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 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:

And contrary to what you say, most Russians, including those not from major cities, cared very much who ruled them. Russians have always been a xenophobic bunch, but I don't think you quite understand the intense hatred of Germans that washed over Russia after the Nazi invasion. Most people from Western Russia (and that is a big part of the Russian population) had witnessed German brutality first hand. They wanted to see the Germans suffer as much as possible, there was no question about serving them.To this day, many Russians still believe the Germans got away easy with their crimes. In other words, the Soviet Union or the Russian people would never have surrendered or accepted any sort of peace deal with Germany. The genocidal aims and brutality of the Nazis was too well known for that. They would have fought to the death regardless of who controls the former capital of Moscow. Most people in Russia never liked the city of Moscow and its people anyways.

Im just going to put this here. https://warontherocks.com/2018/08/fragile-loyalties-soviet-russians-between-hitler-and-stalin/

Many rural Russians had little love for Stalin's Soviet Union.....living in the middle of nowhere has advantages, choosing one megelomanic over the other whos government isnt even going to be seen in your village.......didnt really matter to you as long as you could tend your fields in peace.

Just because a few leftover kulaks had Nazi sympathies at first doesn't mean that extends to the vast majority of the Russian peasant population, who had been oppressed by those exact same kulaks for generations. I will note that the article uses a lot of German sources, which makes it highly suspect. Of course the Germans are going to write that they were welcomed like liberators. And initially, that may have been true in some places. Russia at the time was a country that had only just come out of a devastating civil war. Of course there are still going to be plenty of people with White sympathies. However, it doesn't mean that this is anywhere near the majority of the population. The Reds always enjoyed a lot of support in the countryside as well, and that is quite clear from the formation of Red partisan groups everywhere the Germans passed.
Anyways, whatever initial support the Germans enjoyed from anti-communist Russians quickly evaporated when the Germans showed their true face. As I said, even the Cossacks, the most fervently anti-communist people in the entire country, gave up their resistance and joined the Red Army on a large scale. Loyalty to the Soviet Union was enough that Soviet authority could be re-established very quickly behind German lines. Which is another thing that massively contributed to the German defeat. The Germans could only hold any area as long as they were actively guarding it. As soon as they left, the Soviets came back. This means that the Germans were never able to secure their rear and they needed vast amounts of reserves to garrison all of the territory they captured.

But as I said before, if the Germans had abandoned their genocidal attitude, and had presented themselves as liberators and defenders of "Old Russia" and the tsar instead, they would have enjoyed significant support from the Russian people and would have stood a far better chance at winning the war. Luckily, the Germans were suicidally stupid and never were able to capitalise on anti-communist sentiments. In which they actually made a huge contribution to the Soviet Union, since the experience of the war and Nazi brutality united the Russian people like never before and made everyone a fervent patriotic 'communist', even those who had been anti-communists before.

Its an interesting proposition. Many Russians were very patriotic.....however quite a few of them were basically rounded up and forced to fight with squads of machine guns behind their backs. I think if Moscow falls there is a much greater resistance to fight for a crumbling and brutal regime. My Russian teacher was one of the soldiers released from a political camp and forced by gunpoint to walk across minefields, he survived the war because his unit got shelled so badly that they basically got buried waste deep in mud and couldn't pull themselves out. Germans came and started executing his comrades stuck in the mud.......before the Germans could shoot him, being an educated and worldly man he started reciting German poetry.....remarkably, the Germans decided to spare him and send him to a prison camp. From there he went to Argentina knowing he would never be welcomed back in his country again.

The Germans reprisals on Soviet citizens absolutely did not do them any favors for sure. I still don't understand how The Russians were able to coral so many people to fight.

I'd have to say that if Dunkirk had been a wipe out then Churchill would have had a much harder time keeping his hold on the War Cabinet,

especially if Germany had offered peace with a swift return of the large number of (British) POWs they would have just grabbed,

the strong incentive to stay at war would have been gone, after all those countries we'd had treaties with had all surrendered (there wouldn't have been all the free French, Poles etc to argue against it) and if we were offered an 'honourable' way out we might have taken it

and without Britain rushing over to the US with money to spend (and then cap in had for lend lease) I suspect the US military ramp up would have slowed, it's a lot harder sell when there's not an active war going on and U-boats aren't making trouble in the Atlantic

I still think things fall apart for Germany in the short to medium term

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I'd have to say that if Dunkirk had been a wipe out then Churchill would have had a much harder time keeping his hold on the War Cabinet,

especially if Germany had offered peace with a swift return of the large number of (British) POWs they would have just grabbed,

the strong incentive to stay at war would have been gone, after all those countries we'd had treaties with had all surrendered (there wouldn't have been all the free French, Poles etc to argue against it) and if we were offered an 'honourable' way out we might have taken it

and without Britain rushing over to the US with money to spend (and then cap in had for lend lease) I suspect the US military ramp up would have slowed, it's a lot harder sell when there's not an active war going on and U-boats aren't making trouble in the Atlantic

I still think things fall apart for Germany in the short to medium term

Really depends, if he can stabilize vichy France.
He potentially had also to resolve the whole hungarian mess after trianon and especially keep romania in line.
There would also be the question of switzerland, yes we were also a target and if you ever have read the insult that Calls itself book "mein k(r)ampf" he'd still have a problem with the soviets.
Logistically speaking he can't win that war offensivly. Ideologically however he is forced in that conflict.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:

And contrary to what you say, most Russians, including those not from major cities, cared very much who ruled them. Russians have always been a xenophobic bunch, but I don't think you quite understand the intense hatred of Germans that washed over Russia after the Nazi invasion. Most people from Western Russia (and that is a big part of the Russian population) had witnessed German brutality first hand. They wanted to see the Germans suffer as much as possible, there was no question about serving them.To this day, many Russians still believe the Germans got away easy with their crimes. In other words, the Soviet Union or the Russian people would never have surrendered or accepted any sort of peace deal with Germany. The genocidal aims and brutality of the Nazis was too well known for that. They would have fought to the death regardless of who controls the former capital of Moscow. Most people in Russia never liked the city of Moscow and its people anyways.

Im just going to put this here. https://warontherocks.com/2018/08/fragile-loyalties-soviet-russians-between-hitler-and-stalin/

Many rural Russians had little love for Stalin's Soviet Union.....living in the middle of nowhere has advantages, choosing one megelomanic over the other whos government isnt even going to be seen in your village.......didnt really matter to you as long as you could tend your fields in peace.

Just because a few leftover kulaks had Nazi sympathies at first doesn't mean that extends to the vast majority of the Russian peasant population, who had been oppressed by those exact same kulaks for generations. I will note that the article uses a lot of German sources, which makes it highly suspect. Of course the Germans are going to write that they were welcomed like liberators. And initially, that may have been true in some places. Russia at the time was a country that had only just come out of a devastating civil war. Of course there are still going to be plenty of people with White sympathies. However, it doesn't mean that this is anywhere near the majority of the population. The Reds always enjoyed a lot of support in the countryside as well, and that is quite clear from the formation of Red partisan groups everywhere the Germans passed.
Anyways, whatever initial support the Germans enjoyed from anti-communist Russians quickly evaporated when the Germans showed their true face. As I said, even the Cossacks, the most fervently anti-communist people in the entire country, gave up their resistance and joined the Red Army on a large scale. Loyalty to the Soviet Union was enough that Soviet authority could be re-established very quickly behind German lines. Which is another thing that massively contributed to the German defeat. The Germans could only hold any area as long as they were actively guarding it. As soon as they left, the Soviets came back. This means that the Germans were never able to secure their rear and they needed vast amounts of reserves to garrison all of the territory they captured.

But as I said before, if the Germans had abandoned their genocidal attitude, and had presented themselves as liberators and defenders of "Old Russia" and the tsar instead, they would have enjoyed significant support from the Russian people and would have stood a far better chance at winning the war. Luckily, the Germans were suicidally stupid and never were able to capitalise on anti-communist sentiments. In which they actually made a huge contribution to the Soviet Union, since the experience of the war and Nazi brutality united the Russian people like never before and made everyone a fervent patriotic 'communist', even those who had been anti-communists before.

Its an interesting proposition. Many Russians were very patriotic.....however quite a few of them were basically rounded up and forced to fight with squads of machine guns behind their backs.

Those were penal battalions, made up of criminals and political prisoners. Basically, people Stalin wanted dead and instead of letting them rot in a camp he figured he could just send them on suicide missions and still get some use out of them. Normal army units were absolutely not like that. The NKVD did have units in place to prevent unauthorised retreats in unreliable regular units as well (keep in mind the army at this point was mostly untrained conscripts, not soldiers, so some of course got scared and fled when exposed to enemy fire), but there they would just send people back to their unit or arrest them in case of desertion. People were normally only executed after a court martial.
Don't believe the portrayal of the Red Army you see in Western movies or video games. It is very inaccurate and quite frankly insulting.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
I think if Moscow falls there is a much greater resistance to fight for a crumbling and brutal regime.

Why? Nobody cares for Moscow, except for the Muscovites (but nobody likes Muscovites). It was an empty city by 1941. Everything remotely valuable was evacuated, most of the population had fled. The Soviet government was anything but crumbling, and the fall of Moscow would change nothing about that, since there was no government presence in Moscow anyway.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
The Germans reprisals on Soviet citizens absolutely did not do them any favors for sure. I still don't understand how The Russians were able to coral so many people to fight.

You do not? Then you do not understand Russians apparently. Would Americans not fight to the last man, woman and child if the US were ever invaded?

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I'd have to say that if Dunkirk had been a wipe out then Churchill would have had a much harder time keeping his hold on the War Cabinet,

especially if Germany had offered peace with a swift return of the large number of (British) POWs they would have just grabbed,

the strong incentive to stay at war would have been gone, after all those countries we'd had treaties with had all surrendered (there wouldn't have been all the free French, Poles etc to argue against it) and if we were offered an 'honourable' way out we might have taken it

and without Britain rushing over to the US with money to spend (and then cap in had for lend lease) I suspect the US military ramp up would have slowed, it's a lot harder sell when there's not an active war going on and U-boats aren't making trouble in the Atlantic

I still think things fall apart for Germany in the short to medium term

Why would UK accept a peace offering? Germany had proven, repeatedly, to be untrustworthy. The UK would know that any truce would be temporary at best and it would only allow Germany to consolidate its forces to start again. Keeping the naval blockade while the UK still has unrestricted access to global trade is too much of an advantage.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:

And contrary to what you say, most Russians, including those not from major cities, cared very much who ruled them. Russians have always been a xenophobic bunch, but I don't think you quite understand the intense hatred of Germans that washed over Russia after the Nazi invasion. Most people from Western Russia (and that is a big part of the Russian population) had witnessed German brutality first hand. They wanted to see the Germans suffer as much as possible, there was no question about serving them.To this day, many Russians still believe the Germans got away easy with their crimes. In other words, the Soviet Union or the Russian people would never have surrendered or accepted any sort of peace deal with Germany. The genocidal aims and brutality of the Nazis was too well known for that. They would have fought to the death regardless of who controls the former capital of Moscow. Most people in Russia never liked the city of Moscow and its people anyways.

Im just going to put this here. https://warontherocks.com/2018/08/fragile-loyalties-soviet-russians-between-hitler-and-stalin/

Many rural Russians had little love for Stalin's Soviet Union.....living in the middle of nowhere has advantages, choosing one megelomanic over the other whos government isnt even going to be seen in your village.......didnt really matter to you as long as you could tend your fields in peace.

Just because a few leftover kulaks had Nazi sympathies at first doesn't mean that extends to the vast majority of the Russian peasant population, who had been oppressed by those exact same kulaks for generations. I will note that the article uses a lot of German sources, which makes it highly suspect. Of course the Germans are going to write that they were welcomed like liberators. And initially, that may have been true in some places. Russia at the time was a country that had only just come out of a devastating civil war. Of course there are still going to be plenty of people with White sympathies. However, it doesn't mean that this is anywhere near the majority of the population. The Reds always enjoyed a lot of support in the countryside as well, and that is quite clear from the formation of Red partisan groups everywhere the Germans passed.
Anyways, whatever initial support the Germans enjoyed from anti-communist Russians quickly evaporated when the Germans showed their true face. As I said, even the Cossacks, the most fervently anti-communist people in the entire country, gave up their resistance and joined the Red Army on a large scale. Loyalty to the Soviet Union was enough that Soviet authority could be re-established very quickly behind German lines. Which is another thing that massively contributed to the German defeat. The Germans could only hold any area as long as they were actively guarding it. As soon as they left, the Soviets came back. This means that the Germans were never able to secure their rear and they needed vast amounts of reserves to garrison all of the territory they captured.

But as I said before, if the Germans had abandoned their genocidal attitude, and had presented themselves as liberators and defenders of "Old Russia" and the tsar instead, they would have enjoyed significant support from the Russian people and would have stood a far better chance at winning the war. Luckily, the Germans were suicidally stupid and never were able to capitalise on anti-communist sentiments. In which they actually made a huge contribution to the Soviet Union, since the experience of the war and Nazi brutality united the Russian people like never before and made everyone a fervent patriotic 'communist', even those who had been anti-communists before.

Its an interesting proposition. Many Russians were very patriotic.....however quite a few of them were basically rounded up and forced to fight with squads of machine guns behind their backs.

Those were penal battalions, made up of criminals and political prisoners. Basically, people Stalin wanted dead and instead of letting them rot in a camp he figured he could just send them on suicide missions and still get some use out of them. Normal army units were absolutely not like that. The NKVD did have units in place to prevent unauthorised retreats in unreliable regular units as well (keep in mind the army at this point was mostly untrained conscripts, not soldiers, so some of course got scared and fled when exposed to enemy fire), but there they would just send people back to their unit or arrest them in case of desertion. People were normally only executed after a court martial.
Don't believe the portrayal of the Red Army you see in Western movies or video games. It is very inaccurate and quite frankly insulting.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
I think if Moscow falls there is a much greater resistance to fight for a crumbling and brutal regime.

Why? Nobody cares for Moscow, except for the Muscovites (but nobody likes Muscovites). It was an empty city by 1941. Everything remotely valuable was evacuated, most of the population had fled. The Soviet government was anything but crumbling, and the fall of Moscow would change nothing about that, since there was no government presence in Moscow anyway.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
The Germans reprisals on Soviet citizens absolutely did not do them any favors for sure. I still don't understand how The Russians were able to coral so many people to fight.

You do not? Then you do not understand Russians apparently. Would Americans not fight to the last man, woman and child if the US were ever invaded?

I do understand Russians......most in the outskirts really could care less which corrupt awful person is oppressing them on any given day as long as they are left alone. The Russians I've met here and in Russia have no particular loyalty to any government, their loyalty always seems to be more with their land/city/village/family/ancestral home.........The actual government....whether its Gorod (city) Oblast (region) or national.....is usually looked at with a pretty high amount of disdain.

Lots of those conscripts had guns pointing at their heads by the commissariat. I lived in Volgograd (Stalingrad) for some time and interviewed a few old vets......their stories were pretty horrid. These were guys from the region itself.......the chukchas that the army brought in from out east were treated even worse.

Americans would fight for the most part because we believe in our Government (maybe a little less now) I don't se that being the issue with Russians especially during that era. The government did little but brutalize people at every level of society. Between the purges, the forced migrations, and flat out corruption the only thing I could see making most people fight for Russia is straight out fear of what they might do to your family and village if you didn't. Your claims of patriotism dont hold water for me for most Soviet citizens. Metropolitan Russians possibly, but not the vast majority of people.

Tyran wrote:

 soundwave591 wrote:

Tyran wrote:


Even if the British Expeditionary Force had been destroyed in Dunkirk, it wouldn't have changed the strategic situation of the war.

except wouldnt it have been likely that the British would have sacked Churchill?

And why would they?

The Germans didn't sack Hitler when they lost forces larger than the BEF, the Russians didn't sack Stalin when they lost the entire western border, the Americans didn't sack FDR when they suffered Pearl Harbor.

To suggest that the British would give up when history is full of examples of people enduring greater loses and continue fighting is calling the British cowards, and the British were not cowards.

never said they were. Their PM position is much more volatile than the president of the US. its my limited knowledge that at the time Churchill wasnt that popular, and wagered on the rescue of Dunkirk. take that away and it seems like he could have lost the support that elected him

 soundwave591 wrote:

Tyran wrote:

 soundwave591 wrote:

Tyran wrote:


Even if the British Expeditionary Force had been destroyed in Dunkirk, it wouldn't have changed the strategic situation of the war.

except wouldnt it have been likely that the British would have sacked Churchill?

And why would they?

The Germans didn't sack Hitler when they lost forces larger than the BEF, the Russians didn't sack Stalin when they lost the entire western border, the Americans didn't sack FDR when they suffered Pearl Harbor.

To suggest that the British would give up when history is full of examples of people enduring greater loses and continue fighting is calling the British cowards, and the British were not cowards.

never said they were. Their PM position is much more volatile than the president of the US. its my limited knowledge that at the time Churchill wasnt that popular, and wagered on the rescue of Dunkirk. take that away and it seems like he could have lost the support that elected him

Why would they get rid of someone who had been in charge for a month and had had no hand in the disaster that had befallen the BEF? That's nonsense. Though Churchill was not popular amongst the members of his party he was given power by the head of the Tories (ie. his predecessor) and the chief whip. He was not elected until 1951.

It would have depended on the mood of the general public.

If the British people had decided to give up after a failed Operation Dynamo, then it would not have mattered who was in charge of the cabinet. If Churchill had refused to give up, presumably he would have been replaced.

Losing the BEF at Dunkirk would have been a significant shock, to be sure, however the public may have felt that the RN and RAF would be able to defend the UK while the Empire and allies mustered replacements.

While we are speculating on these lines, we can imagine that the loss of the BEF might have emboldened the Germans into an unwise attempted Operation Seelowe which would have been massacred in the Channel by the RN and RAF, re-invigorating British and Imperial morale and challenging German assumptions of superiority, leading to a postponement of Barbarossa.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It would have depended on the mood of the general public.

If the British people had decided to give up after a failed Operation Dynamo, then it would not have mattered who was in charge of the cabinet. If Churchill had refused to give up, presumably he would have been replaced.

Losing the BEF at Dunkirk would have been a significant shock, to be sure, however the public may have felt that the RN and RAF would be able to defend the UK while the Empire and allies mustered replacements.

While we are speculating on these lines, we can imagine that the loss of the BEF might have emboldened the Germans into an unwise attempted Operation Seelowe which would have been massacred in the Channel by the RN and RAF, re-invigorating British and Imperial morale and challenging German assumptions of superiority, leading to a postponement of Barbarossa.

It wasn't an election year so the only way the public would have a say is via riots and mass desertion and that is as unlikely as it sounds.

As you say even if the whole of the BEF had been lost it wouldnt have taken long for the strength to have been replenished in its entirety as the Regular army was being withdrawn from both Palestine and India, the forgien legion forces were being embodied (about two divisions?), troops were being withdrawn from Norway and the Dominion divisions were well on the way. By the end of July the army was back to strength though sorely lacking in heavy equipment (though with more tanks) but fighting at home, with the LDV, naval superiority, air superiority and behind the largest anti-tank ditch imagniable the German army would not have much of a chance especially as they lacked any specialist landing craft. So if they had tried and tried in earnest it would have been inteesting to see if they even would have had the strength for Barbarossa in '41, from memory they had some 25 division earmarked for Sea Lion? Sure someone will correct that.

Operation Seelowe when wargamed by Paddy Griffith in the 1970s resulted in a loss of 90,000(?) men for the Germans. They had to face the rump BEF as well as RN and RAF, but the main difficulty was getting over the Channel.

That's a surprising amount of sod all, I will have to see if I can track down a report of that as it should make interesting reading. I cant imagine that would effect Barbarossa then as it pretty much balances the forces the Germans sent to oppose British troops that wouldn't exist in the ME and Balkans.

Yes, it's a small number of men and not much heavy equipment because one of the problems of Seelowe was the lack of proper landing ships to carry tanks and artillery.

So from the angle of balance of forces, a flop at Seelowe would not have materially affected the Easter Front. it would however have been a big morale boost to the UK and a dampener on German morale and prestige, which might or might not have prevented or postponed Barbarossa.

I was thinking last night, and I am sure this will be a bit controversial, but imagine if Hitler hadn't been as evil as he had. Imagine if his rise to power wasn't partly based on blaming the jews, and the Nazi's weren't as extreme as everyone later found out. Sure invading Poland was not nice, but imagine if the Germans had gone into Ukraine and didn't massacre everyone, and actually treated the populations well enough for them to support the German effort against Stalin. Lets say there were no concentration camps, and definitely no final solution. How would we view the war on the Soviet Union?

The reason I say this is that WWII sure did make some odd bed fellows. I hate the extreme left as much as I do the right, but I would be hard pressed to find an example of where the far right killed as many as the far left did (Lenin, Stalin, Mao). And these weren't other populations that were murdered, but their own populations. And if they were going to treat their own populations that bad, imagine how little regard they would have had for other nations? (aka China today)

The big thing about communism is how it encourages itself to spread. I don't doubt had the US and UK NOT been in Europe at the end of WWII, that Stalin would have rolled right through to Portugal. And I don't doubt he had ambitions to do it sooner.

So in that regard, imagine how Germany might be thought of today had Hitler and Co had not been as evil as they had. They might have been seen as the first country to defend the world against the spread of communism (although in a sense they ended up helping it spread), similarly the way that the US got involved in Korea and Vietnam, and a whole host of places in Central and South America. Even Patton wanted to re-arm the Germans to fight the Soviets. That sounds mad of course, but obviously they knew back then how much of a threat communism was.

Not trying to be a revisionist here - I know Hitler was a POS, but I can imagine how different history might have judged those guys had they just played their cards right. Had they been nicer to the populations of Ukraine and others, they certainly would have had their support against the Soviets. Now, I am not sure this ultimately would enabled them to win, but given what we know about Stalin today, we might have thought it was a nice try had the Germans had been more noble about it.

Also, I recently heard that Khrushchev may have had a hand in Stalin's death. Even if not directly by murdering, but not helping in his final moments/days. Going to see if I can't dig up more info on that. If anyone has heard the same let me know.

 KTG17 wrote:
I was thinking last night, and I am sure this will be a bit controversial, but imagine if Hitler hadn't been as evil as he had. Imagine if his rise to power wasn't partly based on blaming the jews, and the Nazi's weren't as extreme as everyone later found out. Sure invading Poland was not nice, but imagine if the Germans had gone into Ukraine and didn't massacre everyone, and actually treated the populations well enough for them to support the German effort against Stalin. Lets say there were no concentration camps, and definitely no final solution. How would we view the war on the Soviet Union?

The reason I say this is that WWII sure did make some odd bed fellows. I hate the extreme left as much as I do the right, but I would be hard pressed to find an example of where the far right killed as many as the far left did (Lenin, Stalin, Mao). And these weren't other populations that were murdered, but their own populations. And if they were going to treat their own populations that bad, imagine how little regard they would have had for other nations? (aka China today)

The big thing about communism is how it encourages itself to spread. I don't doubt had the US and UK NOT been in Europe at the end of WWII, that Stalin would have rolled right through to Portugal. And I don't doubt he had ambitions to do it sooner.

So in that regard, imagine how Germany might be thought of today had Hitler and Co had not been as evil as they had. They might have been seen as the first country to defend the world against the spread of communism (although in a sense they ended up helping it spread), similarly the way that the US got involved in Korea and Vietnam, and a whole host of places in Central and South America. Even Patton wanted to re-arm the Germans to fight the Soviets. That sounds mad of course, but obviously they knew back then how much of a threat communism was.

Not trying to be a revisionist here - I know Hitler was a POS, but I can imagine how different history might have judged those guys had they just played their cards right. Had they been nicer to the populations of Ukraine and others, they certainly would have had their support against the Soviets. Now, I am not sure this ultimately would enabled them to win, but given what we know about Stalin today, we might have thought it was a nice try had the Germans had been more noble about it.

Also, I recently heard that Khrushchev may have had a hand in Stalin's death. Even if not directly by murdering, but not helping in his final moments/days. Going to see if I can't dig up more info on that. If anyone has heard the same let me know.

You might want to change your avatar before postulating BS like that unless you want to come across like an utter donkey-cave.

 ingtaer wrote:

You might want to change your avatar before postulating BS like that unless you want to come across like an utter donkey-cave.

How so? Did you read everything I wrote? Or just pick out the BS parts to support your narrative like an utter donkey-cave?

Yeah I read it, I have read similar from far right donkey-caves for years and your avatar is the deaths head, a symbol of far right donkey-caves hence my comment. I want to hope that you don't support or condone such disgusting beliefs but the rhetoric combined with choice of avatar is pretty damn unfortunate.

Edit; for language filter.

 ingtaer wrote:
Yeah I read it, I have read similar from far right donkey-caves for years and your avatar is the deaths head, a symbol of far right donkey-caves hence my comment. I want to hope that you don't support or condone such disgusting beliefs but the rhetoric combined with choice of avatar is pretty damn unfortunate.

Edit; for language filter.

LOL. Wow. Okay.

This is the Death's Head:



This, is a pirate flag:



How you got this far in life not knowing the difference is beyond me.

2nd, I am not far right, I even stated I hate them too. So you either skipped over that, or chose to ignore it. If you skipped over it, you obviously didn't read it. If you chose to ignore it, it was to support your BS narrative.

Seriously, can't believe you 'read' what I wrote and chose to pick this fight. But if you want to continue and keep making yourself look ignorant I am up for it.

Now, if you want to accuse me of attacking merchant ships, plundering gold, and making people walk the plank, you got me.

Sorry for that bit of confusion, as you are obviously not aware the far-right (especially neo naxzs) take as justification their defence of Europe against the Soviet menace, the fact that the Germans didn't kill as many people as the Reds and the fact the Commies killed more of their own people as a justification for holding and espousing their beliefs. They also use the skull and cross bones in any aspect as a symbol.

Hence my comment that its unfortunate that you should spout similar rhetoric whilst having their symbol as your avatar even though I don't believe you hold such filthy views.

Clear?

And leave my shipping alone you git, I need the doubloons.

 ingtaer wrote:
Sorry for that bit of confusion, as you are obviously not aware the far-right (especially neo naxzs) take as justification their defence of Europe against the Soviet menace, the fact that the Germans didn't kill as many people as the Reds and the fact the Commies killed more of their own people as a justification for holding and espousing their beliefs. They also use the skull and cross bones in any aspect as a symbol.

Hence my comment that its unfortunate that you should spout similar rhetoric whilst having their symbol as your avatar even though I don't believe you hold such filthy views.

Clear?

If you want to argue that Hitler and Co were justified in killing all the Jews and so on because they took on communism, then I could understand your argument. I didn’t do that. I said

imagine if the Germans had gone into Ukraine and didn't massacre everyone, and actually treated the populations well enough for them to support the German effort against Stalin. Lets say there were no concentration camps, and definitely no final solution.

and strictly for gaks and giggles. We’re debating hypotheticals here. At no point did I say Germany was justified for their actions.

Clear?

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I'd have to say that if Dunkirk had been a wipe out then Churchill would have had a much harder time keeping his hold on the War Cabinet,

especially if Germany had offered peace with a swift return of the large number of (British) POWs they would have just grabbed,

the strong incentive to stay at war would have been gone, after all those countries we'd had treaties with had all surrendered (there wouldn't have been all the free French, Poles etc to argue against it) and if we were offered an 'honourable' way out we might have taken it

and without Britain rushing over to the US with money to spend (and then cap in had for lend lease) I suspect the US military ramp up would have slowed, it's a lot harder sell when there's not an active war going on and U-boats aren't making trouble in the Atlantic

I still think things fall apart for Germany in the short to medium term

I disagree. Glad those chaps got out but if that army was destroyed or surrendered. I think US enters the war a whole year sooner as the overall threat would have been much more apparent. We all know what happens then. There was probably a large contingent of American political leaders that thought this would be another WW1 with trenches and stalemates - If England lost their army that early - it would have been more clear that this war had the potential to be much faster. A slow war - you can make a lot of profit supplying an ally - an ally that gets sunk quickly can't make you any money and now you are in danger...lose you most important trade partner. That's my thinking.

Probably nothing as the UK would have been minus three hundred thousand men (twice as many as would actually be captured through the whole war in Europe) it couldn't otherwise spare (and who then would basically be hostages at a point where casualties on all sides were still relatively limited) and the war probably would have been forced into a negotiated peace. The US wouldn't be mobilized or run up yet for war for some time, and with a dramatically weakened UK, any launch point for an invasion would have been much less viable. Also, the Eastern Front, which consumed 90% of all German ground forces casualties, hadnt opened up yet. That would have been a dramatically different military and political calculus, particularly with US isolationism reigning strong still.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

I do understand Russians......most in the outskirts really could care less which corrupt awful person is oppressing them on any given day as long as they are left alone. The Russians I've met here and in Russia have no particular loyalty to any government, their loyalty always seems to be more with their land/city/village/family/ancestral home.........The actual government....whether its Gorod (city) Oblast (region) or national.....is usually looked at with a pretty high amount of disdain.

Aye, if you understand that, then you should also understand why the Soviet government had no shortage of willing bodies to throw into the meat grinder. There is little love or loyalty in Russia for whatever distant regime sits in Moscow lording it over our vast nation. Most Russians couldn't care less about the government and about distant nation-level politics. I guess that is a logical result from having a country that is so massively huge. On the other hand, most Russians are fiercely loyal to their own family and proud of their city/region, as well as to a more abstract, communal concept of the nation as a whole (what in Russian we call "rodina", literally "birth-land" or "family-land", but usually translated to motherland in english). So while people are not necessarily loyal to the Russian government, they are fiercely proud of and loyal to Russia itself. And when some foreign barbarians come in and threaten that abstract, idealistic concept of the motherland then people set aside their grievances against the government and join it to help defend the motherland, family and native city.
Just for fun, if you have any Russian friends or acquaintances (as in actually living in Russia, not expats like me), start criticising Russia and Putin to them. They are likely to react defensively, even though they normally are critical of Russia themselves as well. It is just an automatism because the criticism is coming from a foreigner and therefore threatens the abstract communal concept of Russia. Be careful though, it is easy to get into a fight this way.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Lots of those conscripts had guns pointing at their heads by the commissariat. I lived in Volgograd (Stalingrad) for some time and interviewed a few old vets......their stories were pretty horrid. These were guys from the region itself.......the chukchas that the army brought in from out east were treated even worse.

Americans would fight for the most part because we believe in our Government (maybe a little less now) I don't se that being the issue with Russians especially during that era. The government did little but brutalize people at every level of society. Between the purges, the forced migrations, and flat out corruption the only thing I could see making most people fight for Russia is straight out fear of what they might do to your family and village if you didn't. Your claims of patriotism dont hold water for me for most Soviet citizens. Metropolitan Russians possibly, but not the vast majority of people.

Actually, it is the metropolitan Russians in Moscow or Peterburg that are less patriotic and more liberal than average. It is the population of smaller, provincial towns that tends to be the most nationalistic and supportive of the government in Russia.
But don't understand me wrong. The Soviet government did enjoy a lot of support, especially under Stalin. Stalin was and is the most beloved leader in Russian history. He was practically worshiped like a living god after WW2. There were a lot of fervent communists back then (there still are) who did not need any sort of encouragement to rise up en masse against the Nazis. So to answer the question as to how the Soviet government was able to motivate so many people to fight, they had a three-pronged strategy: Through appealing to the strong innate sense of patriotism in the Russian people, through appealing to communists by casting the war as a great ideological struggle and finally through using fear and intimidation to coerce those dissidents that refused to respond to the patriotic and ideological messages.

I feel we have derailed the thread, which should be about Hitler, not about Stalin or even about Dunkirk.

You could go through several 'what-ifs'.

What if the various appeasers and Nazi-sympathisers in the UK had been successful in pushing for peace after the Fall of France? The May 1940 cabinet crisis was over whether the UK should sue for peace after the fall of France, and while Halifax believed Germany couldn't be trusted (and had supported the armaments programme Chamberlain initiated while continuing appeasement) he also believed Nazi Germany couldn't be defeated.

That would have led to peace in the Western Theatre in 1940 and the UK isolated on the coast of a fascist Europe. Would Spain and Argentina, both fascist regimes with close ties to the Nazis, have stayed out of the war or would there have been a new Axis stretching across the Atlantic?

Another what if would be what if the Business Plot had been much better organised, or the German American Bund or Fascist League of North America had been better organised and more strident. There was no shortage of sympathisers with the Nazis in America at the time and people eager to do business with and promote Hitlers regime.
If Roosevelt hadn't won against Hoover in 1932, there would have been no New Deal, and would the US have been in any state to fight a war at that point?
Would the Democrats have chosen another candidate for 1936? Would the America First Committee have prevented any opposition to Hitler's foreign policy and seen the US take a supportive neutral position towards Hitler?

Ben2 wrote:
Would Spain and Argentina, both fascist regimes with close ties to the Nazis, have stayed out of the war or would there have been a new Axis stretching across the Atlantic?

I am surprised the Spaniards stayed out of WWII. Sure they were already wasted from their civil war, but Franco was in power because of German support. I don't understand why the Germans didn't drive right down to Gibraltar. I am sure that would have helped them out in Africa. And what resistance would the Spanish really have provided if the Germans had? Unless you figure it was true that Hitler really didn't want war with England and by the time he settled for it, his eyes were on Russia.

Spain did send 18,000 troops to the Russian Front (the Blue Division), but they wanted to wait until Britain was on the ropes before joining the war to avoid getting places like the Canary Islands taken off them. While there were discussions of an alliance and a joint attack on Gibraltar, it never went anywhere particularly as the Vichy French did fight the Allies in North Africa and Hitler already had a less than stellar ally that needed carrying in Mussolini.
That ended up preserving fascist rule until the 70s, as the Western powers were completely comfortable allowing Franco to continue to rule and even armed him.

I understood that the Blue Division was more a group of volunteers which were allowed to go and join the fight against Communism rather than a force sent by Spain. As it was, AFAIK Spain was still reeling from the aftermath of the Civil war and was pretty divided into the 40s. Whilst the Spanish militarily probably couldn't have done much to resist a German invasion, my guess is that the Germans probably judged quite wisely that directly attacking an ally like that (I'm assuming that this is pre-Barbarossa and in any case the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was far more a marriage of temporary convenience rather than a genuine alliance) would alarm other allies and co-belligerents and in any case the cost of invading, occupying and pacifying Spain would probably outweigh any advantage gained by doing so compared to having a friendly nominally neutral neighbour. Why not push for an attack on Gibraltar? Same reason Malta didn't get invaded when the defences there were on the ropes I'd guess, Germany's main focus was elsewhere and they didn't think it'd really ultimately matter or was worth the effort.

Spain would have been more of a drag on the German war effort than an aid, they were an absolute mess. They were in no position to help or do much of anything, and lots of logistical issues (like mismatched rail line gauge) would have proved a nightmare. In terms of taking Gibraltar, that would have been an enormous expenditure in resources to take and with the RN commanding the seas, easy to supply and reinforce.


Spain was far more useful as a trading partner of raw materials, food, intelligence clearing house, and generally non-belligerent partner than she would have been as an active co-belligerent, where she would have been a dead weight.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Spain would have been more of a drag on the German war effort than an aid, they were an absolute mess. They were in no position to help or do much of anything, and lots of logistical issues (like mismatched rail line gauge) would have proved a nightmare. In terms of taking Gibraltar, that would have been an enormous expenditure in resources to take and with the RN commanding the seas, easy to supply and reinforce.

Talks went pretty far though. Spain started WW2 as a neutral, and then after the Hitler-Franco meeting of 1940 changed his stance to non-belligerent and the Spanish military occupied Tangiers on the same day Paris fell to the Germans.

Still, all Spain could spare at the moment were men, and it was implied that Germany would've had to supply any Spanish troops with everything from uniforms to weapons (as the Blue Division eventually fought) so Germany probably thought it wasn't worth the effort.

There are conflicting stories about which demands were the ones pushing the agreement off (Hitler wanted a base in then-Spanish Morocco plus one island in the Canaries and probably also Fernandoo Poo in current Eq. Guinea, while Franco wouldn't just settle for Gibraltar he wanted to redraw the border with France - Roussillon- the whole of Morocco plus Oran a whatever they could get from Allied possessions in Africa).

Plus while Serrano Súñer and von Ribbentrop got along sufficiently enough Hitler was left with a dismal impression of Franco, down from an already bad image of a "little man".