Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

First things first: Hitler was a murdering piece of gak, and may he rot in hell for the misery and suffering he caused. Let's get that out of the way.

Secondly, in view of the new Dakka policy on politics, this topic is strictly military. I know that military and politics are so often intertwined,(the famous Clausewitz quote springs to mind) but this is not the place for that. This is PURELY a focus on the military aspect of the Eastern Front campaigns, and not the murderous racial policies of the Third Reich. But I readily admit the latter could not have occurred in occupied Europe without the former. But we focus on the military side of things. OK?

Lastly, this is an objective look at the facts of what actually happened in the various Eastern Front campaigns. The reason why unfairly is in inverted commas, because I'm trying not appear sympathetic to Hitler, whilst acknowledging the popular historical narrative may be wrong. It's a delicate balance, but I hope people see where I'm coming from. We're treating this as we would objectively treat any other historical figure.

Anyway, let's go. In the last few years, I've been reading a lot of books by Robert Citino, David Glantz, David Stahel etc etc books which I would recommend to anybody who's interested in the Eastern Front of WW2. And they're insightful, and they challenge you, and they make you look again at the popular narrative. We've all heard of Stalingrad, the German army being stopped outside Moscow in 1941, Kursk, Bagration etc etc

And we've all heard people say that Barbarossa shouldn't have happened, Hitler should have attacked Moscow earlier, Stalingrad was a mistake, he delayed too long at Kursk etc etc etc

And because of Hitler's infamous reputation, it's pretty much accepted wisdom amongst the general public. Or should it be?

I'm starting to think differently, and to shift a lot of the blame onto the military professionals, and from my reading I get the following:

1. Hitler trusted and accepted a flawed Barbarossa plan from military professionals who should have known better.

2. German military intelligence's assessment of Red Army strength was so risible as to be almost useless. Where did all those extra Red Army divisions and tanks come from? As Franz Halder would say.

3. That trying to grab the wheat and oil of the Ukraine and the Caucasus, instead of focusing on Moscow, made better strategic sense. Capturing Moscow would have done nothing. Capturing, say, Baku, would have hurt the Red Army more.

4. German commanders were all over the shop and floundering near Moscow in late 1941, and Hitler's stand fast order probably saved the Germans from an even greater calamity.

5. Franz Halder shares just as much of the blame as Hitler.

6. When Hitler proposes new campaigns in 1942, far from advocating a defensive posture, as we're often led to believe, the Generals are in complete agreement with Hitler.

7. Far from micro-managing, the vast distances of travel and communication in Russia, give German field commanders a lot of freedom to act independently from OKW.

8. That the debacle of the 1942 summer campaign is largely due to Hoth and Bock's reluctance to press forward at Voronezh, which threw a spanner in the works of Case Blue, a plan which had little room for error.

9. That breakout at Stalingrad might have been attempted, and that a reluctant Hitler was almost about to rubber-stamp it...until Von Manstein threw a spanner in the works by saying 6th army should hold.

10. In contrast to Guderian's narrative that Kursk was seen as a mistake, German generals welcomed the chance to attack, and that there was little to no opposition to Kursk.

11. The delays needed to get the Panther tank ready to go, were a necessary move to counter Red Army armoured superiority. Hitler knew the numbers, and knew the army needed an edge to defeat Red Army armour. Panzer IVs, although good tanks, wouldn't cut it in a war of attrition.

12. Hitler's stand fast orders in 1944 make sense when you consider Germany's crippling lack of oil. Where does the fuel come from to make these grand and sweeping counter-attacks his generals advocate?

13. Franz Halder is a git, and deserves more blame

and so on and so on...

Hitler made mistakes, and is ultimately responsible for Barbarossa and its aftermath, no argument there, but his military professionals deserve an equal, if not more, share of the blame IMO. Some of them blundered badly. I would aportion blame to be 55% the generals and 45% Hitler up until 1943, when the war was lost and what happened afterwards was to late to make a difference anyway on the Eastern Front.

After the war, for obvious reasons, Hitler was the easy fall guy for retired German generals writing their memoirs, and it was easy for them to shift the blame onto Hitler for their mistakes. Von Manstein and Guderian being two examples. The fatcs, however, say a different story. For example,

In 1940, a senior German officer was captured with sensitive operational plans for invading France, despite clear orders not to fly around with them, and it happened again in 1942 with Case Blue, denting Hitler's confidence in his generals. . You can't blame Hitler for those blunders.

So, what do other people think? And please stick to purely military matters. I look forward to a good debate.

I am going to keep this to a quick reply before heading to bed, but you mentioned you have been reading some stuff about this subject. I wonder, what kind of things have you been reading? reports, books, memoires, etc?

As I kinda want to read more about the eastern front myself, being that I have only read Lost Victories by Erich von Manstein.

Depends wether you think the guy at the top is ultimately responsible for everything as he appointments the generals.

Marxist artist wrote:
Depends wether you think the guy at the top is ultimately responsible for everything as he appointments the generals.

Yes and no to be honest. Obviously, Nazi Germany was a totalitarian regime, but if you contrast that to one of the Democracies, say the USA, and you look at American defeats in WW2 (Pearl Harbour, Philippines, Kasserine Pass etc ) then nobody really blames FDR for those setbacks, even though FDR was obviously the Commander-In-Chief of the US military and is ultimately responsible, the buck stops here and all that...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cruxeh wrote:
I am going to keep this to a quick reply before heading to bed, but you mentioned you have been reading some stuff about this subject. I wonder, what kind of things have you been reading? reports, books, memoires, etc?

As I kinda want to read more about the eastern front myself, being that I have only read Lost Victories by Erich von Manstein.

Anything I can get my hands on. I don't speak Russian or German, so my reading material is limited to what is in English, but from the top of my head, I was reading:

Hans Von Luck, Citino's Death of the Wehrmacht, anything by David Glantz, and Richard Overy does a small, but good primer to the Eastern Front - 'Russia's War.'

An interesting study is to compare Manstein's Lost Victories, and Guderian's Panzer Leader, to what the above historians are saying about those two commanders.

TIK, a youtube channel, does good WW2 videos on the Eastern Front, and North Africa.

Hitler's generals were crazy about the invasion for a simple strategic reason - Starting a new war on a geographical different front than the two (Europe and Africa) fonts they already had was a huge mistake. Even if Germany had been the numerically superior opponent, creating a whole new direction and drain for logistics should be avoided when possible.

The only reason this would have been a good idea is if it was certain that Russia was already planning on striking. The reports of the Red Army's weakness speaks against him there - the Red Army wasn't considered a major threat.

Tactical mistakes are often the fault of those on the ground, but Hitler's job was the strategic. The overall picture. He was terrible at this, being predisposed to risky operations that often denied the realities of both men, machines and logistics. If he had been sensible at all, he would have actually consolidated his gains, focused on the European theater, and probably forced England out of the war by any means necessary. His German state would have been much larger by the end and the Nazis would have been an effective state for at least a dozen more years before they'd either need to expand again or collapse utterly.

Luckily/By God's Will/Via the Laws of Murphy/etc, Hitler was a military disaster for the Nazis. He constantly ignored his generals and focused on the worst paths forward to victory. His generals, who developed the Blitzkrieg, the mobile tank warfare and our earliest combined arms, aren't to blame for anything other than support a horrific regime because 'hey, fitz is doing it too!'

There is certainly a lot to talk about here!

I think there is a certain amount of sense in the common narrative. Hitler lacked any kind of military quality and whether or not he had agreement from his generals or not, a lot of the Eastern Front warfare was, at a macro level, down to him. He was the one who insisted that Stalingrad, Leningrad and Moscow all be crushed no matter what, he was the one who okayed the renewal of the offensives and he was the one who signed off on not pulling out of Stalingrad. Moreover, he was the one that set the war goals, which were far too vague, grandiose and mired in political rhetoric to be attainable; I think you can argue that Hitler essentially set his generals an impossible task then pushed them to keep attempting it for the next 3 years.

However, I think the deeper issue is at the operational and doctrinal level rather than the grand strategy. The entire German war machine was built around the Blitzkrieg idea, from its doctrine to its equipment to its leadership to its training. The successes in Western Europe reaffirmed this, and by the time Barbarossa came about, it seemed to be an 'I win' button. Having ploughed through the Belgium, Norway, France, they had complete faith in the methodology and some very dodgy intelligence suggested that their forces compared very favourably to the Russians, so naturally, they didn't see fit to adapt the practice for an entirely theatre.

The weather, the terrain, the nature of the Russian defence all play a part in this, but it's ultimately a matter of scale. Blitzkrieg works when you can wrap the campaign up in a handful of weeks, when the enemy only have so far to withdraw before they have to surrender, and when you can deny them any opportunity to put together an effective, coordinated defence. That is simply not possible in Russia due to the size of it. The Germans were essentially punching jelly with that kind of offensive eastwards, and it's not just the depth but the breadth. The width of the front made it so easy for the Russians that rallied to form pockets of resistance that in turn, disrupted supply lines, diverted impetus and materiel away from the spearhead of the attacks and generally made themselves a nuisance.

Now, you can kind of bring this back round to Hitler and/or the generals, but if you do it's a matter of short-sightedness rather than incompetence; when they spend most of a decade preparing exclusively for one kind of war, they are not really in a position to suddenly switch over their practices, doctrine and equipment for something entirely different. At which point, the question becomes 'why, in the period between rearming and invading the USSR, did they not take these factors into account?'

I think some credit does also have to go to the Russians. Zhukov manages to put together one hell of a counterattack after Stalingrad, and the ability of the USSR to endure the most prolonged and draining sieges of the war is remarkable. Yes, they had the population and managed to relocate the industry, but in human terms the level of national willpower and fortitude required to stick it out has to be accounted for somewhere.

In short though, I don't think it's possible to put together a state of affairs in which what followed Barbarossa would ever have worked without rewriting the history of the entire war and the preceding decade. Even if the initial attack was better prepared and managed, the war goals were too muddied and unrealistic. Even if the Russian resistance had been as weak as the intel suggested, the Germans would still have become exhausted before the USSR capitulated. Even if the strategy was absolutely nailed, Germany didn't have the doctrine, equipment or materiel in place to pull it off. Maybe if they take Stalingrad and the oil fields on the initial thrust, they have a chance, but I don't think even that was really possible.

There's a reason that in the history of modern warfare, there's not really been an invasion of the heartland of Russia that ended in anything but disaster for the attacker.* It undid Napoleon and it undid Hitler, both times that's in large part down to the fact that it's a region that's overtly difficult to fight in. Supply chains from central Europe become bloated and ridiculously long and slow, communication and coordination equally so. The climate is openly hostile to prolonged campaigns and the geography too vast for a swift decisive victory. Perhaps most importantly, it's a theatre that requires total commitment and the moment you falter and begin to withdraw, you've got to retreat over thousands of miles with the enemy free to harass, pursue and pick you apart at their leisure.

And to bring it all back to Hitler, I'll throw in Napoleon again; as a leader in both the military and political sense, Napoleon vastly oustripped anything the Germans had to offer and had an army that was, contemporaneously, indisputably the greatest in Europe. And even he couldn't pull off an invasion of Russia. Hitler was, by comparison, a bumbling idiot in military matters, a much worse thinker on the strategic level and while there's a lot more in play than just his uselessness in that regard, he certainly didn't make things any better for the Germans on the Eastern Front...

*WW1 is an exception here, but that is also Russia at it's very weakest and turning on itself as much as anything else.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Hitler's generals were crazy about the invasion for a simple strategic reason - Starting a new war on a geographical different front than the two (Europe and Africa) fonts they already had was a huge mistake. Even if Germany had been the numerically superior opponent, creating a whole new direction and drain for logistics should be avoided when possible.

The only reason this would have been a good idea is if it was certain that Russia was already planning on striking. The reports of the Red Army's weakness speaks against him there - the Red Army wasn't considered a major threat.

Tactical mistakes are often the fault of those on the ground, but Hitler's job was the strategic. The overall picture. He was terrible at this, being predisposed to risky operations that often denied the realities of both men, machines and logistics. If he had been sensible at all, he would have actually consolidated his gains, focused on the European theater, and probably forced England out of the war by any means necessary. His German state would have been much larger by the end and the Nazis would have been an effective state for at least a dozen more years before they'd either need to expand again or collapse utterly.

Luckily/By God's Will/Via the Laws of Murphy/etc, Hitler was a military disaster for the Nazis. He constantly ignored his generals and focused on the worst paths forward to victory. His generals, who developed the Blitzkrieg, the mobile tank warfare and our earliest combined arms, aren't to blame for anything other than support a horrific regime because 'hey, fitz is doing it too!'

But sometimes, listening to his generals, was a mistake by Hitler. As I said above, there was an almost universal consensus to break into Stalingrad and rescue 6th Army. Hitler is slowly swinging around to the idea. Von Paulus is firing out messages saying he's ready to go, hurry the feth up and give me the green right.

And then Von Manstein turns up and says 6th army should hold out, and then the Luftwaffe says we can supply them by air

and Hitler then swings back to last man standing at Stalingrad mode...

Could 6th army have broken out? It's doubtful. But given what we know what happened to them, it had to be worth a go.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


But sometimes, listening to his generals, was a mistake by Hitler. As I said above, there was an almost universal consensus to break into Stalingrad and rescue 6th Army. Hitler is slowly swinging around to the idea. Von Paulus is firing out messages saying he's ready to go, hurry the feth up and give me the green right.

And then Von Manstein turns up and says 6th army should hold out, and then the Luftwaffe says we can supply them by air

and Hitler then swings back to last man standing at Stalingrad mode...

I think this speaks to the bigger issue here; Hitler was irrational and irrationally committed to a very particular set of beliefs. If someone comes along and tells him that there's still a way to make those beliefs a reality, of course he's going to listen because at that point he's not thinking about how practical or even possible that suggestion might be, just that it exists. If Hitler was thinking rationally he'd never have invaded in the first place (or at least, delayed it until the rest of the opposition was beaten) but he was a fundamentalist to the point of being blind to reality.

He's going to agree to anything that helps him realise those goals, no matter how outlandish. See also the various 'doomsday weapons' that just ate up funding and effort in the latter years of the war; someone was able to convince him their latest device was The One that was going to end the war, and got the go-ahead no matter how impractical or ineffective the results were.

In the end, it was Hitler's decision to initiate Operation Barbarossa that caused the German defeat (mostly) at Russian hands. Without the Soviets beating on the eastern front, Germany could have made invasion from the west so expensive that getting terms for peace instead of absolute surrender quite possible.

 Paradigm wrote:
There is certainly a lot to talk about here!

I think there is a certain amount of sense in the common narrative. Hitler lacked any kind of military quality and whether or not he had agreement from his generals or not, a lot of the Eastern Front warfare was, at a macro level, down to him. He was the one who insisted that Stalingrad, Leningrad and Moscow all be crushed no matter what, he was the one who okayed the renewal of the offensives and he was the one who signed off on not pulling out of Stalingrad. Moreover, he was the one that set the war goals, which were far too vague, grandiose and mired in political rhetoric to be attainable; I think you can argue that Hitler essentially set his generals an impossible task then pushed them to keep attempting it for the next 3 years.

However, I think the deeper issue is at the operational and doctrinal level rather than the grand strategy. The entire German war machine was built around the Blitzkrieg idea, from its doctrine to its equipment to its leadership to its training. The successes in Western Europe reaffirmed this, and by the time Barbarossa came about, it seemed to be an 'I win' button. Having ploughed through the Belgium, Norway, France, they had complete faith in the methodology and some very dodgy intelligence suggested that their forces compared very favourably to the Russians, so naturally, they didn't see fit to adapt the practice for an entirely theatre.

The weather, the terrain, the nature of the Russian defence all play a part in this, but it's ultimately a matter of scale. Blitzkrieg works when you can wrap the campaign up in a handful of weeks, when the enemy only have so far to withdraw before they have to surrender, and when you can deny them any opportunity to put together an effective, coordinated defence. That is simply not possible in Russia due to the size of it. The Germans were essentially punching jelly with that kind of offensive eastwards, and it's not just the depth but the breadth. The width of the front made it so easy for the Russians that rallied to form pockets of resistance that in turn, disrupted supply lines, diverted impetus and materiel away from the spearhead of the attacks and generally made themselves a nuisance.

Now, you can kind of bring this back round to Hitler and/or the generals, but if you do it's a matter of short-sightedness rather than incompetence; when they spend most of a decade preparing exclusively for one kind of war, they are not really in a position to suddenly switch over their practices, doctrine and equipment for something entirely different. At which point, the question becomes 'why, in the period between rearming and invading the USSR, did they not take these factors into account?'

I think some credit does also have to go to the Russians. Zhukov manages to put together one hell of a counterattack after Stalingrad, and the ability of the USSR to endure the most prolonged and draining sieges of the war is remarkable. Yes, they had the population and managed to relocate the industry, but in human terms the level of national willpower and fortitude required to stick it out has to be accounted for somewhere.

In short though, I don't think it's possible to put together a state of affairs in which what followed Barbarossa would ever have worked without rewriting the history of the entire war and the preceding decade. Even if the initial attack was better prepared and managed, the war goals were too muddied and unrealistic. Even if the Russian resistance had been as weak as the intel suggested, the Germans would still have become exhausted before the USSR capitulated. Even if the strategy was absolutely nailed, Germany didn't have the doctrine, equipment or materiel in place to pull it off. Maybe if they take Stalingrad and the oil fields on the initial thrust, they have a chance, but I don't think even that was really possible.

There's a reason that in the history of modern warfare, there's not really been an invasion of the heartland of Russia that ended in anything but disaster for the attacker.* It undid Napoleon and it undid Hitler, both times that's in large part down to the fact that it's a region that's overtly difficult to fight in. Supply chains from central Europe become bloated and ridiculously long and slow, communication and coordination equally so. The climate is openly hostile to prolonged campaigns and the geography too vast for a swift decisive victory. Perhaps most importantly, it's a theatre that requires total commitment and the moment you falter and begin to withdraw, you've got to retreat over thousands of miles with the enemy free to harass, pursue and pick you apart at their leisure.

And to bring it all back to Hitler, I'll throw in Napoleon again; as a leader in both the military and political sense, Napoleon vastly oustripped anything the Germans had to offer and had an army that was, contemporaneously, indisputably the greatest in Europe. And even he couldn't pull off an invasion of Russia. Hitler was, by comparison, a bumbling idiot in military matters, a much worse thinker on the strategic level and while there's a lot more in play than just his uselessness in that regard, he certainly didn't make things any better for the Germans on the Eastern Front...

*WW1 is an exception here, but that is also Russia at it's very weakest and turning on itself as much as anything else.

A good post, a lot to debate, but alas, it's nearly midnight in the UK, so I'm heading off.

I will try and go through it line by line tomorrow. But to address one of your points:

I don't think the Stalingrad counter-attack is the stroke of genius it's often made out to be.

I'm not trying to demean the Russian people, or the huge sacrifices they made, or the terrible suffering they endured in WW2

But when you consider the operational maps, the fact that the Germans have fallen flat on their faces by then, and the inertia gripping OKW at the time, a blind man could see the Germans were in trouble and ripe for this move by Zhukov. Hell, even the Germans knew they were in trouble before it happened.

The Romanians and the Italians should never have been put in that position. The Germans knew it, and the Russians certainly knew it. The Russians were pushing at an open door IMO.

Breaking it down line by line. Note that the eastern front campaign from spring 1942 onwards was not Operation Barbarossa.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

1. Hitler trusted and accepted a flawed Barbarossa plan from military professionals who should have known better.

Barbarossa was a workable plan assuming you were hell bent in invading the Soviet Union.
Hitler delayed crucial weeks for a Yugoslav campaign and interfered.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

2. German military intelligence's assessment of Red Army strength was so risible as to be almost useless. Where did all those extra Red Army divisions and tanks come from? As Franz Halder would say.

It wasnt that far off, but could only calculate facing forces, not the speed of recruitment. Furthermore the new Soviet hardware was so new and 'advanced' the Red army didn't know anything about it either. Hence why grossly inferior tanks defeated T-34's at Tolochino, despite it being the first encounter and a major culture shock.
The OKW counted on a collapse of the Soviet Union due to hatred of Stalin's policies, however the political groundwork and doctrine required to support that was not only lacking but worked against for ideological reasons.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

3. That trying to grab the wheat and oil of the Ukraine and the Caucasus, instead of focusing on Moscow, made better strategic sense. Capturing Moscow would have done nothing. Capturing, say, Baku, would have hurt the Red Army more.

Hitler changed his mind and chnaged it again in autumn of 1941 making all three objectives out of reach.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

4. German commanders were all over the shop and floundering near Moscow in late 1941, and Hitler's stand fast order probably saved the Germans from an even greater calamity.

They reached Moscow earlier then were recalled/unsupported to follow Hitler's new directive..

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

5. Franz Halder shares just as much of the blame as Hitler.

I dont know enough about that to comment.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

6. When Hitler proposes new campaigns in 1942, far from advocating a defensive posture, as we're often led to believe, the Generals are in complete agreement with Hitler.

I doubt this is true, opposing Hitler was not shrewd. Besides in 1942 a rapid offensive was Germany's only option. Win quickly or loose entirely, it was the last chance. A large scale push was wise under the circumstances.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

7. Far from micro-managing, the vast distances of travel and communication in Russia, give German field commanders a lot of freedom to act independently from OKW.

Hitler cannot be credited with this. Tactical independence was theorised in WW1 by the German Stosstruppen, leading to Rommels early adaption and book infantry attack. Guderian respected Rommels theories and incorprated them on a much wider scale.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

8. That the debacle of the 1942 summer campaign is largely due to Hoth and Bock's reluctance to press forward at Voronezh, which threw a spanner in the works of Case Blue, a plan which had little room for error.

Not quite fair, the Germans had on shot, and had to make few to no mistakes. Such mistakes were indeed few, the generals made a good show of a very bad situation with real but narrow hopes if victory.
The real failure comes back to Hitler and the Nazi party. Western Russia was ripe for liberation from Stalin, but that was soured as the Slavic peoples were a race enemy. Second Hitlers obsession with poliical showboating and 'capture the flag objectives. This made sense at Moscow, but not at Stalingrad or Leningrad.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

9. That breakout at Stalingrad might have been attempted, and that a reluctant Hitler was almost about to rubber-stamp it...until Von Manstein threw a spanner in the works by saying 6th army should hold.

6th army was doomed. The weather was worsening and the Wehrmavht were ill equipped to fight a winter campaign. They had two choices: not go into Stalingrad to begin with, or ;later to prevent encirclement and hold out until spring.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

10. In contrast to Guderian's narrative that Kursk was seen as a mistake, German generals welcomed the chance to attack, and that there was little to no opposition to Kursk.

Kursk was a sound plan, but the Lucy Ring sold the plans to the Soviets. So it became a trap.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

11. The delays needed to get the Panther tank ready to go, were a necessary move to counter Red Army armoured superiority. Hitler knew the numbers, and knew the army needed an edge to defeat Red Army armour. Panzer IVs, although good tanks, wouldn't cut it in a war of attrition.

This cannot be blamed on anyone, the request to copy the T-34 was not realistic. Germany could not match soviet numbers, they required quality. The counter came later with the StG III. A quality armoured vehicle that was cheap to manufacture.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

12. Hitler's stand fast orders in 1944 make sense when you consider Germany's crippling lack of oil. Where does the fuel come from to make these grand and sweeping counter-attacks his generals advocate?

By this time any commands given were an irrelevancy. the soviets had overhelming production. Right way, wrong way, its a finger in the dam.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

13. Franz Halder is a git, and deserves more blame

I dont know enough about that to comment.

I've read a lot of the same authors you have, Stahel in particular is a favorite of mine. It's been a while though so I'm going to be fuzzy with specifics.

At the outset, I find it really hard to apportion anything but a tiny amount of the blame to the field commanders. Barbarossa was entirely Hitler's baby, brought on by his inability to subjugate the United Kingdom and also the idealogical crusade against communism that was so important to him. Were it not for his own personal desire to vanquish the Soviet Union, I highly doubt anyone in the OKW would have seriously proposed an invasion. That right there makes him 100% responsible, at least in my opinion, for everything that happened in that theater from that point onward. It's easy to say here that high command could have dissuaded him from doing this, but by this point in the war Hitler was already convinced of his own genius after so many successful campaigns that his generals strongly advised against. There was no talking him out of it.

Even when you get into more specific details, it's hard not to square the blame on him. Barbarossa was executed with a baffling lack of intelligence, and what little intelligence they did have was refuted. Their maps were years out of date, and Hitler rejected Guderian's assessment of the Soviet Union's tank strength - an assessment that turned out to actually be correct. The plan itself was also pretty bonkers. I forget which generals specifically objected to engaging on such a wide frontage, but I know at least one of the army group commanders had serious reservations about diluting German strength to capture Leningrad AND Moscow AND Kharkov. Hitler's needless micromanaging, like shuffling all of the panzers away Army Group Centre to capture Kharkov, started here and would become a habit for the rest of the war.

Case Blue is a similar story. Army Group B was in a position to capture Stalingrad when it was relatively undefended, but Hitler again ordered the panzers over to Army Group A on account of the slow progress they were making into the Caucasus. By the time Army Group B was again ready to march on Stalingrad, several weeks had passed and the city had become a fortress. Now, I'm not sure how much of the actual operational plan was Hitler's own concoction, but it was a pretty major overextension of the line that was absolutely begging for exactly the kind of encirclement that the Germans had used time and again while fighting the Red Army. In this instance I'd be willing to concede that this particular disaster may not be entirely HItler's fault, but only because I don't know how involved he was in the planning.

You mentioned that, with the exception of Guderian, the generals were in support of attacking at Kursk. I'm not sure whether this is true, but even if it is I find it hard to condemn the military leaders for this. The Kursk salient was of a fairly significant size and high command was cognizant of the fact that they were losing the initiative. Leaving the bulge intact meant granting the Soviets a launching pad for a future offensive and tying up more German divisions to cover such an extended frontline when they were really suffering from manpower shortages as it was. Delaying the offensive to deploy the newer Panther and Tiger tanks was, I believe, entirely Hitler's decision and so, again, I feel he has to take the blame for the debacle that happened there. Kursk may or may not have succeeded if they attacked according to their original plan instead of delaying to the end of July, but we'll never know.

From '44 onwards it's hard to lay the blame on anyone, the situation was just that hopeless. By this point the Germans had spent their armour at Kursk and didn't have the capacity to launch any kind of meaningful offensive. More of Hitler's bone headed decisions followed, like the absurd 'fortress city' doctrine and diverting the last of his panzers to Hungary when the Red Army was already dangerously close to Berlin. Ordering his divisions to stand fast on the belief that the Wehrhmacht should never surrender ground they bled for led to wasting precious manpower that they couldn't spare and only accelerated the collapse.

What I CAN fault army leadership for was the total lack of consideration for the differences between Russia and their previous military conquests. The lack of paved roads in the Soviet Union, the sheer distances they had to traverse to reach their strategic objectives, how they were going to actually supply their armies given the sheer size of the area, how a Luftwaffe depleted from the Battle of Britain was going to secure the air superiority on which blitzkrieg depended - these are but a few of the very important issues that were not considered. The fact that they relied on capturing Russian locomotives to keep the men fed and supplied says a lot about the German Army's logistical capability.

Now, having said that, I will say that I completely understand why these things weren't considered. By the summer of 1941 the Wehrmacht had a well earned reputation of invincibility. In the span of a year and a half they had successfully conquered France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Greece. These campaigns were all too short to really highlight the deficiencies of blitzkrieg, and there was no reason to believe that the Red Army would be more capable than the opposition they had already faced. The reason that I hesitate to really rake the generals over the coals for not thinking about this stuff is that I find it highly unlikely Hitler would have listened to these concerns even if they were presented to him. He already thought of himself as a great conqueror and found their overly cautious disposition extremely distasteful.

So yeah, in conclusion it's hard for me to get anywhere near a 50/50 accountability with the top brass. His continuous meddling exacerbated many of the disasters faced by the Ost Heer, and his ego had inflated to the point that he didn't have anyone he considered to be a peer. You can't advise someone that thinks he's a messiah, and at the end of the day he was the one in charge. It was his choice to attack, his choice to prosecute the war the way that he did, and his choice to surround himself with yes men more concerned with carrying out his will than objectively assessing his directives.

 Paradigm wrote:

However, I think the deeper issue is at the operational and doctrinal level rather than the grand strategy. The entire German war machine was built around the Blitzkrieg idea, from its doctrine to its equipment to its leadership to its training. The successes in Western Europe reaffirmed this, and by the time Barbarossa came about, it seemed to be an 'I win' button. Having ploughed through the Belgium, Norway, France, they had complete faith in the methodology and some very dodgy intelligence suggested that their forces compared very favourably to the Russians, so naturally, they didn't see fit to adapt the practice for an entirely theatre.

There was a counter factor, unlike the other territories invaded the population loathed their masters. Thev Germans did expect and to some part did exploit this, but any gains were undone by Hitlers rhetoric, and the policies of the SS.

 Paradigm wrote:

The weather, the terrain, the nature of the Russian defence all play a part in this, but it's ultimately a matter of scale. Blitzkrieg works when you can wrap the campaign up in a handful of weeks, when the enemy only have so far to withdraw before they have to surrender, and when you can deny them any opportunity to put together an effective, coordinated defence. That is simply not possible in Russia due to the size of it.

Scale comes into it, but the German advance during Barbarossa was also upscaled to match. The Wehrmacht did reach the key objectives, but the campaign was six weeks late due to the invasion of Yugoslavia and Hitlers refusal to wait until the same time in 1942.

 Paradigm wrote:

The Germans were essentially punching jelly with that kind of offensive eastwards, and it's not just the depth but the breadth. The width of the front made it so easy for the Russians that rallied to form pockets of resistance that in turn, disrupted supply lines, diverted impetus and materiel away from the spearhead of the attacks and generally made themselves a nuisance.

These pockets need not have rallied if the Germans had made clear/true their war was against Communism not Russians.

 Paradigm wrote:

Now, you can kind of bring this back round to Hitler and/or the generals, but if you do it's a matter of short-sightedness rather than incompetence; when they spend most of a decade preparing exclusively for one kind of war, they are not really in a position to suddenly switch over their practices, doctrine and equipment for something entirely different. At which point, the question becomes 'why, in the period between rearming and invading the USSR, did they not take these factors into account?'

They adapted very quickly. warm weather clothing was rushed to the front as priority, though this was delayed again my meddling. there were two insurmountable obstacles, first the lack of tracked lofistical transport, only a portion was tracked, the majority wheeled. Which was totally inadequate for Russian roads. had the Germans surveyed the route properly and had more tracked logisrical support the invasion would have kept its pace. also the six weeks delay. Hitler had the option of ignoring the fall of the pro-Axis government in Yugoslavia and pressing on with Barbarossa on its original timetable, this would have permitted completion of primary objectives during the Summer of 1941.

 Paradigm wrote:

In short though, I don't think it's possible to put together a state of affairs in which what followed Barbarossa would ever have worked without rewriting the history of the entire war and the preceding decade. Even if the initial attack was better prepared and managed, the war goals were too muddied and unrealistic. Even if the Russian resistance had been as weak as the intel suggested, the Germans would still have become exhausted before the USSR capitulated. Even if the strategy was absolutely nailed, Germany didn't have the doctrine, equipment or materiel in place to pull it off. Maybe if they take Stalingrad and the oil fields on the initial thrust, they have a chance, but I don't think even that was really possible.

Stalin would never capitulate, but if Moscow fell by August 1941 and a new government put in place with assurances for the non-Communist Russian regime the Soviet Union could have imploded. Stalin himself new this and stayed in Moscow in the winter of 1941 as a symbol.

 Paradigm wrote:

There's a reason that in the history of modern warfare, there's not really been an invasion of the heartland of Russia that ended in anything but disaster for the attacker.* It undid Napoleon and it undid Hitler,

Had the Uk and France supported Czechoslovakia in 1938 we might currently believe that Blitzkrieg itself was a pipe dream, The Czechs could have won that fight but had no support.
We would then rightfully think that Germans plans to conquer France in six weeks to be nonsense.

The actual lesson of Barbarossa was that it failed, not that it was impossible. After all several key elements nearly worked, the armies made time and reached Moscow on schedule. given the extra six weeks, No interference from Hitler and a solid self determination and anti-Communism policy to sell the the average Russian it was very plausible.
Plausible however doesn't make it a good idea. Hitler didn't need that fight. 1941 could have been focused on a bomber offensive in the Atlantic to support the U-boats and resources for a successful push the Suez canal and a threat of liberation of India from British rule. Hitler should have convinced Tojo to concentrate entirely against the British also, with guarantee of oil for Japan from other sources in the British empire.
Stalin could then be dealt with after the spring thaw hardened in 1942.

 Orlanth wrote:


Scale comes into it, but the German advance during Barbarossa was also upscaled to match. The Wehrmacht did reach the key objectives, but the campaign was six weeks late due to the invasion of Yugoslavia and Hitlers refusal to wait until the same time in 1942.

The advance was upscaled, yes, but hardly upscaled 'to match.' Graphic presentations that show the speed of the Ost Heer's advance into Russia are incredibly misleading. The panzers did get that far that fast, yes, but blitzkrieg relied on advancing infantry to mop up the encircled pockets and, given the sheer distances involved in this theater, that was very hard to do. As a result of this, the advance was not decisively seizing ground. Red Army divisions harassed the rear areas incessantly, and many of the soldiers that were encircled in this way became leaders of partisan forces that plagued the Ost Heer for the rest of the war.

Additionally, a lot of people harp about the delay that Yugoslavia created but the rasputitsa, or rain season, in Russia went much longer than it usually does in 1941. Barbarossa could not have started any sooner than it did as a result of this.

These pockets need not have rallied if the Germans had made clear/true their war was against Communism not Russians.

This is not a fair point to make. You would have had to remove Hitler from the equation entirely for the war in the East not to be a racially driven crusade, and if you do that then it's highly unlikely the war would have started at all.

Hitler had the option of ignoring the fall of the pro-Axis government in Yugoslavia and pressing on with Barbarossa on its original timetable, this would have permitted completion of primary objectives during the Summer of 1941.

As above, Barbarossa could not have begun earlier than it did. It's also highly presumptuous that the timetable is the only reason they did not achieve their objectives in the summer of '41. There were many factors that contributed to the Ost Heer's failure to achieve a decisive victory in that year.

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.

1941 could have been focused on a bomber offensive in the Atlantic to support the U-boats and resources for a successful push the Suez canal and a threat of liberation of India from British rule.

A bomber offensive into the Atlantic in '41 would not have been feasible. The Luftwaffe was hurting dearly after the Battle of Britain, having lost many of its planes and most of its seasoned pilots. In addition I don't think they had an actual machine capable of mounting a serious air offensive over the ocean, the Germans had only 2-engine bombers which would not have had the range or the payload to seriously threaten the Atlantic convoys. The Suez Canal would have been quite a herculean task, and it wasn't like they weren't trying. The Mediterranean was a logistical nightmare for both sides, but the Axis in particular had a hard time supplying their armies in North Africa on account of the Allied bastion at Malta.

Hitler should have convinced Tojo to concentrate entirely against the British also, with guarantee of oil for Japan from other sources in the British empire.
Stalin could then be dealt with after the spring thaw hardened in 1942.

You're seriously overstating the level of cooperation between those two Axis powers. Germany and Japan had very little in the way of coordinated planning. Both parties were struck dumb by each other's foreign policy, the Germans by the Russo-Japanese peace after Khalkin Ghol and the Japanese by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Hitler convincing Tojo is, to my mind, an unfair hypothetical because it assumes a much closer relationship between the two nations than the one that actually existed.

Haven't got time for a very long response but to touch on a couple of points,

German logistics were poor, their logistical tail was not mechanised/motorised it still mostly horse borne and relied upon railheads.

Soviet strength was reckoned to be so poor qualitivly due to the Winter War where the poorly equipped and understrength Finnish army fought it to a stand still.

Break out of 6th army was necessarily delayed, Manstein had to gather forces to both hold the Soviet offensive back and counter attack, 6th army could have broken through easily enough when the Kessel was forming but they would have lost most of their meagre transport and the men would have been exhausted and the whole formation would have needed to be withdrawn to rest and requip themselves. Germany didn't have the strength available to allow them do so until Manstein's reinforcements were gathered, so they were shafted regardless.

Many Russians and especially Ukrainians joint the German armed forces despite to the Nazi rhetoric not only to provide guards for the tail and hubs but also as fighting formations (even in the SS).

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.

 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.

The Red Army is pretty much 100% to "blame" for Germany's defeat in the Eastern Front.

HMMM, I just don't know if there is any scenario where Germany comes out on top in that war no matter what happens. You can not out produce the United states, Russia and Europe at the same time. Germany can not win a war of attrition. If he can fight Europe on its own, consolidate, then fight Russia on its own without US lend lease........maybe. I think Germany actually did much better than it had a right too. Their equipment and logistics for the equipment was pretty awful and inefficient. Many of the weapons that are so highly touted were actually very scary, but the practical use of them was very difficult and production for many was a nightmare.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/its-time-we-ditched-the-myth-of-german-small-arms-supremacy/

This has a bit to say about how inefficient german equipment actually was.

I will start off by saying that yes, the popular view of Hitler and WW2 in regard to strategic failings is slightly skewed. Most of this was build on the memoirs of German generals after the war that were all to happy to wash their hands off failure. Its a case of he said, Hitler dead. Take into account that these same people also did their best to propagate the myth of the clean Wehrmacht after the war. From the material I have read over the years by historians most mention the pitfall of post-WW2 memoirs in this subject (going back at least a decade and a half by now). As Iron_Captain said they lost when they started it.

To add some things:

3. That trying to grab the wheat and oil of the Ukraine and the Caucasus, instead of focusing on Moscow, made better strategic sense. Capturing Moscow would have done nothing. Capturing, say, Baku, would have hurt the Red Army more.

Doubtful, Baku might as well have been a million miles away. Even if the Germans had reached Baku and not found a scorched wasteland of burning oil fields and refineries where would they have gotten the logistical capacity to move the oil when they could barely keept themselves supplied in Russia as is due to logistic issues? Its doubtful that the Soviets couldn't manage to make up for its loss or recaptured it as it so incredibly far away from Germany.

4. German commanders were all over the shop and floundering near Moscow in late 1941, and Hitler's stand fast order probably saved the Germans from an even greater calamity.

Historians tend to partially agree on this, winter would have made it impossible to dig new defensive lines so standing firm was the only reasonably decent option. The issue is that they were already overstretched and should have pulled back to more easily defendable and supplied positions before they reached the point when digging in was the option.

6. When Hitler proposes new campaigns in 1942, far from advocating a defensive posture, as we're often led to believe, the Generals are in complete agreement with Hitler.

Nowhere to go but forward, with the US having been drawn in to the war on the tail end of 41 the Soviets had to be defeated to improve their snowball's chance in hell when the US was inevitably going to join in. Of course this comes down to memoirs again and trying to wash their hands for the overstretch that lead to the 42-43 losses.

8. That the debacle of the 1942 summer campaign is largely due to Hoth and Bock's reluctance to press forward at Voronezh, which threw a spanner in the works of Case Blue, a plan which had little room for error.

42 was a debacle regardless, the Germans just didn't have the manpower. If the Soviet army hadn't been a mess they could have destroyed significant parts of the German push as they were spread out with little support. The plan wasn't going to work because reality just wasn't on the side of Germany for their 42 plan.

9. That breakout at Stalingrad might have been attempted, and that a reluctant Hitler was almost about to rubber-stamp it...until Von Manstein threw a spanner in the works by saying 6th army should hold.

Realistically this was the best option. 6th army had been fighting hard and lost most of its support elements and supplies in the encirclement. Only once they were encircled did Manstein build up a force to break them out. 6th army was mostly reduced to an underequipped and starving infantry force that would have been cut to pieces among the snowdrifts against superior Soviet forces if it had attempted a breakout towards Manstein's forces. Either they held out in an urban enviroment till help could arrive or they would have died, going out of the city into the steppe would have just hastened the process. By my clumsy km to mi conversion Manstein's forces had to bridge a gap of 40 miles to get into the pocket. By the time its reported the 6th army cluld hear the artillery in the distance they did'nt have the strength to break out. Really, if Manstein couldn't break in, what hope did infantry have against the forces that were strangling them into starvation? None of the groups that tried to break through reached German lines.

10. In contrast to Guderian's narrative that Kursk was seen as a mistake, German generals welcomed the chance to attack, and that there was little to no opposition to Kursk.

Here is the handwashing again of course. Really convenient for them Hitler was dead. As GW would say, forge the narrative.

11. The delays needed to get the Panther tank ready to go, were a necessary move to counter Red Army armoured superiority. Hitler knew the numbers, and knew the army needed an edge to defeat Red Army armour. Panzer IVs, although good tanks, wouldn't cut it in a war of attrition.

No, the Panther in 43 still suffered from numerous flaws and the amounts reaching Kursk did in no way offset the amounts of Soviet armor reaching Kursk at the same time. Waiting for the Panthers and Tigers just gave the Soviets time to create massive defensive lines. So A. It was doubtful the Germans could succesfully pull off Kursk in the first place, even if the won the battle then what? B. Waiting favored the Soviets who could bring more of just everything to bear and C. It gave them time to massively dig in with mines, AT guns you name it, it gave the Soviets multiple massive defensive lines.

12. Hitler's stand fast orders in 1944 make sense when you consider Germany's crippling lack of oil. Where does the fuel come from to make these grand and sweeping counter-attacks his generals advocate?

Stand ground orders also meant dooming men and equipment in meaningless locations that could have been pulled back. The counter attacking fantasies are of course just that, fantasies, but stand ground orders are for the most part incredibly wasteful in lives and material.

13. Franz Halder is a git, and deserves more blame

All of them do, even if ignoring how they washed their hands of defeat they also managed to even now to some extent wash their hands of their part in the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, the 3 million Soviet PoWs that starved under Wehrmacht responsibility and their treatment of the wider civilian population. To an extent and this is as political as I get, you still see the innocent Wehrmacht myths even on the stage of national politics in Germany itself.

After the war, for obvious reasons, Hitler was the easy fall guy for retired German generals writing their memoirs, and it was easy for them to shift the blame onto Hitler for their mistakes. Von Manstein and Guderian being two examples. The fatcs, however, say a different story. For example,

Blaming it all on Hitler is one of those tenacious popular myths that does have some truth, but can be included in a long list including the one where Stalin supposedly dissapeared for a week following the Soviet invasion. Its convenient and reflect better on the survivors, not to mention that the truth would have seen them hang.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thekingofkings wrote:
The Red Army is pretty much 100% to "blame" for Germany's defeat in the Eastern Front.

And even more so, several factors responsible for Soviet weakness in 41-42 almost handed the Germans their victory and they still lost the war. To keep it painfully short, the Soviets did almost everything but roll over and play dead operationally speaking in the opening phase and still won in the end. Germany winning relies on them doing even better in spite of logistical reality and the Soviets doing even worse.

The what if Germany did this is kind of like saying, "sure I can beat the world's best boxer, just give me a metal pipe and cuff them to a radiator and I'll show you!"

 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.

 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.

A lot of good points from people

but because of the size of the posts, it would take a while to go through them all, so I'll generalise about the main points made.

1. Barbarossa delayed by the Balkans campaign. I think that's been pretty much debunked by now. Hitler was always going to secure the southern flank, and it was the wet weather, and not operations in Greece, that delayed Barbarossa.

2. Invading the Soviet Union was a mistake, but was it? It's easy to sit here now, with the full benefit of hindsight, but at the time, look at how the Germans would have seen things. They're masters of Europe, the French army, widely regarded as Europe's premier fighting force, has been vanquished in 6 weeks, the British have been sent scuttling across the channel, and confidence is high. The Germans know from their own experiences with the Red Army in 1939 and Poland, and their dire performance in the Winter War, that the Russians are there for the taking. After all, Germany did beat them in WW1.


3. You have to defeat the Soviet Union by conquering all of Russia. Not so in my book. It's likely that the Russians could have held on beyond the Ural Mountains, but if the Germans capture and consolidate the wheat fields of Ukraine, secure the Black Sea, and dominate the Caucasus, then that would be enough for victory in my book. Stalin, the great survivor, probably would have struck a peace deal with Hitler.

You have to take into account that planned starvation and mass shootings was something the Wehrmacht had agreed on. Europe didn't produce enough food in wartime to prevent starvation on the Eastern Front even if Germany wanted to treat the population nicely. German logic was either the Wehrmacht eats or the civilians eat. The Wehrmacht did as much to turn the population against them as the SS, they happily went along with the murderous intent, the protesting exceptions in the higher command can be counted on one hand.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
HMMM, I just don't know if there is any scenario where Germany comes out on top in that war no matter what happens. You can not out produce the United states, Russia and Europe at the same time. Germany can not win a war of attrition. If he can fight Europe on its own, consolidate, then fight Russia on its own without US lend lease........maybe. I think Germany actually did much better than it had a right too. Their equipment and logistics for the equipment was pretty awful and inefficient. Many of the weapons that are so highly touted were actually very scary, but the practical use of them was very difficult and production for many was a nightmare.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/its-time-we-ditched-the-myth-of-german-small-arms-supremacy/

This has a bit to say about how inefficient german equipment actually was.

I don't think the Germans need to out-produce or defeat the USA. Just make the price of victory so high as to make it politically unfeasible to continue the war, and thus get some kind of peace treaty. The USA is obviously a super-power, and a democracy, but the Vietnam War showed us the limits a democracy will go to win a war if the casualties are piling up. Even in 1945, when the USA is beating Japan, there is growing concern at how hard it will be to invade Japan. They are deeply worried at the casualties they think they will take.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
You have to take into account that planned starvation and mass shootings was something the Wehrmacht had agreed on. Europe didn't produce enough food in wartime to prevent starvation on the Eastern Front even if Germany wanted to treat the population nicely. German logic was either the Wehrmacht eats or the civilians eat. The Wehrmacht did as much to turn the population against them as the SS, they happily went along with the murderous intent, the protesting exceptions in the higher command can be counted on one hand.

I agree that mass starvation was a weapon to kill people in Eastern Europe so the German colonists could move in for their living space doctrine, but food production levels in Europe were a lot higher in WW2 than they were in WW1. You obviously don't have the British blockade, and occupied France was something of a golden goose for the Germans.


I'm not saying it was easy for the civilians in occupied Europe, but it wasn't as bad as the turnip winters of WW1.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thekingofkings wrote:
The Red Army is pretty much 100% to "blame" for Germany's defeat in the Eastern Front.

The Red Army nearly defeated itself in 1941.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

2. Invading the Soviet Union was a mistake, but was it? It's easy to sit here now, with the full benefit of hindsight, but at the time, look at how the Germans would have seen things. They're masters of Europe, the French army, widely regarded as Europe's premier fighting force, has been vanquished in 6 weeks, the British have been sent scuttling across the channel, and confidence is high. The Germans know from their own experiences with the Red Army in 1939 and Poland, and their dire performance in the Winter War, that the Russians are there for the taking. After all, Germany did beat them in WW1.

It certainly was. The Soviets were providing the Germans with all the supplies they needed, even food. Germany went for it because of Hitler and their generals fear of communism and Lebensraum. Even if the Soviets would have attacked Germany later on, which is possible. This still might have gained Germany years to build up, potentially make peace and gain Western allies to fight off any Soviet attempt. Nazi Germany was not rational, they shot themselves in the foot over and over. The need to invade the Soviet Union was overwhelmingly ideological versus practical/rational.

3. You have to defeat the Soviet Union by conquering all of Russia. Not so in my book. It's likely that the Russians could have held on beyond the Ural Mountains, but if the Germans capture and consolidate the wheat fields of Ukraine, secure the Black Sea, and dominate the Caucasus, then that would be enough for victory in my book. Stalin, the great survivor, probably would have struck a peace deal with Hitler.

Likely not, but even conquering the Soviets west of the Wolga was not possible under some of the best conditions. Even the more limited objective of knocking the Soviets out of the war failed. It just wasn't doable without some massive what-ifs in favor of Germany.

 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.

 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.

I don't deny how hard it has been to defeat and occupy Russia over the years, but the Mongols managed it didn't they?

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.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
You have to take into account that planned starvation and mass shootings was something the Wehrmacht had agreed on. Europe didn't produce enough food in wartime to prevent starvation on the Eastern Front even if Germany wanted to treat the population nicely. German logic was either the Wehrmacht eats or the civilians eat. The Wehrmacht did as much to turn the population against them as the SS, they happily went along with the murderous intent, the protesting exceptions in the higher command can be counted on one hand.

I agree that mass starvation was a weapon to kill people in Eastern Europe so the German colonists could move in for their living space doctrine, but food production levels in Europe were a lot higher in WW2 than they were in WW1. You obviously don't have the British blockade, and occupied France was something of a golden goose for the Germans.


I'm not saying it was easy for the civilians in occupied Europe, but it wasn't as bad as the turnip winters of WW1.

It wasn't just a weapon, it was basic logistical necessity for a Wehrmacht that didn't plan on feeding itself to free up transport for other material. This wasn't even done for ideological reasons but more for nationalistic homefront reasons. That it helped the ideoligical madness was the cherry on top. You have to take into account that Western Europe was still undergoing rationing because food was moved to Germany and to the army, but this was done while letting millions starve.

WW1 was also fought across Europe while from 1940 to 43-44 Germany had a pretty good grip on the continent so production was higher because half your agricultural land wasn't involved in trench warfare. Germany in WW2 was just as incapable of sufficiently feeding itself as in WW1, the only reason they didn't eat turnips because people in Eastern Europe were starved to death so they wouldn't have to.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Just make the price of victory so high as to make it politically unfeasible to continue the war, and thus get some kind of peace treaty.

Until 1946-47 arrives and B-36s armed with nuclear weapons fly directly from the US to Germany and erase it from the map. That's the problem with all of these ridiculous "make Germany win WWII" scenarios, even the absolute best-case outcome for Germany is to continue the war long enough to turn defeat into complete annihilation.

The USA is obviously a super-power, and a democracy, but the Vietnam War showed us the limits a democracy will go to win a war if the casualties are piling up.

And this is why your insistence on ignoring politics is nonsense. Vietnam was 100% a political issue, not a military one. Our entire interest in Vietnam was high-level politics between pro- and anti-communist sides, nobody in the US gave a about Vietnam itself. It was just a convenient battlefield to fight a proxy war with Russia. And that makes it a lot harder to care about the war or find the will to continue fighting despite high casualties. That's not at all the case with WWII and defeating Germany. There it's our closest allies, militarily and culturally and politically, being invaded and occupied. The US is going to have a much more personal stake in liberating England and France than fighting over some random country most US citizens couldn't even find on a map. That's going to translate directly into a much greater willingness to keep fighting, and the US automatically wins the war once it gets involved as long as it doesn't voluntarily surrender.

Even in 1945, when the USA is beating Japan, there is growing concern at how hard it will be to invade Japan. They are deeply worried at the casualties they think they will take.

Also not really a comparable situation. We were worried about invading Japan because the perception was that every person in Japan would fight to the death in a suicidal last stand. Note the lack of similar concerns with Germany, nobody expected German children with sharpened sticks to be making mass human wave charges into machine gun fire. And note that in the real world we did invade Germany, and at no point did the invasion become anything other than a question of how long it would take for Germany to finally surrender. Casualties were accepted and the invasion proceeded.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


I don't deny how hard it has been to defeat and occupy Russia over the years, but the Mongols managed it didn't they?

Take into account that the Mongols conquered a fractured area with small states and a significant advantage with highly mobile cavalry armies. Versus a united Soviet totalitarian empire with a higher production, resource and population base than Germany which is vital in industrial warfare, with quite similar armies. That's not even getting into the issue of logistics of a modern army versus what a cavalry army can basically carry what they need. Mongols can just go home when winter sets in as there is no strategic depth to most of the small Russian states, as these are usually a few cities not too far apart. Say knock out Moscow or Kiev and you pretty much destroy the power base of one of the states in that time period, knock out Soviet Kiev and the country might not even blink as it has dozens of other large cities.

To make another point I forgot to mention in the OP, I like Panzer Leader and Lost Victories, they're good books to read, but when dealing with Guderian and Manstein, it's always best to cross-reference what they're saying with other sources.

As an example, Guderian criticises Hitler for diluting the strength of the Panzer Divisions, by doubling the number of Panzer divisions, but without providing extra tanks.

But this was actually sound military practice. From the Polish and French campaigns, the Germans realised their Panzer Divisions were too tank heavy and needed to be balanced out by other supporting arms (infantry and artillery) for a combined arms approach. And other armies adopted this, because tanks obviously can't do everything and are useless in some situations i.e fighting in built up areas.


The proof of the pudding is that the modern day US army, which could afford as many tanks as it wanted, follows a similar approach to organising its armour formations.

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.