Posted on 06/22/2021 10:05:55 AM PDT by Captain Peter Blood
I was waiting to see of anyone would mention this and as of now no one has.
80 years ago today Germany invaded the Soviet Union in a surprise attack.
It started one of the bloodiest and catastrophic episodes of W.W. II.
The scope, scale, casualties , and atrocities almost dwarf anything that happened anywhere else in the ETO.
Without the sacrifices the Russians made on the Eastern Front the invasion of Europe would not have been successful.
Estimated deaths on the Eastern Front are not totally known but an estimated 20 million died
This view is why Churchill was in the Wilderness in the 1930s amongst his fellow Tories. That was precisely how they saw it, that the Bolsheviks were the bigger threat than Hitler, and that Hitler could be useful against them. Churchill knew otherwise, even though of course, he was no fan of Stalin.
As amazing as it may sound today Stalin practically was bending himself over in appeasing Hitler. Invading the Soviet Union was Hitler’s biggest strategic blunder
From what I’ve read on the subject, many of Hitler’s generals were gung-ho about invading the USSR. They viewed it as a quick victory. Only the German logisticians were pessimistic. This is one of the main reasons why Hitler would often rant about his generals stabbing him in the back. He felt misled about the supposed “easy” victory he was promised.
So, yeah, if a German-USSR alliance had gone through, then things would have been very, very different. Hitler and a lot of his generals also thought that (alliance or not), the USSR would eventually go to war with Germany and they wanted to knock them out first.
Britain. Sold out the Poles and the Chetniks for uncle Joe and tito.
The geographic sizes of the offensives on both sides of the Eastern Front boggles my mind.
“The lengths Stalin went to drive his armies is beyond anything I have ever read, his brutality makes Hitler and Mao look almost normal.”
You seem to miss that the left also overlooks what Mao did. He was just has brutal as Stalin. What is the coincidence? Stalin and Mao were both communists. For that, they get a pass. Yet, Hitler was a Nazi. And he is the one that gets all the blame today. It’s a compliment to be called a Communist today, and a major insult to be called a Nazi.
That purge in 1938 had a lot to do with, that put the fear into the Generals and probably in the end saved Stalin's neck.
And there's the rub. Communists never use the term "Nazi", which stands for "National Socialist", they will always use "Fascist". Even thought Mussolini was the only Fascist, and the Nazi form of government bore little resemblance to Mussolini's Italy.
It didn’t help the Soviets that Stalin had wiped out his general staff through purges so his military was totally unprepared for what the Germans were planning on.
Seems to me our own military is going through its own purges by the communist so they can take control of our Armed Forces.
We will rue that event ever started.
Watch “Enemy at the Gates”, it is about Vasily Zaitsev, a Soviet sniper in Stalingrad.
Instead, I highly recommend the book of the same name by William Craig. Lays out how the entire battle played out, with Zaitsev being a tiny part. It drives home just how desperate things got for the Germans once they were encircled and ordered by Hitler not to retreat (which they easily could have for at least a month).
You know things are very bad when:
1. Your men kill their horses — not so much for the horse meat as for the protein in their brains
2. The men are so demoralized, they don’t even bother off loading the supply planes.
That sniper duel was but a chapter in the book. One of the things on my Bucket List is to visit Mamayev Kurgan.
That is probably one of the greatest what-ifs in that war. Hitler’s focus on a huge front in Russia destroyed their ability to focus forces and make a breakthrough.
The second worst was allowing the SS into the areas they had conquered. The SS actions mobilized allies into enemies and created partisans behind the lines.
Yes...he ignored a ton of intel that countered his stupid ideas. The US, Brits, Swedes...everyone told Stalin what was coming. Even his own intel people. They captured German soldiers who also told them what was going on. A very amazing part of history!
They would too...LOL!
Daylight bombing started in 1942 before there was the P-51. The air crew losses were atrocious , 50% casualty rate for the war. There were as many lost in training accidents in the states as in the war.
I have some theories, I think Stalin deep down didn’t mind the population reduction. It gave him more leverage in negotiating after the war, because, after all “We lost 20 million people”.
Also, Stalin didn’t shed a tear over Hitler getting rid of a lot of Jews for him.
havent had a chance to jump on FR yet today, or I would have most certainly mentioned it... :)
That is correct! When Hitler got power, first order of business was to take out the Bavarian Communists. He wasn’t that dumb!
Just watch the movie "Come and See" (Idi i Smotri). That was actually a rogue band of SS, that even Himmler distanced from.
Mao indeed was a brutal overlord, my comments were about what Stalin did to his own army to make them fight. Read Max Hasting’s book Armageddon , it was brutal.
north of 80% of all Wehrmacht casualties in all theaters were incurred on the Eastern Front.
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