Barbarossa

As the military history buffs will no doubt be aware, today is the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

So in honor of this anniversary, perhaps the most significant even in military history (certainly the event that led to the greatest war of all time), question: Was the Nazi invasion of the USSR always a foregone conclusion or did Stalin's conduct provoke Hitler into invading?

Put another way, was there anything that Stalin could have done to pacify Hitler into not invading?

Maybe they should have signed a treaty declaring they wouldn't attack each other! 😉

No but seriously, Hitler was a bit of a loony and I'm sure he would've attacked the USSR regardless of Stalin's actions.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Maybe they should have signed a treaty declaring they wouldn't attack each other! 😉

No but seriously, Hitler was a bit of a loony and I'm sure he would've attacked the USSR regardless of Stalin's actions.

hitler hated the communists (and jews, who led the communist movements in germany and austria) and blamed them for all the troubles of germany. i think it was a foregone conclusion that he would attack the ussr and stalin, being a paranoid delusional knew this. hitler had to strike before stalin could build up his defenses.

I don't think Germany would have been able to occupy the Soviet Union successfully. I think the Russian Resistance would have been even more formidable than the French one.

Had Barbarossa been successful, what do you think would have been the situation in say 1950?

edit: Maybe that's another thread for another day. 😀

Originally posted by sh76
As the military history buffs will no doubt be aware, today is the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

So in honor of this anniversary, perhaps the most significant even in military history (certainly the event that led to the greatest war of all time), question: Was the Nazi invasion of the USSR always a foregone conclusion or did S ...[text shortened]... another way, was there anything that Stalin could have done to pacify Hitler into not invading?

Mein Kampf makes several refrences to his desire of living space in the east.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Hitler always planned to invade to the East. What caught him by surprise was the fact that the British and Americans weren't cool with it.

Originally posted by FMF
I don't think Germany would have been able to occupy the Soviet Union successfully. I think the Russian Resistance would have been even more formidable than the French one.

Had Barbarossa been successful, what do you think would have been the situation in say 1950?

edit: Maybe that's another thread for another day. 😀

Originally posted by sh76
Well, I think I might disagree with that. More formidable than French resistance would not have been enough, as French resistance would not have driven the Germans out or done anything near such without the Allies invading and winning the war. Germany was able to, using brutal occupying tactics, control very well the Russian provinces it held for three years. B ...[text shortened]... I don't see why Germany could not have occupied the USSR as Britain did India for many decades.

Originally posted by Hells Caretaker
Mein Kampf makes several refrences to his desire of living space in the east.

This is what Wouk (writing from the viewpoint of a German general) has to say about the issue of whether Russia could have been occupied successfully by Germany.

Armchair strategists have the advantage not only of hindsight, but of being irresponsible. Nobody really cares what they think. The contest is over, and nothing hinges on their opinions. They are just consuming ink and paper, which are cheap. Before the event, however, every decision in war involves the lives of soldiers, perhaps the national existence itself. It is unwise to dismiss out of hand, long afterward, the judgments of the men in the field who had to do the job. But this caution is seldom exercised in critiques of Barbarossa.

Three fallacious objections to our campaign crop up over and over. They contradict each other, but that does not stop the critics from using one, or two, or all three. It is alleged:

First, that our invasion of the Soviet Union was doomed to fail, no matter how many military victories were won, because a small patch of Europe like Germany, with eighty million inhabitants, could not hope to hold down vast Russia with close to two hundred millions; Second, that Hitler’s harsh treatment of the Russian inhabitants was fatuous, because they would otherwise have welcomed us with open arms and helped to overthrow the hated Communist regime. In this connection, the old story of village women coming to greet the German invaders with flowers, or with bread and salt, is invariably trotted out; Third, that the plan made the classic error of seeking territorial or economic objectives, instead of concentrating on destroying the enemy’s armed forces.

Very well. To the first point, I reply that a glance at the world map shows that a tiny island like England, peopled by thirty or forty million, could not possibly have ruled South Africa, India, Canada, and Australia, with almost half a billion inhabitants. Nevertheless, for a long time, England did. Moreover, these subject lands were not contiguous, but thousands of miles away, at the end of thread-thin lines of sea communication. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was in land communication with Germany, directly under our guns.

These critics forget that the Soviet Union in the first instance was the creation of a small extremist party of Bolsheviks, who overthrew the regime and seized control of a population ten thousand times as numerous as themselves, a conglomerate of many nationalities. Or that a small ferocious Mongolian invader, the Golden Horde, actually did rule the Slav masses for more than a century. In short, these critics know nothing of the history of conquest, or the techniques of military administration, especially with modern communications and equipment. Had we conquered the Soviet Union, we would have administered it. We did quite well in the provinces we held for years.

The second contention of course contradicts the first. If we could not hold down the Russians in any case, what would we have gained by an easy policy toward them? It would only have hastened the day of our overthrow. But this criticism rests on an absurd misconception of the entire nature of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. This was, in the strictest sense, a war to the death. History had come to a turn. There were two strong industrial powers left on the Eurasian landmass, and only two. They faced each other. They were dedicated to totally different revolutionary ideologies. If Bolshevism were to triumph, Germany as we knew it had to die. If German National Socialism prevailed, there was no room on this heartland for an independent, armed, menacing Bolshevik nation far bigger than the Reich.

I can just paste in the whole magnum opus (Winds of War and War and Remembrance) from my Kindle for PC if you'd like. It's only about 2,500 pages long.

😉

Originally posted by sh76
This is what Wouk (writing from the viewpoint of a German general) has to say about the issue of whether Russia could have been occupied successfully by Germany.

Armchair strategists have the advantage not only of hindsight, but of being irresponsible. Nobody really cares what they think. The contest is over, and nothing hinges on their opinions. They ...[text shortened]... bigger than the Reich.

The Winds of War (pp. 820-821)

(emphasis added)

I told Hitler not to invade Russia but he did it anyway and know you know The Rest Of The Story.