where the "Hitler should have listen to his general " come from?

[MarkN]

....ongoing conflict after the successful conclusion of the campaign would be expected (by the planners) to be inconsequential.

[MarkN]

There is nothing to argue about! The dispute can only be about whether Germany could successfully solve the problem of eliminating the danger from the USSR 1941.

I don't even think that question is worthy of dispute. Any Russian threat to Germany in 1941 was of Germany's own making. A consequence of earlier choices and actions. I also feel it a moot point in the sense that the purpose of attacking Russia had nothing to do with any real or perceived threat it posed.

On the otherhand, l feel there are many areas and topics for discussion concerning this specific matter as well ad the bigger picture.

[ljadw]

...
Everyone knows that Germany lost.

So Hitler and Co. made gross mistakes in the planning and implementation of the Barbarossa plan.

A "'Germany lost " was not caused by B (Hitler and Co making gross mistakes in the planning and the implementation of the Barbarossa plan ) .
The South lost in the ACW, but not because Jefferson and Lee made big mistakes )
Besides : A is very questionable : Germany did not lose, but the Allies (Britain, US, SU ) won .
Saying that Germany lost because Hitler and Co made big mistakes ,is implying that without Hitler and Co,but with a monocled von directing the German war effort, Germany could have won . And this is totally out of the question : Germany could never won and if it won, its victory would only result in its demise and would hasten it .
Last point : Hitler and Co making big mistakes in the planning and implementation of Barbarossa, is also not correct . The plan was good, the execution was good, but success was impossible.
The only thing one could blame Hitler for is the decision to attack the SU, but ,as there was no alternative to escape victoriously from the dead end where Germany was locked up, ............

[Boby]

Making peace with France & co?

I think there was some room for a political maneuvering in 1940.

[aurelien wolff]

germany've lost with or without hitler and the nazi I think.

[ljadw]

Making peace with France & co?

I think there was some room for a political maneuvering in 1940.

Peace with France was impossible as France would again become hostile to Germany .
The only peace that was possible was a Carthagenian peace : the peace of vae victis .

[Boby]

It was not impossible, but difficult because of Italy. But it doesn't seems Hitler was much interested at all. Too much disregard for diplomacy.

Germany needed to do/try something to force Britain to give up, other than military. An european peace conference would be a sensation in neutral countries, and Britain would become quite irrelevant . Why to continue in this scenario?

[Max Payload]

Making peace with France & co?

I think there was some room for a political maneuvering in 1940.

No. The die was cast in September 1939.
Invading Poland was the major miscalculation, up there with invading the SU and the DoW on the US.

[MarkN]

Even if one steps back and looks at the bigger picture I don't believe that Hitlers intentions were limited. But it is clear that the heer produced an operational plan which was limited in scope.

Indeed. What Hitler wanted to get from an invasion of the Soviet Union is utterly different from the plan the Heer offered. Hitler was convinced into accepting the Heer plan; the Heer were not compelled to enact Hitler's wishes. The Heer was not just following orders, it was driving Reich strategy and strategic choices. The Reich was beholden to the Heer's incompetent strategic thinking and planning. Unternehmen BARBAROSSA took Germany into war with the Soviet Union without any consideration of how or when that war would finish.

[AbollonPolweder]

...
I don't even think that question is worthy of dispute. Any Russian threat to Germany in 1941 was of Germany's own making. A consequence of earlier choices and actions. I also feel it a moot point in the sense that the purpose of attacking Russia had nothing to do with any real or perceived threat it posed.

On the otherhand, l feel there are many areas and topics for discussion concerning this specific matter as well ad the bigger picture.

And any Russian threat to Finland was of Finland's own making, to Baltiс states - their own, to Romania ... . Do you consider Stalin completely incapable of active actions in 1941?
Conserning the topic: Could you answer why Hitler did not listen to General Marcks? Why did he not take advantage of his plan?

[AbollonPolweder]

...
Unternehmen BARBAROSSA took Germany into war with the Soviet Union without any consideration of how or when that war would finish.

As you consider for the success of the campaign the presence of such planned elements as conditions and time I would like to ask you again: how and when would planned finish of Unternehmen Weiss, Gelb and Marita?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Paul,

You write,

"RN reason for being was Convoy protection and 2/3 to 3/4 of their forces were deployed overseas."

No. The raison d'etre of the Royal Navy from its foundation was to protect the country from invasion. Making sure the UK was supplied was part of this mission. You may be sure that many escorts would have been recalled as soon as the invasion occurred.

"Only" 76 older DD? Germany had about ten.

The armament of trawlers of all sorts appears potentially effective against German improvised invasion craft.

You say, "Sources report the RN did not see its mission as stopping an invasion....." What sources?

As it happens, one of the few points of consensus seems to be that it was unlikely the navy would have time to get an overwhelming force into the Channel to stop an initial invasion. However, it would have the time and resources to prevent reinforcement and supplies reaching it.

You post, "If Dunkirk happens as planned- Britain would be much more defenceless and opportunity for such moral collapse increases. If prewar thinking pans out the KM would start raids up and down the British coast with Norway style invasion. That could result in government collapse." Anything can happen in a "what-if" scenario. The question is how likely is it to happen? Throughout the war not a single German soldier set foot on the British Isles except as a prisoner. There were no commando-equivalent raids from beginning to end and, indeed, the German navy never developed a force like the Royal Marine Commandos, for this sort of activity. The fact of the matter is that in 1940 any German landing of whatever scale would be as improvised as the land defences, lacking full air superiority and in the face of overwhelming enemy naval dominance.

Cheers,

Sid.

[MarkN]

how and when would planned finish of Unternehmen Weiss, Gelb and Marita?

I have never researched, studied or analysed German intentions, planning or preparations for either WEISS or GELB.

Off the top of my head, MARITA initially was designed with limited objectives to seize Macedonia etc but evolved into seizing the whole of Greece. I don't recall the expected timeframe.

And any Russian threat to Finland was of Finland's own making, to Baltiс states - their own, to Romania ... .

Do you consider Stalin completely incapable of active actions in 1941?

I have never researched, studied or analysed Stalin or the STAVKA's intentions, planning or preparations.

Conserning the topic:
Could you answer why Hitler did not listen to General Marcks?

Who says he didn't? Have you established that as a historical reality?

Why did he not take advantage of his plan?

Who says he didn't? Have you established that as a historical reality?

PS. As regards the last 2 questions, Marcks' study was for Halder and the OKH to chew over. Hitler is likely only to have been briefed on what they (Halder and OKH) chose to pass on.

[doogal]

AbollonPolweder wrote: ↑Today, 11:55
how and when would planned finish of Unternehmen Weiss, Gelb and Marita?
I have never researched, studied or analysed German intentions, planning or preparations for either WEISS or GELB.

Off the top of my head, MARITA initially was designed with limited objectives to seize Macedonia etc but evolved into seizing the whole of Greece. I don't recall the expected timeframe.

its a good point that a campaign can be one part of a war but can also encompass the entire war depending on what occurs once a campaign is initiated.
Certainly makes it clear that Moltkes dictum of no plan survives contact with the enemy is universal:

I think it is pretty clear that in the case of fall Gelb the high command was unsure as to what to do immediately following the crossing of the Meuse. They surprised themselves as to the speed and swiftness of what happened. Even when Fall Gelb produced an astoundingly positive result it still took Fall Rot to finally bring about the French call for an armistice:
So its a good example of the adhoc nature of a campaign once it has been initiated.

And Marita shows how limited objectives can grow depending on the course of a campaign:

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi MarkN,

You post, "Unternehmen BARBAROSSA took Germany into war with the Soviet Union without any consideration of how or when that war would finish."

As outlined in earlier posts on this thread, it is clear that the intention and objective was to defeat the USSR beyond recovery by the winter of 1941/42. Barbarossa was undertaken on the assumption that 5 months of trained replacements would be sufficient.

In his July 1941 Table Talk Hitler then envisaged the establishment of an occupation force of some 250,000 men beyond the Urals to suppress any Communist resurgence. Other sources talk of 60-70 divisions for the full occupation including European Russia.

It is certainly true that Hitler was a changeable opportunist who was prone to make spontaneous, unexpected and high-risk decisions before full (or sometimes any) planning was in place. However, the USSR was in his sights for decades for a number of fundamental ideological reasons (i.e. his aversion to "Judaeo-Bolshevism" and desire for Lebensraum). Furthermore, actual planning for an invasion of the USSR was set in train nearly a year before it was launched. So Barbarossa was not some spur-of-the-moment decision embarked upon without forethought.

One might argue over the definition of victory (i.e. was it enough to take Moscow to bring the whole edifice down, or would everything up to Vladivostok have to be occupied to stamp Judaeo-Bolshevism out completely) but to suggest that it was launched ".....without any consideration of how or when that war would finish....." is not supported by the evidence. The Germans clearly got it wrong, but the idea that they hadn't even consider these matters is untenable.

The Germans wanted the initial campaign, that would render the Soviet position irrecoverable, to be over by the winter of 1941/42 and thought they had prepared for this. Thereafter they intended to occupy all of the European USSR and a buffer zone of the Asiatic USSR east of the Urals to prevent any Soviet resurgence.

However, as things turned out, they miscalculated and failed in the first, so the second remained a pipe dream.

Cheers,

Sid.