Different German Oil Strategy

[ljadw]

Guderian claimed in Panzerleader that in June 1940 he could have advance to the French Mediterranean Coast, from there to North Africa and then he could have gone to the Suez Canal : this was a lie/nonsense .
After the war,Halder abused his position in the US Army Historical Division to promote the legend of the clean Wehrmacht,that was prevented from winning the war by Hitler's interventions .Also a lie .

[Paul Lakowski]

Guderian was not lying, he probably believed what he claimed....that's not a lie, just wishful thining.

As for Halder promoting his legend about a clean Germany , give me a break , every one did that. Any way NATO needed a rehabilitated Wehrmacht to front NATO & spook the commies.

[ljadw]

Halder knew that what he was saying was not the truth.And Guderian lied about Dunkirk and Barbarossa ,and,let's not talk about his conspiracy with Liddell Hart.

[jesk]

Halder knew that what he was saying was not the truth.And Guderian lied about Dunkirk and Barbarossa ,and,let's not talk about his conspiracy with Liddell Hart.

Guderian lied about Dunkirk and Barbarossa? Your views do not correspond to the source of reality. Hitler yes, he lied. Guderian is too simple, he would not have succeeded. To lie too must be able not to be exposed!

[Peter89]

I partially agree with Ljadw, German senior officiers lied deliberately after the war en masse. It does not mean however, that each and every deflection of responsibility is false. Eg. I think many of them saw the strategic situation more clearly than it turned out.

[Peter89]

They as a(n elite) social class wanted to distinguish themselves from the Nazi regime and its crimes. But the truth is that they knew of the deeds and nature of the system, but they kept on serving it all the same.

If we talk about them as professionals, it's okay for me to ignore their morals. But when someone starts to yell 'They didn't know!', I feel their victims - of all nationaliy - disgraced.

[ljadw]

And, they all accepted estates and money from Der Führer,something which they hided after the war when they said that Der Füher was only a Teppichfresser and a criminal who was responsible for the defeat and Auschwitz (the latter being for them less important than the former ),they hided also the fact that they knew of ''Auschwitz '' and were engaged in the Holocaust (see Reichenau, Manstein, Hoeppner ,....).

[Stugbit]

What was at the stakes during WWII is a very complex issue. As I said in another topic here, History is told by the winners.

The Nazi doctrine and ideology is not an isolated phenomenal, as many here seems to put things. Lebensraum, racism, racial superiority ideals were and still are a general disseminated thing in Europe as a whole, and what the Germans did in their past was very connected to this, in the first place.

Other countries just didn’t have the industrial scale for killing as the Nazis did, but they still did quite much of a mess in colonial and peripheric countries. And Russia is not an exception to it. It also had its lebensraum politics, but their focus was most centered on sparse populated areas of Asia, so we don’t hear much of peoples genocides there, but they existed, just like in the American old west.

In the same way, the German motives for going to war were not limited to the Mein Kampf itself. There were many things going on back then. And Hitler and his group knew how to use the situation in his favor machiavelically, so propaganda and the fear of the enemy had a huge impact in people minds back then. Every lieutenant in the Wehrmacht had knowledge of the premises of Operation Barbarossa back in 41. And It’s very easy for us today, more than 70 years later, to point the finger to any officer of the Wehrmacht, and claim they were a disease different from the rest.

Anyway, I doubt we’ll see any time soon Russia and the West sharing any kind of responsibility with the ascension of Nazism in Germany and the way things developed. It’s against the political rhetoric they need today.

And unfortunately, that doesn’t change the opportunity for massacres and such crimes like those the Nazis did from still happening. Even with good people. I wonder how the Jewish people, after suffering things worse than hell in the hands of the Nazis, could still do the things they’re doing to the Palestinians today.

[ljadw]

I wonder how the Jewish people, after suffering things worse than hell in the hands of the Nazis, could still do the things they’re doing to the Palestinians today.

Is this not against the rules of this Forum, which is apolitical ?

[Stugbit]

There's no such thing, as "apolitical". No one can be neutral debating History completely. If things were this way, so we can't debate the Israel - Arab conflit here in the forum in any way, as it is a very complex and sensetive matter itself.

And I'm not against Israel, by the way, in any way.

[AbollonPolweder]

Operation Barbarossa and Germany's defeat in the East (Stahel ) P 41: operationsentwurf Ost (the Marcks 'proposals )
First Phase :pushing back the Red Army's vanguard to its older defense line,400 km from the border : 3 weeks
Second Phase :breakthrough and encirclment of the Soviet defensive positions : 2 to 4 weeks
Third phase : advance to Leningrad, Moscow, eastern Ukraine : 3 to 6 weeks .
Fourth Phase : occupation of the SU to the Don,middle Volga,and upper Dvina ;3 to 4 weeks.
But ,it was assumed that the SU would be defeated before the period of 10 weeks : also from Stahel ( P 63

Thanks a lot for information!
Major-General Erich Marcks -the Chief of Staff of the 18th Army was, of course, the great figure in hierarchy of Wehrmacht.
But I prefe to know which ideas of timing were inside Hitler's, Brauhich's o Halder's minds.

An other source : Diary of Goebbels from June 16 1941 :The Führer estimes that the operation will take 4 months, I reckon on fewer .
For Hitler Barbarossa would be over at the end of October,for Brauchitz,the SU would be defeated before August .
At the end of October, the Germans would be/should be at the A-A line (Archangelsk-Astrachan )

I would add Halder's " five months". So stop talking about 10 weeks, please. It is not serious!

[ljadw]

You don't get it : 4 / 5 months was the time that Barbarossa would last, 10 weeks/or less was the time needed to defeat the SU .
Already in the first days of July, Halder wrote in his diary that it was not an exaggeration to say that the Soviets were defeated, but he added that the war was not over but would last still a long time .
For Brauchitz and Halder the war would be decided before August, but would continue after August .About Marcks : he drafted the first Barbarossa plan, while there were later additions/corrections, Lossberg,etc,were building on the Marcks plan .

[jesk]

You don't get it : 4 / 5 months was the time that Barbarossa would last, 10 weeks/or less was the time needed to defeat the SU .
Already in the first days of July, Halder wrote in his diary that it was not an exaggeration to say that the Soviets were defeated, but he added that the war was not over but would last still a long time .
For Brauchitz and Halder the war would be decided before August, but would continue after August .About Marcks : he drafted the first Barbarossa plan, while there were later additions/corrections, Lossberg,etc,were building on the Marcks plan .

The command of Army Group Center on July 13, 1941 asked permission to take Moscow. Hitler refused them. That's where the real causes of the failure of "Barbarossa." And you have a discussion without consideration of the course of hostilities.



http://militera.lib.ru/db/0/pdf/halder_eng6.pdf

[ljadw]

And von Bock was wrong, totally .Because
a AGC was still far,very far away from Moscow .
b armoured spearheads could not go to Moscow without the support of the infantry and artillery(tanks could not capture Moscow ) thus what Bock was asking was an advance to Moscow by the whole AGC, which was impossible,as logistics would prevent it, which was depending on the Soviet forces who were blocking the route to Moscow ,and which was in contradiction to the plan,which was that elements of the 3 AGs ( NOT the 3 AGs,because this was impossible ) would advance, AFTER the Soviet defeat (and there was no defeat on July 13 ) NOT to Leningrad,Moscow or Rostow ,but to the AA line : the SU would not be defeated by the fall of Moscow,but Moscow would fall AFTER the defeat of the Red Army .
The tank spearheads from Bock would never make it to Moscow : if the tanks of Patton could not cross the Rhine in September 1944, how could the tanks from Bock go to Moscow and capture the city ?
Tanks are useless in a city .The German tanks could not capture Warsaw or Stalingrad, how could they capture Moscow ? Do you have any idea how many divisions would be needed to capture Moscow ?

[jesk]

And von Bock was wrong, totally .Because
a AGC was still far,very far away from Moscow .
b armoured spearheads could not go to Moscow without the support of the infantry and artillery(tanks could not capture Moscow ) thus what Bock was asking was an advance to Moscow by the whole AGC, which was impossible,as logistics would prevent it, which was depending on the Soviet forces who were blocking the route to Moscow ,and which was in contradiction to the plan,which was that elements of the 3 AGs ( NOT the 3 AGs,because this was impossible ) would advance, AFTER the Soviet defeat (and there was no defeat on July 13 ) NOT to Leningrad,Moscow or Rostow ,but to the AA line : the SU would not be defeated by the fall of Moscow,but Moscow would fall AFTER the defeat of the Red Army .
The tank spearheads from Bock would never make it to Moscow : if the tanks of Patton could not cross the Rhine in September 1944, how could the tanks from Bock go to Moscow and capture the city ?
Tanks are useless in a city .The German tanks could not capture Warsaw or Stalingrad, how could they capture Moscow ? Do you have any idea how many divisions would be needed to capture Moscow ?

These are some logical assumptions. Yes, the Germans did not take Stalingrad. But Kiev, Voronezh, Rostov, Riga, Krasnodar and many other cities could not resist. By mid-July, the Russians for the defense of Moscow could expose a small number of forces. In the tank groups, apart from the tank divisions, the infantry divisions were listed. Von Bock had every reason to hope for success. Distance Belostok-Smolensk 609 km and the Germans passed it. Smolensk - Moscow 369 km. The Germans could have reached Vladivostok! Without Hitler, of course.