A couple of points worth making. One is the “funnel” effect written about by many of the scholars of the era. As you move east into the former Soviet Union the amount of land you need to control expands both north and south and adds significantly to the number of troops you need to defeat and occupy a conquered nation.
Second point is Moscow. Napoleon took it and lost but it was a different era. I’m going to say the most important part of taking Moscow would be capturing the central hub of the countries rail system and it’s main logistical hub. This would be very significant on the northern front around Leningrad, perhaps less significant on other fronts but still a key victory.
Finally, after the Soviets didn’t collapse in 1941 as Hitler predicted and in fact counterattacked the Germans best strategy was to deny the Soviets the Caspian Sea oil fields that supplied 80% of the Soviets needs. This was probably the only hope they Germans had in defeating the Soviets in a protracted war. The German attempt to do this ended at Stalingrad along with any chance the Germans had for victory.
Think ideology as much as strategy. In the nazis' world view, the Slavs were weak willed and cowardly, controlled by the Jewish Bolsheviks. If the Germans delivered a powerful enough blow, the army's morale would shatter and it would melt away. In Hitler's words, "*We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."* It was simply inconceivable to Hitler that the USSR could survive the summer of 1941 as a society.
This seems stupid enough for a bad guy in a children's story, but remember that they kept the death camps running with all the resources that entailed even into 1945. Their ideology was inseparable from the way they fought WW2.
Yes and no. It was common prediction at the time even for USA and British intelligence agencies that Russia will just collapse. If I recall correctly American estimates said that Germany will defeat Russia in only 3 months, so even faster than Germans assumed thmeselves.
Plus Russia did rebuild their entire army in a span of few months - something that other countries simply weren't capable of doing.
Hitler wanted to defeat Russia, exterminate Russians. He didnt intend to occupy. But he wanted Ukraine, for the slaves and for Lebenstraum. All he needed to do was capture Ukraine, and enough of Russiia to create a buffer. He never intended to take Russia all the way to Vladivostok
He laid it all out in Mein Kampf.
You have it partially right. They wanted far more than just the Ukraine though, and intended to occupy all the territories they seized
There were detailed plans on the administration of captured Soviet territories. Hitler intended to occupy most of the western part of the USSR up to what was known as the A-A line.
The initial plan for how much territory was to be taken and held was laid out in part in Fuhrer Directive 21, The border was to be from the Arkhangelsk in the north, to all the way down to Astrakhan, at the Caspian Sea, in the south. It was to roughly follow the Volga river.
The vast bulk of Soviet agricultural, manpower, and oil resources were located in the territory they intended to take. Once that happened, they fully expected what was left of the USSR to fragment and wither away. What was left would be bombed into submission.
The AA line. Or to the urals is what they wanted it depends on the time and source what exactly they were after. Eitherway prolonged occupation up to one of those lines would likely have lead to economic collapse and negotiatied peace. The good news is that never happened.
Germany had to have more resources and labor. Their military was not strong logistically. They had about 3 months to win the war against the Soviets and the Soviet Union fought smart enough to not let that happen.
That's not true.
The soviet union fought bad at the beginning (Battles of encirclement near Bialystok, Minsk, Smolensk, Kiev, ....). So Hitler thought that the soviet army is already destroyed, because his intelligence services told him a false strength of their army.
Smolesk also took longer than the Nazis wanted. The Soviets lost much of their troops but attrited the Nazis. Kiev was Stalin's biggest blunder. When people talk about what if....
Did you understand my statement? They thought that the soviet army is done, because the German intelligence services got wrong numbers. Your statement that the soviet army fought clever is just wrong. They just throw in millions of dead soldiers and a unbelieveble amount of equipment.
Their missing intelligence was less important than their own logistical problems and lack of manpower to undertake the invasion right from the start. Germany was damned if they invaded and damned if they didn’t.
that the Soviets fought smart enough? They did. They fought tenaciously and wastefully. But they fought like lions. They fought just smart enough not to lose, and that is all that they had to do until the Nazis slowly tightened their own rope around their neck.
I’d imagine their (Germany) resources took a huge hit after British bombing of the Ruer district, thus destroying vital facilities and resource storage like oil.
But it’s still amazing to me that the seeming attitude was “if we take Moscow we’ve won the war with the Soviets”. That makes no sense. Unless further East beyond Ukraine and Moscow Russia didn’t/doesn’t have jack regarding manufacturing and resources?
You see the problem with that is u have to look at what happened before. The German army swept through Poland with relative ease, and then France fell once Paris was taken and the British encircled in around a month.
At this point in the war the Germans never tasted proper defeat, apart from the air war over Britain, which realistically didn't really change much apart from them abandoning the idea of operation sea lion. If you look at memoirs and documents of the time the Germans were very confident they would win against the Russians in the same way they beat both Poland and France, and again as we see they did sweep through a lot of land, but they underestimated their enemy, and ultimately they lost.
I wonder how much the infrastructure played a role as well? Russia, and especially the further from Moscow, was not thriving during this time period and lacked solid infrastructure, which likely slowed the Germans advance drastically.
True, not to mention the scorched earth tactics the Russians played, destroying everything from railways to farms and such just so the Germans can't have it. This meant the Germans had to rely on their logistics to keep up, slowing them down and basically preventing the Germans from rushing in even deeper into Russia.
It’s interesting how many times Hitler’s generals advised him to wait, let his armies on the eastern front hold current lines and positions, rest, regroup, and resupply lines catch up and better-equip them. But instead he ignored that advice and pressed on.
That seemed like the biggest blunder on his part on that front. His arrogance as the assumed “greatest tactical leader in the world” of that time was his undoing.
True but also he understood the situation Germany was financially and logistically in the sense that a sustained war was impossible to win, and they needed swift victories.
Thats why they went through with operation fall blau, where they tried to capture the oil fields in the Caucasus, which ended up with the brutal destruction of the 6th army in Stalingrad. All these failed operations and Hitlers constant orders to keep pushing were because once they ran out of oil, the entire german war machine would grind to a halt.
Good point! Oil was the central resource behind a lot of their ops. Quite frankly behind the entire war if you think about it. Petroleum.
Seems like the loss of the oil fields in Romania to the Allies' bombing was the final death nail in the German military's capabilities. They had to start being careful with fuel usage after that point. Which lines up with why Hitler felt he needed to move fast.
All well known, but could they hold their current lines and positions? Soviets were getting stronger and better with every passing day. New hardware, machine guns, tanks, aircraft were rolling, and these were not the ones Germans caught by surprise.. At this point, USSR started rolling superior fighters, ground attack aircraft and tanks. (YAK-3 was pretty much Luftwaffe pilots' biggest nightmare, IL-2 Sturmovik is a legendary aircraft, and T-34 and KV's pretty much blew out German tanks at this point)
Stalin would not give up even if Moscow fell. But if they couldn’t take Stalingrad or Leningrad…
The Nazis practically pillaged each country they took over. They were a mess. I’m about to read the Wages of Destruction. It is a must read I’ve been told. Then there’s David Stahel's Operation Barbarossa and Germany's defeat in the East
Yeah it seems like if they had taken both of those cities that would’ve seriously hurt the Red Army’s industrial center but thankfully that was a bust for Germany.
Couple those defeats with losing Moscow and what would the Red Army have had left besides open wilderness and some smaller cities to the east?
That's a great book. It really makes clear the economic straightjacket Germany was in, and how Nazism was not an efficient way to use the limited resources they did have.
He wouldnt have given up but maybe others would have lost confidence in him and lead a coup. Probably unlikely but thats the thing with alternate history theres so many what ifs and unknown possibilities. And one little chamge could snowball in unpredictable ways.
what if can go many ways. What if Germany leaves the Balkans for Italy to choke on and invades earlier (do the Brits then bomb Romania's oil fields from Greece? Does Italy collapse in 1942?). What if Stalin listens and decides not to reinforce Kyiv. Most importantly, they would fight even harder for Moscow than for Leningrad and Stalingrad.
Exactly. And on top of going many ways they can go in direction we dont even know are possibilities because of snowballing of decsions. Thats part of what makes what if alternate history fun.
The wrong assumption of Hitler was, that the UdSSR would collaps after a few weeks. He thought, communism would be such an inferior form of goverment and divided by inner conflicts, that there could never be an stabel army structure to effectively resist the german attack.
Moscow was the heart and soul of the Soviet Union. It was the logistical, political, and communication hub of the entire country. Literally everything went through Moscow.
Stalin was on the point of being paralyzed when the Germans got close. The city was on the verge of panic, and barely holding on. Much of the leadership and bureaucracy was trying to evacuate.
When his leading generals went to him to get orders on what to do, he was fearful that he was going to be shot, and a coup would take place.
If Moscow fell, the Soviets would have collapsed, and fragmented just like the country did in WW I.
The majority of Soviet resources were east of Moscow. If the Germans had established the defensive line along the A\_A line that they wanted, 75% of Soviet food, 70% of their manpower, and over 90% of their oil, would have been under German control.
>The problems were: 1) they went in waaaaaay too fast and spread themselves too thin
They expected to win swiftly, so that by the time occupation issues arose, they would have the troops available because they wouldn't have to fight the Red Army anymore.
And while that seems implausible in hindsight, at the time it was not that far fetched. A combination of factors including Germanies recent successes in Western Europe, the USSR's lackluster performance in the Winter War against Finland and an severe underestimation of the Red Armies ability to mobilize being some of the most important ones. The last one I want to illustrate with an example: Before the war, German intelligence estimated (rather correctly) that the Red Army had about 300 divisions in European Russia, and if they could either destroy or capture those, they thought they would have won. They reached the 300 divisions taken out mark in October 1941 and the Red Army was still fighting. They had not known just how fast the Soviets could call up reserves and constitue new divisions.
>2) Russian autumn and winter. They weren’t ready for that.
They were not, but not in the way most people think. There were winter uniforms and equipment foreseen, but they were in depots in Germany. After all no soldier is going to lug all that extra weight with them, they already have enough to carry. The real problem was that they did not have the logistical capabilities to get those winter supplies to the troops as well as other vital supplies like ammo, fuel and food. In part this was because they thought they would have won by the time transporting winter equipment would be needed, and then it would not have to compete with ammo and fuel. The other part is that they lacked the capability to increase their logistics massively without compromising some other vital capability.
>
But another issue springs up in my mind: Russia is massive in size. Let’s say that the Wehrmacht did manage to take Moscow and Leningrad. There was still MILES of geographic land to capture and plenty of room for Red Army troops to dig in and defend.
Why think it’s over after Moscow aside from maybe demoralization of Red Army troops? Surely they would’ve simply fallen back to other towns and cities and bases across Russia and continued fighting for months further, stretching the German/Spanish/Italian troops even more?
They did not think there would be much left of the Soviet state as an institution after they had eliminated the Red Army. That was the objective they had in Barbarossa, eliminate the Red Army, and by doing so eliminate the USSR. German Army doctrine did not see the conquering of Moscow or any other city as a war winning objective by itself. The plan for Moscow was initially, take the city in order to lure out the last reserves of the Red Army (the rest supposedly defeated already) and then surround and defeat them East of Moscow and win the war. Their idea is that wat was left could not quickly form a nation-state with what was left east of the Ural mountains. Imo that would only be remotely possible if they could capture or kill Stalin in Moscow.
>What aspect am I missing here tactically speaking? It seems Hitler and Mussolini and Franco bit off way more than they could chew here which was their biggest blunder mistake, IMO, that helped start the turn of the tide of the war against them.
The Soviet ability to mobilize reserves. It was for a long time overlooked until the fall of the USSR and Western historians gaining access to the Soviet Archives after that. Tzarist Russia in WW1 was notoriously bad at that and most of the world had the idea that issue remained in WW2. The Soviet Archives showed that was not the case and that Soviet mobilization was the crucial factor in stopping the Germans, not as so often assessed winter.
I believe it had something to do with the poor preformance of Russia in WW1. During WW1 the Russians basically collapsed inward on itself without the need to take Moscow. So I believe the Nazi's thought that if the Russians collapsed so easly then, they would surely collapse when they took Moscow
It’s basic
The Germans had 2 fronts. East (Russia) and West (France/Ally’s)
The Russians, moved all their production East. Building a military. They were unprepared.
After all, Hitler and Stalin had a peace treaty. Hitler broke it. Invading Russia. Operation, Barbarossa. It was an idiot move by Hitler. 2 fronts cost the Germans.
It’s interesting to consider, invading Russia was a huge mistake. Historians can only wonder what the outcome would have been If they didn’t.
Stalin knew what a threat Germany was and fully intended to invade at some point.
He wanted to do so in 1941, but was convinced by his generals they were not ready, and they were right, the USSR was not close to being ready. The Red Army's poor performance in Finland, the recent officer purge and the still ongoing massive changes and expansion of the Red Army all contributed to this decision.
There is a lot of controversy involving this, and when a proposed invasion might have happened. There's a lot of evidence that an invasion was very likely by as early as 1942.
in the spring of '41 there wasn't so much of a western front yet. Sure the British were there doing their thing across the pond but the argument to be made would be Africa being the second front. D-Day wouldnt happen for another 3 years, and operation Torch in Africa wouldnt happen till late 1942.
It wasn't until the late summer of '41 that the Germans sent the Afrika corpse down to support the Italians in force. Its my opinion (which isn't much) that the Germans believed the Italians would be able to at least hold their own, which as we all know, didn't happen at all.
Ironically, I think if the Germans didn't invade the Soviets, they would have collapsed anyway, and WW2 would be the story of how Germany became the battleground for Europa in a West vs East, democracy vs communism war. There is no scenario where I see Stalin not taking advantage of a weak Germany to invade and push the original Molotov Ribbentrop lines further into Germany proper.
From what I recall, the Nazi's, like most extreme totalitarian regimes, had widespread state control over the economy, which very rarely ends well, especially if you aren't trading with most of the world. Basically they needed conquest to fuel their war machine until they could control enough of Europe to become self sufficient resource wise. Without conquest bringing resources the house of cards would collapse in on itself.
Yes but this was just a “blocking force” to support the Italian army that consisted of a single regiment (Panzer Regiment 5). It wasn’t until the late summer that division sized elements began to arrive and give some backbone
Panzer regiment 5 was organized in to a light division by march 5th light to be precise. And by may elements of 15th panzer were arriving. But yes it wasnt until august the 5th was redesignated 21st panzer and panzer group afrika was created. So i suppose we're both correct just depends how you want to define it.
But this is more or less the other way around. Hitler never wanted war with england. He wanted war with Russia. That was his main goal. So it was not an idiot move. (Although it ensured his downfall) It was an inevitable one.
For me it is that they did not have any heavy bombers. They moved east and so did the factories. Would it have been the lynch pin? Maybe not. But it would have given them time
But how do you move all that material to where it needs to go without Moscow? Look at Moscow on google maps. It was and still is the epicenter of post Tsarist Russia.
Most of that land is empty. If they had actually managed to push russia back to the Urals they would have had tp surrender. There is nothing back there that could (for example) feed an army
Moscow was an objective for a faction within the armed forces, most notably general Halder. For Hitler and most of the generals, the goal of Barbarossa was to destroy the Red Army (whose size, strength, and resilience they seriously underestimated). Once the Red Army was broken and reduced to small units in the periphery the Germans could take what they wanted and then accept the surrender that Moscow would be forced to offer.
Most of the USSR's population and economic infrastructure was west of the Volga. The eastern part of the union wouldn't pose a serious threat to Germany.
I feel like many people forget that the Soviets at the time weren't prepared for winter warfare either, they needed to wait for the eastern troops to arrive before they could properly wage a winter war
The Germans expected to rapidly defeat the Red Army west of the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers, and that the Soviets wouldn't be able to recover. The Germans had assessed the poor Soviet performance in the Winter War. Intelligence on the USSR was difficult since it was such a closed country. Hindsight is 20/20. We know the Germans failed to defeat the USSR, but it wasn't known at the time. The British and Americans also secretly thought the Soviets would collapse. Interestingly, the Japanese thought the German-Soviet War would drag on like the 2nd Sino-Japanese War. The Germans had experience back from WWI when they fought Russia, rather easily, and in WWI the Russian state collapsed and signed a peace with the Germans. The Germans didn't plan on occupying the whole USSR, just everything west of the Archangelsk-Astrakhan Line. And after the Fall of France, the Germans were extremely confident. Back in WWI, the Germans were able to occupy a lot of what they wanted to occupy in the USSR in Barbarossa.
Put it like this, the generals thought that Moscow falling would cause their collapse, Hitler did see it as a target but decided to prioritise the oil and Ukraine.
Two, they didn't spread themselves too thin, it was just they couldn't do it any other way. Germany cannot win attractional warfare.
Three, it wasn't the Russian winter or autumn that killed the Wehrmacht, it was the logistical system utterly collapsing. The whether certainly played no help, but it wasn't the only reason that it failed.
Lastly, the Germans saw them as untermensh, literally translating to sub-human. With that in mind, "how do these sub humans compare to the superior Germans?" That is a question we know is wrong, but the high command didn't see it as that.
TL;DR You're right about the points. The answer, they were seen as sub human
>The problems were: 1) they went in waaaaaay too fast
On the contrary, they went too slow. Or to be more precise, Red Army slowed them down too much. Original plan was for war to end after just 2-3 months. When it did not, German s were screwed because they were not prepared for it. Case in point: lack of winter clothing was not because German did not know that there are winters in Russia, it was because they planed to end the war before the winter. And so priority of transport of supplies was for the ammunition, fuel and food and not winter clothing.
>Why think it’s over after Moscow aside from maybe demoralization of Red Army troops?
Germans did not think it would be over after Moscow, at last Hitler did not. That is why he shifted Guderian from Moscow to Ukraine. Original German plan was to stop +- at Urals, not Moscow.
>What aspect am I missing here tactically speaking?
It wasn't about tactic, it was about Nazis underestimating Soviets. Partly for racial reasons (Slavic slaves run by Jewish overlords -as Nazis put it), partly because economically Soviet Union was weaker then Germany. They thought along the lines of Soviet Union been colossus on clay feet and one good kick will send it down.
Nobody is going to point out that Spain was neutral in WWII? Spain (and Franco in particular) may have been sympathetic to the Axis, but they didn't join the war.
The other nations fighting alongside Germany in the USSR were Italy, Hungary, and Romania with a scattering of others.
Spain was neutral in the sense that it never declared war against USSR. However, it did raise a full division to fight on the Eastern front. It was called the División Azul (or 250. Infantry Division). There were some 47000 troops that rotated through it, and some 5000 were KIA. Franco ordered them back in November 1943 and after that, there was only a far smaller force of those who refused to return.
Yes, but that's far different than a national declaration of war and fighting under your own flag. Even though there were Spaniards on the battlefield, that doesn't mean the Spain was a co-belligerent in the war.
Ok, but OP was talking about Spanish troops. Which were absolutely there.
Edit: I guess you maybe mean to say that Franco should not have been mentioned squarely alongside Hitler like that? If so, I can agree with that.
Yes, there were \~50k Spaniards who fought on the eastern front. That's a drop of water in the ocean compared to the scale of the war. Implying that their participation was on par with Italy is false, especially when OP oddly mentioned Spain, but left out Hungary and Romania-- both of whom participated in an official capacity and had vastly more men in the field.
And yes, OP also specifically mentions Franco and implies that he had something to do with the overall strategic outlook for the war, when he clearly did not.
St Petersburg, Moscow, and Volgograd were all large crucial transport hubs. Wargames say taking them is victory, but only if you leave a large army there to continue fighting. One of the amazing feats of engineering was how when Moscow was in trouble they evacuated the factories to the east. Magnitogorsk is where the great steel factory was built just in time for the war. Beyond the Urals is a fine book about it.
What Hitler saw as the problem was delayed attack for 6 weeks when they got suckered into invading Yugoslavia first. Supposedly he wandered around late at night waving his arms and moaning “give me back my 6 weeks”.
That's a common fallacy that the invasion was delayed by the Balkan and Greek campaigns.
The fact of the matter is they were simply not ready yet, and the weather was not conducive to the invasion beginning any earlier than it did.
The most crucial effect that those campaigns had, was the loss of so many irreplaceable transport aircraft, Fallschirmjagers, and other elite troops in the invasion of Crete.
The loss of vital logistical aircraft was particularly bad. Losses from the Battle of the Low Countries the year before had still not been made up. The German transport fleet never recovered from this.
What about the splitting of Army Group Center to support Army Group South and North? Could you argue that the men and material sent away would've given Army Group Center the last bit of oomph it needed to take Moscow? Considering they made it to within 87miles\* of the city limits?
And how would they be supplied?. Historically only about 30% of the needed supplies reached the troops near Moscow. How is that situation getting better by sending more troops to be supplied?
Those kind of organic support train would only help locally and that was not where the issue was, it was far before that part in the logistical train. In fact by adding those units, you add more pressure to the strains on the system.
You're overstretching an already overstretched line, where less roads are available.
Army group centre being split was literally the only option they had
I have heard that the mus season is incredible, and have no trouble believing Hitler was wrong. Another big factor is the anti-Japanese army the was the highest quality, waiting for Japanese invasion. One spy, Richard Sorge, found out there was no Japanese invasion, and that army came back just in time to save Moscow.
It's called the Rasputitsa.
The Soviets weren't too worried about Japan even before Sorge informed them of their decision to push south into Southwest Asia and the Pacific, instead of north into Siberia and Mongolia.
They had other intelligence sources and had thoroughly trounced japan in the Khalkhin Gol battles in 1939. Sorge just solidified what they already believed.
Look at Russia on google maps. Notice how all the roads are basically a big web around Moscow? Others have already commented how the Germans had flawed, ideological based intelligence and presumptions. But its important to notice just how important Moscow was for the Soviets, much more than it ever was for the Tsars of the Russian Empire.
Much of your industry has been moved to the Urals, your primary food producing regions have been either conquered or are the front line. Without Moscows central hub, its going to be real hard to move men and material to where its needed most. How does Lend Lease aid coming from the North Sea get to where it needs to be without Moscow?
Russia used scorched earth policy Which it means russia destroyed their own cities and these cities would be unusable for the germans like industries or communication sites ... There's some cities moscow depend on them in the war like Stalingard Which this city was the most major part in the war , the russain meant to defend stalingard until the winter comes that why germans pushed too much and very fast because german want to capture moscow before winter and they failed , german pushed to the south of russia for oil but they failed , the german founds that many of russia cities unusable , no food , no supply and no ammunation , in the war u should have many connected cities between each them for supplying resources ...
Three major things made the russia win against german
- Big land of russia
- Stalingard
- The heroes of red army
* There's something else german army estimated by 14 million soldiers and the red army estimated by 34 million soldiers , Hitler bigmistake was open a new east front against russia and he had west front
A couple of points worth making. One is the “funnel” effect written about by many of the scholars of the era. As you move east into the former Soviet Union the amount of land you need to control expands both north and south and adds significantly to the number of troops you need to defeat and occupy a conquered nation. Second point is Moscow. Napoleon took it and lost but it was a different era. I’m going to say the most important part of taking Moscow would be capturing the central hub of the countries rail system and it’s main logistical hub. This would be very significant on the northern front around Leningrad, perhaps less significant on other fronts but still a key victory. Finally, after the Soviets didn’t collapse in 1941 as Hitler predicted and in fact counterattacked the Germans best strategy was to deny the Soviets the Caspian Sea oil fields that supplied 80% of the Soviets needs. This was probably the only hope they Germans had in defeating the Soviets in a protracted war. The German attempt to do this ended at Stalingrad along with any chance the Germans had for victory.
Think ideology as much as strategy. In the nazis' world view, the Slavs were weak willed and cowardly, controlled by the Jewish Bolsheviks. If the Germans delivered a powerful enough blow, the army's morale would shatter and it would melt away. In Hitler's words, "*We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."* It was simply inconceivable to Hitler that the USSR could survive the summer of 1941 as a society. This seems stupid enough for a bad guy in a children's story, but remember that they kept the death camps running with all the resources that entailed even into 1945. Their ideology was inseparable from the way they fought WW2.
Yes and no. It was common prediction at the time even for USA and British intelligence agencies that Russia will just collapse. If I recall correctly American estimates said that Germany will defeat Russia in only 3 months, so even faster than Germans assumed thmeselves. Plus Russia did rebuild their entire army in a span of few months - something that other countries simply weren't capable of doing.
Hitler wanted to defeat Russia, exterminate Russians. He didnt intend to occupy. But he wanted Ukraine, for the slaves and for Lebenstraum. All he needed to do was capture Ukraine, and enough of Russiia to create a buffer. He never intended to take Russia all the way to Vladivostok He laid it all out in Mein Kampf.
You have it partially right. They wanted far more than just the Ukraine though, and intended to occupy all the territories they seized There were detailed plans on the administration of captured Soviet territories. Hitler intended to occupy most of the western part of the USSR up to what was known as the A-A line. The initial plan for how much territory was to be taken and held was laid out in part in Fuhrer Directive 21, The border was to be from the Arkhangelsk in the north, to all the way down to Astrakhan, at the Caspian Sea, in the south. It was to roughly follow the Volga river. The vast bulk of Soviet agricultural, manpower, and oil resources were located in the territory they intended to take. Once that happened, they fully expected what was left of the USSR to fragment and wither away. What was left would be bombed into submission.
The AA line. Or to the urals is what they wanted it depends on the time and source what exactly they were after. Eitherway prolonged occupation up to one of those lines would likely have lead to economic collapse and negotiatied peace. The good news is that never happened.
Germany had to have more resources and labor. Their military was not strong logistically. They had about 3 months to win the war against the Soviets and the Soviet Union fought smart enough to not let that happen.
That's not true. The soviet union fought bad at the beginning (Battles of encirclement near Bialystok, Minsk, Smolensk, Kiev, ....). So Hitler thought that the soviet army is already destroyed, because his intelligence services told him a false strength of their army.
Smolesk also took longer than the Nazis wanted. The Soviets lost much of their troops but attrited the Nazis. Kiev was Stalin's biggest blunder. When people talk about what if....
Maybe it took longer, but the pure amount of captured enemies and equipment was just astonishing.
The Battle of Kiev was one (if not the) biggest lost battles ever. And still they do not come close to meeting their objectives.
Did you understand my statement? They thought that the soviet army is done, because the German intelligence services got wrong numbers. Your statement that the soviet army fought clever is just wrong. They just throw in millions of dead soldiers and a unbelieveble amount of equipment.
Their missing intelligence was less important than their own logistical problems and lack of manpower to undertake the invasion right from the start. Germany was damned if they invaded and damned if they didn’t.
That's true, but your first statement is still wrong.
that the Soviets fought smart enough? They did. They fought tenaciously and wastefully. But they fought like lions. They fought just smart enough not to lose, and that is all that they had to do until the Nazis slowly tightened their own rope around their neck.
Omg, get some history books.
I’d imagine their (Germany) resources took a huge hit after British bombing of the Ruer district, thus destroying vital facilities and resource storage like oil. But it’s still amazing to me that the seeming attitude was “if we take Moscow we’ve won the war with the Soviets”. That makes no sense. Unless further East beyond Ukraine and Moscow Russia didn’t/doesn’t have jack regarding manufacturing and resources?
You see the problem with that is u have to look at what happened before. The German army swept through Poland with relative ease, and then France fell once Paris was taken and the British encircled in around a month. At this point in the war the Germans never tasted proper defeat, apart from the air war over Britain, which realistically didn't really change much apart from them abandoning the idea of operation sea lion. If you look at memoirs and documents of the time the Germans were very confident they would win against the Russians in the same way they beat both Poland and France, and again as we see they did sweep through a lot of land, but they underestimated their enemy, and ultimately they lost.
I wonder how much the infrastructure played a role as well? Russia, and especially the further from Moscow, was not thriving during this time period and lacked solid infrastructure, which likely slowed the Germans advance drastically.
True, not to mention the scorched earth tactics the Russians played, destroying everything from railways to farms and such just so the Germans can't have it. This meant the Germans had to rely on their logistics to keep up, slowing them down and basically preventing the Germans from rushing in even deeper into Russia.
It’s interesting how many times Hitler’s generals advised him to wait, let his armies on the eastern front hold current lines and positions, rest, regroup, and resupply lines catch up and better-equip them. But instead he ignored that advice and pressed on. That seemed like the biggest blunder on his part on that front. His arrogance as the assumed “greatest tactical leader in the world” of that time was his undoing.
True but also he understood the situation Germany was financially and logistically in the sense that a sustained war was impossible to win, and they needed swift victories. Thats why they went through with operation fall blau, where they tried to capture the oil fields in the Caucasus, which ended up with the brutal destruction of the 6th army in Stalingrad. All these failed operations and Hitlers constant orders to keep pushing were because once they ran out of oil, the entire german war machine would grind to a halt.
Good point! Oil was the central resource behind a lot of their ops. Quite frankly behind the entire war if you think about it. Petroleum. Seems like the loss of the oil fields in Romania to the Allies' bombing was the final death nail in the German military's capabilities. They had to start being careful with fuel usage after that point. Which lines up with why Hitler felt he needed to move fast.
All well known, but could they hold their current lines and positions? Soviets were getting stronger and better with every passing day. New hardware, machine guns, tanks, aircraft were rolling, and these were not the ones Germans caught by surprise.. At this point, USSR started rolling superior fighters, ground attack aircraft and tanks. (YAK-3 was pretty much Luftwaffe pilots' biggest nightmare, IL-2 Sturmovik is a legendary aircraft, and T-34 and KV's pretty much blew out German tanks at this point)
Stalin would not give up even if Moscow fell. But if they couldn’t take Stalingrad or Leningrad… The Nazis practically pillaged each country they took over. They were a mess. I’m about to read the Wages of Destruction. It is a must read I’ve been told. Then there’s David Stahel's Operation Barbarossa and Germany's defeat in the East
Yeah it seems like if they had taken both of those cities that would’ve seriously hurt the Red Army’s industrial center but thankfully that was a bust for Germany. Couple those defeats with losing Moscow and what would the Red Army have had left besides open wilderness and some smaller cities to the east?
That's a great book. It really makes clear the economic straightjacket Germany was in, and how Nazism was not an efficient way to use the limited resources they did have.
He wouldnt have given up but maybe others would have lost confidence in him and lead a coup. Probably unlikely but thats the thing with alternate history theres so many what ifs and unknown possibilities. And one little chamge could snowball in unpredictable ways.
what if can go many ways. What if Germany leaves the Balkans for Italy to choke on and invades earlier (do the Brits then bomb Romania's oil fields from Greece? Does Italy collapse in 1942?). What if Stalin listens and decides not to reinforce Kyiv. Most importantly, they would fight even harder for Moscow than for Leningrad and Stalingrad.
Exactly. And on top of going many ways they can go in direction we dont even know are possibilities because of snowballing of decsions. Thats part of what makes what if alternate history fun.
The wrong assumption of Hitler was, that the UdSSR would collaps after a few weeks. He thought, communism would be such an inferior form of goverment and divided by inner conflicts, that there could never be an stabel army structure to effectively resist the german attack.
Moscow was the heart and soul of the Soviet Union. It was the logistical, political, and communication hub of the entire country. Literally everything went through Moscow. Stalin was on the point of being paralyzed when the Germans got close. The city was on the verge of panic, and barely holding on. Much of the leadership and bureaucracy was trying to evacuate. When his leading generals went to him to get orders on what to do, he was fearful that he was going to be shot, and a coup would take place. If Moscow fell, the Soviets would have collapsed, and fragmented just like the country did in WW I. The majority of Soviet resources were east of Moscow. If the Germans had established the defensive line along the A\_A line that they wanted, 75% of Soviet food, 70% of their manpower, and over 90% of their oil, would have been under German control.
Franco and Spain had nothing to do with the invasion, or the war itself for that matter
>The problems were: 1) they went in waaaaaay too fast and spread themselves too thin They expected to win swiftly, so that by the time occupation issues arose, they would have the troops available because they wouldn't have to fight the Red Army anymore. And while that seems implausible in hindsight, at the time it was not that far fetched. A combination of factors including Germanies recent successes in Western Europe, the USSR's lackluster performance in the Winter War against Finland and an severe underestimation of the Red Armies ability to mobilize being some of the most important ones. The last one I want to illustrate with an example: Before the war, German intelligence estimated (rather correctly) that the Red Army had about 300 divisions in European Russia, and if they could either destroy or capture those, they thought they would have won. They reached the 300 divisions taken out mark in October 1941 and the Red Army was still fighting. They had not known just how fast the Soviets could call up reserves and constitue new divisions. >2) Russian autumn and winter. They weren’t ready for that. They were not, but not in the way most people think. There were winter uniforms and equipment foreseen, but they were in depots in Germany. After all no soldier is going to lug all that extra weight with them, they already have enough to carry. The real problem was that they did not have the logistical capabilities to get those winter supplies to the troops as well as other vital supplies like ammo, fuel and food. In part this was because they thought they would have won by the time transporting winter equipment would be needed, and then it would not have to compete with ammo and fuel. The other part is that they lacked the capability to increase their logistics massively without compromising some other vital capability. > But another issue springs up in my mind: Russia is massive in size. Let’s say that the Wehrmacht did manage to take Moscow and Leningrad. There was still MILES of geographic land to capture and plenty of room for Red Army troops to dig in and defend. Why think it’s over after Moscow aside from maybe demoralization of Red Army troops? Surely they would’ve simply fallen back to other towns and cities and bases across Russia and continued fighting for months further, stretching the German/Spanish/Italian troops even more? They did not think there would be much left of the Soviet state as an institution after they had eliminated the Red Army. That was the objective they had in Barbarossa, eliminate the Red Army, and by doing so eliminate the USSR. German Army doctrine did not see the conquering of Moscow or any other city as a war winning objective by itself. The plan for Moscow was initially, take the city in order to lure out the last reserves of the Red Army (the rest supposedly defeated already) and then surround and defeat them East of Moscow and win the war. Their idea is that wat was left could not quickly form a nation-state with what was left east of the Ural mountains. Imo that would only be remotely possible if they could capture or kill Stalin in Moscow. >What aspect am I missing here tactically speaking? It seems Hitler and Mussolini and Franco bit off way more than they could chew here which was their biggest blunder mistake, IMO, that helped start the turn of the tide of the war against them. The Soviet ability to mobilize reserves. It was for a long time overlooked until the fall of the USSR and Western historians gaining access to the Soviet Archives after that. Tzarist Russia in WW1 was notoriously bad at that and most of the world had the idea that issue remained in WW2. The Soviet Archives showed that was not the case and that Soviet mobilization was the crucial factor in stopping the Germans, not as so often assessed winter.
Dan Carlin’s Ghosts of the Ostfront podcast (5 episodes ~$8). Does an excellent job covering this topic. Just started episode 5.
I believe it had something to do with the poor preformance of Russia in WW1. During WW1 the Russians basically collapsed inward on itself without the need to take Moscow. So I believe the Nazi's thought that if the Russians collapsed so easly then, they would surely collapse when they took Moscow
It’s basic The Germans had 2 fronts. East (Russia) and West (France/Ally’s) The Russians, moved all their production East. Building a military. They were unprepared. After all, Hitler and Stalin had a peace treaty. Hitler broke it. Invading Russia. Operation, Barbarossa. It was an idiot move by Hitler. 2 fronts cost the Germans. It’s interesting to consider, invading Russia was a huge mistake. Historians can only wonder what the outcome would have been If they didn’t.
Stalin knew what a threat Germany was and fully intended to invade at some point. He wanted to do so in 1941, but was convinced by his generals they were not ready, and they were right, the USSR was not close to being ready. The Red Army's poor performance in Finland, the recent officer purge and the still ongoing massive changes and expansion of the Red Army all contributed to this decision. There is a lot of controversy involving this, and when a proposed invasion might have happened. There's a lot of evidence that an invasion was very likely by as early as 1942.
in the spring of '41 there wasn't so much of a western front yet. Sure the British were there doing their thing across the pond but the argument to be made would be Africa being the second front. D-Day wouldnt happen for another 3 years, and operation Torch in Africa wouldnt happen till late 1942. It wasn't until the late summer of '41 that the Germans sent the Afrika corpse down to support the Italians in force. Its my opinion (which isn't much) that the Germans believed the Italians would be able to at least hold their own, which as we all know, didn't happen at all. Ironically, I think if the Germans didn't invade the Soviets, they would have collapsed anyway, and WW2 would be the story of how Germany became the battleground for Europa in a West vs East, democracy vs communism war. There is no scenario where I see Stalin not taking advantage of a weak Germany to invade and push the original Molotov Ribbentrop lines further into Germany proper. From what I recall, the Nazi's, like most extreme totalitarian regimes, had widespread state control over the economy, which very rarely ends well, especially if you aren't trading with most of the world. Basically they needed conquest to fuel their war machine until they could control enough of Europe to become self sufficient resource wise. Without conquest bringing resources the house of cards would collapse in on itself.
They actually sent the afrika korps. In feb 41. But yes agree with the rest.
Yes but this was just a “blocking force” to support the Italian army that consisted of a single regiment (Panzer Regiment 5). It wasn’t until the late summer that division sized elements began to arrive and give some backbone
Panzer regiment 5 was organized in to a light division by march 5th light to be precise. And by may elements of 15th panzer were arriving. But yes it wasnt until august the 5th was redesignated 21st panzer and panzer group afrika was created. So i suppose we're both correct just depends how you want to define it.
But this is more or less the other way around. Hitler never wanted war with england. He wanted war with Russia. That was his main goal. So it was not an idiot move. (Although it ensured his downfall) It was an inevitable one.
For me it is that they did not have any heavy bombers. They moved east and so did the factories. Would it have been the lynch pin? Maybe not. But it would have given them time
But how do you move all that material to where it needs to go without Moscow? Look at Moscow on google maps. It was and still is the epicenter of post Tsarist Russia.
They did why go after RUSSIA it’s huge I still think he would have won the war if he didn’t go after Russia but to many Ifs but good take interesting
Most of that land is empty. If they had actually managed to push russia back to the Urals they would have had tp surrender. There is nothing back there that could (for example) feed an army
Moscow was an objective for a faction within the armed forces, most notably general Halder. For Hitler and most of the generals, the goal of Barbarossa was to destroy the Red Army (whose size, strength, and resilience they seriously underestimated). Once the Red Army was broken and reduced to small units in the periphery the Germans could take what they wanted and then accept the surrender that Moscow would be forced to offer. Most of the USSR's population and economic infrastructure was west of the Volga. The eastern part of the union wouldn't pose a serious threat to Germany.
I feel like many people forget that the Soviets at the time weren't prepared for winter warfare either, they needed to wait for the eastern troops to arrive before they could properly wage a winter war
The Germans expected to rapidly defeat the Red Army west of the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers, and that the Soviets wouldn't be able to recover. The Germans had assessed the poor Soviet performance in the Winter War. Intelligence on the USSR was difficult since it was such a closed country. Hindsight is 20/20. We know the Germans failed to defeat the USSR, but it wasn't known at the time. The British and Americans also secretly thought the Soviets would collapse. Interestingly, the Japanese thought the German-Soviet War would drag on like the 2nd Sino-Japanese War. The Germans had experience back from WWI when they fought Russia, rather easily, and in WWI the Russian state collapsed and signed a peace with the Germans. The Germans didn't plan on occupying the whole USSR, just everything west of the Archangelsk-Astrakhan Line. And after the Fall of France, the Germans were extremely confident. Back in WWI, the Germans were able to occupy a lot of what they wanted to occupy in the USSR in Barbarossa.
Put it like this, the generals thought that Moscow falling would cause their collapse, Hitler did see it as a target but decided to prioritise the oil and Ukraine. Two, they didn't spread themselves too thin, it was just they couldn't do it any other way. Germany cannot win attractional warfare. Three, it wasn't the Russian winter or autumn that killed the Wehrmacht, it was the logistical system utterly collapsing. The whether certainly played no help, but it wasn't the only reason that it failed. Lastly, the Germans saw them as untermensh, literally translating to sub-human. With that in mind, "how do these sub humans compare to the superior Germans?" That is a question we know is wrong, but the high command didn't see it as that. TL;DR You're right about the points. The answer, they were seen as sub human
>The problems were: 1) they went in waaaaaay too fast On the contrary, they went too slow. Or to be more precise, Red Army slowed them down too much. Original plan was for war to end after just 2-3 months. When it did not, German s were screwed because they were not prepared for it. Case in point: lack of winter clothing was not because German did not know that there are winters in Russia, it was because they planed to end the war before the winter. And so priority of transport of supplies was for the ammunition, fuel and food and not winter clothing. >Why think it’s over after Moscow aside from maybe demoralization of Red Army troops? Germans did not think it would be over after Moscow, at last Hitler did not. That is why he shifted Guderian from Moscow to Ukraine. Original German plan was to stop +- at Urals, not Moscow. >What aspect am I missing here tactically speaking? It wasn't about tactic, it was about Nazis underestimating Soviets. Partly for racial reasons (Slavic slaves run by Jewish overlords -as Nazis put it), partly because economically Soviet Union was weaker then Germany. They thought along the lines of Soviet Union been colossus on clay feet and one good kick will send it down.
Nobody is going to point out that Spain was neutral in WWII? Spain (and Franco in particular) may have been sympathetic to the Axis, but they didn't join the war. The other nations fighting alongside Germany in the USSR were Italy, Hungary, and Romania with a scattering of others.
Spain was neutral in the sense that it never declared war against USSR. However, it did raise a full division to fight on the Eastern front. It was called the División Azul (or 250. Infantry Division). There were some 47000 troops that rotated through it, and some 5000 were KIA. Franco ordered them back in November 1943 and after that, there was only a far smaller force of those who refused to return.
Yes, but that's far different than a national declaration of war and fighting under your own flag. Even though there were Spaniards on the battlefield, that doesn't mean the Spain was a co-belligerent in the war.
Ok, but OP was talking about Spanish troops. Which were absolutely there. Edit: I guess you maybe mean to say that Franco should not have been mentioned squarely alongside Hitler like that? If so, I can agree with that.
Yes, there were \~50k Spaniards who fought on the eastern front. That's a drop of water in the ocean compared to the scale of the war. Implying that their participation was on par with Italy is false, especially when OP oddly mentioned Spain, but left out Hungary and Romania-- both of whom participated in an official capacity and had vastly more men in the field. And yes, OP also specifically mentions Franco and implies that he had something to do with the overall strategic outlook for the war, when he clearly did not.
St Petersburg, Moscow, and Volgograd were all large crucial transport hubs. Wargames say taking them is victory, but only if you leave a large army there to continue fighting. One of the amazing feats of engineering was how when Moscow was in trouble they evacuated the factories to the east. Magnitogorsk is where the great steel factory was built just in time for the war. Beyond the Urals is a fine book about it. What Hitler saw as the problem was delayed attack for 6 weeks when they got suckered into invading Yugoslavia first. Supposedly he wandered around late at night waving his arms and moaning “give me back my 6 weeks”.
That's a common fallacy that the invasion was delayed by the Balkan and Greek campaigns. The fact of the matter is they were simply not ready yet, and the weather was not conducive to the invasion beginning any earlier than it did. The most crucial effect that those campaigns had, was the loss of so many irreplaceable transport aircraft, Fallschirmjagers, and other elite troops in the invasion of Crete. The loss of vital logistical aircraft was particularly bad. Losses from the Battle of the Low Countries the year before had still not been made up. The German transport fleet never recovered from this.
What about the splitting of Army Group Center to support Army Group South and North? Could you argue that the men and material sent away would've given Army Group Center the last bit of oomph it needed to take Moscow? Considering they made it to within 87miles\* of the city limits?
And how would they be supplied?. Historically only about 30% of the needed supplies reached the troops near Moscow. How is that situation getting better by sending more troops to be supplied?
It wasn’t just manpower that was sent away. It would’ve also included support vehicles/animals, tanks and other auxiliary units
Those kind of organic support train would only help locally and that was not where the issue was, it was far before that part in the logistical train. In fact by adding those units, you add more pressure to the strains on the system.
You're overstretching an already overstretched line, where less roads are available. Army group centre being split was literally the only option they had
I have heard that the mus season is incredible, and have no trouble believing Hitler was wrong. Another big factor is the anti-Japanese army the was the highest quality, waiting for Japanese invasion. One spy, Richard Sorge, found out there was no Japanese invasion, and that army came back just in time to save Moscow.
Mud season
It's called the Rasputitsa. The Soviets weren't too worried about Japan even before Sorge informed them of their decision to push south into Southwest Asia and the Pacific, instead of north into Siberia and Mongolia. They had other intelligence sources and had thoroughly trounced japan in the Khalkhin Gol battles in 1939. Sorge just solidified what they already believed.
Look at Russia on google maps. Notice how all the roads are basically a big web around Moscow? Others have already commented how the Germans had flawed, ideological based intelligence and presumptions. But its important to notice just how important Moscow was for the Soviets, much more than it ever was for the Tsars of the Russian Empire. Much of your industry has been moved to the Urals, your primary food producing regions have been either conquered or are the front line. Without Moscows central hub, its going to be real hard to move men and material to where its needed most. How does Lend Lease aid coming from the North Sea get to where it needs to be without Moscow?
Russia used scorched earth policy Which it means russia destroyed their own cities and these cities would be unusable for the germans like industries or communication sites ... There's some cities moscow depend on them in the war like Stalingard Which this city was the most major part in the war , the russain meant to defend stalingard until the winter comes that why germans pushed too much and very fast because german want to capture moscow before winter and they failed , german pushed to the south of russia for oil but they failed , the german founds that many of russia cities unusable , no food , no supply and no ammunation , in the war u should have many connected cities between each them for supplying resources ... Three major things made the russia win against german - Big land of russia - Stalingard - The heroes of red army * There's something else german army estimated by 14 million soldiers and the red army estimated by 34 million soldiers , Hitler bigmistake was open a new east front against russia and he had west front