Well it's that time again.
Due to the initial debating from Week Two's topic, I was going to bring up a topic concerning the spread of Christendom and the most influencial factors in its rise. But since we've had such a dogged approach to the Russian element of World War Two, I thought it a good idea to put off that question for next week, and ask this:

In the Spring of 1941, Hitler attempted to invade Russia. Would it have been possible for Hitler to succeed in his Soviet Russian campaign? And if so, what could have been the consequences of such a radical move?

Some things to consider...

- Did Hitler make the right move in trying to subdue a giant before it posed a bigger threat than it did?

- Do you think it was even possible for such a gargantuant campaign to succeed?

- And if so, what did Hitler do wrong?

This seemed to be a hot topic in the previous debate, so let's try and keep it a little.. nicer.

I don't think Hitler had a chance in hell of conquering the Russians unless he had recruited subject peoples who had enough of the communists. Once the Germans began killing wholesale, that became impossible and instead they had to contend with hostile partisans as well as the Red Army.

The Soviet Union was just too big. Even had Moscow fallen, I think Stalin could have fallen back to the east and continued the fight. They had moved their heavy industry far to the east, Siberia is well endowed with oil and people can be moved (as Stalin proved time and time again, though with horrendous consequences). Coupled with the fanatical will to fight back that resulted from Hitler's atrocities, the combination proved to be a meat grinder for Hitler's armies.

I think Hitler was doomed as soon as he attacked the Soviets, then doubly doomed once he declared war on the US. Let's face it, Hitler did some really stupid shit.

Hitler would have had a good chance at victory if Japan had launched an invasion northeastward from China roughly around August-September of 1941 without attacking Pearl Harbor afterward. Around that time, virtually all the forces in the East had been stripped to reinforce the gutted armies in the West - a lot of manpower as well as the majority of the officer corps that had survived Stalin's purges (my great-uncle, a VVS major, among them) had been stationed there. Facing minimal resistance, by winter Japan would have reached the cities along the Ural, the backbone of the Soviet Union's industrial might. Kharkov was overrun by Germany as well. An extent of dependance on lend-lease planes, trucks and provisions was nice and fine, but without those tank factories Russia would have stood no chance.

Hitler made two major mistakes with Russia, and innumerable smaller ones.

His first major mistake was violenting repressing the conquered Russians, who by and large hated Communism and had an initially favorable view of their German 'liberators.' Instead of gaining a reserve of disposable trooops and a large support and supply network for his forward armies near the Don and in the Caucauses, he created an intense hatred for the German Army in the Russian people everywhere.

His second major mistake was denying his experienced, competent generals freedom of action, allowing them to dig in along defensible lines for the winter, properly support their flanks, and avoid strategically unimportant bloodbaths like Stalingrad. The loss of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad was the turning point of the war, and was so easily, obviously avoidable. It was criminally stupid. The German army, properly supplied, with their pre-Stalingrad morale, were facing inexperienced troops commanded by inexperienced generals, who had all but given up any hope of turning aside an army they thought was all but invincible. They could have easily repulsed and destroyed the Russian counterattack of late '42, and likely crippled the remainder of the country by early summer.

The "right" move for Hitler was world domination. That was his goal.

Had his generals started the campaign when they wanted to start, I think he could have driven as far into Russia as he wanted. His tanks just needed firm ground and decent weather.


I think Stalin could have fallen back to the east and continued the fight.

If Germany controls the land, the cities, the oilfields, the factories, and the populace, there's not much for Stalin and the small population in the east to do except sit on top of the natural resources and wonder how in heck they're gonna mine the stuff.

Not sure how this would have changed things, though. Had Hitler been successful, the US and Britain would probably do something different, depending on how the Eastern front affected the Western front.

I should qualify that by saying his goal was Eurasian domination. America, etc. were perhaps a goal for a later generation.

A goodly chunk of the Soviet factories *were* moved to the east in 1941, as were the workers to man them. They were well out of the range of the German medium bombers and could have continued production uninterrupted. It's not a hypothetical situation, it was done.

As somebody has already noted, the Germany's violent oppression (and wholesale slaughter of) the Slavic/Polish/Russian peoples cost them potential allies and made them enemies.

Also, as noted, Japan would have had to strike up through China and Korea into Soviet held territories, opening up the USSR to a two front war instead of just a single front.

In addition, if Germany had built more long range bombers (the Germans were fond of medium range bombers) and had abandoned their dive bombers in favor of producing more capable air to air fighters with ground attack capability, they might have been able to secure a more stable supply line in the East.

The Soviets produced some truly bad-ass tanks (T-34) and some pretty capable aircraft (Ilyushin, Yak and Lavochkin). Germany wasted some industrial output on materiel that just didn't do its job as the War progressed.

Again, this might be a symptom of Hitler's insane influence- in which case, the best thing the Germans could have done was succeeded in one of their assasination attempts.

While I myself am not entirely sure complete dominance of Russia, as had been achieved in say Poland, was likely, I certainly think Hitler could have effectively "removed" or "crushed" the burden of Russia had he listened to his generals and learnt the lessons provided by history.
Napoleon was utterly humiliated and paralyzed by the winter. Of course we know Hitler had the tendancy to ignore his most efficient aides, but I really think had winter not critically severed things such as supplies and morale, than a gigantic blow could have been delivered to Russia in order to cripple it, and thus Germany, while perhaps not being able to dominate Russia, could effectively concentrate elsewhere.

Had he done that, I really think Britain could have been in trouble. BUt I don't think that's to say Hitler would have gone on to conquer the world...

'I should qualify that by saying his goal was Eurasian domination. America, etc. were perhaps a goal for a later generation. '

- His aspirations were a European empire based on the superior notion of the white Aryan race. People often have the misconception that Hitler wanted to "rule the world". Initially he didn't even want to fight Britain, he wanted close ties with "anglo-saxon" Britain. it needs to be remembered that our Monarch is German, and up until, what, the late 1700's, early 1800's, we effectively held numerous Hanoverian states IN Germany itself.
The hostility of Britain is what aspired Hitler to invade Britain (or try to, as it were).
So I wouldn't go as far as saying that the fall of Russia may have been the stepping stone to conquering the world. But I think it could well have been THE turning point in favour of Germany.

But yes, I think winter is key, and having launched the campaign earlier in the year, than Russia could have certainly been subdued, but I don't think conquered.

His first major mistake was violenting repressing the conquered Russians, who by and large hated Communism and had an initially favorable view of their German 'liberators.' Instead of gaining a reserve of disposable trooops and a large support and supply network for his forward armies near the Don and in the Caucauses, he created an intense hatred for the German Army in the Russian people everywhere.


Yep, probably one of the best examples is the Ukrainian Insurgent Army which fought both the Germans and the Russians depending on the situation.

I don't think world domination is achievable without strong support from local allies. It's simple numbers, the more people you have to oppress the less soldiers you gonna have for conquering.

The Russian Winter was an enormous setback for the germans as it struck several weeks before they'd anticipated, freezing thousands of soldiers to death before winter survival equipment could ever reach them.

Russia was always the bane of the old european empires. Every time things started looking up for a warring nation someone said "Hey I know, lets invade russia!" and the result was always a catastrophe.

Play Europa Universalis.
Invading Russia's a bitch. You get halfway past Novgorod and your 50, 000 army is reduced to about 2500 men and a donkey.

*cough* anyway..

Napoleon fucked up, Hitler fucked up. Buy some fucking snowboots and a parka before buying more tanks which won't start up in 30 below temperature.

Hitler had to attack. It was clear there will be war between Germany and Russia. A year later Russia would have been much harder enemy, its economy were running up high.
Germany had to attack, get oil supplies, and main cities.
They had not too many choices. They weren't ready to attack. They tried the best strategy that existed, a fast crush on main cities, get moscow & co asfast as possible.
They failed to capture moscow, after that they were chanceless.

3 thing could have helped them

1, Locals (no parizans, or even allies)
2, If japan decides to atk Russia instead of US
3, Supplies from western allies doesnt reach their destination. Russia couldnt keep Stalingrad and Moscow without supplies from US and GB and couldnt re-deploy their industry to the east.

'They tried the best strategy that existed,'

- Did they? I'm not so sure.
The quite obvious factor being Hitler's disasterous strategic decision in delaying the invasion, something that quite clearly resulted in the failure of his Russian expedition. The poor use of supplies and the points in which Hitler attacked, and continued to in a very Russian-force way was neither logical nor sane, as they neither had the resources at that point in the war, and definately not the man power, to allow such spectacular shows of brute persistence in the field.

Yet who knows if the outcome would have been any different had Hitler actually gone about the invasion differently? Who can successfully overcome Russian winters or the vast Russian plains? Maybe some expeditions are just doomed to failure.

The basic strategy was sound. If Hitler had left his generals to execute it as they saw fit, instead of constantly issuing contravening orders and stupidly squandering forces for purely political goals, the invasion likely would have worked. The Germans had great supply lines into the Ukraine (comparitively) and could have reinforced that during the winter instead of overextending themselves.

The Wehrmachr, properly supplied and not gutted by the near pointless Moscow and Leningrad advances could have easily trounced anything the Russians threw at them even after the major rearmament of late 42.

Almost the entirety of WW2 is the story of huge professional armies with competent leaders hamstrung and murdered by their own stupid leaders.