Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

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ljadw
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#766

Post by ljadw » 04 Nov 2014, 08:22

Post 659:"Reinhard know out that the sudden unset of winter is not to blame for his opinion on the disaster of Moscow .........."

Translation : General Winter did not stop the Germans.

As we know that General Mud did not stop the Germans (for those who don't know : after the battle of Briansk-Wiazma,the Germans still advanced),the conclusion is obvious : the Germans were stopped by General Ivan : the Soviets .

But ,as we know, some people will still continue their search for other scape-goats,for other excuses.

I like also to observe that some people have a preference for exaggerations : "disaster " of Moscow : there was no such thing .



Alixanther
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#768

Post by Alixanther » 04 Nov 2014, 13:44

Ok.... so... you delete my post because you previously deleted other posts? "Yes, we can."
If you assume this manner of moderation is supposed to make me like ljawd more, you're failing at it. You're actually underperforming.

Well, I expect you're going to take this feedback as "insults", as usual. Your call.

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doogal
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#769

Post by doogal » 04 Nov 2014, 17:05

My belief is that Hitler should have waited until Stalin attacked him...... He had acquired a buffer zone in Poland which allowed for defence in depth against a Soviet Military which would only have had recent combat experiences in the far east and Finland.
As history clearly shows the Wehrmacht was not big enough to cope with an operation the size of Barbarossa combined with multiple fronts and theatres of inactivity using army group size units.

ljadw
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#770

Post by ljadw » 04 Nov 2014, 18:11

The attack on the SU in june 1941 was independent of a possible future threat from the SU : on 9 january 1941,Hitler said :Stalin werde nicht offen gegen Deutschland auftreten .

Stalin will not campaign openly against Germany .
Last edited by ljadw on 04 Nov 2014, 21:19, edited 1 time in total.

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doogal
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#771

Post by doogal » 04 Nov 2014, 20:03

Ok.. but even if Barbarossa is independent from the premise of a Soviet attack, is not still the Strategic Solution which defined the limits of Barbarossa flawed in its conception. Which would suggest that an alternative solution should have been considered in the East

ljadw
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#772

Post by ljadw » 04 Nov 2014, 21:37

That's the big question: was there an alternative solution for Barbarossa possible ? = a somution with more chances to succeed and having still the advantages of a successful Barbarossa .

The Germans tried 3 alternatives:

1)The air war against Britain (BoB/Blitz)

2)The submarine war against Britain

3) An intervention in NA (which was executed in january 1941)

At the end of 1940,the result of the first 2 alternatives was a failure : Britain was not impressed and continued the war .

War in NA never could force Britain to give up .

The situation in december 1940 was that Britain continued the war and that the intervention by the US was considered (rightfully) as inevitable and closer .
OTOH,the LW warned that Germany was loosing the armament race in the air,which meant that "Harris" and "Spaatz" would come to destroy the German cities .
Faced by this nightmare,the German political leaderhip (Hitler) decided to attack the SU,hoping that the fall of the SU would decide Britain to give up before the intervention of the US .

The Germans were that realistic to know that from a military POV,the SU was invincible,and that only a miracle (the Deus ex machina) could give them the needed victory .

But the POV of Hitler( a born gambler) was : a desperate situation is demanding a desperate solution .

If the Germans would not be at the Wolga, the British and Americans would be in Berlin (what would remain of the city)

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doogal
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#773

Post by doogal » 05 Nov 2014, 16:02

That's the big question: was there an alternative solution for Barbarossa possible ? = a somution with more chances to succeed and having still the advantages of a successful Barbarossa .

The Germans tried 3 alternatives:

1)The air war against Britain (BoB/Blitz)

2)The submarine war against Britain

3) An intervention in NA (which was executed in january 1941)
The first one was the result of surprise German success in France, both 1 & 2 were independent of any Eastern strategy (the B.O.B originally meant to be achieving air superiority over a smallish area of South east England rather than be an operation for its own sake) The submarine war well that's just to indirect to be considered an alternative strategy in my book.
North Africa was the only place to fight the British and even that was only to prop up Mussolini until Hitlers prestige got involved with the allies landing in Africa.
So i think it is difficult to call these alternatives, maybe differing strategic targets, admittedly the idea of air superiority was linked to an invasion of the South coast of England which really could have altered the Strategic picture of WW2. But the fact that it was not prosecuted to the max shows that it was not a serious consideration but rather an afterthought in response to a strategic conundrum "where next" Hence the dropping of one ill considered plan for the adoption of another ill considered plan.

Alixanther
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#774

Post by Alixanther » 05 Nov 2014, 20:39

ljadw wrote:
The Germans were that realistic to know that from a military POV,the SU was invincible,and that only a miracle (the Deus ex machina) could give them the needed victory .

But the POV of Hitler( a born gambler) was : a desperate situation is demanding a desperate solution .

If the Germans would not be at the Wolga, the British and Americans would be in Berlin (what would remain of the city)
Sorry, but it wasn't "Deus ex machina" when Churchill was most impressed by the German attack and said "we may witness the most savage attack on the British Isles after Russia falls". In this reasoning Hitler was right. Churchill wasn't impressed in the previous 3 cases you mentioned, but he definitely was after Barbarossa: and that's the true purpose of it - as ludicrous as it may seem. He attacked the Soviets in order to force the British to make peace. Sounds quite stupid, I know, yet Churchill declared himself impressed. Who am I to contradict him?

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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#775

Post by Konig_pilsner » 03 Dec 2014, 09:23

The only thing flawed is this thread.

It is still unclear to me what was so disastrous about Barbarossa, unless you believe Germany was superior and the Russians so incompetent that victory was preordained. Had Germany pursued a different strategy and launched Sealion, or went to Africa, or did nothing... I guarantee today you people would be saying "They should have attacked Russia! The Purges, the Winter War, just kick the door in, take their resources!!"

I tend to agree with ljadw most the time. Why? Because most of the time he is right.

However, I disagree with this.
The Germans were that realistic to know that from a military POV,the SU was invincible,and that only a miracle (the Deus ex machina) could give them the needed victory .
The Russians were not invincible, and the Germans were capable of achieving victory. Just not in the timeframe that was required in order to hold off the western powers. It was Russian resistance with unbelievable sacrifice that stopped the Wehrmacht, yet it was Germanys time crunch that led to poor strategic decisions that were taken advantage of.

Cheers,

KP

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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#776

Post by Alixanther » 03 Dec 2014, 13:38

@konig_pilsner Thank you for supporting my above post. As I said, it's not me, it's not you, it's Churchill himself who said the German decision of attacking USSR is no blunder, no wrong turn. The fact it ended in disasted was in no way already settled. Therefore, the reason of being of this thread, trying to get specific answers to it.

ljadw
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#777

Post by ljadw » 03 Dec 2014, 18:36

Alixanther wrote:
ljadw wrote:
The Germans were that realistic to know that from a military POV,the SU was invincible,and that only a miracle (the Deus ex machina) could give them the needed victory .

But the POV of Hitler( a born gambler) was : a desperate situation is demanding a desperate solution .

If the Germans would not be at the Wolga, the British and Americans would be in Berlin (what would remain of the city)
Sorry, but it wasn't "Deus ex machina" when Churchill was most impressed by the German attack and said "we may witness the most savage attack on the British Isles after Russia falls". In this reasoning Hitler was right. Churchill wasn't impressed in the previous 3 cases you mentioned, but he definitely was after Barbarossa: and that's the true purpose of it - as ludicrous as it may seem. He attacked the Soviets in order to force the British to make peace. Sounds quite stupid, I know, yet Churchill declared himself impressed. Who am I to contradict him?

The reason for Barbarossa (forcing the British to stop the war before the US would intervene) is not contradicting the fact that victory in the East was depending on a Deus ex Machina (=a miracle) .
I refer to "Operative Planungen der Wehrmacht für den Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion " (by Christian Gerlach),where Gerlach is writing the following :

""In diesen Worten spiegeln sich Probleme wider,die nicht erst im Juli,geschweige denn erst im August oder im Herbst 1941 entstanden,sondern in der Anlage der deutschen Militäroperationen gegen die UdSSR selbst unvermeidlich begründet waren;die enorme Bedeutung des Faktors"Zeit",die Erkennntnis "dass man Russland nicht erobern kann" und der Hoffnung auf einen sowjetischen "Zusammenbruch" wie auf einen deus ex machina .


Rough translation :
These words are reflecting the problems which did not arise in juli,august or the autumn of 1941,but which were founded in the concept of the attack against the SU:the enormous importance of the factor Time,the admission that one could not conquer Russia,and the hope on a collaps of the SU as on a deus ex machina .

Besides, I ike to mention the following (which always is hidden in the historiography of Barbarossa):the SU had the possibility to make Barbarossa fail already after 2 weeks . And the Germans knew it .

Alixanther
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#778

Post by Alixanther » 04 Dec 2014, 13:07

That quoting has little to do with your assumption. There's no evidence whatsoever and I never read or heard anything on any historian or politician so far - that WW2 was already won since the beginning and all it needed was Axis acknowledging defeat. You can assume that WW2 politicians had no reason to belittle their enemies so it's kinda understandable they made Axis the uber-villain, the archetypal humanity enemy (when they obviously were not).

However, if you really want to come up with the idea that Axis needed a miracle in order to get out of the war, you're also assuming that the other military block was conspiring before the conflict in order not to stop until the enemy is crushed in the dust (=preplanning; you cannot have one without the other). As far as I know, this happened in '43 at Teheran, when the course of the war was kinda obvious. If you expect us to believe that Western Allies and USSR conspired to bring the world to a conflict they were bound to win, you need to work harder than that. On the moment of the attack on the USSR there were no complete political setups, like Britain giving full support and convoying out for USSR, or such. These are in the realm of logic, yes, but they're in no way predetermined. And without external support, I simply don't see Soviet morale becoming higher, quite the contrary.

Enlighten me: if the Soviets really had the possibility to "fail" Barbarossa in a mere two weeks as you say, then why they did not use this opportunity? Why wait until December? Is this some deep strategy twist, to bring the enemy just before your capital before you crush them completely, just like in medieval legends? :)

ljadw
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#779

Post by ljadw » 04 Dec 2014, 19:41

The German aim was to defeat the standing Soviet forces in the summer and in the area between the border and the D/D line (Dnjepr/Dvina),hoping that this would be sufficient for a collaps of the Sovjet state .

This implies that the Red Army would go west,to the border .IF the Red Army had received on 22 june the order to go east (= to retreat),the German strategy would be a shot in the dark :the Ostheer would not have to fight the decisive battle west of the DD line,but east of the DD line,hundreds of km away from the depots,against an unvanquished Soviet army,which means the failure of the concept of Barbarossa as a quick and short campaign .

For a lot of reasons,the Soviets followed an other strategy and Halder wrote with relief in his diary :the Soviets accept the battle .

Which were these reasons ? Political,military,economic...

ljadw
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Re: Barbarossa - what is more flawed?

#780

Post by ljadw » 04 Dec 2014, 19:51

Alixanther wrote:That quoting has little to do with your assumption. There's no evidence whatsoever and I never read or heard anything on any historian or politician so far - that WW2 was already won since the beginning and all it needed was Axis acknowledging defeat. You can assume that WW2 politicians had no reason to belittle their enemies so it's kinda understandable they made Axis the uber-villain, the archetypal humanity enemy (when they obviously were not).

However, if you really want to come up with the idea that Axis needed a miracle in order to get out of the war, you're also assuming that the other military block was conspiring before the conflict in order not to stop until the enemy is crushed in the dust (=preplanning; you cannot have one without the other). As far as I know, this happened in '43 at Teheran, when the course of the war was kinda obvious. If you expect us to believe that Western Allies and USSR conspired to bring the world to a conflict they were bound to win, you need to work harder than that. On the moment of the attack on the USSR there were no complete political setups, like Britain giving full support and convoying out for USSR, or such. These are in the realm of logic, yes, but they're in no way predetermined. And without external support, I simply don't see Soviet morale becoming higher, quite the contrary.

1) There was a stalemate in the summer of 1940,and time was running against Germany : the Germans were convinced that the US would intervene and that this would result in the inevitable defeat of Germany .Already before Barbarossa,the LW alarmed Hitler with the statement that Germany was losing the armament race in the air against the US

2) That is not correct :there was no conspiracy before or during the war :the war started as an ideological war :good against evil,and this war could only end with the crushing of one of both parties (see the declaration of Chamberlain on 3 september 1939):there would be no peace of compromise .

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