Operation Barbarossa

I heard about it. Yet, every third Soviet soldier guard border with Japan.

Well there's troops and there's troops - Im presuming they moved some of the experienced, well trained and equipped ones. I haven,t seen the figures elsewhere but that bastion of truth wikipedia claims that in addition to the soldiers 1,500 aircraft and 1,700 tanks came too - if accurate that's fairly significant.

Just curious - are you from Russia / ex-Soviet states? It's always interesting to hear different perspectives and sources.

Well there's troops and there's troops...

http://protown.ru/information/hide/5452.html

Just curious - are you from Russia / ex-Soviet states? It's always interesting to hear different perspectives and sources.

Why do I need to specify in my profile Russia if I do not live in it? Of course from Russia.

Most of them were civilians. The Nazis were good at it. Still, I do not understand why they could not just turn the town into ruins.

I think the Germans turned Leningrad into ruins. The difference to cities in other nations, was that the Russians didn't understand to surrender the city. I think other cities in other nations would have surrendered already in the winter 1941-2. But Leningrad was part of Sovjet Russia...

I think the Germans turned Leningrad into ruins.

After the war, Leningrad are not rebuilt from nothing, like Stalingrad. So no, this did not happen.

...The difference to cities in other nations, was that the Russians didn't understand to surrender the city.

Leningrad was not surrender for many reasons. And "Russians didn't understand to surrender the city" was neither one of them.

After the war, Leningrad are not rebuilt from nothing, like Stalingrad. So no, this did not happen.

Depends what definition you have of "turned Leningrad into ruins". For others, like me, the Germans did that, the metaphor do not require complete destruction, it only says that the Germans did a lot of destruction and made the life a lot of harder for the inhabitants. Pictures from the siege, for example: here, here, and here.

My point was to say that other cities in Western Europe would have surrendered in a similar situation, but Leningrad did not surrender.

Depends what definition you have of "turned Leningrad into ruins"...Germans did a lot of destruction and made the life a lot of harder for the inhabitants.

Of course, Leningrad suffered from the war. But it was not turned into a pile of rubble as Stalingrad and Sevastopol.
Or burned to ashes as thousands of villages

My point was to say that other cities in Western Europe would have surrendered in a similar situation, but Leningrad did not surrender.

To surrender to those who will kill you anyway, stupid. I have doubts about the intelligence of Western Europeans (their countries are doing very strange things), but I do not think that they would give up their own executioners.

My five word explanation why the Germans lost in the east.

"Russia is too damn big."

Partially. But it also has a lot to do with Nazi ideology in combination with the arrogance of German leaders.

Germany wanted too much out of the war.

a) Eradication of Bolshevism/Marxism which is seen as one of the two primary threats to Germany and western Europe (the other being Jewry).

b) Living space which would be confiscated from Slavs and given to German settlers in the post-war.

c) relocation or extermination of Slavic peoples.

The only realistic (and perhaps moral) goal would have been a); to topple the Soviet regime, install a nationalist fascist/pro-German government that would make some generous concessions to Germany in the post-war and otherwise act as a puppet.

Germany would have had to galvanize nationalists in the USSR, promote national/religious groups that naturally oppose Bolshevism and become their champion.

Instead Nazi Germany saw themselves as a conquerer and master, not a liberator and ally. Of course it couldn't have been any other way as it is really hard to divorce the racial-bigotry from the rest of the Nazi mandate.

Nevertheless had Germans been less racially focused and more interested in securing Europe from Bolshevism as they claimed then it would not have been impossible to win the war by toppling the Soviet government.

a) Eradication of Bolshevism/Marxism which is seen as one of the two primary threats to Germany and western Europe (the other being Jewry).


Nevertheless had Germans been less racially focused and more interested in securing Europe from Bolshevism as they claimed then it would not have been impossible to win the war by toppling the Soviet government.

Well it's the same thing in Nazi ideology. Bolshevism is just a tool of international jewry. (Its not even lunch and Im writing like a nazi, yay!) You can't have the nazis focus more on ideological struggle and less on the racial one, when their own ideology puts an = between bolshevism and the Jews. Thats why they'll more or less always refer to it as "Judäo-Bolschewismus". Their ideology makes any ideological struggle against Bolshevism be the same thing as the racial struggle against 'International Jewry'

And if they didn't have the racial policies they wouldn't have gone to war in the first place so the point is pretty much moot.

Short answer.
Germans were outnumber. Allother apects were equal.
Means

More men. More guns. More vehicles. More aircrafts. Qualty even.
More resources. Quality better

Quality and effectivness of command even. Men even.

Quality and effectiveness of the command was in favor for the Germans at least up until the fail of Moscow and during Case Blue. Imo if the Generals would have been worse, they would have failed way before Stalingrad.

Quality and effectiveness of the command was in favor for the Germans

So u mean first 5 month. And even 4,5 years. As i said above.

Well it's the same thing in Nazi ideology. Bolshevism is just a tool of international jewry. (Its not even lunch and Im writing like a nazi, yay!) You can't have the nazis focus more on ideological struggle and less on the racial one, when their own ideology puts an = between bolshevism and the Jews. Thats why they'll more or less always refer to it as "Judäo-Bolschewismus". Their ideology makes any ideological struggle against Bolshevism be the same thing as the racial struggle against 'International Jewry'

And if they didn't have the racial policies they wouldn't have gone to war in the first place so the point is pretty much moot.

Yes I conceded that.

Instead Nazi Germany saw themselves as a conqueror and master, not a liberator and ally. Of course it couldn't have been any other way as it is really hard to divorce the racial-bigotry from the rest of the Nazi mandate.

The Germans certainly viewed Bolshevism and Jewry as being related, the latter perhaps giving rise to the former but the Nazis also had a primal fear of Zionism which was, depending on how ridiculous the theory, unrelated to Bolshevism and in many ways incompatible.

For instance the Italians and the Kingdoms of Hungary and Romania were staunchly against the Bolshevist menace (for that matter so were the democracies of western Europe) without really being interested in the racial aspect of such a conflict. They joined the "crusade" not out of a desire to exterminate Slavs but to subdue the imminent existential threat that was the Soviet Union.

The Nazis, even if they believed differently, could have been more pragmatic and focused their efforts on the collapse of the Soviet government, through limited warfare, propaganda, insurgency etc., as opposed to trying to militarily conquer every corner of Russian territory.

Sure, but I mean is the basic point that you are making is if the Nazis hadn't been such staunch nazis, they wouldn't have done the nazi stuff?

Well I mean the point is they were.


But just for the sake of argument, even not invading the USSR the Nazis have still no hope in hell of remaining. Their entire system was horribly inefficient, their economic policy would probably be best described as suicidal and only lasted as long as it did by basically robbing every central bank in Europe for cash.
And you still have to get around the problem of being at war with the UK.

A country they never stood any serious hope of invading nor was ever seriously threatened by defeat. US would have entered the war either way, introducing nukes in 45. or are we going to assume Japan does not get guarantees from Germany that they'll join Japan in a war against the US? Why?


The only hope for Germany to not be defeated in WW2 is if they didn't go to war against Poland in the first place, which means not having the Nazis take power in 1933. And instead keep up with the economic uplift of the Weimar Republic, that started in 1923.


See how counter-factual discussions become bonkers quite quickly?

Well I didn't really commit to evaluating Nazis as a whole, just how they conducted their war against the USSR.

Being as crass and inflated as they were they reached the gates of Moscow only to at the last moment face the full might of the Russian winter and regrouping efforts of the Red Army. Add to this their poor strategizing from that point onward.

Had they launched a more cautious campaign, bolstering and empowering Russians in occupied territories for one example, it might have went very differently for the USSR.

It's not really about the leadership being less than staunch Nazis, it's about them being more realistic and pragmatic staunch Nazis.

They way you are presenting the situation one would gather that it would seem impossible for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to have been established in the first place. But it was, despite Nazism.

So it isn't always black and white, even with Nazi-Bolshevik relations. There is no reason the Nazis couldn't at the very least put the racial extermination agenda on the back-burner and focus on the imminent danger at hand. But they were overconfident in this regard.

Granted it isn't black and white. My point was more about how counter-factual historical discussions are in my mind a pointless exercise.


I struggle to find any way to see the Germans not engaging in mass killings and genocide on the peoples of the east from day one. It's like saying the Soviets could have saved a lot of their men from dying and fared on the whole a lot better by not engaging in pointless counterattacks all the time.


But that doesn't happen and there are reasons why history happens as it does. To change even one thing you would have to undo so much history that it is impossible to see the end result.


edit: Just look at my previous post. "If the nazis didn't take power in 1933" How idiotic is not that statement? By what reason would that not have happened? For that not to be a thing we would have to rewrite the entire history of the Weimar republic, which means rewriting the entire history of WW1, which means rewriting.... and so on and so on.

Fair enough but I think revisiting history and attempting to tweak the narrative is the appeal of threads like this one. Pointless? Well, it's recreational for us but even scholars at the highest academic level indulge themselves sometimes.

So u mean first 5 month. And even 4,5 years. As i said above.

As I said it was roughly a few months during the whole war with Russia but it was there

I've read a great deal (maybe around 20) books on the topic, including war diaries.

The Axis had no business in the USSR. They lost as soon as they entered it. There was a brief 'opening' for a rapid victory in July 1941 and that's it.

The source of Axis combat power was strong 'blitzkrieg' strategic offensives. They were nothing without it, and Case Blue 1942 was the last strong (albeit flawed) blitzkrieg. They perform far worse in the defense.

With the Axis/Germans it was not so much about production but rapid and decisive operations early on in the war. 39-42 German combat power was largely through their panzer divisions and large numbers of well trained infantry with good tactical skills, not at all due to advantages from equipment or firepower. The key to ending the axis and ending strategic blitzkrieg was to devastate the german infantry arm and destroy german mobility (horses, vehicles), which was accomplished by Nov, 1942.

The Axis took around 1 million casualties on the Eastern Front by the end of 1941. They took 2 1/2 million by the end of Stalingrad ( Feb 1943). They took 5 million on the Eastern front (alone) by May 1944.

Saying the Germans were poor in defence is complete nonsense. It took a world effort and two fronts, night and day bombing runs. To beat them after Stalingrad, and after Kursk they were on the defensive the rest of the war, save the buldge. Read a book.

Short answer Hitler. Hitler was a corporal only from ww1 and wasn't that good in tactical & modern warfare (Lightning war). All the major success from axis came from their really good generals who planned them and when Hitler didn't try to be general.

But Moscow and Barbarossa.

1. Original main goal was Moscow, it had 3 main drives. a) North to Leningrad, b) Center to Moscow, c) South to Ukraine. From North&South Armies would sweep to surround Moscow after their initial goals had been met. Center was supportive role until Ukraine&Leningrad operations had been succesful.

2. South attack was stalled in Ukraine by major soviet forces and against advise from his generals (They wanted Center to keep driving to Moscow before weather worsen), Hitler ordered to divert forces from Center army to help break southern defense (Kiev Offensive). They isolated and did destroy alot of soviet forces, but it took time from the main drive to Moscow.

3. Leningrad, after Kharkov it was suggested that they would not drive to Leningrad, but push full ahead to Moscow. But again Hitler decided not to hold the offensive to Leningrad, which in the end became a Siege of Leningrad during whole war and had held alot of Axis forces that could have been useful elsewhere at 1941.

4. Weather. 1941 Winter came really early, and Rasputitsa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasputitsa) slowed/halted the attack to Moscow in Sep-Nov. Buying alot of more time to the soviet disorganised forces to dig in. Early winter did give Axis the chance to advance again, because the cold froze the mud roads so they could use them again.

I am too tired to type too accurately about this, but have read alot of world war 2 documents and books over 20 years. So I do know what I am talking about. So little copy+paste what I tried to say about Hitler vs his generals.

"A majority of Hitler’s senior generals now implored him to scrap Barbarossa in favor of an all-out attack on Moscow. If the Russian capital fell, they argued, it would devastate Russian morale and knock out the country’s chief transportation hub. Russia’s days would surely be numbered.

The decision rested solely with the Supreme Commander.

In what was perhaps his single biggest decision of World War II, Hitler passed up the chance to attack Moscow during the summer of 1941. Instead, he clung to the original plan to crush Leningrad in the north and simultaneously seize the Ukraine in the south. This, Hitler lectured his generals, would be far more devastating to the Russians than the fall of Moscow. A successful attack in the north would wreck the city named after one of the founders of Soviet Russia, Vladimir Lenin. Attacking the south would destroy the Russian armies protecting the region and place vital agricultural and industrial areas in German hands.
Though they remained unconvinced, the generals dutifully halted the advance on Moscow and repositioned troops and tanks away from Army Group Center to aid Army Groups North and South. By late September, bolstered by the additional Panzer tanks, Army Group South successfully captured the city of Kiev in the Ukraine, taking 650,000 Russian prisoners. As Army Group North approached Leningrad, a beautiful old city with palaces that once belonged to the Czars, Hitler ordered the place flattened via massive aerial and artillery bombardments. Concerning the five million trapped inhabitants, he told his generals, “The problem of the survival of the population and of supplying it with food is one which cannot and should not be solved by us.”
Now, with Leningrad surrounded and the Ukraine almost taken, the generals implored Hitler to let them take Moscow before the onset of winter. This time Hitler consented, but only partly. He would allow an attack on Moscow, provided that Army Group North also completed the capture of Leningrad, while Army Group South advanced deeper into southern Russia toward Stalingrad, the city on the Volga River named after the Soviet dictator."

"Just six months earlier, the Germans had been poised to achieve the greatest victory of all time and change world history. Instead, they had succumbed to the greatest-ever comeback by their Russian foes. By now a quarter of all German troops in Russia, some 750,000 men, were either dead, wounded, missing or ill.

Reacting to the catastrophe he had caused, Hitler blamed the Wehrmacht's leadership, dismissing dozens of field commanders and senior generals, including Walther von Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Hitler then took that rank for himself, assuming personal day-to-day operational command of the Army, and promptly ordered all surviving troops in Russia to halt in their tracks and retreat not one step further, which they did. As a result, the Eastern Front gradually stabilized."

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/defeat/attack-russia.htm

ps. My personal opinion is that Hitler made a really bad mistake not listening to his generals and not using the summer weather to finish Moscow first (They had not been able to make defences there, compared to the late november offensive). With Moscow down, the soviet forces would have been disorganised really badly. Moscow was the center of all transport, military orders and Stalins's HQ. This would have led to all soviet armies being unable to get commands/orders or atleast really badly. They had original orders to hold fast, which they would have obeyed and would have been surrounded and destroyed (What happened anyway during Kiev offensive).

Snip.

Good Generals who still failed to grasp that logistics is a thing

2. Because driving 57 divisions who's supply would come from a single bad road that was flanked by 600 000 enemy soldiers would totally have been a possibility? That's Sea Lion level of idiotic planning

Diverting forces to spread secure your flank and secure additional routes for your supplies is apparently a bad thing.
Everyone knows its a perfectly sound military strategy to leave 600 000 enemy troops unchecked in your flank.

3. The siege of Leningrad started on the 8th of September, Kharkov was reached on the 20th of October, and taken on the 24th.

4. Yes the Rasputitsa that comes every year is completely possible to miss, russia is also very known for its mild winters.

For someone who has read a lot for over 20 years you kinda fall into the regular mythology that was written up by disgruntled German generals in their autobiographies.


Driving on Moscow immediatly after Smolensk is simply not possible. Center is too worn out and its armor needs refitting, what would already become a logistical nightmare wouldn't have become any easier removing basically all routes of supply except one. And leaving said route exposed to flanking attacks!



Are we talking about the same bright officer corps who seriously considered shipping forces over the English Channel in River barges that would tip over if a destroyer caused a big enough swell? And who's logistical plan for that operation was "just leave it at the beach lulz"?