re: What fascinates you concerning WW2?

quote:

---

The Germans knew this and deducted they could either sit back and wait for the Soviet hammer to fall in a few years or they could gamble and strike the Soviets before the Soviets were ready.

Now all that of course is historic theory only and next to impossible to prove thanks to Soviet secrecy. I think there is a very good chance this therory is very much true though.

---

Right, we can never really know for sure, but what we definitely know is that the Germans saw it as a very real threat and thus it influenced their decisions.

We also know from Soviet aggression in Poland, Finland, and the Baltics, that the USSR was absolutely looking to expand their power and control whenever the opportunity presented itself. But with a victorious and immensely more powerful Germany than the Soviets could have predicted, at what point would they feel that launching such an attack could be successful? The Soviets had stumbled mightily against the Finns while the Germans were smashing historic European powers with relative ease, so it stands to reason they'd have a good bit of hesitancy in respect to jumping into conflict against Germany when their standing arrangement had been serving them so well.

quote:

---

would not be ready for large scale offensive operations until about 1943

---

One interesting question is, had the Germans thrown their full military might against the British in Africa and the Mediterranean from 1941-1943 instead of against the USSR, could they have secured that theater prior to a conflict with the Soviets? This, in effect, would have secured them to take the Soviets on with full force from that point forward. On the other hand, if the Soviets launched a surprise offensive operation in mass from their holdings in Poland and into nearby Romania, they had the potential to seize Berlin and Romania and destroy Germany's political state in short order.

When you look at the situation from the vantage point that Hitler and German leaders in that time period had to, it's very difficult to argue against the preemptive strike. The danger from a potential Soviet strike was just too great to risk.