Tbf they did good for most of it
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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I just want to say, for all the discussion of 'could they have...' it's important to remember that Germany was never going to conquer Russia, it was a stupid (racist) idea to get Hitlers 'lebensraum' and take out Stalin's 'Jewish Bolshevist' nation (heavy on the eye-roll there). Keep in mind that Germany didn't even get Moscow, which Napoleon had actually managed to (mostly) do, and Napoleon still lost for the same reason that Germany would have regardless -- they did not have the logistical ability to support an army in an area the size of Russia. Partisan/army elements would absolutely pick apart a logistical train that long, which Germany couldn't have done any way. We have to remember Germany wasn't an actual mechanized army, it was entirely dependent on horses, and to try to use horses to haul ammunition/food/clothes/medical supplies/artillery shells/etc ~1500 kilometres from Germany to Moscow alone would be insane, especially with the millions of men and women the Soviet union had constantly attacking you.
The entire invasion was never going to work, and people give the idea it could have worked way too much credit. And this is all assuming no other nation would step in either; it's entirely on the 'nobody is in an alliance anymore' sort of fantasy world. This failed for the exact same reason that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has -- they planned for a short, easy war, because their entire ideology requires that they underestimate their foes at every available opportunity.
I like how passionate you are about this one detail about history. And, honestly? I would read your book about it. Lol
Thanks, I appreciate that :)
One aspect that is often overlooked is how reduced in strength the German forces were at the start of Barbarossa. Sure, they took Poland and France very quickly, but they suffered enough losses that Barbarossa started at reduced strength, and once the initial maneuvers of the invasion were over Germany was pretty much running on fumes manpower-wise.
and once the initial maneuvers of the invasion were over Germany was pretty much running on fumes manpower-wise.
And, ironically, fuel-wise
once the initial maneuvers of the invasion were over Germany was pretty much running on fumes manpower-wise.
Germany's main problem wasn't manpower (at this point), it was materiel. Germany's generals (mostly) wanted to go as quickly as possible to mitigate this. The problem was their ancient supply train running on ~350,000 ('supply trucks') and 2.75 million horses. In their glee to send the army attacking everyone they could around themselves to fuel their extremely inefficient economy with more loot, they got into a cycle of needing to be fast, but having no reserve of fast moving vehicles to facilitate that.
And to be clear, I am not a 'pro-Russia' person, I've just read everything I could on the issue, and I've never read a way for Germany to get out of Russia that didn't involve them making zero mistakes.
I'm just extremely wary of people saying 'Nazi Germany could have won if...' and the reason would require them to not be fascist and racist, and we start to sort of legitimize Nazi Germany. The fact was they were always going to pick stupid fights, because fascist governments always do. And they idea that they could somehow *hold *Russia while also constantly picking fights with everyone else is insane.
Seriously, they had an awful economy, their logistical train was terrible, the leader of each area would just outright lie about their capabilities (see Goering's Stalingrad Airlift)
If you want to talk about what 'Nazi Germany could have won if...' how about: - If they didn't expend time, resources, and their own souls making literal mobile gas chambers for the civilians of the Soviet Union ('Accordingly, it was a partially secret but well-documented Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land west of the Urals with Germanic peoples, under Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East) The Nazis' belief in their ethnic superiority pervades official records and pseudoscientific articles in German periodicals, on topics such as "how to deal with alien populations."; if they didn't alienate every single ally they could have had by invading smaller neighbours as a stop-gap for their crumbling finances; if they weren't constantly fighting Partizans and Resistance members (thanks Grandma!); I read (but can't find the article) that British Intelligence credits Nazi Germany's sadism and want for torture as key reasons the Nazi's lost the information war, as their Information networks were terrible.
So yes, anyway, there wasn't a way it was going to work unless they un-became Nazi Germany.
Some Germans wanted to ally themselves with Poland and fight against Soviet Union together. Without Germany attacking Poland, France and United Kingdom would have not entered the war and history might have gone very differently.
It is true, if they hadn't done Nazi things and had actual allies they could have done better, for sure.
We get into how you define victory over USSR. He thought the state would collapse, the infamous "kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will fall down". Then they would doubtlessly ethnic cleanse.
There was a difference between Napoleon's and Hitler's strategy. Napoleon went straight for Moscow like an arrow, ignoring everything else. He got it, but then what? Hitler saw that and knew that didn't work, so he launched a broad invasion on the North, Central, and South all at once. The goal was a total collapse, so that there wasn't much left to do military activity (not on any significant scale like with tanks and planes). Course there were other problems with that.
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Not only that, but they were also defeated by the cooperation of different nations that would let anyone join if they wanted.
So the Nazis were literally defeated by diversity and inclusivity.
I have been involved in "big business" at several times in my life, someone actually gave me authority to build teams and create projects. I discovered that there are different schools of thought about what makes the "perfect team" to work on a project, and most managers go through the hiring process in mind of getting candidates that all are the same, all have the same personality, skillset and background, under the belief that homogeny makes for a more harmonious, predictable team.
Not me fam. I painted goddamn abstract art with a pallet of people. I got the most diverse teams I could, I got outspoken, angry black mothers alongside timid, pasty nerds alongside combat vets alongside immigrant chefs.
It took constant "babysitting" to make sure everyone was getting along and understanding each other, but we kicked ass. It's an amazing feeling putting together a team that can handle changes and can provide input on things you never thought of and who actually care about the results. Not only did we succeed at every challenge, I made lifelong friends and learned new things every day.
Diversity and inclusion is literally being used like a slur lately and it burns me. Diversity of backgrounds and perspectives is one of the most valuable strategic assets you can have around you. The people who surround themselves with people who already agree with them and have nothing new to add may pass challenges, but if you want to defeat challenges, you need a spectrum of perspectives.
Fights one war
It was kind of a big one, though.
And pretty successful hat they stopped at a certain point
There would be no way to stop. The German economy was really messed up by the Nazis. They essentially had no exports because they were producing mainly materiel for the war and were under an embargo anyway.
That means they had no way to get money besides literally taking it from conquered countries. The problem is, you can only loot once. This created a vicious cycle where they became more isolated and needed to conquer even more.
Honestly, before nukes existed, the Nazis could have been defeated by an embargo. But it would have cost more lives. Invading Germany saved lives and the nukes saved even more lives in Japan.
The problem is, you can only loot once. This created a vicious cycle where they became more isolated and needed to conquer even more.
Fucks sake Adolf, I learned this from a few hours of a total war game. You think you'd have figured it out at some point.
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Not to glorify nazis, but arguable they fought a whole bunch of wars against most european countries and won all of them until they came up against some big ones.
Arguably their biggest mistake was trying to fight both world superpowers at once, in the USSR and Great Britain backed by the US. I can't imagine how they thought that would go well, but thank fuck they did, cause I wouldn't want to see the world they envisioned.
If you’re brainwashed by your own propaganda, attacking both superpowers probably feels like a good idea
I don't think they wanted to do that. I believe the plan was to pressure the UK to make deal and once that was done they'd be free to attack USSR
My understanding is that Hitler always imagined that the UK would be an ally of his: Germany would be the superpower on the European continent, the UK would have its overseas empire.
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Operation Bruhbarossa
In their defense, they kicked the everliving shit out of one world power (France) already
France at that point was not a military superpower. Or even a superpower at all. When WW2 started, France was barely out of ww1 shellshock.
I don't think people realize how fucking BRUTAL ww1 was on France.
There are still areas today (not a lot thankfully) that are considered inhabitable today because of the vast amount of bodies (animal and human), unexploded ordinance, chemical damage... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge
Farmers still find unexploded ww1 ordinance when plowing their fields. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest
Entire forests and villages razed. And I mean, razed down to the ground. Nothing left standing. Not a tree, not a brick.
When I was a kid growing up in my village, the one advice our parents gave us almost every day was 'if you find something shiny, don't touch it.'
Last year I was having a walk in the forest after a good rain and found, half buried in the mud, a German grenade, right in the middle of a path I used to ride my bike almost every day. A friend lost a hand when he found one when we were kids.
BTW, this is what Gazan kids are going to deal with, Ukrainian kids too. Anyone who supports Israel, anyone who supports Russia, supports the future suffering of the kids.
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Not how wars work alliance against alliance, that's the point of an alliance.
If you had the UK, USA, France, and Russia/USSR against you, you were fucked. Same applied to world war 1.
It would be the same today in a parallel universe where Russia were allies of the west.
Yea they brought it up on themselves lmao
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The US Confederates also lost 1 war.
So did the modern Japanese (also hugely racists).
I'd argue the Japanese didn't just fight one war, though. They at least managed to trounce the Russians.
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Arguably Japan won in 1907, 1918, and in 1938ish but there was a lot of partisan activity in China.
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Their glorious leader pusses out like a bitch when he's about to get what's coming to him.
To be fair, they did take on… the world.
You'd figure that would take about 5 seconds for the world to win, but weirdly, it was kinda close.
It wasn't close. Plenty of countries hadn't joined in yet. Only European countries and allies were fighting directly.
(It's a Norm Macdonald bit)
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Propaganda is helluva drug.
A lot of their success is due to their tactic of rushing into the enemy without any care for supply lines and logistics. This often worked to their advantage but most of those early wins were not sustainable in the long run. It gave the impression that they were more powerful than they actually were.
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