesced in German conquest. Indeed there was more than a little collaborating.

3. German has a war-winning system, blitzkrieg, (and by extension the quality of the German officer corps) and it is clearly unstoppable. As of Spring 1941 that system has overwhelmed the cream of Europe's armies,which are quite simply unable to keep up. The Germans have combined arms warfare down to a "t". The opposition has no clue.

4. This war-winning system is decisive , it ends campaigns in a way the 1st World War most decidedly did not. The enemy is demolished and knocked out of the war before a long campaign of attrition can take place. Establishment of German control of practically every Europeannation from the Atlantic to the Vistula, in the space of about three years, proves this in spades.

It must have seemed there was as little reason, in Spring 1941, to worry about attritional warfare, as there was to worry about the enemy arming warlike tribes and deploying them against Germany. Both possibilities were from eras of war that, based on Germany's experience, were now history.

Now, let's consider the Soviet Union in the context of the time.

1. Stalin's rule is the most brutal in modern European history - remember, Germany's final solution hadn't kicked off in Spring 1941, for practical purposes - and there is plenty of evidence of open hostility to the Communist regime. There are in Spring 1941 plenty of moldy old Whites hanging around in cafes in Paris and Vienna, telling any one who will listen Russia is just waiting for some liberator to come and kick out the Communists. Large portions of the Soviet interior - the Caucauses and Central Asia, are only superfically under Soviet control. In the Far East, the Mongolian and Manchurian frontiers are so lawless, that Soviet control often extends only as far as the direct fire range around border units. Otherwise, it is arguable that most of the border with China/Manchukuo is run by bandits.

Even where the Reds are clearly in charge, they have been in undisputed power for less than a generation. This does not give good reason to predict popular resistance to German invasion, at least for as long as it would take to demolish the Red Army.

2. The Red Army officer corps of course has been purged, and its equipment and training are woefully inferior to the Wehrmacht's. They performed like crap not only against the Finns, who are tough, but even managed to flub their part of the Polish invasion, and the annexation of the Baltic states and Bessarabia. Their tanks are inferior to German (T-34 and KV are secrets), and their ability to produce more is suspect.

It must have seem that German ability to break into the Soviet rear, meaning European Russia and Ukraine, was almost unlimited. Therefore, a German invasion would have been expected to capture 80 - 90 per cent of the Soviet Union's productive capacity. In Spring 1941, the Urals, north Kazakhstan, western Siberia; all those regions were for practical purposes wastelands where, at best, the Soviets had slotted for industrial development down the line.

In Spring 1941, no country in the world, ever, had shifted an industrial base like the Soviets wound up doing in the face of the German invasion. There was no precedent. There also was no precedent for the rapid coversion of civilians to military formations, in the masses the Soviets did it, in the first months after the German invasion.

WWI and indeed WWII mobilizations showed once you got your recent reservists into the ranks you were quite limited in how many more troops you could raise, only so many more 18-year-olds came of age every year, and in any case you have to train and equip them.

The Soviets broke that mold, and were fielding 5 or sow new armies, on average, every month after the first mobilization all the way to Typhoon. This is partly due, of course, to the raw size of the Soviet population, and the size of the country helped to give the Soviets time to raise more troops. But again, in Spring 1941 no country had ever created military force as fast as the Soviets would up doing. I doubt any country had come close, and with the exception of the U.S. once they got going, I seriously doubt any country ever has matched the Soviet achievement.

Given all that, the logic that a German blitzkrieg aginst the Soviet Union makes a certain kind of sense. If you take away the filter of hindsight, in Spring 1941 it must have seemed to a rational German decision-maker the German military would tear the Red Army to bits, and what's more be able to keep on doing that until the Soviet society came apart at the seams.

The last time that happened, in 1917, the Russian army collapsed. In 1941 the Russian Revolution was very recent history.

Now, I have no doubt Jason's nephew would have had the foresight to see the holes in the Hitlerian logic I am postulating, and to order the German economy to prepare for a long war of attrition.

My point here is that, it is that young fellow's good luck not to have lived through the first years of WW2. Hitler did. In doing so he racked up one of the most amazing strings of victories in European history. And Hitler did not have the benefit of his uncle's well-reasoned hindsight.

Jason is right that a critical, and to my mind the decisive Hitlerian error was that of hubris - the idea of that beating Russia could ever be easy, and could be done without a full-scale mobilization.

However, that hubris did not come out of thin air, but against a background of astounding German military successes. It is very fair indeed to charge the German decision-makers with underestimating their opponents on racial grounds; no matter how much they believed, the Germans were not genetically smarter than the Russians, and so assuming that they were was a recipe for problems.

But the German "failure to mobilize fast enough" also is due to Soviet organizational achievements - i.e. getting the factories out of the German path, and masses of armed men into it - that one would have had to have been pretty smart indeed to predict. Those Soviet achievements were unprecedented and in some ways have never been repeated.

I'm no fan of Hitler, but expecting him and his generals to have seen that particular bit of the future, in Spring 1941, seems to me a little unfair.

[JasonC]

I agree with every word BigDuke wrote, and still think it was stupid not to mobilize the economy. It is the typical mistake of planning for the best instead of the worst. Those conservative Wehrmacht generals were conservative because they were professionals who had their Clausewitz drilled into them and knew war is friction and no plan survives contact with the enemy. But they did not call the shot, and the predictable result of amateur overconfidence was overreach. Hitler doubled up until he lost. There was nothing random about him hitting a wall eventually, he'd have gone right on doubling up.

And none of it excuses the reaction to the failure of Typhoon. The best military minds of the generation tell him what is happening and he sacks them to keep his pleasant illusion going, and then still fails to order full mobilization (after declaring war on the US - I mean, come on people! When does this become transcendentally obvious?) In the spring and summer of 1942 he has seen the 5 new armies a month and knows all about T-34s. But he still thinks, since the panzer spearheads can break through and drive forward, the Russians are finished.

Believing your own ad copy, which is what bigduke's analysis amounts to, is a typical failure called "victory disease" and it is lethal in high doses. That indeed is my thesis, not something I am arguing against.

[Krautman]

Well, Bigduke's post was very good indeed, although I see no connection to the links I provided. I see your point, but still maintain that you cannot say Hitler was "stupid" in general. His achievements from 1919 to 1938 point in another direction. Furthermore, I'd say you could hardly call Hitler smart or stupid, he was a lunatic. The question you have answered is "was Hitler stupid as a military strategist", to which the answer certainly, I agree, is "Yes".

Yet remember it was Hitler who made Guderian's reforms possible. Without Hitler, no independent Panzer division/corps; the conservative majority within the Wehrmacht would have prevailed. Without Hitler, Germany would've attacked France (if at all) according to the Schlieffen plan. And e.g. it was Hitler who demanded the Pz III be upgunned. So he wasn't entirely foolish in military matters, occasionally, he was aware of the demands of time more than most of the respective specialists. Of course, he also had those dreams of a super-super-heavy tank, and of the bolt-action rifle forwarding manly virtues, and etc.

Greetings

Krautman

[Richie]

I think when it finally mattered Stalin essentially 'played the game' better than Hitler.

Either through experience or appreciation of the events around him or through intelligence... or desperation. Stalin placed great faith in his better General's foresight even if he didn't inherently trust all of them. He also had the larger force pool to draw upon but he made sure he used as much of it as he could. He wasn't shy to tell others what they wanted to hear to draw what he needed from them, specifically the Western Allies.

Both men were idealists but IMO Stalin effectively had a greater grasp of realism and practicality than Hitler did when it counted.

Besides, so long as you win you can always deal with the ones you don't like later.

[Richie]

Hmmm... Up until Winter 1941 I don't think Hitler had contemplated the fact that the Russians might not surrender as just about all the previous victims of the Blitzkreig had done.

Why would he?

Sometimes in combat you reach a decisive moment. For Barbarossa that was it.

It's at that point you need the new plan. Hitler was stupid not to adopt total war at that point.

On occasion I hear people talk about their CM plans and how, 'at least they stuck to it', even when they lost. If you ask me you should never be afraid to throw the original plan clean out if it isn't working. I rarely run with a fixed plan in CM. Best thing you can do is be flexible and adapt to the changing situations... but that's just me...

[JasonC]

Surrender? He deliberately made it a war of extermination. He took that option away, himself. Thus giving the Russians transcendent motivation and unity, gratis.

[Andrew H.]

Krautman, can you fix your urls by using the UBB code? They're otherwise causing this occasionally interesting thread to scroll sideways...

[gangofmao]

[Richie]

...surrender, throw in the towel, capitulate, collapse after the door was kicked in...

One of the above.

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Andrew H.:

Krautman, can you fix your urls by using the UBB code? They're otherwise causing this occasionally interesting thread to scroll sideways...

If you're using Firefox, and if you're not you should, go View->Page Style->No Style.

This has redeemed many a website for me.

[Krautman]

Originally posted by Andrew H.:

Krautman, can you fix your urls by using the UBB code? They're otherwise causing this occasionally interesting thread to scroll sideways...

That's right, it's quite annoying having to scroll. Sorry. Unfortunately, I do not know how to this.

[Wicky]

Originally posted by Krautman:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andrew H.:

Krautman, can you fix your urls by using the UBB code? They're otherwise causing this occasionally interesting thread to scroll sideways...

That's right, it's quite annoying having to scroll. Sorry. Unfortunately, I do not know how to this. </font>

[_UXcva]

One way to fix it:

Note: I added the bolding. In the future use 1) Full Reply Form 2) Punch the URL botton and you’ll get prompts asking for link then a title for the link .

[Wisbech_lad]

Interesting thread, better than the usual we have on this subject.

My views (mostly from Kershaw)

- Hitler attacked USSR to defeat UK, thinking USSR would be easy. This was obviously wrong, but was a delusion shared by German High Command too.

Pressure was growing domestically to demobilise - Hitler was under the gun to an extent that he had to use the Wehrmacht or face pressure to lose it. It was useless vs UK thanks to the RAF and RN, had swallowed up the Balkans, where else could it go...?

Hitler, and the Nazi Party, had come to power partly on the back of what happened in 1917-19, when Germany collapsed on the home front before the military front - leading to the allegations of a "stab in the back". That, IMHO, is why they cared so much about the home front and morale. And, by and large, they succeeded. Yes, from a technical POV caring so much about domestic consumption looks odd - but Germans, in general, did not want war, and had to be tricked or bribed into it. So, oddly enough, the believers in war as civilisation and forge of a new master race (the Nazis) are fighting a non total war, vs the Allies fighting a total war. (and using total war techniques, UK home propaganda of 1940-45 is amazing stuff - they really pulled all the stops out to educate & convince people that this war really was worth fighting)

When it came a matter of national survival (as it had been for UK from Dunkirk onwards, or USSR from Barbarossa) there was little/ no difficulty in full mobilisation. (arguably the allied bombing helped, in giving Germans the same "blitz" mentality as UK in 1940)

[JasonC]

While I found the rest of the post unexceptionable, I cannot let this line pass -

"when Germany collapsed on the home front before the military front" (said of WW I)

Sorry, that is utter nonsense. Yes post war German propaganda tried to maintain as much, at first to denigrate the terms of the treaty and later to discredit the Weimar government. But it was all lies. Ludendorf knew exactly which gave first, and it was the front. The army was collapsing, its trench strength could not longer be maintained, and every Allied offensive was producing prisoner hauls with 5 digits in the first few days. Nor did they have anything that could stop 30 tanks per mile indefinitely.

At the start of 1918 the Germans still had an edge in numbers, thanks to repositioning men from the east. But by the fall they no longer did, since the arrival of Americans replaced the British and French losses in their offensives, while their own losses could not be replaced.

The army was coming apart in the field and could no longer hold. That is why Ludendorf insisted on an immediate armistice. We have all the internal documents establishing this, and the loss and trench strength reports that substantiate it. The German army lost on the field first. After it was clear there would be no victory, pols began insisting on consitutional changes - something the German high command had known was inevitable if they did not simply win. The man in the street then saw which way events were heading and activists pushed for a full republic, successfully.

There was no home front collapse first. It was decidedly second and triggered by the high command's admission that victory was no longer possible.

[Bruce70]

All I have to say, after seeing this thread near the top for the last week, is that despite popular misconception, "could've" is not short for "could of" - you may now call me whatever name seems appropriate.

[Sergei]

K-man, I think there is an extra space between the end of the address and the closing "]" that you need to remove.