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Hitler/Germany had a huge issue with oil. As a matter of fact, the invasion of western Europe and Norway and all had a huge impact on oil reserves. That is why they stopped pushing into Moscow and went to south in Operation Blue or Case Blue whatever it was called. Once Hitler knew the war wasn't going to end quickly, oil became a priority. But Germany would have run out of oil even if it has not invaded Russia.

People tend to think Hitler was mad and over-ruling his generals all the time but the truth is the vast majority of his generals were only looking at the war in a tactical sense from battle to battle, and not strategically. All of his generals were crying for more supplies, manpower, tanks, and oil. Hitler knew what was at stake but also knew they had over-reached, and I think that in part led to his breakdown. I think he knew it was all lost a long time before peeps think he knew, and part of the reason his health deteriorated and became doped up all the time.

I have said it on here before and will say it again: Amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics. While short wars can be decided by strategy, long wars are decided by production. If you don't believe me, ask Rommel. Imagine if Rommel had access to all of the reinforcements he asked for, as well as oil. The Germans might still be in Libya today (just joking). Montgomery beat Rommel by overwhelming him. That was done because the English were able to move more men and material to the region, while many of the german supplies ended up at the bottom of the sea. The Russians, Americans, all did the same.

It really comes down to simple math really. That is, so long as everyone is playing with the same weapons. I don't think Germany had any chance of winning once they started taking so many opponents on.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Ultimately it was Hitler's call to invade the Soviet Union. Once they did that their defeat was inevitable. "Do not march on Moscow" isn't said to be the first rule of war for nothing. Trying to wage a land war in Russia is just a really dumb thing to do.

Mongols didnt have too many problems. There are always exceptions.

Yes, but the Mongols invaded Russia back when it was still a relatively small area, and before it became a country. Russia back then was just a general area with lots of small independent states. The Mongols obviously had no trouble subjugating all those tiny independent city-states (with the exception of Novgorod which was protected by a marsh). The reason why it is stupid to invade Russia is not simply because it is Russia, but because Russia is a massive country that mostly consists of vast empty spaces, meaning it is almost impossible to control without ridiculous amounts of manpower and a logistical nightmare. Back in medieval times this was simply not true yet because the Russian states were all very small and compact.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
The actual lesson of Barbarossa was that it failed, not that it was impossible.

This is highly, highly debatable. There has been a lot of discourse on whether the fall of Moscow would have actually ended the war on the Eastern Front. It had strategic significance as a railroad hub and production centre, but it's not so cut and dry as to say that Moscow would have meant victory. Most of the Soviet Union's industry had been moved east of the Urals which is well beyond Moscow's eastern city limits. In terms of breaking Russia's ability to wage war, taking Moscow would not have done that. Political ramifications are something else entirely and I can't really speak to that. Whether Stalin would have been forced out or not, I can't say. Victory over the Soviet Union was a serious longshot, if not outright impossible given what they had and what they were up against.

Taking Moscow would have meant nothing. It is just a city, a pile of brick and concrete, nothing more. The Russians burned Moscow behind them when Napoleon was about to take it, they would have burned Moscow again had Hitler been able to take it. Same goes for Stalingrad or Leningrad. They were symbolic cities because of their names and the heroism of their defenders, but ultimately irrelevant to the larger war. If they had fallen it would have done little to impact the strength of the Red Army. This is the way Russian armies have fought for centuries whenever Russia was invaded. Just burn everything behind you and let attrition take its toll on the enemy before counter-attacking and defeating their weakened forces. As long as there is space left to retreat to there is hope, and in Russia you never run out of space.

Hitler and Napoleon shame similarities, but their opponents did not, at least not initially. Napoleon always faced a deep defence of the homeland. Hitler need not. Carve out Moscow, 'free' Russia from Communism and pull back. The Nazis had no small support from captured Red Army soldiers in the first months, which was thrown away by the SS.

I will accept the argument that had race ideology been mutable the entire campaign could also have been avoided, if not the whole war. However I look at expediency Hitler didn't want war with certain races, he tried to avoid war with Britain. An expediency based rethink on eastern European races was not impossible. Hitler already pretended to have one with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
I favour the view that conflict between the Third Reich and Soviet Union was inevitable. In 1941the Red Army was weakened by purges and while Stalin was blindsided by Barbarossa, he was increasingly worried by events to the west. The Nazis were a personal existential threat, and Stalin went to extreme lengths with those. I concur with the view that if Hitler had not have invaded Stalin would have, by 1943 in the latest.

Both faced a defence in depth. The Red Army lost almost all of its trained manpower and advanced equipment in the first days of the war when the Germans attacked by surprise (due to Stalin's errors in judgement, the secret services had warned him of what was coming but he ignored it). This made a defence in depth a sheer neccesity. The strategy of the Red Army was to slow down and hinder the German advance as much as possible to prepare the next defense line and allow for the army's strength to be rebuilt. It is a classical example of a deep defence.
Hitler's aim was never to ""free" Russia. His aim was to take the European part of Russia as Lebensraum for ethnic Germans and lock up the Russians behind the Urals in Asia (where according to the German race theories, the Russians belonged). Hitler did get support of anti-communist elements, but outside of Ukraine and the Baltics that support never amounted to anything meaningful. Once Hitler invaded Russia proper even many monarchist, anti-communist groups such as the Cossacks joined up with the Red Army. If Hitler had put aside all of his wacky race theories and had positioned himself instead as as the defender of "old Russian values" and had for example aimed to restore the imperial regime in Russia (as a Nazi puppet state), then he would have enjoyed a great deal more support, and if his armies had not been so murderous on top of that he might even have enjoyed enough local support to overthrow Stalin and the Bolsheviks. But instead, the Nazis did not really hide their race theories and genocidal aims, and their armies massacred millions of innocent Russian civilians just for the hell of it. And so he never really enjoyed any meaningful support. Except again in Western Ukraine,where the Banderites were busy with their own little genocide and which unfortunately remains a Nazi stronghold to this day.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
As previous posters have said, it was Hitler who got Germany into the East Front war when they were already embroiled in North Africa and hadn't managed to finish off Great Britain in the West.

Hitler also interfered in strategy and made some big mistakes which made things worse.

Could Germany have beaten the Soviet Union if Hitler hadn't interfered? Maybe, maybe not, but the generals left to themselves would never have attacked anyway, so it's a moot point.

The long and short of it is that it's Hitler's fault and he is fairly blamed for it all.

I'm not so sure about your third point, because some of those generals loathed Communism as much as Hitler did, so they may have attacked anyway. You're also overlooking the mode of euphoria that prevailed in German high command pre-June '41. Norway, Denmark, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, were all vanquished, and the rest were either neutral (Switzerland, Sweden) or were allies or satellites of Germany. Germany's only enemy was obviously back across the English Channel.

And let's not forget the Barbarossa plan was a sack of gak and that it was drawn up by military professionals. Hitler might have tweaked it here and there, but the army's paw prints were all over it. Even when their pre-invasion wargames were wildly optimistic, OKW didn't change tack.

And I'll repeat the following to everybody: If you're the German Generals in 1941, and you've seen first hand how shoddy the Red Army was in 1939 Poland, know how bad they were against Finland, and were coming off the back of having conquered Western Europe and the Balkans, why wouldn't you feel confident about taking on the Russians? You beat them in WW1, why not WW2?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KTG17 wrote:
Hitler/Germany had a huge issue with oil. As a matter of fact, the invasion of western Europe and Norway and all had a huge impact on oil reserves. That is why they stopped pushing into Moscow and went to south in Operation Blue or Case Blue whatever it was called. Once Hitler knew the war wasn't going to end quickly, oil became a priority. But Germany would have run out of oil even if it has not invaded Russia.

People tend to think Hitler was mad and over-ruling his generals all the time but the truth is the vast majority of his generals were only looking at the war in a tactical sense from battle to battle, and not strategically. All of his generals were crying for more supplies, manpower, tanks, and oil. Hitler knew what was at stake but also knew they had over-reached, and I think that in part led to his breakdown. I think he knew it was all lost a long time before peeps think he knew, and part of the reason his health deteriorated and became doped up all the time.

I have said it on here before and will say it again: Amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics. While short wars can be decided by strategy, long wars are decided by production. If you don't believe me, ask Rommel. Imagine if Rommel had access to all of the reinforcements he asked for, as well as oil. The Germans might still be in Libya today (just joking). Montgomery beat Rommel by overwhelming him. That was done because the English were able to move more men and material to the region, while many of the german supplies ended up at the bottom of the sea. The Russians, Americans, all did the same.

It really comes down to simple math really. That is, so long as everyone is playing with the same weapons. I don't think Germany had any chance of winning once they started taking so many opponents on.

If Rommel had obeyed orders and waited for the planned invasion of Malta, and not pushed on in 1942, then maybe he would have won!

As to one of your other points, I believe the reason why Moscow wasn't attacked in 1942 was due to Red Army defence, and a manpower and tank shortage on the German side.

None the less, the first half of 1942 seen some of the most spectacular military victories in world history, never mind German history. Red Army field armies were crushed left, right, and centre by the Germans in the first half of 1942. They were damn close to victory in 1942.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

As to one of your other points, I believe the reason why Moscow wasn't attacked in 1942 was due to Red Army defence, and a manpower and tank shortage on the German side.

None the less, the first half of 1942 seen some of the most spectacular military victories in world history, never mind German history. Red Army field armies were crushed left, right, and centre by the Germans in the first half of 1942. They were damn close to victory in 1942.

If Germany didn't have oil problems they would have still pushed against Moscow. Plus, oil was shipped to Russia via barges on the Volga too, so going south would have killed two birds with one stone: it could have given the Germans the oil they needed, and at the same time cut the Russians off. Its one of the reasons why they even went to Stalingrad: it was to cut off the Volga and the oil shipments. But the operation was a mess for a whole host of reasons, as well as naive in that thinking thet the Germans would have just been able to start pumping from the moment they took the fields.

Read up on German oil production and reserves during the stages of the war and you'll see what drove their strategy. And while they were able to produce synthetic oil, it was really expensive to produce. Just about every decision the Germans had to make was influenced by oil. But the most surprising thing is that if Hitler NOT invaded Russia, Germany would have run out of oil anyway because of the massive drain from occupying western Europe. It was really a race against the clock, and I think they were less than a year away from economic collapse too.

One of the German Army groups was fighting on the outskirt suburbs of Moscow late in the fighting season. They came pretty close to dissolving the Soviet governent to go into hiding, and perhaps break the Russian morale into destruction.

It was the Russian Winter & more TIME that saved the Russians.

If you ever play Axis & Allies as the Axis- you don't have the luxury of playing attrition against the Allies. If Germany can't break Russia in early game it's usually game over.

Watch this video it does a pretty good job summing up how WWII was influenced by oil:

In addition, wasn't it Hitler who ordered the Luftwaffe to stop bombing RAF airfields and bomb civilians after an RAF counterbombardment made a navigational error and accidentally bombed a German town?
IIRC, this in turn led to the RAF getting a breather, rebuilding, and eventually winning the Battle for Britain.
If that hadn't happened, the British might have lost the battle, and, if not surrendered, at least sued for/accepted peace, closing down at least one front for the Nazi's in the buildup to invading Russia.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

As I said, we obviously sit here with full knowledge of what happened, but I'm not convinced German defeat is the foregone conclusion it's made out to be. A smarter plan, that sees Germany stop, dig in, and consolidate at a certain line, could have shaken down the Soviets for a negotiated peace.

It was absolutely a foregone conclusion. Stopping, digging in, and consolidating at a certain line does absolutely nothing to mitigate the problems they were facing and was totally contrary to how blitzkrieg was supposed to work. You're basically asking the Heer to do something it wasn't designed to do.

I'm not so sure about your third point, because some of those generals loathed Communism as much as Hitler did, so they may have attacked anyway

Generals do not decide foreign policy, the head of state does. We've seen how easily the army leadership rolled over whenever they disagreed with Hitler, suggesting that they would be willing and able to attack on their own initiative is pretty farfetched IMO.

They were damn close to victory in 1942.

They were nowhere near victory in 1942. Taking Stalingrad would not have forced the capitulation of the Soviet Union, and there is absolutely no reason to believe they would have been able to use the oil fields in the Caucasus even if they had captured them. The Russians had turned scorched earth into an art, and they had already sabotaged some of the refineries in the path of the Axis advance.

And let's not forget the Barbarossa plan was a sack of gak and that it was drawn up by military professionals

Let's also not forget that Hitler interfered incessantly with those plans. His generals were far more conservative about their targets, but they were overruled repeatedly by the Fuhrer himself until he settled onto the overly ambitious three prong attack.

 womprat49 wrote:
One of the German Army groups was fighting on the outskirt suburbs of Moscow late in the fighting season. They came pretty close to dissolving the Soviet governent to go into hiding, and perhaps break the Russian morale into destruction.

It was the Russian Winter & more TIME that saved the Russians.

If you ever play Axis & Allies as the Axis- you don't have the luxury of playing attrition against the Allies. If Germany can't break Russia in early game it's usually game over.

Why would the Soviet government have to go in hiding? If the Germans had broken through the Soviet defense lines then the government would simply have gone on the train to Samara and set up shop there. The functioning of Soviet government would barely have been impeded. In fact, the vast majority of the government was already evacuated and operating from Samara by the time the Germans reached Moscow, and large part of the population of Moscow and symbolical objects (such as Lenin's body) had also already been evacuated. Samara remained the temporary capital of the Soviet Union (complete with luxury bunker for Stalin) until midway 1943.
The fall of Moscow would have barely affected Soviet morale, which remained very high throughout the war. As I said, Moscow is just a city, and there are many cities in Russia. Russia isn't a very sentimental country in that regard. With the powerful Soviet propaganda engine running at full speed, I doubt the fall of Moscow would even have registered with many Russians. The story would have been of how the Germans had taken great casualties in taking a useless pile of brick whose industries, people and government were already gone and continuing the fight from the cities to the east.

Bran Dawri wrote:
In addition, wasn't it Hitler who ordered the Luftwaffe to stop bombing RAF airfields and bomb civilians after an RAF counterbombardment made a navigational error and accidentally bombed a German town?
IIRC, this in turn led to the RAF getting a breather, rebuilding, and eventually winning the Battle for Britain.
If that hadn't happened, the British might have lost the battle, and, if not surrendered, at least sued for/accepted peace, closing down at least one front for the Nazi's in the buildup to invading Russia.

The best the Luftwaffe could have hoped for realistically was to force the RAF to abandon Kent, but that wouldn't necessarily have been all that disastrous since relocating those squadrons north of London would have put them all out of range of the Bf109s that were essential to the Luftwaffe's daylight operations. It would have been a political and propaganda victory for the Germans, at least short term and probably would have put political pressure on to seek peace terms, but militarily it wouldn't have been all that crucial really particularly if someone could convince Trafford Leigh-Mallory to lose his fixation on Big Wing tactics at the exclusion of everything else.

 KTG17 wrote:
Watch this video it does a pretty good job summing up how WWII was influenced by oil:

It's a good video, and there's no denying the importance of oil when it comes to waging modern war, but it doesn't explain every crazy decision that both sides made.


The Germans could have potentially won the war at Dunkirk, if not for the halt order. Oil had nothing to o with that. And sticking with the Eastern Front, Oil doesn't explain some of the crazy command decisions made by Bock and Hoth.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 womprat49 wrote:
One of the German Army groups was fighting on the outskirt suburbs of Moscow late in the fighting season. They came pretty close to dissolving the Soviet governent to go into hiding, and perhaps break the Russian morale into destruction.

It was the Russian Winter & more TIME that saved the Russians.

If you ever play Axis & Allies as the Axis- you don't have the luxury of playing attrition against the Allies. If Germany can't break Russia in early game it's usually game over.

Why would the Soviet government have to go in hiding? If the Germans had broken through the Soviet defense lines then the government would simply have gone on the train to Samara and set up shop there. The functioning of Soviet government would barely have been impeded. In fact, the vast majority of the government was already evacuated and operating from Samara by the time the Germans reached Moscow, and large part of the population of Moscow and symbolical objects (such as Lenin's body) had also already been evacuated. Samara remained the temporary capital of the Soviet Union (complete with luxury bunker for Stalin) until midway 1943.
The fall of Moscow would have barely affected Soviet morale, which remained very high throughout the war. As I said, Moscow is just a city, and there are many cities in Russia. Russia isn't a very sentimental country in that regard. With the powerful Soviet propaganda engine running at full speed, I doubt the fall of Moscow would even have registered with many Russians. The story would have been of how the Germans had taken great casualties in taking a useless pile of brick whose industries, people and government were already gone and continuing the fight from the cities to the east.

What a load of Communist Propaganda! I joke of course.

I agree that Stalin would probably have fought on beyond the Urals, but the loss of Moscow would have been a huge morale boost to the Axis. And it's a railway and communications hub. Yes, it's a pile of bricks, but if Moscow falls, who's to say that Japan wouldn't have jumped in?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

As I said, we obviously sit here with full knowledge of what happened, but I'm not convinced German defeat is the foregone conclusion it's made out to be. A smarter plan, that sees Germany stop, dig in, and consolidate at a certain line, could have shaken down the Soviets for a negotiated peace.

It was absolutely a foregone conclusion. Stopping, digging in, and consolidating at a certain line does absolutely nothing to mitigate the problems they were facing and was totally contrary to how blitzkrieg was supposed to work. You're basically asking the Heer to do something it wasn't designed to do.

I'm not so sure about your third point, because some of those generals loathed Communism as much as Hitler did, so they may have attacked anyway

Generals do not decide foreign policy, the head of state does. We've seen how easily the army leadership rolled over whenever they disagreed with Hitler, suggesting that they would be willing and able to attack on their own initiative is pretty farfetched IMO.

They were damn close to victory in 1942.

They were nowhere near victory in 1942. Taking Stalingrad would not have forced the capitulation of the Soviet Union, and there is absolutely no reason to believe they would have been able to use the oil fields in the Caucasus even if they had captured them. The Russians had turned scorched earth into an art, and they had already sabotaged some of the refineries in the path of the Axis advance.

And let's not forget the Barbarossa plan was a sack of gak and that it was drawn up by military professionals

Let's also not forget that Hitler interfered incessantly with those plans. His generals were far more conservative about their targets, but they were overruled repeatedly by the Fuhrer himself until he settled onto the overly ambitious three prong attack.

I disagree. Victory wasn't beyond the Germans. Soviet losses were huge in 1941-43, and the Red Army had a huge manpower shortage from 1944 onwards. The Soviets can't keep retreating and losing forever. They had to fight back sometime, and it wasn't foregone conclusion they would win. Even Kursk was close.

I mean... I guess it really depends on how you define 'victory.' If you take it to mean destroying the enemy's ability to resist you and fight back, then yes victory was absolutely beyond the Germans. Losing Moscow would have had little effect on Russia's ability to continue fighting, and even that particular goal was beyond the Ost Heer's ability. Yes, Soviet losses were substantial in 1941-43, but they were able to weather those losses much better than the Germans. No one had a manpower shortage as desperately felt as the Heer.

As to the 'Soviets can't keep retreating and losing forever' - that's not wrong, but they still had PLENTY of ground to give up before the Germans got anywhere near the bulk of Russia's industrial capacity beyond the Urals. The Heer was a very long way off from a decisive victory over the Soviets.

Kursk was close? So what? Kursk was meaningless. That the entire ambition of the Heer in the summer of 1943 was to close a salient shows just how badly things had turned out for them after two years on the Russian steppe. The ultimate goal of Kursk was to shorten their line of defense, that's it. It wasn't a war-winning battle by any means.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


What a load of Communist Propaganda! I joke of course.

I agree that Stalin would probably have fought on beyond the Urals, but the loss of Moscow would have been a huge morale boost to the Axis. And it's a railway and communications hub. Yes, it's a pile of bricks, but if Moscow falls, who's to say that Japan wouldn't have jumped in?

The Japanese general staff, who needed everything they had and more to keep up their current campaigns and had zero manpower to spare for an attack on the Soviet Union, for which the Japanese army also was not equipped, since they did not have tanks, artillery or logistical vehicles in the required numbers. The Japanese army had been routed quite easily in previous battles against the Soviet army. The Japanese army was a light infantry formation, they could put up a good fight in the jungles and islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, but it did not stand a chance on open terrain against the Soviet formations of the Far East (which in 1945 rolled over much of the Japanese army in Manchuria in a short time).
And to be honest, even if the Japanese had invaded and somehow had managed to occupy the Far East, that is just that. They would not have been able to go any further. It is the most sparsely populated, least valuable area of Russia outside of the high arctic. As long as the Russian industrial heart, resources and major population centres of west and central Siberia remained intact the Soviet Union would be able to keep up the fight with full efficiency.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

As I said, we obviously sit here with full knowledge of what happened, but I'm not convinced German defeat is the foregone conclusion it's made out to be. A smarter plan, that sees Germany stop, dig in, and consolidate at a certain line, could have shaken down the Soviets for a negotiated peace.

It was absolutely a foregone conclusion. Stopping, digging in, and consolidating at a certain line does absolutely nothing to mitigate the problems they were facing and was totally contrary to how blitzkrieg was supposed to work. You're basically asking the Heer to do something it wasn't designed to do.

I'm not so sure about your third point, because some of those generals loathed Communism as much as Hitler did, so they may have attacked anyway

Generals do not decide foreign policy, the head of state does. We've seen how easily the army leadership rolled over whenever they disagreed with Hitler, suggesting that they would be willing and able to attack on their own initiative is pretty farfetched IMO.

They were damn close to victory in 1942.

They were nowhere near victory in 1942. Taking Stalingrad would not have forced the capitulation of the Soviet Union, and there is absolutely no reason to believe they would have been able to use the oil fields in the Caucasus even if they had captured them. The Russians had turned scorched earth into an art, and they had already sabotaged some of the refineries in the path of the Axis advance.

And let's not forget the Barbarossa plan was a sack of gak and that it was drawn up by military professionals

Let's also not forget that Hitler interfered incessantly with those plans. His generals were far more conservative about their targets, but they were overruled repeatedly by the Fuhrer himself until he settled onto the overly ambitious three prong attack.

I disagree. Victory wasn't beyond the Germans. Soviet losses were huge in 1941-43, and the Red Army had a huge manpower shortage from 1944 onwards. The Soviets can't keep retreating and losing forever. They had to fight back sometime, and it wasn't foregone conclusion they would win. Even Kursk was close.

German losses were also huge, and the Soviets were able to replenish their losses much quicker and even continually increase their strength from 1941-1945 whereas the German army continually became weaker and weaker. They could have kept retreating for a very long time. With the industries being in western Siberia, retreat in fact only made the war easier since supply lines became shorter. For the Germans it became continually harder the farther they went east, and by the point they reached Moscow, the German front and supply lines were already stretched beyond the breaking point. Let alone the troubles they would have faced in crossing the Volga and advancing towards the Ural mountains. And crossing the Urals would have simply been impossible.
Basically, the farther east they went the weaker the German army became while the Soviet army only gained in strength.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
I mean... I guess it really depends on how you define 'victory.' If you take it to mean destroying the enemy's ability to resist you and fight back, then yes victory was absolutely beyond the Germans. Losing Moscow would have had little effect on Russia's ability to continue fighting, and even that particular goal was beyond the Ost Heer's ability. Yes, Soviet losses were substantial in 1941-43, but they were able to weather those losses much better than the Germans. No one had a manpower shortage as desperately felt as the Heer.

As to the 'Soviets can't keep retreating and losing forever' - that's not wrong, but they still had PLENTY of ground to give up before the Germans got anywhere near the bulk of Russia's industrial capacity beyond the Urals. The Heer was a very long way off from a decisive victory over the Soviets.

Kursk was close? So what? Kursk was meaningless. That the entire ambition of the Heer in the summer of 1943 was to close a salient shows just how badly things had turned out for them after two years on the Russian steppe. The ultimate goal of Kursk was to shorten their line of defense, that's it. It wasn't a war-winning battle by any means.

I'm not blaming you for this, but in my experience, when people talk about defeating Russia in any war, they seem to think that you need to capture every square inch of Russia for victory. Not so IMO.

Czarist Russia was defeated in WW1, not because of significant territorial loss, but because the system collapsed under the pressure of war. Stalin's Russia in WW2 was a tough, ruthless machine, but it wasn't invincible and came close to collapsing quite a few times in 1941. In the darkest days of 1941, it probably occurred to Stalin that a peace treaty that gives Germany big chunks of the Ukraine, some land to Finland, but keeps Stalin and the Soviet Union alive, might be a price worth paying. I'm sure it probably crossed his mind. The man was a political survivor all his life, after all.

In that scenario, Germany doesn't need to capture all of Russia or kill every Red Army soldier to gain a meaningful 'victory.'

And people also forget that denying something to the Germans also denies it to the Russians and effects them as well. So the Germans never got the oilfields at Baku or wherever because they were destroyed? But by that logic, Russia won't get them either, so they too are effected.

As for Kursk, you should never underestimate the effects of a major victory on morale, and we all know how important morale is in warfare. After Stalingrad, Germany's allies such as Hungary, Romania, and even Finland are wavering on the Eastern Front. A victory at Kursk allows Hitler to head off the doubters, and makes up for the loss of North Africa and the incoming invasion of Sicily.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


What a load of Communist Propaganda! I joke of course.

I agree that Stalin would probably have fought on beyond the Urals, but the loss of Moscow would have been a huge morale boost to the Axis. And it's a railway and communications hub. Yes, it's a pile of bricks, but if Moscow falls, who's to say that Japan wouldn't have jumped in?

The Japanese general staff, who needed everything they had and more to keep up their current campaigns and had zero manpower to spare for an attack on the Soviet Union, for which the Japanese army also was not equipped, since they did not have tanks, artillery or logistical vehicles in the required numbers. The Japanese army had been routed quite easily in previous battles against the Soviet army. The Japanese army was a light infantry formation, they could put up a good fight in the jungles and islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, but it did not stand a chance on open terrain against the Soviet formations of the Far East (which in 1945 rolled over much of the Japanese army in Manchuria in a short time).
And to be honest, even if the Japanese had invaded and somehow had managed to occupy the Far East, that is just that. They would not have been able to go any further. It is the most sparsely populated, least valuable area of Russia outside of the high arctic. As long as the Russian industrial heart, resources and major population centres of west and central Siberia remained intact the Soviet Union would be able to keep up the fight with full efficiency.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

As I said, we obviously sit here with full knowledge of what happened, but I'm not convinced German defeat is the foregone conclusion it's made out to be. A smarter plan, that sees Germany stop, dig in, and consolidate at a certain line, could have shaken down the Soviets for a negotiated peace.

It was absolutely a foregone conclusion. Stopping, digging in, and consolidating at a certain line does absolutely nothing to mitigate the problems they were facing and was totally contrary to how blitzkrieg was supposed to work. You're basically asking the Heer to do something it wasn't designed to do.

I'm not so sure about your third point, because some of those generals loathed Communism as much as Hitler did, so they may have attacked anyway

Generals do not decide foreign policy, the head of state does. We've seen how easily the army leadership rolled over whenever they disagreed with Hitler, suggesting that they would be willing and able to attack on their own initiative is pretty farfetched IMO.

They were damn close to victory in 1942.

They were nowhere near victory in 1942. Taking Stalingrad would not have forced the capitulation of the Soviet Union, and there is absolutely no reason to believe they would have been able to use the oil fields in the Caucasus even if they had captured them. The Russians had turned scorched earth into an art, and they had already sabotaged some of the refineries in the path of the Axis advance.

And let's not forget the Barbarossa plan was a sack of gak and that it was drawn up by military professionals

Let's also not forget that Hitler interfered incessantly with those plans. His generals were far more conservative about their targets, but they were overruled repeatedly by the Fuhrer himself until he settled onto the overly ambitious three prong attack.

I disagree. Victory wasn't beyond the Germans. Soviet losses were huge in 1941-43, and the Red Army had a huge manpower shortage from 1944 onwards. The Soviets can't keep retreating and losing forever. They had to fight back sometime, and it wasn't foregone conclusion they would win. Even Kursk was close.

German losses were also huge, and the Soviets were able to replenish their losses much quicker and even continually increase their strength from 1941-1945 whereas the German army continually became weaker and weaker. They could have kept retreating for a very long time. With the industries being in western Siberia, retreat in fact only made the war easier since supply lines became shorter. For the Germans it became continually harder the farther they went east, and by the point they reached Moscow, the German front and supply lines were already stretched beyond the breaking point. Let alone the troubles they would have faced in crossing the Volga and advancing towards the Ural mountains. And crossing the Urals would have simply been impossible.
Basically, the farther east they went the weaker the German army became while the Soviet army only gained in strength.

Like I said above, Japan doesn't need total victory over Russia to gain a victory of sorts. The threat of a two front war, or even the very thought of Japanese intervention at a crucial time, might have forced Stalin to the peace table to work out any sort of deal that allowed him to hang on in the short term.

Though i agree with you that Manchuria is vastly different from South-East Asia.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


I'm not blaming you for this, but in my experience, when people talk about defeating Russia in any war, they seem to think that you need to capture every square inch of Russia for victory. Not so IMO.

Well on that we can agree, but I wasn't advocating for that either. I was merely stating that for the Germans to achieve actual victory, they needed to destroy the Soviet Union's ability to resist and wage war against them - which is what they did with France, Norway, and all their other military conquests. It's not something they did with the Soviet Union, and were nowhere close to achieving with that particular adversary.

Czarist Russia was defeated in WW1, not because of significant territorial loss, but because the system collapsed under the pressure of war. Stalin's Russia in WW2 was a tough, ruthless machine, but it wasn't invincible and came close to collapsing quite a few times in 1941. In the darkest days of 1941, it probably occurred to Stalin that a peace treaty that gives Germany big chunks of the Ukraine, some land to Finland, but keeps Stalin and the Soviet Union alive, might be a price worth paying. I'm sure it probably crossed his mind. The man was a political survivor all his life, after all.

In that scenario, Germany doesn't need to capture all of Russia or kill every Red Army soldier to gain a meaningful 'victory.'

I would argue that Stalin's regime was much more politically stable than Czarist Russia, considering it endured the war without even a threat of political upheaval or revolution even when Stalin secluded himself after Barbarossa began. In any case, we're straying into the political side of things here which, per your original post, is outside the scope of the discussion.

And people also forget that denying something to the Germans also denies it to the Russians and effects them as well. So the Germans never got the oilfields at Baku or wherever because they were destroyed? But by that logic, Russia won't get them either, so they too are effected.

The problem with this line of thinking is that Russia was being propped up by the USA and the UK, one a superpower and the other with custodianship over a huge swathe of the world, while Germany was being propped up by slave labor from occupied territories. One would feel the loss much more keenly than the other.

As for Kursk, you should never underestimate the effects of a major victory on morale, and we all know how important morale is in warfare. After Stalingrad, Germany's allies such as Hungary, Romania, and even Finland are wavering on the Eastern Front. A victory at Kursk allows Hitler to head off the doubters, and makes up for the loss of North Africa and the incoming invasion of Sicily.

I think you're seriously overestimating how important Kursk would have been to the Axis. None of the nations you mentioned parted ways with the Germans after Kursk failed, and even if they did they provided little more than token assistance to the Germans anyway. Morale only takes you so far, and the Red Army was famously stubborn in the face of crushing defeats. A victory at Kursk would have meant very little for the outcome of the war. It would have done almost nothing to address the total imbalance of strength on the Eastern Front between the two sides and there was no crucial resource to be had in the Kursk salient. It's only notable because it's the last major offensive the Germans launched in that theater and holds the distinction of hosting the largest tank battle in history.

Apparently getting to this late, but I think Hitler/Germany put to much emphasis on the symbolic wins up north, and didn't focus on the vital resources in the southern parts of the USSR that they should have. More forces should have been devoted to pushing towards the Caucasus harder, and cutting that oil supply off.

That would have likely forced a beneficial peace treaty with the Soviets, though owing to Hitlers idiocy, he would have likely opted to continue pushing and overextended himself in the end anyways.

Hitler being at the wheel cost the Germans that war, plain and simple. HIs policies to alienate the Slavs who would have welcomed the Germans over the hated Russians/Soviets, his no retreat policy costing him hundreds of thousands of veteran soldiers, and his need for "symbolic" victories are places like Stalingrad all cost him the eastern front.

Japan was in no condition to intervene by the time the Soviets withdrew troops from the Manchuria front, it had been sucked into China and had already been spanked once before. Japan was in no condition to fight a modern war even if they could bring more of their strength to bear. Soviet troops only left once Japan had also drained its troops from the area.

As for Kursk, it wasn't even close. The German advance rapidly stalled and the Soviets still had a massive force in reserve. On paper the offensive looked scary, but in practice the German advantages had been lost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

I would argue that Stalin's regime was much more politically stable than Czarist Russia, considering it endured the war without even a threat of political upheaval or revolution even when Stalin secluded himself after Barbarossa began. In any case, we're straying into the political side of things here which, per your original post, is outside the scope of the discussion.

Just to note, the Stalin secluding himself part is a myth. Historians have looked into it and notes and planners have shown that Stalin was very busy planning in the opening days of Barbarossa with his government. Its likely the myth came out of the destalinization.

I would be a complete and utter idiot if I said that resources were not an important part of winning any war or battle. None the less, let's not fall into the trap of thinking that resources are the be all and end all of warfare. Resource inferior armies/nations can and have won wars. I think we can all agree on that.

by every metric, the British Empire outstripped Germany, Italy and Japan when it came to wealth, and yet, Britain loses battle after battle in the early days of the war.

Had it boiled down to resources, Britain and France would have won WW2 on 4th September 1939, and Alexander the Great would never have conquered the Persian Empire.

And so it is the case with the Eastern Front. The Red Army has thousands of T-26s and BT-7s to field against the Germans (and they could hold their own against the Czech tanks and Panzer IIIs), and millions of men, but they're pushed all the way back to Moscow, and the T-26s are destroyed or abandoned by the bushel. Why? Because we know despite their inferiority in numbers, better training and tactics is carrying the Germans, though I admit it wasn't an arm chair ride for the Germans.

Point is this: Russia having more resources than Germany does not guarantee a Russian victory.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 djones520 wrote:
Apparently getting to this late, but I think Hitler/Germany put to much emphasis on the symbolic wins up north, and didn't focus on the vital resources in the southern parts of the USSR that they should have. More forces should have been devoted to pushing towards the Caucasus harder, and cutting that oil supply off.

That would have likely forced a beneficial peace treaty with the Soviets, though owing to Hitlers idiocy, he would have likely opted to continue pushing and overextended himself in the end anyways.

Hitler being at the wheel cost the Germans that war, plain and simple. HIs policies to alienate the Slavs who would have welcomed the Germans over the hated Russians/Soviets, his no retreat policy costing him hundreds of thousands of veteran soldiers, and his need for "symbolic" victories are places like Stalingrad all cost him the eastern front.

IMO, Army Group North linking up with the Finns near Leningrad is not the bad move that it's been made out to be. If it had been executed properly, they could have threatened the vital port of Murmansk and all the British and American convoys dropping off supplies for the Russians.

The issue with just pinning it on resources is that it ignores the other three key parts, industrial capacity, manpower and strategic depth. Britain wasn't geared for the scale of WW2, sure it had a good army, but it was quite small and had to prop up a very incompetent French army. France didn't have the space to trade for time and there was little political will in France for the war. French troops fought hard, but the war was already lost. Alexander is also a bad example, a highly trained professional army that fought against what in essence was a levy army dependent on the leadership of a coward/extremely incompetent man, there is just no modern comparison to draw with Alexander.

Even at the wildest of successes in 41 and 42 the Germans were sustaining casualties at an unsustainable rate while Soviet industry vastly outproduced German industry even during the worst years. That was just a single front, Germany was also losing that race against Britain and the US. Even winning the German army was slowly dying from little cuts.

As for the Finns, they never intended to push for Murmansk and the forces the Germans could spare were insufficient.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The issue with just pinning it on resources is that it ignores the other three key parts, industrial capacity, manpower and strategic depth. Britain wasn't geared for the scale of WW2, sure it had a good army, but it was quite small and had to prop up a very incompetent French army. France didn't have the space to trade for time and there was little political will in France for the war. French troops fought hard, but the war was already lost. Alexander is also a bad example, a highly trained professional army that fought against what in essence was a levy army dependent on the leadership of a coward/extremely incompetent man, there is just no modern comparison to draw with Alexander.

Even at the wildest of successes in 41 and 42 the Germans were sustaining casualties at an unsustainable rate while Soviet industry vastly outproduced German industry even during the worst years. That was just a single front, Germany was also losing that race against Britain and the US. Even winning the German army was slowly dying from little cuts.

As for the Finns, they never intended to push for Murmansk and the forces the Germans could spare were insufficient.

I'm not casting doubt on Soviet industrial capacity being better than German industry, but even having the best equipment in the world, and more of it, is no guarantee of success if your troops are useless, non-existent, or unwilling to fight.

Look at the T-34 in 1941. Many were lost to breakdowns, fuel shortages, crew abadonment, or the simple fact that the Germans, with inferior tanks, knocked them out because they had better tactics, training and/or combat experience.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The issue with just pinning it on resources is that it ignores the other three key parts, industrial capacity, manpower and strategic depth. Britain wasn't geared for the scale of WW2, sure it had a good army, but it was quite small and had to prop up a very incompetent French army. France didn't have the space to trade for time and there was little political will in France for the war. French troops fought hard, but the war was already lost. Alexander is also a bad example, a highly trained professional army that fought against what in essence was a levy army dependent on the leadership of a coward/extremely incompetent man, there is just no modern comparison to draw with Alexander.

Even at the wildest of successes in 41 and 42 the Germans were sustaining casualties at an unsustainable rate while Soviet industry vastly outproduced German industry even during the worst years. That was just a single front, Germany was also losing that race against Britain and the US. Even winning the German army was slowly dying from little cuts.

As for the Finns, they never intended to push for Murmansk and the forces the Germans could spare were insufficient.

I'm not casting doubt on Soviet industrial capacity being better than German industry, but even having the best equipment in the world, and more of it, is no guarantee of success if your troops are useless, non-existent, or unwilling to fight.

Look at the T-34 in 1941. Many were lost to breakdowns, fuel shortages, crew abadonment, or the simple fact that the Germans, with inferior tanks, knocked them out because they had better tactics, training and/or combat experience.

But that is kind of the point, 41 and 42 represented an almost best case scenario with massive Soviet losses but Germany was still losing the war of attrition. Two years of massive victories didn't give the Germans enough to win the war, what iffing to the point they would have is just unrealistic. You need a perfect German war effort and an even more incompetent Soviet Union to even get near the chance of a German victory. In a 'perfect' world Japan might have even won the war, but reality doesn't pick sides.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Ultimately it was Hitler's call to invade the Soviet Union. Once they did that their defeat was inevitable. "Do not march on Moscow" isn't said to be the first rule of war for nothing. Trying to wage a land war in Russia is just a really dumb thing to do.

Mongols didnt have too many problems. There are always exceptions.

Of course, the Mongols started out IN what is now Russia in the first place. They roamed all over north-central Asia for centuries even before Genghis Khan...

To go off at a tangent, Japan's strategic war plan was to destroy enemy forces in the Pacific, set up a defensive perimeter around the western Pacific, and ask for peace negotiations to recognise the new status quo.

As with Germany, when you look at the war production of the two sides, it's impossible for Japan to win that scenario as long as the USA stays in the war.

Admiral Yamamoto knew this from before the war began, and was not a supporter of the strategy.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Ultimately it was Hitler's call to invade the Soviet Union. Once they did that their defeat was inevitable. "Do not march on Moscow" isn't said to be the first rule of war for nothing. Trying to wage a land war in Russia is just a really dumb thing to do.

Mongols didnt have too many problems. There are always exceptions.

Of course, the Mongols started out IN what is now Russia in the first place. They roamed all over north-central Asia for centuries even before Genghis Khan...

I'm pretty sure that the Mongols started out in, you know, Mongolia.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Ultimately it was Hitler's call to invade the Soviet Union. Once they did that their defeat was inevitable. "Do not march on Moscow" isn't said to be the first rule of war for nothing. Trying to wage a land war in Russia is just a really dumb thing to do.

Mongols didnt have too many problems. There are always exceptions.

Of course, the Mongols started out IN what is now Russia in the first place. They roamed all over north-central Asia for centuries even before Genghis Khan...

I'm pretty sure that the Mongols started out in, you know, Mongolia.

It depends on how you define "Mongols". What Medieval chroniclers called "Mongols" was not quite the same as the modern Mongolian people. And Genghis Khan's empire actually consisted largely of people who were not Mongolian at all (but rather of Tatars and many other Turkic steppe peoples). There is several Mongolian peoples such as the Buryats and Kalmyks who live in modern-day Russia as well.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Ultimately it was Hitler's call to invade the Soviet Union. Once they did that their defeat was inevitable. "Do not march on Moscow" isn't said to be the first rule of war for nothing. Trying to wage a land war in Russia is just a really dumb thing to do.

Mongols didnt have too many problems. There are always exceptions.

Of course, the Mongols started out IN what is now Russia in the first place. They roamed all over north-central Asia for centuries even before Genghis Khan...

I'm pretty sure that the Mongols started out in, you know, Mongolia.

It depends on how you define "Mongols". What Medieval chroniclers called "Mongols" was not quite the same as the modern Mongolian people. And Genghis Khan's empire actually consisted largely of people who were not Mongolian at all (but rather of Tatars and many other Turkic steppe peoples). There is several Mongolian peoples such as the Buryats and Kalmyks who live in modern-day Russia as well.

They also did not defeat all the Russians either. Russia was smaller states, when the Russians united against them, they did defeat the Mongols.

We are also ignoring the impact of Lend-Lease. It is easy to both over-play, and under-play the importance of Western supplies to the Soviet Union, but my personal opinion is that they played little part in Soviet survival (arriving too late), but an enormous part in the ability of the USSR to push all the way back into Berlin (providing much of the logistical support to the Soviet armies, and allowing the Soviet economy to focus on military production and gain maximum econimies of scale).

Without it, the Eastern front may well have degraded into a sort of stalemate akin to WW1, with neither side having the logistical capability to make large strategic gains. Germany may even have been able to negotiate a ceasefire of some kind.

Any other significant changes to the outcome of the Eastern front would probably have to go back to pre-war strategy. In particular, if the Axis had heavily invested in the intelligence services early on, and if they had actually worked together to create a coherent strategic vision across all three major powers, informed through the intelligence, then they might have had a chance at achieving a large scale victory. Still a big if.

Thankfully for the world, that lack of coordination and intelligence cause the Axis warmachine to waste resources it didn't have to spare, and open fronts it couldn't afford to fight. Italy's entire conduct in the war is probably the most obvious example of this, but other areas could've been avoided through better intelligence, planning and strategic coordination. The German surface fleet, Battle of Britain, the North African campaign, the Japanese split between Navy and Army objectives, pulling the US into the war early etc etc etc.

 thekingofkings wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Ultimately it was Hitler's call to invade the Soviet Union. Once they did that their defeat was inevitable. "Do not march on Moscow" isn't said to be the first rule of war for nothing. Trying to wage a land war in Russia is just a really dumb thing to do.

Mongols didnt have too many problems. There are always exceptions.

Of course, the Mongols started out IN what is now Russia in the first place. They roamed all over north-central Asia for centuries even before Genghis Khan...

I'm pretty sure that the Mongols started out in, you know, Mongolia.

It depends on how you define "Mongols". What Medieval chroniclers called "Mongols" was not quite the same as the modern Mongolian people. And Genghis Khan's empire actually consisted largely of people who were not Mongolian at all (but rather of Tatars and many other Turkic steppe peoples). There is several Mongolian peoples such as the Buryats and Kalmyks who live in modern-day Russia as well.

They also did not defeat all the Russians either. Russia was smaller states, when the Russians united against them, they did defeat the Mongols.

Most of Russia at the time was a sort of feudal state (Kievan Rus), but was loosely ruled from Kiev, and had been declining and slowly fragmenting for a century. The various individual states were technically in homage to Kiev, and the Mongols did have to fight some pretty major battles to defeat Kievan Rus. Following that, they reduced the individual city states one by one, with a few agreeing to vassalage to avoid destruction (such as Novgorod, which had gained independence from Kiev a century before). The Mongols decapitated the head and then enhanced the divisions, but that doesn't mean they didn't break up a large, still powerful Russian polity.

Russia has been attacked and defeated on plenty of other occassions (such as the Crimean war, Russo-Japanese war, WW1). The successful wars generally do the same thing- widen internal divisions and cause a political defeat. I think that is the only feasible way to fight very large countries in any case- cause a political surrender and peace treaty. Most wars in modern history do not involve a state totally crushing another, but are more often a waxing and waning of power in either direction. This was the case right up into the 20th century, so it was not unreasonable to have a aim to force peace treaties.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No. Ultimately it was Hitler's call to invade the Soviet Union. Once they did that their defeat was inevitable. "Do not march on Moscow" isn't said to be the first rule of war for nothing. Trying to wage a land war in Russia is just a really dumb thing to do.

Mongols didnt have too many problems. There are always exceptions.

Yes, but the Mongols invaded Russia back when it was still a relatively small area, and before it became a country. Russia back then was just a general area with lots of small independent states. The Mongols obviously had no trouble subjugating all those tiny independent city-states (with the exception of Novgorod which was protected by a marsh). The reason why it is stupid to invade Russia is not simply because it is Russia, but because Russia is a massive country that mostly consists of vast empty spaces, meaning it is almost impossible to control without ridiculous amounts of manpower and a logistical nightmare. Back in medieval times this was simply not true yet because the Russian states were all very small and compact.

Point accepted.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Both faced a defence in depth. The Red Army lost almost all of its trained manpower and advanced equipment in the first days of the war when the Germans attacked by surprise (due to Stalin's errors in judgement, the secret services had warned him of what was coming but he ignored it). This made a defence in depth a sheer neccesity. The strategy of the Red Army was to slow down and hinder the German advance as much as possible to prepare the next defense line and allow for the army's strength to be rebuilt. It is a classical example of a deep defence.

True but it need not necessarily work.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Hitler's aim was never to ""free" Russia. His aim was to take the European part of Russia as Lebensraum for ethnic Germans and lock up the Russians behind the Urals in Asia (where according to the German race theories, the Russians belonged). Hitler did get support of anti-communist elements, but outside of Ukraine and the Baltics that support never amounted to anything meaningful.

The two points are connected. Anti-communists didn't rise in sufficient numbers BECAUSE Hitler had no plans to free Russia. A 'liberation' campaign carried the only chance of Nazi victory, as it could bypass the insurmountable obstacle of Soviet resolve.
Go in with a solid plan to deal with the Soviet sttength of numbers or not at all. Given an imperative of 'must attack Stalin' this is how I would do it.

The only remotely viable alternative is to stockpile *vast* numbers of chemical weapons and go balls out for an extermination campaign from the outset and gas any sizable encounter you come across, military or civilian. This would be utterly ugly, but Exterminatus has its strategic benefits.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Once Hitler invaded Russia proper even many monarchist, anti-communist groups such as the Cossacks joined up with the Red Army. If Hitler had put aside all of his wacky race theories and had positioned himself instead as as the defender of "old Russian values" and had for example aimed to restore the imperial regime in Russia (as a Nazi puppet state), then he would have enjoyed a great deal more support, and if his armies had not been so murderous on top of that he might even have enjoyed enough local support to overthrow Stalin and the Bolsheviks. But instead, the Nazis did not really hide their race theories and genocidal aims, and their armies massacred millions of innocent Russian civilians just for the hell of it. And so he never really enjoyed any meaningful support.

This is where we agree and was my original point. In my opinion it was the truly only workable option, excepting chemical Exterminatus, which doesnt bear thinking about much. Hitler could be pursuaded to pretend to like Russians, he already did in 1939, and he had so many other enemies to kill. Hitler even harboured a deep hatred for the Swiss, but he never got round to actioning it, though a conquest of Switzerland was planned. Ultimately there was pretty much nobody Hitler didn't hate. He liked Germans, including Austrians, he liked the English (until we educated him otherwise) and didnt mind Scandinavians, Americans, Canadians and Australians too much. Pretty much everyone else was hated by him. We never really got to know what he actually thought of Spaniards, Italians and Japanese, but even he had some limits for the sake of diplomacy. Hence my belief that a propaganda backed invasion of the Soviet Union was not impossible.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Except again in Western Ukraine,where the Banderites were busy with their own little genocide and which unfortunately remains a Nazi stronghold to this day.

Edit: Cant say I agree with this assessment. Is this how Ukrainians are being seen now, a throwback to the Enemy in the Great Patriotic War? Troubling new ideology if this is so.

I think this really comes down to how you break responsibility. Hitler made a lot of bad choices (invading Russia in the first place being one of them), but his generals didn't exactly help. Even at their best they only managed to stem the tide.

And that's without addressing the material side of things, where Germany faced a foe that out manned, out gunned, and out produced them. Overcoming material and manpower limitations is the stuff military legends are born of, and half the time they still lose they just lose like bad asses so we cut them slack