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

[Krautman]

Yes, that was it. Thanks Sergei.

[Folbec]

Originally posted by JasonC:

"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.

This is a case of buying your own ideology. This is the exact kind of propaganda that brought Hitler to power, and he ended up believing it (or believed it all along).

This also brought up the german worries about "unrest in the rear" that delayed total war mobilization : if you believe that you lost the previous war because of the evil spartakist and civilian unrest, you hesitate ramping up war production at the cost of civilian luxuries.

Still stupid in hindsight, but people work inside their own belief systems, even the german general staff.

Whatever his belief system, Stalin had not many options after the first few defeats, his only real option was "war of attrition" (even if he also tried a few ill advised grand offensives too soon, apparently against the counsel of his own generals). He was also less of a gambler than Hitler.

[Feldtrompeter]

Best contributions to this thread from my point of view:

1)

I agree with Andreas, who stated that the best political move for Germany after the defeat of France would have been to take the British Mediterainian positions: Take Malta, take Alexandria, take the Middle East in 1941 and stay out of any other main war entanglement.

His assessment that Germany did not have to fear the UDSSR until 1942 probably not until 1943 rests to my knowledge on sound arguments.

A British Empire stripped off of its valuable positions in the Middle East could very well have agreed to a peace settlement with Germany by 1943: Churchill would have had a very hard time keeping up the willingness of the British population to fight when years pass without real combat acitvity. A "Why not make peace?"-attitude, would likely have grown stronger with each new month.

Germany would have had two till three years of preparation for a possible German-Russian conflict. And that gain of time would have benefitted Germany more than Russia, IMHO.

First because a peace with Britain could have been in reach, second because German scientists could have used the extra time to create a perceptible lead over Russia in important research areas. Germany was no doubt the top country in science at that time. From that viewpoint time ran in Germanys favour.

2)

Jason C made the important point that Germany lost because she misevaluated the effort that needed to be undertaken to beat the Russian bear down. A total war economy from Barbarossa on could probably have resulted in a German victory.

The inability to adapt to the unexpected situation, that the war would last longer than presumed - for what ever reasons - was Germanys doom.

3)

Yet I think that Jason C failed to get the rational behind Hitlers decissions. That's what Krautman contributed when he quoted Sebastian Haffner, a German historian who emigrated to Britain in 1938 and re-emigrated back to Germany in 1954.

Haffners explaination of the "stupid" military decissions was like this:

Hitler had two goals that he liked to achieve when he came to power in Germany

1) He wanted to rule the world

2) He wanted to eleminate the Jews

Haffner basically looks at a simple fact:

Germanys thrust into Russia was halted in December 1941 by an unexpectedly forcefull Russian counterattack near Moscow. Five days after the start of the Russian counter attack Hitler declared war on the USA.

At that time Hitler knew that Roosevelt tried to arrange a war entrance of his country. He also knew that Roosevelt planned to mobilize 10 million soldiers for a 5 million men invasion to liberate Europe. That was published in some US news papers that came about that information via an indescrete but reliable source. That info was immediately send to Germany via the embassy.

Why do you deliberately take on a 10 million men handicap when you just stepped into serious trouble?

Overconfidence is Jason C's solution, Hitler simply underestimated the danger he was in.

Haffner's answer is different. He says, Hitler switched from goal 1) to 2). The outcome of the war was very uncertain. It is plain arithmatic that you cannot prevail against the three major powers. They outnumber you in men and economic output. Since Roosevelts plan was obvious, Hitler had to expect a war entrance of the US sooner or later that would most probably result in Germanys defeat.

Of cause you could gamble and go for total war and try to beat Russia faster down than the US could react. But you can also say good bye to world rulership and plan with your defeat. If you are a patriot or a statesman you try to settle for peace in such a situation. But if you are a criminal you go for inflicting as much destruction as possible within the short time window you have.

Hitler was a criminal. He acted like a player in a board game who tries to win but whose primary goal during the game is actually to make sure he can inflict as much damage as possible to a certain fellow player because of personal disgust.

When you play the board game Risk i.e. with six people you can always make sure that a person you dislike won't win if you don't care to win yourself. Just use all your turns against that special person. Neither of you will win but you can have the satisfaction to see your enemy loose.

From that view Hitlers desissions make sense. Sooner or later he would have to deal with the US - why not have the satisfaction to be the one who decides the time.

Plus he had the space he needed to fulfill his seconed goal, the elemination of the Jews. A vast part of the Jewish body lived in the areas that were controlled by the Wehrmacht. All you needed to do was comb through that land and see to it that you get them all.

Of cause you loose for sure that way but you might not come to see 2) done if you put all your money on 1). So if you by all means go for 1) you might end up failing to achieve world rulership AND the elimination of the Jews.

Why not take the certain route and eliminate as much of the Jews as you can?

Haffner's explanaition makes sense to me.

Too many people forget to take into consideration the ideological part of the WW2 picture. They mostly think that Nazism was a perhaps not altogether so important tool for Hitler to gain world rulership for Germany.

But it is the other way round. Germany was only a tool for Hitler to establish a whole new Weltanschauung, to establish a new world in which not nations but races were the numbers you deal with.

From that point of view you don't fail short of the truth if you say that Hitler was a man who had the very personal wish to see a Jewfree world that is ruled by a new super race.

The fatefull part of the story is that this mind-sick criminal got the chance to controll a world power that had the potential of being able to achieve his personal dream.

Hitler himself did not care one bit about Germany. Practically all of his decissions from spring 1941 on where in every aspect against core German interests.

That is also in line with what Andreas pointed out in his earlier posts. Hitler was the biggest curse the German nation has ever had. He used her for his own satanic dream and did not care to destroy her totally if she should fail.

A modern German who still admires that criminal or tries to defend Nazism is out of his mind or ignorant - or both.

Feldtrompeter

[Corvidae]

Feldtrompeter,

Actualy Hitler never considered conquering the world , he had no such interest,, He was eager to conquer western Russia as far as the Urals, He saw the conquest of france as a strategic necessity,

He had no interest in Africa, But was dragged in by musolini,, He saw England as a potential ally, And was saddened that England didnt agree, He had no desire to cross the Atlantic ,

He had no Satanic dreams ,, but was a devout christian all his life, He hated the very name Satan, His mythical "super race' was not new ,, it was inspired by the bible, and was shared by ALL christian empires of the period, Hitler was a typical western christian bigot of his era, No more a criminal than any other bigoted colonialist leader,(although no less criminal either), He shared the same racial fantasys as Churchill and Truman,

And he treated his colonized subjects accordingly,

(just as they did)

It can be fairly said that Hitlers decision to remove slavic peoples from the so-called "white" race, forced the rest of the "white" empires to question the racial myths they held, And this led to the end of official racism as a legal and moral "virtue" in democracy.

By admiting the German racial myths were both wrong and immoral, the great white democracys were forced to admit that their own racial myths were also wrong and immoral,

Now back to the topic please

There is no way in hell the germans could have beaten the soviet union,

not under the circumstances of 1941

But imperialists seldom look past their own mythologys, so there is no way the german could have knowen what they were realy facing,,

Of course the german myths were even further removed from reality than most,,,,

[Andreas]

You are nuts.

Regards

Andreas

[Krautman]

btw, I'd like to apologise. I probably got quite carried away, emotion-wise, in my last posts in this thread. There's just some particular insults or allusions I can't stand.

Greetings

Krautman

[Other Means]

Corvidae, you must go through some keyboards, what with the dribble and all.

[zmoney]

Corvidae, that was the worst historical analysis I think I've ever had the displeasure of reading. Where did you learn that nonsence, are you a product of the Iranian public school system?

[Corvidae]

Other means,

What dribble ???

I dont get the question.

(have been using the same keyboard for 7 years)

zmoney,

What nonsense,?? I've never been to Iran,

I doubt they would teach much european history in their primary education system, Not sure what you are trying to say.

[zmoney]

Originally posted by Corvidae:

zmoney,

What nonsense,?? I've never been to Iran, I doubt they would teach much european historyin their primary education system, Not sure what you are trying to say.

That was my point. You don't seem to have a grasp on European history or US history. You totally negated your whole statement when you said Hitler wasn't anymore or less of a criminal than the leaders of France, England and the US. I did think it was cute though how you left out Stalin as an imperialist, seeing as he's the only one who held on to the territories lost by the Nazi's.

Your an idiot who knows little about history.

[Sergei]

Now now,

as our now retired history reader used to tell us, it only counts as 'imperialism' if you're grabbing lands across seas. But when for instance Russia conquered Siberia & Central Asia, it was just 'expansion'.

[zmoney]

Originally posted by Sergei:

Now now,

as our now retired history reader used to tell us, it only counts as 'imperialism' if you're grabbing lands across seas. But when for instance Russia conquered Siberia & Central Asia, it was just 'expansion'.

Oh got it, my apologies Corvidae.

[Andreas]

Feldtrompeter - I had not come across Haffner's analysis before (I blame Krautman for not fixing his links earlier ), so thanks for that. It makes a lot of sense, but hinges on how much rationality you are willing to grant Adolf.

All the best

Andreas

[Grimly Fiendish]

Seems to me this thread has largely been about whether Hitler was primarily stupid or insane, or whether the proportion of the 2 changed over time. I'm not sure this is worth a lot of effort, but it does parallel a larger debate as to whether he was evil or just criminal.

Another topic you run into in forums less educated (and less civil) than this one is whether he was a Christian or not. Corvidae actually raises some interesting points, like was Hitler really as interested in global empire as much as the US government liked to paint him as being? Was he ever really a physical threat to the US? Was not the US just as racist until after the war? (I won't try to start a debate about "concentration camps.")

There were lies on all sides, because a lot of institutions and power centers have to be neutralized in a democracy to sustain a dictatorship. For this reason, it is unsafe to make any assumptions about truth, and also, it is worthwhile to examine whatever rationale were used or might have been used by whatever faction of the General Staff.

For example, whatever Hitler's analysis was in his own mind, after all their battlefield successes despite their moping, it must have been difficult for the General Staff to argue that Hitler was wrong about German invincibility: not because they were insane or stupid, but because logic failed them. Try explaining discipline to a dictator.

Another angle that has, thankfully, been left out so far, is the pop psychology one. My only point here is that it has been theorized, more or less, that Hitler craved "love" and 'attention" and that this drove him to seek it in politics. In this light, it is not hard to make another guess as to an IRRATIONAL, but LOGICAL, reason why Hitler might have been reluctant to go total on Stalin at the cost of Germany's comfort: He was needy, egomaniacal, and sentimental, and no doubt he went into his final depressive tailspin only when it was clear the people had stopped cheering.

Anyway, my own opinion is that all these arguments point to one thing: the very factors that led to Hitler's/the Reich's success were his/its downfall. It/he was essentially a bubble, though I do not exactly mean to say it/he was an aberration.

So Jason is basically right when he says Barbarossa was doomed from the beginning, because a nutjob made that call in the first place, and the arguments he made to convince people were irrational. But he is certainly wrong to say that the situation was simple, and I think that has been amply demonstrated by the variety of arguments and topics presented here. They represent a tiny fraction of the whole debate.

Back to my cave . . .

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Corvidae:

He had no Satanic dreams ,, but was a devout christian all his life, He hated the very name Satan,

Maybe he had no great truck with "Satan", but he was certainly no Christian.

He used the symbology of God, and was happy to tolerate christianity as long as it played by his rules, but that's all.

[Grimly Fiendish]

I knew that response would come up!

SO, I don't want to start it up with you, but you must admit that you have no basis for such a claim except wishful thinking. Unless you've found a little tunnel into Hitler's skull a la the movie Being John Malkovich . . .

Although calling him a Satanist would be even more absurd.

[Guest Mike]

Of course I have a basis - there are any number of web sites quoting Hitler's comments on Christianity and religon - you show your own ignorance of the subject

Whether you agree with my opinion or not is up to you, but I didn't dream the idea up out of nowhere - http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mischedj/ca_hitler.html

[Grimly Fiendish]

I'm not saying you dreamed anything up. I'm well aware of the nature of the debate and of the evidence, from which I think one can make any argument one likes. I've read about Hitler's Catholic upbringing and I don't doubt he stopped going to church. Why should he? He was his own god. But it has nothing to do with what he thought he was, and I don't know how you define a christian anyway. Usually someone who rejects his own belief is termed an agnostic. Last I checked, agnostics who didn't slaughter millions were still allowed in.

The point is utterly moot, for the purposes of this forum at least. Better to focus on the meat of his writings and speeches than to try to pigeonhole him. No one can say he was "certainly" or "certainly not" anything in this context, at least not to my satisfaction.

Nothing in this link is new, although it's a nice summary. Brief, but balanced.

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Dave Stockhoff:

SO, I don't want to start it up with you, but you must admit that you have no basis for such a claim except wishful thinking.

Which part of "you have no basis for such a claim except wishful thinking" did I misunderstand think you said I dreamed it up?

If you didn't want to "start it up" then why did yuo "start it up"? :confused:

[Grimly Fiendish]

Anytime you're trying to state with certainty what went on in someone's head, you're going out on a limb. That's all I'm saying.

More to the point, in the case of Hitler there is always someone who will stand up and say, He wasn't one of OURS. But of course there are very few modern Western figures who are not in some sense Christians---who didn't get most of their ideas from it, good or bad. It's wishful to think otherwise.

But I'm not agreeing with Corvidae that he was "devout."

Corvidae's point about racial mythology is relevant. The racist attitudes of the Germans toward the Slavs date back at least to the Teutonic Knights, who considered them savages to be converted or slaughtered in crusades, much as in Asia and in Africa etc. etc. Thus the available and easily-tapped belief that the Russians were subhumans, bolstered by demonstrated military incompetence. It's funny that Churchill called the Germans Huns, but the Germans often seem to have confused Russians with the Mongol Horde.

Hitler may not have totally mobilized production but he made use of every bit of existing mythology he could get his hands on to exert Germans to war. Whether or not it made him underestimate Russia, it made him paranoid and made Germany historically insecure. The threat was always there in the German mind, even in the absence of actual plans for invasion.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Dave Stockhoff:

Corvidae actually raises some interesting points, like was Hitler really as interested in global empire as much as the US government liked to paint him as being? Was he ever really a physical threat to the US? Was not the US just as racist until after the war?

The answer to all three of these questions is 'no'. But that does not mean that Hitler was not interested in achieving equality with Britain, by domination of the European continent including Soviet Russia.

I accept that the US was as racist as the Nazi movement the moment someone shows me the evidence of gassing/mass-murder of blacks, Japanese-Americans, Gypsies, and other unwelcome groups in US society. Until then, I think this argument is best left to the usual websites promoting Holocaust denial.

All the best

Andreas

[Grimly Fiendish]

Andreas, just a clarification before I get lumped with the Nazi apologists. I don't mean to suggest that the US government was as racist as that of Hitler or the Nazis.

I meant the US vs Germany as a whole. Hitler's first antisemitic laws were apparently inspired by/based on the Jim Crow laws of the southern US. I'm afraid I don't have a reference for this except for a placard at the Holocaust Museum. But if it's true it says a lot.

[ February 08, 2006, 08:34 AM: Message edited by: Dave Stockhoff ]

[Grimly Fiendish]

Oops, wrong button. Ignore this.

[ February 08, 2006, 08:32 AM: Message edited by: Dave Stockhoff ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Dave Stockhoff:

Andreas, just a clarification before I get lumped with the Nazi apologists. I don't mean to suggest that the US government was as racist as Hitler or the Nazis.

I meant the US vs Germany as a whole. Hitler's first antisemitic laws were apparently inspired by/based on the Jim Crow laws of the southern US. I'm afraid I don't have a reference for this except for a placard at the Holocaust Museum. But if it's true it says a lot.

Thanks for the clarification - I am afraid this is an issue where it pays to be very precise about what one means when one raises it. I have come across arguments such as this which when challenged or questioned devolved into something rather nasty.

Since that is what you meant, I would not disagree immediately, although it should be pointed out that there were not only these laws. There was also a whole Nazification process going on in the economy, boycotts of Jewish shops businesses, etc. pp. There are again parallels to that in the US (e.g. the Japanese who were deported to camps often lost their property and businesses), but that was after Pearl Harbour, so the context was different, IMO. Then of course there is the argument that these laws affected only the southern states, which means that not the whole US was evidently as racist, just parts of it.

But in any case this has nothing to do with the topic of the thread. Thanks for the clarification.

All the best

Andreas

[Feldtrompeter]

Hi Andreas

To be just I have to add that what I wrote was not 100% Haffner. I looked the dates up of the Russian counter attack in December 1941 and the German declaration of war against the USA. While doing so in "Der zweite Weltkrieg" (Janusz Piekalkiewicz, 1985, Econ Verlag) I came across the info that the US press had published the secret mobilization plan of Roosevelt in early December 1941 and that that info was directly send to Germany via the German embassy. So I added that. But the main string of argumentation was Haffner.

If you like to go to the source get:

Sebastian Haffner (1996): Anmerkungen zu Hitler, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.

Sebastian Haffner (1989): Von Bismark zu Hitler, Knaur Varlag.

The rest of my post was taken from "Anmerkungen zu Hitler".

Yet in "Von Bismark zu Hitler" Haffner also states that he did not come across a truely convincing explaination of Hitlers declaration of war on the USA. Neither his own hypothesis nor what he read from others.

I think he wrote the "Anmerkungen" first which means that he may have reevaluated the explanatory power of his given conclusion.

A view that Haffner definetely holds is that Hitler directed his final destructive intentions against the German nation. In the "Anmerkungen" he lays out that Hitler - with full intention - tried to fulfill his dream of the annihilation of the Jews at the expense of the German nation.

In both books he says that Hitlers final goal was to impose as much damage as he can on the German people. Either to punish them for not being able to accomplish his abstruse ideas or to punish them for not agreeing with his general racial intentions.

That he had to be carefull with expressing his ultimate views about the Jews Hitler knew from some tests that he had undertaken to try out if the German people as a whole would endorse his antijewish garbage.

One of the tests is known as the "Reichs-Kristallnacht". Hitler recognized that the German population as a whole, instead of yielding active support, felt ashamed and stepped back from that aggression. The Nazis definitely viewed the Kristallnacht as being a failure.

As a "result" the death camps were also built in the East. Not one of them stood on German soil. Hitler did not trust the Germans too much.

So, you can look at Hitler's later decissions and interpret them as serving the purpose to destroy Germany intentionally. They had not done what he wanted them to do neither lended full support, so he makes them reap what they deserve in return.

In that picture fits the Ardennen offensive perfectly. Instead of using his last armored "surplus" to protect the fleeing Eastgermans he went and wasted it in a silly strike in the west. (Not to mention that he should have ended the war a long time ago if he meant to act in Germanys interest - save a few hundert thousand citizens from being bombed for instance.)

Ok, that was Haffner.

So long

Feldtrompeter