If my knowledge/recall is correct, Germany and Russia were never not going to go to war and they both knew it, due to inherent opposing sociopolitical frameworks. But they were both powerful enough that pause and deliberation had to be given, hence the faux pacts prior to war.

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Posted by Bushmaster

19th Hole

Member since Oct 2008

39656 posts

Posted on 2/23/17 at 9:40 pm to USMCTiger03

The fact that Hitler had such a hard on for Stalingrad totally fricked him. He put his nuts on the table and the rest is history.

And regarding the OP, the Market Garden always fascinated me as I had a couple of great uncles there and told me a lot of stories about their experiences there.

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Posted by ChewyDante

Member since Jan 2007

16934 posts

Posted on 2/23/17 at 9:47 pm to USMCTiger03

quote:
Germany and Russia were never not going to go to war and they both knew it, due to inherent opposing sociopolitical frameworks.

I'm not so sure this is necessarily true. Stalin was a subscriber to realpolitik. I haven't seen much that has convinced me that he had real ambitions at launching a major war against Germany any time soon following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The Soviets were, however, using their leverage to prod Germany to allow an expansion of Soviet influence deeper and deeper into Europe, which began to give the Germans a great sense of unease. While war from Hitler's viewpoint may very well have been inevitable, he always recognized that a two front war was not favorable. Eventually he wanted to crush the USSR, but Stalin did not recognize this as he viewed Hitler as being a pragmatist/subscriber to realpolitik like himself.

Stalin's true intentions are harder to gauge. Hitler was quite candid with his long term ambitions, Stalin much less so.

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