At what point did Germany lose WW2?

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steverodgers801
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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#916

Post by steverodgers801 » 26 Sep 2015, 20:33

the fact that Germany couldn't reach Moscow is indicative that the plan was flawed from the start

ljadw
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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#917

Post by ljadw » 27 Sep 2015, 09:26

Yes and no .

If the SU had collapsed in july,the Germans would be in Moscow in august/september .But,it is not so that the Germans failed because the plan was flawed,the Germans would have flawed with an other plan, with all other plans : it was a mission impossible .


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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#918

Post by ML59 » 27 Sep 2015, 11:51

Yes and no. It proved a mission impossible because the soviet state didn't collapse but, on the contrary, mobilized all its resources and was able to keep in the field, adequately clothed, fed, equipped, millions of soldiers for four long years, regardless of the losses. The whole matter (Barbarossa) relied on a gigantic gamble: to strike such a violent and sudden blow to Soviet Union provoking the collapse of its political and military structures. We know it didn't work but, even at that time, there were reasons to believe that it could happen as it happened in 1918. What was clearly unrealistic was not thinking about defeating SU but to transform it in a gigantic colonial empire: that was completely out of reach for Germany and a major , fundamental flaw (driven by nazi ideology) that denied to Germany the chance of achieving a political solution that could have greatly enhanced its overall strategic position.

steverodgers801
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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#919

Post by steverodgers801 » 27 Sep 2015, 22:41

the whole plan was based on the idea the Soviets cold not resist and would collapse in the first month

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Appleknocker27
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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#920

Post by Appleknocker27 » 28 Sep 2015, 21:09

The plan was based on exaclty what is written in Directive 21:
"The mass of the Russian Army in Western Russia is to be destroyed in daring operations by driving forward deep wedges with tanks and the retreat of intact battle-ready troops into the wide spaces of Russia is to be prevented."

This is worth repeating: "the retreat of intact battle-ready troops into the wide spaces of Russia is to be prevented".

The basis of the German thought process in regard to success was that they could destroy the Soviet standing forces before reserves could be effectively mobilized. This is in line with the precepts of Clauswitz, Moltke and Schlieffen and a sound strategy IF.....the intelligence reports on enemy capability are correct and your army has the capability to execute the plan.

The original operational plan for Barbarossa worked very efficiently and predictably for the first 6 weeks, at which time the Germans were at Smolensk staring at multiple reserve armies that were previously completely unknown. After that, the whole remainder of 1941 was a complete improvisation and continued military intelligence failure.

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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#921

Post by steverodgers801 » 29 Sep 2015, 03:56

The failure was unable to deal with the reserves they thought were not there.

Graeme Sydney
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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#922

Post by Graeme Sydney » 29 Sep 2015, 04:46

A good concise summary I think Big Apple. There's one correction I would make.
Appleknocker27 wrote:The plan was based on exaclty what is written in Directive 21:
My correction; The military plan was based on exactly what is written in Directive 21. The military plan was relied on exclusively and didn't fit into or was complimented by any bigger plan, and doomed to failure.

I don't mean to be pedantic but I believe the word 'military' is important, and under-appreciated and/or misunderstood both in discussions now and in Germany in 1941.

Barbarossa was just one operation to achieve the War Aims of Germany. My understanding of the War Aims of Germany were 1/ nullify and reverse the shame and the legal implications of the Treaty of Versailles, 2/ establish/unite a Greater Germany and 3/establish Lebensraum in the East. All of these are Geo-Political aims requiring Geo-Political solutions. Both the war generally and the invasion of Russia foolishly, naively, relied almost exclusively on well founded confidence in the German military but a misplaced confidence in an exclusively military solution achieving the War Aims.

My contention is that even a perfectly planned and conducted exclusively military option called Operation Barbarossa would not have achieved the War Aims of Germany. And as you pointed out, because of faulty intelligence even the military plan was imperfectly planed and conducted.

Although I have never studied the issue to seek the answer, I have never seen a satisfactory (to me) explanation for the failure. I find it hard to believe that in the professional, academic and intellectual enclaves of the German officer corp there wasn't the smarts and the knowledge to give good military intelligence. The very lack of info should have been enough to issue cautionary summaries. I assume good military intelligence was achievable but ignored, hindered and suppressed by the fear and effectiveness of the world's, to that date, most effective police state dictatorship.

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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#923

Post by Graeme Sydney » 29 Sep 2015, 04:56

To the bigger question of the thread 'at what point did Germany lose'. I don't think it was death by one cut or a thousand cuts, it was death by many cuts, definitely tens of, maybe hundreds of. To pick one would be misleading.

My summary is Germany/Hitler fought the war with blinkers on. They fought a World Geo-Political War at the Continental Strategic level. They had early success because of strategic surprise but when the full weight of the hornets nest fell on them there was no way they would prevail.

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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#924

Post by ljadw » 30 Sep 2015, 08:33

Graeme Sydney wrote:A good concise summary I think Big Apple. There's one correction I would make.
Appleknocker27 wrote:The plan was based on exaclty what is written in Directive 21:
My correction; The military plan was based on exactly what is written in Directive 21. The military plan was relied on exclusively and didn't fit into or was complimented by any bigger plan, and doomed to failure.

I don't mean to be pedantic but I believe the word 'military' is important, and under-appreciated and/or misunderstood both in discussions now and in Germany in 1941.

Barbarossa was just one operation to achieve the War Aims of Germany. My understanding of the War Aims of Germany were 1/ nullify and reverse the shame and the legal implications of the Treaty of Versailles, 2/ establish/unite a Greater Germany and 3/establish Lebensraum in the East. All of these are Geo-Political aims requiring Geo-Political solutions. Both the war generally and the invasion of Russia foolishly, naively, relied almost exclusively on well founded confidence in the German military but a misplaced confidence in an exclusively military solution achieving the War Aims.

My contention is that even a perfectly planned and conducted exclusively military option called Operation Barbarossa would not have achieved the War Aims of Germany. And as you pointed out, because of faulty intelligence even the military plan was imperfectly planed and conducted.

Although I have never studied the issue to seek the answer, I have never seen a satisfactory (to me) explanation for the failure. I find it hard to believe that in the professional, academic and intellectual enclaves of the German officer corp there wasn't the smarts and the knowledge to give good military intelligence. The very lack of info should have been enough to issue cautionary summaries. I assume good military intelligence was achievable but ignored, hindered and suppressed by the fear and effectiveness of the world's, to that date, most effective police state dictatorship.

You are looking in the wrong direction

Barbarossa was a given.

The Germans examined several options and rejected them because they would result in a failure.And than there was one last remaining,and they decided that this one should result in victory,because,otherwise,Barbarossa had to be abandonned,and,this was impossible,because,without Barbarossa,the war was lost,and this was unthinkable .

in june 1941,it was no longer about achieving war aims,it was even no longer about winning the war, it was about not losing the war and this could only be achieved by a successful Barbarossa .

The truth was that on 21 june 1941 the war was already lost,but no one wanted to face this nightmare .

It was not intelligence failure, it was not operational failure, it was not logistical failure which doomed Barbarossa : it was the simple fact that the SU was to strong .

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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#925

Post by Truct » 08 Oct 2015, 00:31

when Hitler declared war on the USA.Game over, he served in WWI the American intervention finished that.what was he thinking.? he never declared war on anyone else.the us war production could have buried everyone with a vehicle.plus the yanks were going to A bomb Germany.Thank the Lord ,these nutters who ran the third Reich got nailed.otherwise my kids would probably have had three arms

ljadw
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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#926

Post by ljadw » 08 Oct 2015, 14:14

The A Bomb as an argument is hindsight and should not be used .

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JAG13
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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#927

Post by JAG13 » 09 Oct 2015, 17:39

Graeme Sydney wrote:A good concise summary I think Big Apple. There's one correction I would make.

Although I have never studied the issue to seek the answer, I have never seen a satisfactory (to me) explanation for the failure. I find it hard to believe that in the professional, academic and intellectual enclaves of the German officer corp there wasn't the smarts and the knowledge to give good military intelligence. The very lack of info should have been enough to issue cautionary summaries. I assume good military intelligence was achievable but ignored, hindered and suppressed by the fear and effectiveness of the world's, to that date, most effective police state dictatorship.
That is an easy one:

Nazis.

Hitlers stature increased greatly thanks to the 1940 victories, he saw the slavs as inferior people and military incompetent to boot as confirmed by the Winter War so, in contrast to his expectations regarding the west, he fully expected a quick campaign in the east and ordered the military to plan one. Their answer was that the only way it would succeed was if the Russians collapsed or could be rounded up and destroyed en masse within 500Km of the border. This relied on the soviet force estimates of the time that grossly underestimated Soviet strength, but when more accurate reports started to arrive in 1941 indicating a far larger force that made the military doubt of the feasibility of the whole thing and, moreover, even the economic soundness of the plan... Hitler simply accused them of defeatism and everything got shoved under the rug since the reds were supposed to collapse anyway making any other considerations irrelevant...

When Hitler beheaded the Heer in 1938, there ended its ability to confront Hitler, not that they wouldnt have turned against him had the allies attacked in 1939 or Fall Gelb failed, but they wouldnt confront him openly or when Hitler was in a position of strength.

So you have to take into account different dates, when Hitler cut the Heer's balls, when his victories made him politically bullet proof, but finally he lost when he started a war he couldnt win in 22 June 1941. Not that he was crazy in that respect, EVERYONE expected the Soviets to collapse and die, it i only in hindsight that we can call the decision crazy given what was known and thought of the USSR and its military at the time.

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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#928

Post by becktelj » 10 Oct 2015, 05:40

JAG13 wrote:
Graeme Sydney wrote:A good concise summary I think Big Apple. There's one correction I would make.

Although I have never studied the issue to seek the answer, I have never seen a satisfactory (to me) explanation for the failure. I find it hard to believe that in the professional, academic and intellectual enclaves of the German officer corp there wasn't the smarts and the knowledge to give good military intelligence. The very lack of info should have been enough to issue cautionary summaries. I assume good military intelligence was achievable but ignored, hindered and suppressed by the fear and effectiveness of the world's, to that date, most effective police state dictatorship.
That is an easy one:

Nazis.

.

.

.
in discussing the japanese errors at the battle of midway after the war, a japanese writer made the concise and cogent comment that the japanese planners were suffering from the 'victory disease' before the battle.

i believe the same disease struck the german army general staff and other people who came to believe that the germans could not really lose, even if they couldn't replace casualties. after all, it would only take 7 weeks and they had won everything preceding barbarossa.

i offer this to make sure it isn't only the guy with the mustache who needs to take some blame for the poor planning.

also:

". . . EVERYONE expected the Soviets to collapse and die . . . "

well, not everyone. not stalin (except for the first shaky weeks), churchill or roosevelt. all the other little people perhaps, but they didn't have enough votes.

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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#929

Post by randwick » 26 Dec 2015, 22:35

.
As I've said before , Barbarossa central goal was to collapse the Soviets power in one campaign by destroying its armed forces and taking over the food ,coal and industry ,the war industries would be paralyzed , without modern weaponry available the Soviet RKKA would stop to be an effective fighting force , this would lead to a crumbling of the Stalinian system seen as brittle as ultimately it rested on police and military coercion
massive defeats would see the leadership loose control of the country ,

It nearly happened twice , at the very outset , when Stalin seems to have been shocked by his failure and then in late October when operation Typhoon disintegrated the front and there was very serious panic in Moscow .

nobody could conceive the brutal determination of the Bolsheviks to keep on fighting or the unimaginable sufferings the Russian people would put up with, even if there was a massive amount of coercion , this was not part of the plan

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Re: At what point did Germany lose WW2?

#930

Post by BDV » 27 Dec 2015, 02:23

Germans would only have had to rehash their experience of 1870-1871 to remember that sometimes 'flagplanting' won't do and a long fight unto complete occupation of the enemy territory is needed.

IIRC Rundstedt claims to have had argued for a two-year war against Russia. Whether this is 20/20 is debatable.

Still, sycophantic promises by the young generals to accommodate Fuhrer's wishes are easy to read in their post-war recollections of Barbarossa (e.g '120 wristwatches' Manstein and 'Lutz? Never heard of him' Guderian).
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