Hitler's summer pause 1941

Manopause.

 

Indeed Poppy! This explains everything. The Führer's testosterone level declined rapidly during the summer 1941 and the rest is history...

 

That was, if you read my posts, my point.

No other country could hope to do what the USSR did. It is not surprising, that the Germans had failed to account for this massive continued mobilization: it was unprecedented.

 

So if Guderian was so independent, why did he stay on. We only have his word that he argued with Hitler.

 

Actually if I didn't screw up my calculations somewhere. The USSR mobilised somewhere between a bit under 9% and a bit under 12% of her population during the war. During the ACW the Union mobilised about 9.7% of it's populationand the south about 12%. So it's not at all clear to me that no other ocuntry could hope to do what the soviets did or indeed that it was unprecedented. I t hink there was a war down in South America that was even more extreme ... Looked it up Paragua in the War of the Tripple Alliance 1864-1870. Lost 30%-60% of the population and mobilised 15%+ of the population.

 

Frankly, percentages can be damned. It's easier to find 75,000 arms for a local war to equip 15% of a population of 0,5 million in a war that continued over a 6 year period, than to have weapons and equipment stockpiled and/or manufactured to equip to the tune of 500,000 a month. The logistics alone of the disruption (loss of population and resources, evacuation of population and resources, translocation of production centers) is mind boggling. The amount of SNAFU's and FUBAR's must have been quite high in that first six months of desperate confusion.

 

It was even more than 500000 a month in 1941n an average,the SU was able in 1941 to send 1 million men monthly to the front .

 

I am not saying the Soviet effort wasn't more difficult just that the sited examples could be considered to have set a precendent. I suspect the Soviet distribution system was significnatly more develuped than Paragua's and given motor vehicles arguemably better than that of the US at the time of the ACW. Moreover the Soviets had a stronger manufacturing base than the Confederates anyway not shure about Paragua. Then there's the matter of central control. The Soviets certainly had it, the South didn't. Again I'm not sure of the situation in Paragua.

 

IIRC sr801, the general gist of his relationship with Hitler have been corroborated by others. Am missing my bio of Guderian by Macksey but have seen no one show evidence that he was a syncophant like Keitel. Remember, Hitler didn't allow senior generals to resign unless he wanted them to. They served at his pleasure, which is why he never could resign until Hitler fired him (again) late in the war.

 

I know that this is a bit of a bump, but after looking through this a little, I really think that if Hitler managed to take Moscow it really wouldn't have made much of a difference. It would have been a situation that Napoleon was in when he invaded Russia and captured Moscow: an abandoned and useless city that had no value. Stalin and his government were already making plans to move to the Urals and they had already placed all of these explosives around the city in the event of it being captured by the Germans. It would end up being just like how Napoleon found it, useless and abandoned. The only real value of capturing it was the fact that it would have been a symbolic victory. You don't usually win wars just by capturing the capital, because in most cases there is more to it than capturing the capital.

 

It is very hard to know, as we have such limited information/insights into the true thoughts and concerns of any of the Soviet leadership at the time.

It definitely would've been a severe psychological blow. It wasn't "just" the capital, it was the way the war was going.

Furthermore, the loss of Moscow would make it even more difficult to keep Leningrad in supply, Murmansk would be rendered impotent and Archangelsk would be less useful as a port than it was historically.

Had Moscow been lost, how many more losses would the Red Army tolerate before demanding a change of leadership?

 

If Stalin truly had stayed whatever happens in Moscow, then taking Moscow would have made a difference. Anyway, getting away earlier would have created chaos and perhaps the collapse of the front in fron of Moscow. Then again Stalin was already getting huge reserves around Moscow which started the counter attack once Typhoon run out of speed...

 

Although I do not know how useful they would have been since the Red army had already placed explosives there, Moscow was probably one of the most of not the most important railroad junctions in the Soviet Union as well as a lot of roads going in and out of Moscow. You bring up a good point GS.

 

a while ago i saw a youtube presentation of some historian about just this..i forgot who it was.

Anyway in short : Hitler was right! but not because he assessed all the information right.

1) By doing the move south to hit on Kiev soviet troops , the germans surprised the soviets there and rounded masses of troops up...that OTHERWISE would have advanced to moscow german flank if germans had continued to moscow.
2) The siberian reinforcements (troops and tanks) that were on their way were near enough to have been deployed IN or before(east) of moscow at the time you propose the germans would have reached moscow.
Effectively ; the germans (worn out, fatigued, unreinforced) in moscow would have faced so much more opposition in the city of moscow than ever in Stalingrad later.
3) as above: city /ruin fighting in moscow would have started badly for the germans..and there is less than 10% chance they would have succeeded in taking AND holding Moscow over the winter 41/42.
4) following above:the germans would have collapsed TOTALLY soon after the russians would have freed moscow , together with the steaming Kiev front in their right flank.
Remember, russians have the t34 and KV, the germans hadn't replaced their pz3 and stug3 in any great numbers..

So the front before moscow and the orderly retreat in the winter 41/42 of the germans stabilized the front there better, than it wld have been when having gone straight for moscow.


btw agreed that moscow is important wrt logistics in the strategic area, and there were some tank factories there that might have been taken out of production by the germans, but still enough tank /armament production was moved beyond moscow in time... so taking moscow (thus crushing the siberian troops= impossible) and holding it and holding against the Kiev troops from SW would have stabilized the front , but with less agricultural and mining material from Ukraine...so not really better than the historical frontline/situation.

 

The success in Kiev was in my opinion more thanx to the stubborness of Stalin. He did not let the forces move, retreat or do anything. Once the area was surrounded, the supply route was cut, and the troops were getting exhausted and once Stalin let them retreat, they were not in any shape to fight the Germans.

 

Moscow had IMO the potential of being a real "monkey trap". Remember the German plan was to surrond and invest the city before storming it. That would take time and resources. It would also leave the Germans with some pretty long flanks protecting an already strained log system. On the other hand even investing it would have had significant moral and logistical impacts on the Soviets.

 

There is no proof that,if Stalin had accepted a retreat from Kiew (= abandonning Kiew),this would have been possible .

 

You have no proof that there is no proof.

 

There is no proof that the Germans had the intention to storm Moscow: more probable is that they were thinking that,after the eliminatin of the Soviet forces west of Moscow,Moscow would fall without big fighting .

 

Unless there is a proof that the SW Front could be saved by giving up Kiew, the logical conclusion is that there is no proof for the claims by the military after the death of Stalin that the SWFront could be saved,but that the stupid Stalin prevented this .

Given that the claims from the military dated from tempore very suspecto (destalinisation period where all defeats were attributed to Stalin),the claims of the Soviet military can be compared to those of the German generals after the war : both had a reputation to lose and to defend,and in both cases,the ideal scape-goat was the dead dictator .

May I also notice that Stalin did give the order to retreat .