How come their was only one attempt on his life ? this guy was screwing up since 1939 , thinking he was some military genious. I was watching something on his memoirs , and he was a dumbass! (surprise) he would have won the war if he hadn't interfered with his generals. it's kind of a loaded question , but please give your opinion on that whole situation. On Hitler and his attitude and military strategy. (not really a question either but just give your opinion on hitler during WW2). and what was your opinion on his cronies.
I think he would have won the war if he didn't declared the war to Russia ''When I have destroyed Russia Great-Brittain will be lost'' that or something similair to that is what i've seen on Discovery Channel. (Hitler in colour) But I don't see the connection betweenn the destruction of Russia and Great-Brittain being a sitting duck...
The connection is that once Russia is dealt with, the vast majority of the German armed forces could concentrate on Britain without worrying about the Eastern frontier. And the German armed forces outnumbered the British armed forces... As to Hitler over-ruling his generals & screwing up - Germany would never have conquered Poland, or the whole of Western Europe, if Hitler had not over-ridden his Generals. His first big screw-up was in getting too over-confident and attacking the CCCP. His 'stand firm' order saved the day during the Moscow counter-attack, but sadly he thought that this ment it would always work - which was big screw-up 2. Note I'm not counting the declaration of war on the USA, as I don't know if his generals had any input there at all. I can guess what they might have said, though...
That doesn't make sence as at the time Germany failed there attempt to take Great-Brittain the Soviet Union was still an ally of Germany so the Germans could concentrate on GB when in the meantime the USSR concentrated on Poland.
I can see, Ricky, the principal discussion is started again. It would be good to unravel the whole political situation and get the people to understand the role of Stalin as a puppet theatre director. I don´t have enthusiasm enough to go through everything form the start. As a (probably unintelligible for some) provocation, I´ll limit myself to stating MY following points: 1. Without Stalin there would have been no Hitler and no WW2. Stalin was preparing his attack on Europe since 1927 (the beginning of 1st 5-yr plan), including his engineering of internal German politics. 2. The only major mistake of Stalin in the game was his taking Bessarabia too early, which was a direct consequence of his overreliance on the strength of France and his underestimating of the shock effect of German “blitzkrieg” on the western Allies. Had Stalin not taken Bessarabia, Hitler probably wouldn´t have decided to attack the USSR and concentrated on Battler of Britain/“Seelowe” instead, in which case the whole of Europe would most probably become Soviet already in 1941-2. 3. The III Reich was doomed since August 23, 1939. The rest was just about how and when Germany is going to be defeated and not WHETHER. Hitler´s little mistake here or there did not have any important effect. The man was a pre-programmed puppet. I don´t know if there had been any previous clandestine arrangements between Stalin and Hitler, maybe not. But, knowing Stalin´s thoroughness of his preparations for war, as well as his large influence on the German political scene in the inter-war period, this would not surprise me.
I woudln't know as I don't know anything about Stalin, but IF I was Hitler and I knew that Stalin can't be trusted I woudn't even ask him to be my ally, so obviously Hitler trusted Stalin and was not planning to attack him before he failed to take Great-Brittain, after this defeat his already messed up brains messed up even more and told him to attack an ally...
I still cannot understand fully: WHY Stalin absolutely needed to take Bessarabia so early. Not being sure about the timing of the outcome in the west he could have waited, right? Still, he chose to take it in 1940. I don´t think he expected that Hitler doesn´t notice it, despite his campaign in France. The only possible explanation I can think of is, that he wanted to prepare the area and dislocate his forces on the border of Rumania optimally for the planned attack (it was the super-strong 9th Arme, the strongest one in RKKA - over 3000 tanks - that was to be in the center of the attack on Rumania). Among many other things, he might have wanted to place the Donau Flotilla where it should be (it was a major logistical operation to move the ½ of the former Dniepr Flotilla through the Black Sea to Donau delta). But I am still not fully satisfied. The man like Stalin would not do such a disastrous mistake just to dislocate forces against Rumania - a very weak enemy. I think it must have been his idea that the war with France and Britain would be prolonged and that Hitler would not be able to do anything about Bessarabia anyway. Although Stalin was not a sadist, one could speculate that he wanted humiliate and scare Hitler for the fun of it (Stalin liked practical jokes). Does anybody have a better explanation?
Overconfidence? Hmm... Most likely is the simple one that it made his planned invasion easier. I did a little looking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessarabia#World_War_II states that it was in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, so surely the Germans were expecting it to happen?
I´m aware of that, Ricky. The problem is that immediately after the cession, the RKKA started to concentrate enormous military power right on the border (see above) and moved the Flotilla. Not to mention that Stalin overtook a part of Bukovina, which was against the treaty and which made Hitler furious. Also, doing it at hat particular time, when Hitler was busy in the West was a sort of provocation (how many miles from Bessarabia to Ploesti?, how many miles/hr a BT tank could make?). In the circumstances Hitler could only feel totally defenceless in his most important point. How could the Germans avoid to see the ever increasing concentration of armor and other materiel (9th Army)? Can you hide 3 thousand tanks with Rumanians on both sides of the borders?
But I was not, so I thought I'd mention it! true... true... and true again. I'm sure the soviets would argue that they were peace-keeping troops making sure that the Romanians did not cause trouble, so something similar, but yes, somebody may just have noticed something. My big question is this... The Soviet main thrust was planned in the middle, to encircle the Germans, who were attacking from middle/top to drive for Moscow. The Soviets put aside lots of troops etc to go grab the Romanian oil fields. What happened to them? Most maps I have seen of the actual campaign show little movement there (IIRC). Could they have advanced & cut the oil?
It is no secret that all commanders, from division upwards had so called "Red Envelopes" with big letter "M" on it. They might only open the envelopes after the signal from above. The signal came on June 22th: destroy the envelopes!!! Some commanders just couldn´t wait and opened it (some had to pay dear for this later) - they had thought it was plans of defence. Alas! It was NOT plans for defence. Some units actually began advancing into Romania but then received orders to return. The Flotilla and its ground units held out in Izmail on Danube for a month but then received orders to sink the ships and withdraw by land. The port of Constanza was attacked both from Black Sea and from air. Eventually, the Soviet forces turned north to help the South-Western Front.
Well, there is a good 'what if' scenario. What if Red Army units had advanced & captured the oil wells...
As I said, the envelopes with the plans of attack HAD to be destroyed. The chaos and carnage on the border was so great that the units facing Romania were acutely needed against the main German attacking forces. Going deeper into Romania the Soviet divisions would have been cut off their supplies very quickly. Even if they had succeeded in destroying the whole oil infrastructure, it would have probably become rebuilt quickly. The whole refinery took place in Germany anyway. There would certainly have been problems at some point of the "blitzkrieg". Maybe it would have been stopped altogether, even if temporarily, but the cost in manpower and hardware would have been huge for the Russians. We are talking about three armies, one of which had 3 times more tanks than an ordinary "shock" army- the 9th. Morover: don´t forget that the element of surprise was lost from the start and a large part of the air forces was knocked out. And, most importantly: the whole "top" of Soviet military was in a state of shock, including the chief of staff Zhukov and, most importantly, Stalin himself. The shock was so profound that it precluded any possibility of rational, elastic, long-sighted planning. As you maybe remember, I have been very angry with one of our people here because he seemed to think of the Russians as inferiors. I understand him, in a way. The problem with the Russians is following: They need a very detailed planning and a very strong and, maybe even ruthless, leadership in order to achieve great things as a nation. Russians are not good organizers like Germans. When told what to do and told what happens if they don´t, they´ll do it, whatever it takes. And when the organization and discipline is shattered, as in June 41, they become very helpless. I don´t know why that is so. Some of this mentality was there already before revolution. Under communism it grew even stronger. That´s what I can answer. As far as I know, the idea of a selective offensive on Romania was not even considered in Moscow.
The only army that succeded in holding the captured ground was the 4th. This then provided the flanking cover, or rather the spearhead position, for other armies that had fallen back to catch up to. Thus the line was first thrown into disarray and later recovered hinging on 4th Army. That army was commanded by no other than General Gotthard Heinrici. No real surprise that the tactic failed every time afterwards.
Stand firm tactics is used by desperate people or people without conscience. In this case (and all others) Hitler belonged to both categories.
Btw, Ricky, I have just found a piece of information about the attack on Romania. It began on June 25th, with the help of Donau Flotilla, amphibious tanks, parachute troops and bombers. The next day RKKA occupied the town of Kiliya. Over the next days the bridgehead on the Romanian side was 70 km wide. Soon after the attacking force was withdrawn. This is just a little example of what was planned on a much larger scale. The 9th army alone had ca 3300 tanks. It was flanked by two other armies, each of which had several mountain divisions, for fighting in Carpathians. The main role of donau flotilla however was to move 180 km up the Donau and cut oil pipelines. In 1944 a new, waker donau flotilla was formed. It was very successful and ended the war in Viena. The other part of the former Dniepr Flotilla, the Pripet´Flotilla was also reconstituted - it fought along rivers Pripet, Bug, Vistula, Notec´, Warthe, Oder, Havel and Spree - and ended the war in Berlin.
