re: Today is the 81st anniversary of the launch of Operation Barbarossa

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Hitler was also heading right for Moscow in the summer but turned his armies at the last minute to the more "strategic" cities south and north. He was advancing like 50 miles/day at one point and had decimated all of Russias Air Force. If he kept going on course, Moscow would have fallen in a matter of days.

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Such a terrible move.

Wasn’t is because Hitler wanted to attack Stalingrad?

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I'm not really sure why we seem to be stuck on talking about the unlikely hypothetical scenario in which the USA never enters the war against Nazi Germany.

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Because as I’ve already explained, it is fundamental to the assessment as to whether the USSR was defeatable by Germany In this period. And every discussion other than exactly what occurred is hypothetical, so it matters not that it is hypothetical, otherwise there is no discussion except regurgitation of historical record with no critical analysis.

It is often put forth, and has been in this very thread, that Barbarossa was the worst military decision in history because its likelihood of success was so low. So the discussion turns to an analysis of such sentiment. The decision makers must have been totally irrational! It’s simply not true and even though Hitler underestimated the political entrenchment of Stalin and his political machine and the production capacity that they had achieved, Germany still achieved massive victories, made unprecedented advances and gains, and nearly knocked the the Soviets out with a single offensive. Decisions from Stalin later in the 1941 campaign were crucial in the ultimate Soviet successes in holding off in 1941, namely resolving to defend Moscow when fleeing was a consideration, moving the Siberian armies into the fight and leaving their West vulnerable to Japanese aggression, and moving factories in a timely fashion. Any of these decisions alone being made differently could have altered the course of history dramatically.

The Soviets were an extremely flawed and fallible colossus whose power was propped up by Western powers such that they could best make use of their unique advantages, which were masses, resources, and geography. Without the direct American engineering, food, logistics, and materiel contributions to the Soviet war effort (not to mention the physical American war effort itself) they simply could not have pressed the attack against Germany the way they did in their mid to later war offensives.

With all that Germany stood against at the start of 1942, it still was not until May of 1945 before a giant coalition squeezed them into submission from both directions. Remove the United States from this equation and you see that it is very difficult to comprehend how the Soviets could, on their own, even with the British still fighting in the West, carry out successful campaigns that would drive the Germans all the way back to Berlin.

So with this being understood, it illustrates that, again, the most significant factor in ensuring the defeat of Germany in WWII was the entry of the United States. Germany could have survived the war in a scenario that the United States remains out of the conflict, which from the war’s outset was a primary German aim. Hitler, like you have suggested, came to believe in late 1941 that U.S. entry was inevitable and he therefore removed all doubt by declaring war on the United States which offered worthless benefits and ensured Germany’s defeat if their enemies remained intent on unconditional surrender.

The decision to invade the Soviet Union then was not destined to failure from the outset and was not irrational from the perspective of early 1941. A lack of accurate information regarding Soviet weapons systems, both quantity and quality, as well as the extent that Soviet industry had been built up in the prewar years (with Western technology) and tooled for armaments, were a great surprise to the Germans as they carried out their campaign, but not insurmountable. It was unknown future world events that ultimately doomed this decision to inevitable failure, namely the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which led to Hitler’s conviction that war with the U.S. was now imminent and his decision to bring into existence the exact scenario Germany had sought to avoid from the outset of the conflict, American entry to the European war. Only at this moment in time did Germany’s defeat become a virtual certainty. Only political will or technological breakthrough could change the course at this moment, both of which were possible in this time period and fueled Germany’s fanatical resistance but of course did not play out in Germany’s favor. But prior to this moment, Germany was strategically capable of, at minimum, carrying on hostilities in a manner that preserved the existence of an independent German state.

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They were already losing in both fronts regardless

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I don’t find your argument particularly convincing.

if the US never enters the war officially meaning japan never attacks us....germany defeats the Soviets and the Brits come to an agreement by 1944 imo.

if japan never attacks and instead focuses on going after the natural resources of the soviets at the same time as germany attachs from the west, soviets lose.

and if the USA never even ramps up and starts supplying europe and the soviet union.....yea its over by 43 even with the germans lack of skill when it comes to logistics adn their lack of 100% committed war economy.


lots of revisionist history about how the soviets really forced the hands of the japanese, how the soviets were really the ones that defeated germany etc etc....those arguements do have a small amount of truth to them, but under no circumstances are they even remotely true without the US entering the war and solving tons of issues and drawing off the japs from attackign the soviets full force and it sure as frick doesnt happen without the US supplying the soviets.

if we stayed 100% neutral and the japs attacked the soviets instead of pearl harbor, the european section of russia would be german and the asian portion would be japanese as would china.

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I don’t find your argument particularly convincing.

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Argument? Just look at the facts! I don’t need the German version of the Lost Cause Theory Revisionism to support my statement.

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Such a terrible move.

Wasn’t is because Hitler wanted to attack Stalingrad?

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No, Hitler didn’t divert the Schwerpunkt away from Moscow to attack Stalingrad. Stalingrad wasn’t even on his radar until 1942.

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And yet Wilhelm was able to get Nicholas to capitulate 25 years earlier. What changed?

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Political will to fight.

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Political will to fight.

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Would you attribute that to Stalin? IOW, was the army more willing to fight under Stalin than the Tsar?

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Political will to fight.
Would you attribute that to Stalin? IOW, was the army more willing to fight under Stalin than the Tsar?

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I’m just speculating here, I’m certainly no historian. I think the Russians came to fear the Germans. They heard what they were doing and fought for their homeland. Someone more knowledgeable than me could go better.

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IOW, was the army more willing to fight under Stalin than the Tsar?

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The Russian Soldier throughout history up to and including WW2 was always known to be a very tough fighter, willing to suffer privation and unwilling to surrender.

Czarist Russia collapsed because of internal revolutionary forces that were able to discredit the Government and convince the population that the Czar needed to be overthrown and replaced with the Bolshevik government.

Keep in mind, Czarist Russia suppressed a revolution earlier in the 20th Century, so, things were already boiling. Czarist Russia's internal political situation was unstable, but, it still took three years of very heavy casualties in warfighting before the revolution succeeded.

Stalin had no such problems with domestic political instablility - his regime had consolidated total political power within his country well before 1941.

We should also keep in mind that in WWI Germany did not invade Russia at first. In WWII obviously they did and, perhaps this resulted in a greater determination to beat the German invader.