Aida1 wrote: ↑08 Oct 2019, 09:24
ljadw wrote: ↑08 Oct 2019, 09:13
There was no underestimation by FHO ,besides what FHO was saying was irrelevant for the outcome of Barbarossa .FHO was even overestimating the strength of the Red Army west of Moscow.
Wrong.And no source given.FHO had a pretty clear idea of what was in the West of the USSR but not of the Total strength and the ability to generate new divisions.The estimate of the enemy strength is of enormous importance when working out a plan for a campaign.
FHO was giving the numbers of Soviet divisions west of Moscow,which were impressive, but FHO failed to inform the OKH of the situation of these forces, situation which was catastrophic : most tank divisions had too many tanks,some had no tanks, shortage of fuel,ammunition,spare parts, drivers, officers,NCOs,etc,etc. FHO had no pretty clear idea of what was in the west of the USSR.
A lot of these divisions collapsed when going to the border,without having fired one shot, before they saw one German .
The decision to attack the SU was taken without any contact with FHO.
What FHO was saying had no influence on the elaboration of the Barbarossa plan .
If the German political leadership had more informations about the Soviet POSSIBLE ability to generate new divisions, they still would attack the SU with the same plan .
3 things were needed for a successful Barbarossa. If ONE lacked, Barbarossa would fail .
1 The Red Army would go to the border . This was a guess, but a correct one .
2 The WM would defeat these forces : this was a conviction, but a correct one .
3 The Soviet leadership would not be able to generate new divisions : this was an unlikely shot in the dark,but as it was needed for the success of Barbarossa, everyone accepted this .Attenuating circumstance was that no one could know that the Soviet leadership would be able to generate new divisions . Even the Kremlin did not know it .
And that the informations from FHO determined the war plan is nonsense : Japan would still have attacked PH if its spy organisations had warned them that US would have defeated them . And if Japan had known that the US aircraft carriers were not at PH, it still would attack PH .
The influence of FHO is only a myth, invented by Halder to have a scapegoat to blame if everything went wrong . German public opinion would not accept that the defeat was caused by the Soviets, it would ask for a scapegoat . And Halder decided that it would not be him .
Germany started with the principle that it had to win,thus that it would win, thus that the conditions needed to win would be executed .