At what point did Germany lose WW2?

[AbollonPolweder]

Where did you get this document? I have it in German from KTB OKW. The English version has an inaccurate translation.
...
2. - english version: ... Our objectiv is not to push the Russian 5th Army back beyond the Dnepr...
- german version: ... Their obyectiv ( objectiv of the joint flanks - AP ) should be not ONLY to push the Russian 5th Army back ...

If your revised translation is correct, that sentence would require a qualifying clause; ‘... not ONLY ... but also ...’
And it would not then make sense for the next sentence to begin, ‘Instead, [it is] to destroy ...’.
Unless you are suggesting that this sentence is also mis-translated?

Yes sir! The German words "nicht nur ... sondern (auch)" are equivalent of English correlative conjunction "not only ... but also". And the word "Instead" gives reason to reproach Hitler with complete idiocy, for the city of Konotop, the Desna and Sula rivers are to the east !!! of the Dnieper.

[checkov]

On refuting that Moscow was just another city with a Stalin approved Cossack Dance Hall or two and capturing it nothing more than a trivial annoyance.

https://tenor.com/view/russia-cossack-d ... f-11694601

1. Communism perhaps is even more of a centralized government than national socialism. The seat of government was Moscow and C and C would have been lost or disrupted. BTW prove Stalin didn't have a nervous breakdown...who is to say it wasn't Khrushchev that wasn't lying?
.

2. Moscow was the cultural, economic and social center of the SU. Taking it would have undermined morale. They even said during the times of the great poet Checkov (or CHECKHOV my namesake) "all roads lead to Moscow".....

3.....which in reality they really did!!! Moscow was the transportation and communications hub of the SU. Actually all roads lead to Moscow" wasn't really true. In 1941 it should have said "all good main roads lead to moscow" Literally every single paved highway went to or through Moscow. As did nearly all railroad lines. There were plenty of common Russian roads that didn't go through Moscow, you know the type? Roads inches deep of dust in the Summer and feet thick of mud in the winter.

Taking Moscow would have crippled logistics in the SU. It would have been vastly more difficult to move troops and equipment etc etc in interior lines. Difficult to move British and later American LL around. More difficult to move reinforcement and supplies from the East to the west even.

This reminds me of a video on YouTube on why Germany could never win in the SU according to someone. He talks on and on about how important gasoline, supply numbers of everything was and why Germany could never when becuase of supply. Then he briefly mentions how Moscow was the communication hub of everything and glosses over its effect if captured....hahaha. IRONY! That is humor guys.

4. Moscow was itself a major manufacturing city. A great city in general , was it the largest city in the USSR? As example Around the start of WW2 Moscow by itself had about 50% of ALL aircraft production in the USSR (I researched that when debating with people about that video). I'm sure they produced a lot war production of many things in addition to aircraft. Taking Moscow would have permanently reduced this, if they managed to move it all East then disrupted and delayed it greatly.

So in summary taking Moscow would have disrupted C and C, severed communications, reduced wartime production and damaged morale. Any one of these factors alone can decide the outcome of a war.

I am sorry to say I will stand by my theory: The Wermacht lost their one good chance of defeating the USSR by not striking towards Moscow in August.

[ljadw]

The story of Stalin having a breakdown on June 22 is the Russian equivalent of Hitler sleeping on D Day . It proves that certain Anglo-Saxon historians are willing to believe anything .
From JSTOR:Comment by Steven Main on Cynthia Roberts'Stalin in June 1941 :
On June 22 Stalin's working day started at 4.30 AM and stopped at 6.45 PM ( Source : memoirs from Zhukov and Stalin's appointment diary ) That day Stalin met 15 people
On June 23 Stalin's working day lasted 22 hours
On June 24 5 hours
On June 25 22 hours
On June 26 10 hours
On June 27 10 hours
On June 28 5 hours
That week Stalin worked 88 hours and 40 minutes and met 150 people .

[ljadw]

Point 4 of post 1233 ( claiming that Moscow was good for 50 % of the Soviet aircraft production ) is meaningless .
1 That it was so at the start of the war,does not mean that it was later also so : a big part of the Moscow aircraft plants was evacuated to Samara ( in the past called Kuybyshev).
2 It is also not so that the fall of Moscow would decrease the Soviet aircraft production by 50 % .
3 It is also not so that if less aircraft were produced,the SU would lose the war .
4 There are no figures about the aircraft production at Moscow during , I found only figures about total aircraft production during the war ,at WW2 Aircraft .
The Soviets produced some 125000 aircraft and received another 20000 from LL .
5 Looking only at the number of produced aircraft gives a wrong picture .More aircraft does not mean more pilots/crew,and more pilots/crew does not mean more aircraft . The same for less aircraft and less crew/pilots .It is perfectly possible that less aircraft would have no impact on the number of available pilots .
Last point : the training of a pilot took more time than the production of an aircraft .

[Max Payload]

The German words "nicht nur ... sondern (auch)" are equivalent of English correlative conjunction "not only ... but also". And the word "Instead" gives reason to reproach Hitler with complete idiocy, for the city of Konotop, the Desna and Sula rivers are to the east !!! of the Dnieper.

Indeed - the translation is misleading and geographically illogical.

I am sorry to say I will stand by my theory: The Wermacht lost their one good chance of defeating the USSR by not striking towards Moscow in August.

And I’ll stand by mine; that in August AGC did not have the resources to continue to batter its way much further east from Elnia/Dorogobuzh and had it attempted to do so its flanks would have become increasingly vulnerable.

[Max Payload]

The story of Stalin having a breakdown on June 22 is the Russian equivalent of Hitler sleeping on D Day . It proves that certain Anglo-Saxon historians are willing to believe anything .
From JSTOR:Comment by Steven Main on Cynthia Roberts'Stalin in June 1941 :
On June 22 Stalin's working day started at 4.30 AM and stopped at 6.45 PM ( Source : memoirs from Zhukov and Stalin's appointment diary ) That day Stalin met 15 people
On June 23 Stalin's working day lasted 22 hours
On June 24 5 hours
On June 25 22 hours
On June 26 10 hours
On June 27 10 hours
On June 28 5 hours
That week Stalin worked 88 hours and 40 minutes and met 150 people .

I think that you’ll find that the story many historians (Anglo-Saxon included) were willing to believe is that on 28 June Stalin retired to his dacha for three days, much to the consternation of the Politburo.

[ljadw]

There is no reason to believe this story : if Stalin did not collaps on June 22,there was no reason for him to collaps on June 28 .

[ljadw]

I am still bewildered by the willingness of p[eople to believe that the capture/conquest of Moscow would benefit Germany :
1 Moscow was not the aim of Typhoon
2 We have seen what happened at Warsaw, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kiev : all bad results for the Germans
3 The rule was / is to avoid cities as much as possible .
4 The conquest of Moscow would be another Stalingrad and would make impossible a German advance to the AA line '
5 Capture of Moscow would be possible only after the total defeat of the Red Army .
6 AGC said that in August they could not advance .
7 Typhoon could succeed only if
a ) the Soviets had only small rteserves
b ) if these reserves were concentrated opposite AGC
c ) if these reserves were used to stop the Germans west of Moscow .
Reality is that the answer on points a and b were negative ,thus that Typhoon was doomed to fail .
If it was needed to attack with 70 divisions, it would be impossible to go with 70 divisions to the AA line .
If it was possible to go to the AA line with a few divisions, there was no need to fight for Moscow .
The fall of Moscow would not cause the fall of the SU,but the fall of the SU would cause the fall of Moscow.And this could happen only west of Moscow .
The truth is that even after Briansk/Vyazma,the Soviets had still several options: they could give up Moscow and create a new front east of the city . They could leave a part of their forces in Moscow and continue the war east of Moscow . The Germans OTOH had no options at all : their strategy
was subordinated to what the Soviets could and would do . All the Germans could do was to pursue a mirage, hoping that the Soviets would give up on October 3, October 4, October 5, etc....
Those who are talking about Moscow are putting the carriage before the horses .

[Max Payload]

if Stalin did not collaps on June 22,there was no reason for him to collaps on June 28 .

Six days of unremitting bad news and no prospect of it getting any better could have been a reason.

[Peter89]

I am still bewildered by the willingness of p[eople to believe that the capture/conquest of Moscow would benefit Germany.

(.......)

Those who are talking about Moscow are putting the carriage before the horses .

Yeah, you are absolutely right.

It is obvious that the fall of Moscow / Leningrad / Stalingrad would have been a serious blow to the SU, a major defeat. But then, we would speak about "if the Germans could have won at Murmansk / Saratov / Astrakhan, then they could have won. No, they couldn't have...

And anyway, the occupation of the SU was to be an economical disaster.

And reaching the A-A line and "keep the SU out of range" was an imbecil idea. Even if the Germans could reach the A-A line, the SU could continue the war with Western equipment.

And even if the whole SU collapses, the West could defeat Germany on their own.

[ljadw]

if Stalin did not collaps on June 22,there was no reason for him to collaps on June 28 .

Six days of unremitting bad news and no prospect of it getting any better could have been a reason.

The news was not that bad and there was reasonable hope that things would become better : there were no mass surrenderings and the Soviet mobilisation was activated : 5 million + before July 1.
Besides, a year before Daladier got news that was worse,much worse, and he did not collaps .And Daladier was only a French politician,while Stalin was a dictator. Stalin did not collaps after Briansk-Vyazma, thus why should he give up after 6 days of fighting ?

[Peter89]

if Stalin did not collaps on June 22,there was no reason for him to collaps on June 28 .

Six days of unremitting bad news and no prospect of it getting any better could have been a reason.

The news was not that bad and there was reasonable hope that things would become better : there were no mass surrenderings and the Soviet mobilisation was activated : 5 million + before July 1.
Besides, a year before Daladier got news that was worse,much worse, and he did not collaps .And Daladier was only a French politician,while Stalin was a dictator. Stalin did not collaps after Briansk-Vyazma, thus why should he give up after 6 days of fighting ?

In the western statecraft and ideology, a leader is responsible for his actions. And if the people can withstand bad leadership, there must be severe repression or direct suppress of alternate opinions.

The consequences of this ideology are clear: if the leader fails in his role (like Stalin did as a political and military leader in June 1941), this doctrine assumes that the system might crack. There were obvious disarray and abysmal leadership, desertion and mutiny were commonplace, but the SU itself was hanging on. Stalin's position might have been shaky, but given the situation, the German attack unified the leadership and the command structure.

The western statecraft hardly concern about the historically repressed nations, or, in other words, the "second world". It focuses on developed societies and (post-) colonial societies (where no actual nations could develop).

And this ideology wasn't entirely wrong, the German society actually did produce those signs of resistance (T4, White Rose, Stauffenberg, etc.).

Hungary, a second world nation at that time, produced nearly none, and followed its leaders to the certain and senseless defeat.

[ljadw]

It is too easy to blame Stalin only for the shortcomings of the Red Army : afaics,Stalin was not responsible for the fact that there were tank divisions without tanks, that there were tank divisions with to many tanks, that there was a lack of fuel, of trained tank crews,of trained NCOs and officers, etc ..
As one could expect,after the death of Stalin,his generals blamed him for the defeats and claimed victories for themselves. They followed only the example of their German colleagues.

[Paul Lakowski]

It is too easy to blame Stalin only for the shortcomings of the Red Army : afaics,Stalin was not responsible for the fact that there were tank divisions without tanks, that there were tank divisions with to many tanks, that there was a lack of fuel, of trained tank crews,of trained NCOs and officers, etc ..
As one could expect,after the death of Stalin,his generals blamed him for the defeats and claimed victories for themselves. They followed only the example of their German colleagues.

Since Adolf and uncle Joe ran absurdly psychotic regimes - they are ABSOLUTLY RESPOSIBLE FOR EVERY THIN THAT HAPPENS . History demand that we all work from that premise....especially since they started the bloody war in the first place!!!


This forum desperately needs a "like button".

[HistoryGeek2019]

And even if the whole SU collapses, the West could defeat Germany on their own.

This is the key point that everyone seems to be missing. The USA and UK were lightyears ahead of Germany economically and technologically. Germany was under siege, with shortages of manpower and raw materials, while the western Allies had access to the entire planet's resources on a scale dwarfing anything Germany could have harvested from the Soviet Union. The Allies could sit back and siege Europe while Germany slowly starved.