And the torn up rails. Luckily, the Germans had a secret weapon: Stalin. Unfortunately for them, the Soviets had a secret weapon: Hitler.
Speaking of revisionists, their claim that: “Though their fundamental political beliefs were polar opposites” is completely false.
The nationalist socialism of the Germans and the international socialism of the Russians were nearly identical. They are both socialist, both anti-Jew, both violent toward scapegoats among their own people, and both expansionist. The only difference is in how they saw the people they planned to conquer or kill in other countries.
What if Patton got his wish and invaded the USSR after WWII ended?
The Nazis weren’t prepared for General Winter
Will this misstatement never stop? Two sides of the same coin, more like it: One national socialist, the other international socialist - but both SOCIALIST.
From what I read many Russians were hoping Germany would save them from Stalin and communism. But then realized that it was better to fight for the tyrant who would persecute them than the tyrant who would simply kill them.
Russian race?!
Puhleez....
Weather and geography defeat Germany in the east.
The big lie. Both systems were simple variations of Leftist totalitarianism.
NAZIs were National Socialists. Soviets were International Socialists (Communists).
NAZIs focused on race and class, Communists focused on class and religion.
A German general caught a glimpse of the T-34 in the early days of Barbarossa, he remarked that if the Soviets could mass produce the T-34, Germany would lose the war.
Marking
Pure bovine excrement. The two could not be more closely related.
Hitler lost the war because of the U.S.A.
Period.
No kidding. But there is another new book out there-—not about Barbarossa specifically-—that argues in Hitler’s mind Stalin and FDR were “Jewish enablers” who had to be eliminated. It was never strategic or geopolitical to him, it was always, always about killing Jews. The book claimed that he thought even if he eliminated every Jew in Europe, that leaving Russia under the “Jewish bolsheviks” like Stalin would make the effort meaningless.
Sorry, can’t remember this title. I didn’t keep it because of my very limited library shelf space here.
The thing is that the entire “Nazis would have conquered the world” isn’t true.
Nazi Germany was never going to win the second world war. the only way Nazi Germany wins is if
1. Hitler is not in power and Germany is not “Nazi” Germany
2. The war starts at a different time and place
People misunderstand the situation of Nazi Germany in WW2. From the outside, they look like a rather unstoppable military that only the combined efforts of the allied powers could bring down.
1. Next to no oil was produced in Germany. Their only method of making in came from turning coal into oil and they were even short on coal after their industrialization in the 19th century. They only had the Romanian oil fields to rely on and this was nowhere near enough.
2. Their naval surface fleet was very small and underpowered. It could not stand up to even the French Navy forget about the British Navy.
3. They did not have enough manpower. In a war the size of WW2 you need every man to be involved. Not only do you need to staff a military that is 10 million strong but you must also have men in factories making equipping and men in the farms growing food.
In contrast, Russia had a lot more men. Even the UK had more men - really? Yes. The British had a 2 million strong VOLUNTEER British India army.
4. Germany produced equipment too slowly. Every allied power had Germany beat in terms of production. Not only did German decide on complex tank and gun models but they frequently changed them during production. This meant production had to stop, retool, and resume constantly.
The Germans went for highly complex machinery that were customized and difficult to build quickly. In contrast look at the liberty ships - built in a couple of weeks. The American and Russian tanks were cruder but quicker to build and easier to maintain.
There was no way Germany was going to win in the long run
Hitler’s mistake was that he postponed the Invasion several times, if he had invaded in the early spring instead of June it is quite possible that he would have beaten Stalin and been in Moscow. Those two critical months lost made all the difference in the outcome of the invasion.
That mistake plus Stalin’s willingness to sacrifice untold numbers of troops on the Eastern Front as cannon fodder to stop the germans was what stopped the Germans in their tracks.
Read Sir Max Hastings book on the last year of the European aspect of W.W. II, Stalin was brutal in what he did to make his armies fight.
Moscow on a midsummer’s night in 1941 was a balmy place to be. For the discerning, there was Chekhov’s Three Sisters playing to full houses, while opera lovers had a choice between Rigoletto and La Traviata.
You could see a play or an opera and it probably only cost one ruble! Paradise! Of course one could be arrested for anything and summarily shot or sent to the gulag for twenty years too. Heck, the subway only cost a kopeck!
All felt safe in the knowledge that, for the past two years (give or take a few weeks), Stalin’s Soviet Union had been in a pact of friendship and non-aggression with Hitler’s Germany.
Their devil of a leader Stalin made a deal with another devil, Adolph Hitler. Just how much faith could one put in such an agreement?
As for the differences between Soviet communism and German national socialism.... the difference is in nomenclature only. Flip sides of the same coin.
As for the strategic mistakes made - by both sides - we could write a book on that. The Germans were counting on a quick victory as they achieved in France. Many of their troops did not even have winter gear. They started weeks late because they got sidetracked in putting down problems in the Balkans. For his part Stalin ignored intelligence warnings supplied by the British of the coming attack (he simply did not trust the Brits). As late as the May Day celebrations of 1941 they were still doing business in raw materials with the Germans.
bfl
If you want Victor Davis Hanson’s brilliant analysis on why Hitler lost the war, watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQq-ORA4fHw
The Germans were initially welcomed into Ukraine as liberators. Stalin had killed millions of them by deliberate famine. If the Germans had just ACTED as liberators for a while, and recruited local Ukrainians as allies in hunting down Communist partisans, they might have won.