Could Hitler conquer Russia if he didn't fight the west?

Not too sure if the Germans were there or not but they definately posponed Barbarossa tohelp out the Italians.

 

ill think u find germany invaded yugoslavia and greece because the greeks had the italians in full retreat, a coup had ousted the pro german regime in yugoslavia and there was percieved to be a threat of the british opening a 2nd front in the balkans, an idea actively put forward by churchill after the britsh had routed the italians in north africa in late 40 early 41.Thus drawing those nations against germany or at least destablising the whole region. germany went in not to help the italians at all.

 

Before we begin to analyze and discuss the war in the east, it is of most importance to first identify and explain the reasons for the campaign. Several factors come to light when discussing the eastern front campaign. It is often asked, why did the German commence operations in the summer of 1941 instead of late spring in order to take advantage of more advantageous weather, longer days and more importantly, time to reach Moscow before winter.

It is important to analyze the situation before June 22, 1941 to fully understand the reason for such a late date in the summer to begin the invasion:

Mussolini

On October of 1940 Italy attacked Greece. After a week of fighting the Greek Army re-gains the initiative and stalls the Italian Army advance, giving the British a green light to enter Greece. The British involvement was of outmost concern to the German high command, this is why; The Royal Air Force would be in range of the Ploetsi oil fields in Rumania, a vital oil supply for the German war machine, its destruction would have proved disastrous to the war effort. The German high command was therefore forced to prepare invasion plans for Greece.

From

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/ ... uction.htm

Will try to locate other sources.

 

The Greek campaign basically divides into 8 major phases;

The 1st Italian Offensive.
The 1st Greek Offensive.
The Winter Stalemate.
The 2nd Italian Offensive.
The German Offensive and Invasion of Greece & Yugoslavia.
The 2nd Greek Offensive & The Defence of Florina.
The Retreat and Defeat of the Greek & Commonwealth Forces.
The German Airborne Assault on Crete.
Summaries of each phase will be provided as soon as I can write them up - Apologies that they are not already available.

http://www.ask.co.uk/ix.asp?q=the+briti ... %2F&adurl=

As with most battles in WW2, I use British for the whole of the commonwealth, I apologise to my Commonwealth Friends for this blanket usage and acknowledge that their contribution was invaluable and is never forgotten. It is just that the Commonwealth nations are so numerous.

 

Marmaduke Pattle, the son of English parents, was born in Butterworth, South Africa, on 3rd July, 1914. After leaving school he joined the South African Air Force (SAAF) as a cadet.

In 1936 Pattle moved to England where he joined the Royal Air Force. A member of 80 Squadron he was sent to Egypt two years later to take command of B Flight.

Flight Commander Pattle first saw action in the Second World War on 4th August 1940 over Libya when he shot down two Italian aircraft. He was also downed and it took him two days to walk back to the Egyptian border. Over the next few months Pattle obtained twenty victories during the Desert War.

In November 1940 Pattle was sent to Greece where he took command of 33 Squadron. On 6th April, 1941, the German Army invaded Greece. Pattle and his pilots now had the problem of dealing with the Luftwaffe.

On Sunday 20th April, Pattle led his men against a large formation of Messerschmitt 110 over Eleusis Bay, near Athens. Heavily outnumbered, Pattle was killed while going to the aid of a colleague in difficulties. By the time of his death Marmaduke Pattle had fifty victories making him the RAF's top-scoring pilots of the war.


From

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWpattleM.htm

 

No.

Simply answered no.

The guerila warfare on territory of Russia was one of biggest problems Nazis faced. There was simply no way for Germany to "hold" that much territory with population actively fighting the occupation. Russia isn't France in that respect.

The "west" was really minor if any factor at all prior to 1944. If you want a "probable" scenario that could have given Germany victory in World War 2, I suggest you go by "Japan invades Russia in 1941" route which have been beaten to death already too.

Simply put, Russia could not have been defeated in World War 2 to become a non factor. The best scenario for Germany would have been not to invade Russia to begin with. I dont think once Germany got into the war there was a way out. Even separate peace in 1941-42 would have simply given Soviets time to recover and strike back.

Now, lets analize Hitler's "blunders" during the war. Imagine instead of invading Russia with pretty good chances of success (or at least so it looked like in 1941) he decides to finish off Britain and wastes resources trying to invade islands. That leaves Stalin about 12-18 months to prepare for invasion and actually hit Germany pretty hard when they are tied trying to manage a naval descent. Lets imagine he lets "strange" war go on and invades Russia before conquering France. Even bigger blunder. Since he is involved in Russia with Britain and France breathing down his neck. If you go through entire thing piece by piece, Hitler invaded Russia precisely at the best possible moment. He destroyed French/British troops and conquerred France without wasting too much resources or time (cornered rats tend to fight with unusual fierocity) and effectively killed all desire of Allies to open second front in Europe. In fact he was so successful they didnt open one until 1944!!! He invades Russia when it is most vulnerable and has actually decent chances at success if there were ever any.

Hitler's mistake was mainly not purging bunch of his generals with delusions of grandeur before the war much like Stalin did. May be if he did, his generals would actually fight the enemy instead of plotting against him.

 

Some good points there!

I would argue that Stalin did not seem to be preparing for war in 1941...

Not sure I entirely agree! Hitler's Generals often managed to achieve the impossible & pull his chestnuts out of the fire again & again.

 

Ehh..

What about Hitler's generals trying to warn France about invasion because they believed it would be a failure? I disagree with "common" opinion that Hitler was an idiot when it comes to military. I think Hitler was political and geopolitical genius while being an absolutely evil and deplorable human being. Yes he was an evil man, but his "meddling" in military affairs was usually productive rather than counter productive. At least in cases I know of. Stalin on other had was a complete opposite. If you want someone who repeatedly "almost" pushed his country to the brink of defeat because of military incompetence, look no further than uncle Joe.

 

Agreed!

Fair enough. The siege of Leningrad is a good example! (Let's pu all the food in one big warehouse... Oh, they bombed it! :roll: )

Depends how you define 'military affairs'. To invade France? Yes, productive. To move unit XYZ to location ABC (as he did more & more often towards the end!) was not always 'useful'. As far as I'm aware!

Really?
Is there evidence of this??

 

Towards the end.

Goebbels was describing in his memoirs how insanely overcomplicated and obscure german HQ have become. Hitler was simply lied to on daily basis. The reason to authorise deployment of every unit towards the end was because there were simply no people to entrust with the task.

German generals flat out lied to their fuhrer, imagine that. According to Goebbels' memoirs at the least. Considering that some of them have spent more energy on plotting against Hitler than on fighting the enemy, you could understand the circumstances by the end of the war.

 

I believe that was his name. The History Channel just had the True Story Movie about the subject.

 

Hitler's military "genius" is a good example that even a blind squirrel can find an acorn once in a while. Very few of his meddling decisions helped.

The difference between Hitler and Stalin is that Stalin learned from his mistakes. On the brink of defeat, he finally started listening to his generals instead of trying to micro-manage the tactics of war. Hitler, on the other hand, increased his level of micro-mangagement as the war continued, resulting in more and more disasters.

 

Bob

Ehh, a lot of times hitler's generals would advise him against things that he actually knew were possible. Many did not believe Germany would beat France.

The difference was, Stalin could trust his generals. He know none of them were plotting behind his back to overthrow him while sabotaging war effort. Hitler did not have that luxury.

It doesn't matter how bright you are, if every time you make a decision you base it on false assumptions because your generals lie to you and the decisions themselves being sabotaged by very people that are supposed to carry them out, nothing good will come out of it.

Imagine that in 1941, Zuhkov's goal was not to fight the war but to plot and overthrow Stalin. See my point?

 

i would say that stalin listened , but not trust, he did not trust nobody, to his general , and hitler did not listened or trust his generals

 

Actually, many of the German staff lied to Hitler near the end because he would not listen to what he did not want to hear.
Nobody wanted to run the risk of displeasing him too much...

As for France, well, of course they did not believe it was possible. Neither did anybody else. If you had asked anybody save Hiter & Guderian in 1938 if Western Europe could be conquered in a matter of weeks, would they have said yes?
Would you, had you been a general back then, when all the war games you have held, all your tactical & strategic knowledge, every shred of evidence yo have says 'no'?

 

If Hitler had invaded Russia after Poland in 1940, he probably would have succeeded. Assuming that France and GB are non-factors, the Germans would easily have been able to divert enough forces to the Eastern Front to capture any of the major objectives. There would not have been a Balkan campaign to tie up German troops for a few weeks, and with GB not involved in the war at all I doubt Greece would have warranted as much attention as it did in real life. Remember that the Red Army would still be fighting the Russo-Finnish war and suffering heavy casualties in the process. The Germans could easily have surprised those troops in the Russo-Finnish border, cutting them off completly whilst driving onward to Leningrad, The Ukraine and Moscow with fresher and more numerous divisions than they had in real life. Also, invading one year earlier would also mean that the Russians would not have had T-34s in service, and that the Red Army would have less experienced officers (a minor factor, but one worth mentioning anyway).

 

The reason we had Heydrich killed, according to recent evidence, is because he was doing a very good job. Yes, when he first came to Prague he played the 'butcher', but after showing the stick he got out a big bunch of carrots. Made sure everyone had htei basic needs met - even ensured that everyone had access to new shoes. Became alarmingly 'popular' (as in - he is being nice & decent if we don't rebel, why push it too much?).
So we sent in assassins with the deliberate intention of:

a) getting rid of an effective leader, but mostly...

b) causing reprisals which would surely turn the Czechs so far against the Nazis there could be no possible way the Nazis could ever re-gain their passiveness.

 

The problem with the Red Army's officer corps was not so much less experience (though there was that) as lack of ability. Stalin's prewar purges of the Russian officers ensured that many important posts were held by politically reliable hacks with no military competence whatsoever. Not to mention what the purges had done to the morale of the survivors. Given this, I agree that launching Operation Barbarossa in 1940 would likely have resulted in a German victory. One factor no one has mentioned yet is that fact that the new Soviet aircraft types were, mostly, either on the drawing boards or a gleam in their designer's eyes. The Luftwaffe would have had an even bigger edge than they did in 1941, with the added plus of not having suffered heavy losses over Britain.

 

Well , yeah , because Hitler put 60 divisions on the western front which is around 1.2 million personel, and that could have made some kind of difference on the eastern front , but Hitlers managing of the whole front was poor , and these troops may have been mis-used , but again , more than a million troops can surely make a difference , and the western allies supplied the russinas with weapons and food and the russians just broke even , so if I were to decide , I would say the russians would have been defeated , and there would have been some prolonged insurgency by partisans , but the SS would have exterminated all the slavs and non-aryans , so the insurgency couldn't have lasted a very long time, there would still be resistance but nothing overly formidible.