Hitler's decision-making

Quite right Izaak, I was merely wondering out loud as to why Hitler didn't even try diplomacy after Poland. I pretty well agree with almost all you've written.

You're right, neither have I, again just wondering out loud. Kursk has just never made sense to me, I've just always wondered if there wasn't something else in the meglomanic's mind that he never shared.

You are almost certainly right. Kursk not making sense to me is, I hope, quite different from the way Hitler saw it. I think you are right that he totally believed in his own good fortune, genius and destiny.

 

Mr Canambridge,
Just one little comment or two:
Hitler always bragged about his genial ideas, at least to his own people. He was so talkative that people were losing their precious time, listening to his daily speeches. If there weren´t more important listeners, he molested even his secretaries (daily) and other servants with his genial observations. He most certainly would have shared SUCH a thought with someone. Most certainly with Ribbentrop and Goring, in the first place.

(Quite unlike Stalin, who was a great listener and talked only if absolutely necessary. Stalin´s speech of May 5th, 1941 about preparations for aggressive war with Germany, with all details, lasted mere 40 minutes!)

As to the Battle of Kursk, now, that you mention it:
I think it was an attempt to punish the Soviets for Stalingrad. The whole thing shows the depth of debilism of Hitler.
But it also shows something else, not less interesting: The same Zhukov who was a Chief of Staff before and During the catastrofic June 1941, when the Soviets were utterly unable to defend themselves, having the best equipped army the Earth has ever seen (and the same Zhukov who smashed the Japanese 6th Army in Mongolia in 1939) was now able to, durin a mere 4 months built a formidable defence line of 5000 kms. For me, at least, it is maybe the best proof, that the Soviet Union was preparing for an aggressive war exclusively and that no, not even elementary defensive measures were taken in 1941, not because the Soviets were stupid, but because they were so extremely confident in the power of their own coming attack.

 

I've heard that the Soviets were known to be the quickest defenders in the field during WW2; after a Soviet attack it was German doctrine to immediately counterattack so as not to give the Russian soldiers a second to dig in, because if they were given so much as a few minutes' respite they would have dug in and set up a defence.

What's my point? It seems to me like this can't be paired with your theory that the Russian army in 1941 was the best equipped army of all time and yet was destroyed by the Germans because it couldn't defend, only attack. Throughout WW2 the Russians have been known to be wasteful during attacks, yet extremely tenacious during defence. Where their attacks were often based on huge sweeping moves and troop movements beginning at Army size, their defence was a close, small-scale, and well-developed organization which Chuikov at Stalingrad more than made clear to the Germans.

How do you explain this?

 

Izaak,

You are most certainly right, Hitler was by all accounts unable to keep his "brilliance" to himself. Trying to rationalize the thoughts of an irrational person (I don't want to get into your free will discussion with Roel, far too deep for me!) is a vain exercise.
Kursk was what it was. An attempt to punish to Soviets for Stalingrad and regain the strategic initaitive in the East.

 

Roel,
Everything fits very well, also the Soviet inability to defend themselves in 1941, despite that they had the same smart commanders as later, with Zhukov at the top.
The main problems in June 1941 were:
1. Total surprise achieved by the Germans, incl. destruction of large part of Soviet aviation on the ground and total air superiority from the start
2. Complete lack of any defensive weapons and positions at the border. All previously built defensive structures, minefields, etc, etc, as well as the mining of bridges had been removed.
3. On June 22 a large part of the first and second wave of RKKA was still on their way, i.o.w. in trains. By far the majority of their petrol, diesel and ammo was also on trains.
4. Nobody had any maps of own territory
5. The whole positioning of Soviet forces was being formed as for an attack
6. Germans´ successful and quick surrouding manouvers
Whatever, you cannot compare the hopeless situation and chaos of June 41 and the situations later. Even with the best and most numerous equipment in the history of humanity, if the hardware is on trains – you have not a chance to use it.
Very stupidly, Soviets, in all this chaos, were trying to do the only thing they had planned - to attack. Which was catastrophal in their situation then.