re: 77 Years Ago Today: Operation Barbarossa

quote:

---

 wonder how he truly felt about Japan attacking the United States. 

---

Probably something like, "and they call the Dagos dumb..."

quote:

---

quick knockout of the USSR would have entrenched Germany's position to the point that even a future American entry on the side of the British, which was also rationally feared by Germany, would be unlikely to pose any real threat of victory over Germany

---

I disagree. The Nazis were trying to occupy way too much real estate and the only areas where they had a population that supported the Nazi regime was Germany and Austria. No way over time with such a small population could they hold and defend such a large amount of real estate. Hell thats partly why eventually the USSR collapsed. You can't perpetually occupy other countries that don't want you to be there.

quote:

---

First was Mussolini was a dumbass and Italy was getting their arse kicked in the Balkans

---

quote:

---

I disagree. The Nazis were trying to occupy way too much real estate and the only areas where they had a population that supported the Nazi regime was Germany and Austria. No way over time with such a small population could they hold and defend such a large amount of real estate.

---

I'm not talking about the holding and governance of the East over decades, thats a totally separate topic of discussion, I'm talking about eliminating the USSR as a geopolitical threat which would allow the Germans to dedicate all military assets to the fight against Britain. It would also secure them all the food and natural resources they would need to fuel their war efforts. What happens 50 or 100 years down the road is immaterial to the mentality of invading the USSR in 1941.

quote:

---

I think this goes back to the mindset of Hitler. Remember he viewed the collapse of morale of the civilian popularion back in Germany in 1918 as to why they lost the war. In WWII. Hitler did not want the people at home to “feel” the hardship of war. This is why Gemrany didn’t do things like rationing vital materials or even simple steps like putting women to work in war factories. Hitler wanted the home front to live almost as though there wasn’t even a war going on. This included not interrupting civilian rail traffic.

---

Keep in mind that this "Hitler's Mindset" idea is sort of an invention of the historians. Hitler may indeed have been interested in the well-being of the homefront. That interest faded to the point that he gave his "Scorched Earth" policies for Germany at the end of the war. Speer disobeyed Hitler's order to destroy all water facilities and infrastructure that would help the German people survive post-war.

Hitler vacillated frequently between one position and another, depending on who was doing the asking. If Hitler ever did have a firm policy of "butter before guns", he did vacillate on enforcement of that, as was his custom.

Hitler ceded his "homefront" concerns to the local Gauleiters. Hitler was aware of the 1918 homefront disorder, but he relied on his Gauleiters to keep that from happening again.

As such, the Gauleiters were always able to ignore Speer's requirements for the combat front when a Gauleiter needed a personal railcar and locomotive for political travel. And the Gauleiters were always provided with scarce concrete and construction materials when needed for a political monument or building. Hitler always overruled Speer on those issues when the Gauleiters asked Hitler to do so. Speer tried to implement total German female mobilization to war factory work. He failed. The Gauleiters asked Hitler to prevent that and Hitler did. In fact, Speer wanted to use the imported female workers for war factory work, but the Gauleiters were able to make sure that much of those foreign young females were placed in German homes for housekeeping and maid service instead of war factory work.

That's why I recognize that Hitler may have had a "take care of the homefront and butter before guns" policy, as some historians have said -- but that notion must be viewed through the prism of what actually happened and how that "policy" was implemented, i.e. it was left to the whims of the Nazi Party local leaders, the Gauleiters.

This is all explained very well in Speer's book, Inside the Third Reich, which, IMHO, one cannot be a serious student of the war unless one has read that book a couple of times.

IMHO, the answer to the question of WHY did Hitler and the German High Command fail to adequately address the question of proper preparation of the Reichsbahn for Barbarossa is simply this: it was an oversight. Perhaps the oversight was somewhat deliberate because the German High Command expected Barbarossa to have almost completely destroyed the armed forces of the Soviet Union by 1 August 1941, or so.

Hitler never included adequate logistical considerations in his campaign planning. The German High Command did, but, obviously they were not willing or able to fully meet those logistical requirements.*

The Reichsbahn was under the civilian administration of the civilian-led Nazi government, so, the German High Command had no authority over the Reichsbahn, and they never had the temerity to ask Hitler for that authority.

As such, this problem, as with many other military problems of Nazi Germany, were not adequately addressed, and these oversights and failures proved fatal.

*In fact the German High Command Logistics Guru in charge of planning the Logistics for Barbarossa was none other than PAULUS himself, of later 6th Army Stalingrad fame. Paulus completed his logistical estimation as part of the pre-campaign planning for Barbarossa. Paulus concluded that the German military forces at the front would be compelled to halt further advances and would be compelled to take an operational pause at or about 1 August 1941. Reason: the spearheads would out-run their supply lines by then. Of course, Paulus's estimation was precisely correct, but the German High Command was either unable or unwilling to address this problem identified by General Paulus. Barbarossa was launched with Paulus's warning unheeded.

Dan’s stuff on the eastern front is not his best.

There’s a guy called TIK on YouTube who does a much more thorough and accurate job.

They DID legitimately push on to the Caucasus oilfields. It was called Operation Edelweiss and was part of Fall Blau in 1942. Edelweiss was the job of Army Group A. Army Group B, the one tied up and destroyed at Stalingrad, was holding the Volga flank for Group A.

They actually took the oilfields at Maikop and made it as far as the outskirts of Grozny before stalling out due to the terrain becoming more mountainous, the Russian resistance stiffing, and MOST of all, the supply lines growing way, way too far for them to handle.

The above about Paulus is true, with the important addition that he arrived at that conclusion based on what he was told by the Quartermaster of the Wehrmacht, Eduard Wagner, who stated in no uncertain terms that the maximum distance an eastern operation could be supplied to was 800km further than they sat at that time in Poland. He told Paulus and anyone else who asked that after 800km the effectiveness of the German military would quickly fall off like a rock. He turned out to be DEAD-ON accurate. That’s right about as far as the Germans got in the northern ostfront.

Check out how far Grozny is - roughly TWICE as far as Wagner said was the effective limit of supply. So what they accomplished in Edelweiss is nothing short of heroic. They couldn’t have EVER made it over the mountains to Baku, with or without Stalingrad going down, as according to their own experts, who were correct, it was more than twice as far as they could be even moderately effectively supplied.