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shawnmmcc
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That myth - of the Soviets moving troops up just before the German strike - has always puzzled me. I believe it was Erickson's Road to Stalingrad that goes through an excellent operational analysis of the Soviet Army up through Stalingrad. The Soviets were in the middle of reoganizing in 1941! They were in no way ready for an offensive. As I've mentioned before, they were actually trying to build a new defensive line in Poland, and he covers very thoroughly how this actually helped lead to the initial Soviet losses. The troops were not in all the previous fortificiations that had been on the old Polish-Soviet border, and also had that ridiculous don't piss off the Nazis order. Between those factors, and the utter terror Stalin had engendered in the Soviet military commands, nobody so much as twitched without his approval. That is why the Nazis were so tremendously successful at the start.
Reference what would happen if the Nazis do not declare war on the US - that gets interesting. First of all, FDR had always considered Hitler the major threat. I have even read a cite, unverified, that he had actually read Mein Kampf. He clearly considered Hitler a threat from before WW2. This certainly is consistant with his actions and what is shown by the historical record.
In fact FDR had been insisting on US escort of convoys carrying war materials to Britian, in blatant violation of all sorts of neutrality acts. He was trying to manufacture an incident, and the Kreigsmarine had very strict orders for U-Boats to NOT fire back at attacking US military escorts, even though some of the U-Boat commanders decided f**k this, and shot back at the American escorts depth charging them. FDR's instigation, and continued help of Great Britian, made the Nazis happy to jump at the chance to attack the US, especially one that had suffered such a major defeat as Pearl Harbor (which was actually a blessing in disguise, defenestrating the Battleship admirals and preventing Plan Orange from being implemented and thus trying to defend the Phillipines, which would have been disaster in my and many other historians opinion).
Unfortunately for the Nazis, and fortunately for the world, they had nobody among their influential leaders who was opposed to war with the US when it happened. I would find the Japanese avoiding war with the US the only plausible scenario to keep the Nazis out of war with the US. The Nazis leadership was a meglomaniac surrounded by a group of syncophants and toadies, the vast majority of which were utterly incompetent. The only competent high level leader among the Nazis was Goering, and only when he was head of the Secret Police. Once Goering got the Air Force and Himler/Heydrich got the internal police, there was no competency at anything in Hitler's innner circle.
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Dr Strangelove
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I think that even if the Axis had taken Malta getting past El Alamein would not have been possible. Getting supplies from Tripoli acroos the desert to the front in Egypt proved to be as difficult as getting them across the Mediterranean under British interdiction. The British had raiding forces in the western desert that sometimes were as efficient as the subs and planes of Malta.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Micha
First of all, watch your language. Itīs not as if we were talking about an ancient civ no longer present... 
Second, most mistakes the German side made during the war had their origin in Hitlerīs constant overruling of the Generals. They were brilliant strategists while Hitler was a politician. |
In many ways we are talking about a civ that is no longer present. The militaristic, anti-semetic German culture of pre-1945 destroyed itself in WWII. The German culture of today is significantly different. Besides, what difference does it make.
Yes, many mistakes were the result of Hitler's decisions, but many were not. So it is accurate to say that the Germans showed a propensity toward stupidity during the war.
The German generals, while often brilliant at the tactical level, were usually incredibly stupid at the strategic level. The Germans never produced a brilliant strategic general like Marshall.
In 1941, the Germans charged into Russia, over-extended themselves and paid the price during the winter. The Germans then proceeded to repeat the same mistake in 1942. While Hitler was pushing for deep advances, the field commanders failed to take pre-cautions against a counterattack and failed to protect their supply lines. Had the generals advanced more slowly, the counterattacks in the winter of 1942 would have been less disasterous on the Germans.
The Germans generals also continued to underestimate the Russians even after the Russians had proved that they could hit back hard.
The failure to recognize that Enigma had been compromised cannot be blamed on Hitler.
The failure to standardize equipment led to supply problems at the front. This is particularly true of the German tanks.
In each of the above cases, if the Germans had been smarter, the outcome of the war may have been different. And in each case, the German commanders had time to think about their decisions, unlike many of the wrong decisions in the heat of battle that led to Allied defeats. More than that, the Germans rarely learned from their mistakes.
The German generals were also utterly incompetent in their relations with Hitler, unlike Zhukov who was smart enough to find ways to work with his murderous, egotistical dictator.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The Brits had troops in Egypt/Palestine and India, while moving troops and supplies over sea lanes would be a bit of a problem for the Nazis. |
The Germans and Italians had troops in North Africa, the Vichy French had troops in the Middle East, and there was (as I had mentioned) an anti-British Arab revolt in Iraq. The Germans had also beaten the Allies in Greece.
The Grand Mufti was fomenting dissent and revolt in Palestine, and there pro-German Egyptians amongst them Nasser and Sadat).
With Turkey neutral, the Axis had the Dodecanese as a staging point and could have occupied Cyprus.
Last edited by molly bloom on 07-04-2005 at 20:05
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Micha
How Ironic that both symbols of extremist governments - The Reich for Fascism, the SU for Communism - have collapsed while fighting each other, leaving two superpowers as their heirs with almost the same political setups... When those two begin fighting each other, the wheel of history might stop spinning at last... 
Anyway, thanks Ned for the quote! Thatīs quite an interesting one. Do you know what was meant by "Remember Hitler's prophesies regarding Japan and about whom her annihilation would serve best." ? |
Zionists.
Here's the entire passage.
"The signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact had several remarkable features:
Ribbentrop had initiated it without the knowledge of the Wilhelmstrasse (the German Foreign Office). In this respect Hitler's tactics resembled those of Roosevelt, who always relied on intimate advisers such as Felix Frankfurter, Henry Morgenthau and the pro-Soviet Harry Hopkins rather than on his State Department. The negotiations for the Pact were carried out by Herr von Raumer of the "Bureau Ribbentrop" and the Japanese Military. The Japanese liaison officer was the Military Attache Hiroshi Oshima. The Japanese Foreign Office and the Wilhelmstrasse were informed only at the last minute. This was the internal feature, so to speak.
Hitler's move was a blow to Great Britain which then aided the Red government in Spain on the grounds that it was the only legal government. Britain was legally correct but politically wrong. If Britain had fought Communism in Spain with Franco, Soviet influence would not reign today in Aden, Ethiopia and elsewhere. Japan had been England's ally in the First World War. The Pact had now blocked this road to partnership.
There were other reasons for Hitler's approach to Japan. In Mein Kampf he wrote: "When I was 16 years old I followed the Russian-Japanese war (of 1905) with great interest. For national reasons I immediately sided with Japan. A Russian defeat automatically meant a defeat of the Slavs within the Austrian empire."8 Even more revealing, Hitler observed that Great Britain was reluctant to weaken her alliance with Japan after the war because that would have weakened her position vis a vis the United States or, in Hitler's words, "the gigantic colossus of the United States with her enormous resources." Nevertheless, the entire Jewish press had definitely turned against Japan. Hitler argued: "How is it possible that the Jewish Anglo-Saxon papers which had faithfully backed England's war against Imperial Germany suddenly committed a breach of faith and pursued different aims? The annihilation of Germany was not so much a British interest as a Jewish one, just as the annihilation of Japan does not serve the interests of Britain, but rather the long range goals of the advocates of Jewish world domination. England exerts every effort to maintain her predominant position in this world, whereas the Jews are organizing to attack her."7 A few lines later Hitler wrote: "A stable national monarchy like Japan is a thorn in Israel's eye. Japan will suffer the fate of Imperial Germany." In short, the 1936 German pact with Japan was less anti-British than it was anti-Jewish. Do not forget that Hitler's Mein Kampf was written sixty years ago-sixty years in a rapidly changing century. r suggest that you draw your own conclusions from this fact and consider that since the Second World War America has become the heir of the outworn British Empire. Could America not face the same fate? Are you really convinced that your country is run only by your President and an independent Congress? Hitler certainly cannot be considered a statesman like Bismarck, who was far superior. Like Napoleon, Hitler ultimately failed as a statesman and military leader. But Hitler was a prophet-a political prophet with a logical outlook.
Hitler's policy towards Japan resembled his approach to the Poland of Marshal Josef Pilsudski when he concluded a ten-year Non-Aggression Pact with Poland on 26 January 1934. A new phase in German-Polish relations was opened. Hitler sought an effective German-Polish bloc against the Soviet Union in Europe and a similar alliance with Japan against the USSR in Asia. Hitler considered the detachment of Pilsudski's Poland from the Anglo-French alliance as a personal triumph over the German Foreign Office which still stubbornly clung to Gustav Stresemann's anti-Polish and pro-Soviet policy. I can assure you that if Pilsudski had not died in 1935, Britain would never have succeeded in trapping Poland into the unilateral anti-German alliance which forced Hitler to cancel the German-Polish pact on 28 April 1939. Polish-French Freemasonry played an important role in this.8 This was the beginning of Poland's demise-a twilight which, thanks to Roosevelt and Churchill, has lasted until today."
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
That myth - of the Soviets moving troops up just before the German strike - has always puzzled me. I believe it was Erickson's Road to Stalingrad that goes through an excellent operational analysis of the Soviet Army up through Stalingrad. The Soviets were in the middle of reoganizing in 1941! They were in no way ready for an offensive. As I've mentioned before, they were actually trying to build a new defensive line in Poland, and he covers very thoroughly how this actually helped lead to the initial Soviet losses. The troops were not in all the previous fortificiations that had been on the old Polish-Soviet border, and also had that ridiculous don't piss off the Nazis order. Between those factors, and the utter terror Stalin had engendered in the Soviet military commands, nobody so much as twitched without his approval. That is why the Nazis were so tremendously successful at the start.
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The question, shawn, is what not if, but when. Brezhnev apparently admitted the USSR planned to attack. Now, given everything we know about Communism, do you think they would be honest in their rendition of their true timetable?
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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What jumps out from reading the Braun article is that German policy prior to the war was generally directed to conquering the USSR. Hitler moved to form an alliance with Japan and with Poland. He tried to maintain friendly relations with the US. He had no intention of making war on Britain and France, at least, not immediately.
Britain frustrated his efforts in Europe after Czechoslovakia; especially after it formed an alliance with Poland. The attack on Poland became a strategic necessity for an eventual attack on the USSR. Had Poland not switched sides, they would not have been attacked at all it appears.
Throughout, the "liberal" US and British media wer painting the monsterous Soviet Union in glowing terms as approaching a paradise on Earth, and were painting the Japanese and Germans as the ultimate evil. Now, Braun blames this on "Zionism." But it appears the ratio essendi may instead have been communism itself, together with Soviet spies, manipulating the media and Western governments against the parties that had signed the anti-Comintern Pact, but more particularly against nations that posed the most immediate threat to the USSR: Germany and Japan.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
There was very little appetite among the German General Staff for attacking the Soviet Union. The only person who I am aware was for this initially was Hitler. I can't see blaming the General Staff for the strategic direction of the war in most instances. They were largely shut out of strategy and stuck with simply implementing the military portions of NAZI policy. |
There's more to strategy than deciding which country to attack.
When the Germans decided to invade the Soviet Union, they had to decide how. The initial plan was relatively vague with three main thrusts, but no defined end goals.
When the German achieved the initial victories and were charging forwards, the generals should have been making plans about how far to go. Instead, they simply use a gas gauge as a plan - we'll go as far as we can. By the first week of September, they were already over-extended, but they kept going (one could argue that they were already over-extended by mid-August). The fault here lies with the generals, not Hitler. The failure to take logistics into account was gross incompetency.
Now a lot of this is because they assumed that the Soviets were like the French. The Germans seemed to believe that if they could just get one tank into Moscow then Russia would surrender. Given what had happened in France, it is understandable why the Germans though this way.
The Soviet winter offensive prove beyond any doubt that the Soviets were not like the French.
Despite knowing this, the Germans repeated the mistakes of 41 in the summer of 42 with the attack in the southeast. Once again, the German over-extended themselves, particularly during Sept to Nov. While Hitler intervened in ordering troops forward, the commanders on the ground could have moved forward at a slower pace, one that protected their flanks. Instead they pushed forward as hard as they could without paying any consideration to the strategic picture (ie what's happening on the left and right, and can I hold the ground I take). The stupidity of the German generals was to focus only on attacking and driving as far as they could, with scant regard to what would happen once winter arrived. Even if the Germans had been able to achieve their goals for the 42 offensive, they would not have had the resources to hold the captured ground.
Of course, after the war, the generals blamed Hitler rather than taking responsibility for their own stupidity.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Ned's point makes sense. Hitler didn't equip his troops with winter clothing because he had expected Russia to have surrendered by October. It can be argued that the German failure to design a long range bomber was not due to them underestimating the British, but rather as a lack of will to fight them. |
No, Ned, as usual, is completely wrong.
The Germans never developed long-range bombers because they never a saw need for them, unlike the British and Americans who had to develop these bombers.
German medium-range bombers could strike Britain from Northern France, a distance of about 250 kilometers, and they did so quite easily during the Blitz with two-engine bombers.
For Britain to hit Berlin, the Brits needed aircraft that could fly 1,800 km, there and back. This required four-engine aircraft. As a result, the Brits developed the Lancaster and the Halifax, both of which were developed after France was defeated.
Before the war, the Americans needed long-range bombers to support the western Pacific holdings, an aircraft that could fly from the U.S. West Coast to Hawaii and beyond.
Once the war started, the U.S. needed long-range bombers for Europe for the same reasons as the Brits.
The development of heavy bombers, or lack thereof, was a result of geography.
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Tingkai
There's more to strategy than deciding which country to attack.
When the Germans decided to invade the Soviet Union, they had to decide how. The initial plan was relatively vague with three main thrusts, but no defined end goals. |
(from Wikipedia's Barbarossa entry)
Operation Barbarossa was largely the brainchild of Hitler himself. His general staff advised against fighting a war on two fronts. But Hitler considered himself a political and military genius, and indeed at this point in the war he had achieved a whole series of lightning victories against what appeared to be insurmountable odds, while the generals wanted to prove that they were needed at all.
Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev / Ukraine were the immediate goals of the three thrusts. This is more the realm of operations than strategy. The actual strategy never seemed very clear and it varied depending on Hitler's mood. Was the strategy to occupy the important places of the Soviet Union first or to destroy enemy forces first? The original plan had Army Group Center heading along the Orsha land bridge for Moscow. Hitler intervened and had Guderion move south along the East side of the Pripet marshes in order to surround the Soviet forces holding the line around Kiev. In the end this doomed the thrust for Moscow, even as it produced large numbers of enemy casualties and POWs. The plan is Hitler's as is the deviation from the plan. Both were resisted by the Generals on hand and in both cases Hitler prevailed.
quote:
Originally posted by Tingkai
When the German achieved the initial victories and were charging forwards, the generals should have been making plans about how far to go. Instead, they simply use a gas gauge as a plan - we'll go as far as we can. By the first week of September, they were already over-extended, but they kept going (one could argue that they were already over-extended by mid-August). The fault here lies with the generals, not Hitler. The failure to take logistics into account was gross incompetency. |
They knew how far they had to go, and in almost every case it was too far. They were ordered to take Leningrad and Moscow and failed. The orders were from Hitler and the lapdogs he placed on the General staff to carry out his will. There are numerous instances of generals complaining about the logistics and other operational limitations which made their goals in the end unrealistic. Several were sacked immediately while others were made to understand that their orders were not negotiable. It was Hitler who insisted on constantly pushing the spearheads forward rather than waiting for more logistical support and combat power to advance.
As for logistics, it is ridiculous to accuse the Germans of not taking them into account. The big failure was the amazingly poor intelligence about the state of the Soviet road network. It seems likely that someone in Germany knew that most of those "highways" on the map were simply dirt tracks with no vehicle traversible secondary parallels in many instances, yet amazingly no one on the German side seems to have been aware of just how much of a struggle they were in for simply moving across Russia. The closest thing they had experience of was the Western half of Poland in 1939, which had a much better road network which of course was well-known as it had been part of Germany 20 years earlier.
This sort of intelligence failure is in fact very reminiscent of recent events in the U.S., where information which seemed to contradict the policy initiatives of the executive branch was dismissed as weak (and it generally was) while information which was just as weak or weaker (but supportive of the great assumption) was touted as undeniable fact.
The inadequacy of the road net slowed both the combat units and their supplies. The effect on supplies was particularly hard on the plan, as the effective range of the supply wagons from the rail was about half of what it would have been elsewhere, leaving huge swaths of the country out of or inadequately supplied.
The largest failure of German logistical planning was in fact the lack of a plan to equip their huge army with winter gear in time for the winter of 1941-42. I pin this partially on the atmosphere of overconfidence that Hitler encouraged and partially on the confusion of planning enormous operations with a cowed staff depleted by political appointments of yes men and an organization which was prone to constant (often seemingly random) interference from the top. The normal oversight function of the top layer was lost in the resulting chaos.
Again the lion's share of these failures belong to Hitler, not his field generals. Field generals have their orders, they don't just go joy riding off into the Siberian sunrise unless they are ordered to do so. They are responsible for moving supplies within their own area, but can't be expected to perform miracles when their area expands to a huge size while the transport provided is completely insufficient. Pre-war intelligence gathering is beyond their perview.
quote:
Originally posted by Tingkai
Now a lot of this is because they assumed that the Soviets were like the French. The Germans seemed to believe that if they could just get one tank into Moscow then Russia would surrender. Given what had happened in France, it is understandable why the Germans though this way.
The Soviet winter offensive prove beyond any doubt that the Soviets were not like the French. |
Soviet bungling in the Winter War also had a large impact on their thinking.
quote:
Originally posted by Tingkai
Despite knowing this, the Germans repeated the mistakes of 41 in the summer of 42 with the attack in the southeast. Once again, the German over-extended themselves, particularly during Sept to Nov. While Hitler intervened in ordering troops forward, the commanders on the ground could have moved forward at a slower pace, one that protected their flanks. Instead they pushed forward as hard as they could without paying any consideration to the strategic picture (ie what's happening on the left and right, and can I hold the ground I take). The stupidity of the German generals was to focus only on attacking and driving as far as they could, with scant regard to what would happen once winter arrived. Even if the Germans had been able to achieve their goals for the 42 offensive, they would not have had the resources to hold the captured ground.
Of course, after the war, the generals blamed Hitler rather than taking responsibility for their own stupidity. |
Again you blame the generals for things that are beyond their authority in most cases. The Caucasas safari was pure Hitler, as was the fixation on Stalingrad, the no-retreat orders etc. In any event it wasn't individual units which were destroyed as they advanced unsupported in 1942 as you seem to imply, but a prolonged bleeding at the end of the supply chain followed by an enemy offensive that destroyed the weakest links in the German line. The Germans were overextended at the highest level, not destroyed piecemeal by the idiocy of individual commanders.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
this alleged suppy issue is such BS |
Is not.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Tingkai
No, Ned, as usual, is completely wrong.
The Germans never developed long-range bombers because they never a saw need for them, unlike the British and Americans who had to develop these bombers.
German medium-range bombers could strike Britain from Northern France, a distance of about 250 kilometers, and they did so quite easily during the Blitz with two-engine bombers.
The development of heavy bombers, or lack thereof, was a result of geography. |
Tinkai, you support my point while denying that you do. The point I made is that the Germans did not develop heavy bombers because they didn't think they would need them. You make the same point. So, we have no fundamental disagreement.
Others here have said that had Germany had long range bombers, it could have taken Britain out of the war effectively by bombing its industry, expecially is plane factories, which was beyond the range of the medium bombers based in France.
But, you say, Hitler could have invaded, but chose not to. But, on the contrary, such an invasion was never part of German planning as they did not have the naval means to do so, and further never was able to achieve air supremacy that such an invasion would have required precisely because they could not knock out the Brit plane factories.
All this adds up to one conclusion: Germany was not planning to make war on Britain. It was forced into the war by Brits after their encircling policy of defensive alliances in 1939. To Hitler, this move by the Brits was quite unexpected since thier policy was one of appeasement since '36.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Tinkai, you support my point while denying that you do. The point I made is that the Germans did not develop heavy bombers because they didn't think they would need them. You make the same point. So, we have no fundamental disagreement.
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No Ned, you claim that the lack of heavy bombers is proof that Germany did not want to fight Britain. That is completely wrong.
The German medium-range bombers were able to hit British targets, including aircraft factories. One of the major Spitfire factories was near Birmingham which got plastered during the blitz.
More than that, if theory was right then Germany never planned to attack the Soviet Union because one of the German's great failure was not having long-range bombers to hit distant Soviet factories.
Your theory, Ned, has been pwn'd
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07-04-2005 06:55
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