If Hiter had it his way

I just watched a documentary called "the world at war" by Jeremy Isaac. I was informed that Hitler wanted to search for and destroy Russian armies not capture Moscow, but his generals strongly suggested Moscow should be the goal.
What if Hitler had it his way?

 

That is interesting because I have always read that Hitler was the one who wanted Moscow and thought along the lines of a static warfare instead of an elastic one with the aim of destroying armies. Hitler thought in terms of economic value which is why he wanted the grain out of Ukraine and the oil out of the Caucasus. Now, the General staff did insist on the drive to Moscow when Hitler redirected Guderian's armoured units south the assist in the capture of Kiev. As it turned out, the units were not needed and actually got in the way. Now Moscow did have a military value as it was the center for rail traffic. Capture Moscow, you disable its rail system. But you do not destroy armies which to win against the USSR, it is what is important.

 

anyway, if the goal was to destroy as much Red Army as possible, Moscow was the place to go in fall-winter 1941

 

Exactly Moscow was the Military heart of the Soviet Union, the whole command structure ran out through Moscow, all orders came from Moscow, if Moscow had been taken as it could have if the Panzer Groups 3 and 4 had not been diverted to Leningrad and Kiev respectively but maintained their armoured drives towards Moscow the Soviet Capital would have fallen sometime around August 1941 as at the time no re-enforcements had arrived from the Central and Far Eastern Commands.

Once Moscow was in German hands the whole command structure of the Soviet Army would have collapsed, Leningrad and Stalingrad would have followed and most probably the Caucasus oil fields as well.

 

I really don't think this would have been the situation. The Soviets were already planning on moving the base of operations further eastward. A lot of the heavy industry seemed to have already moved that direction after the big Soviet losses early in the conflict. The only way to completely defeat the Soviets would have been to cripple the red army and their war production capacity. All of which was a very heady task considering the limited luftwaffe support at the time and the tenacity of the Soviet military once they figured out the logistical weaknesses of the German war machine.

 

If the Luftwaffe took advantage of their air superiority early in the war, and had the capacity to bomb Soviet transport system (which is very limited), the outcome could be different. Bombing war industry wouldn’t be as successful as bombing transportation system.

 

Having a transport system disabled by bombing is something that should have been outside German capability. The Allies took months to seriously affect the French railway system, and this was a continuous effort. Unless you have the means and the time to do that you can at most count on temporary interruptions as the railbed can be easily repaired, new sleepers and rails can be brought in. You can reduce the efficiency of marshalling yards, but again this has to be a continued effort. It's really a matter of seeing who can be exhausted first.

 

Thanks, that was good to know.
One more thing: Please feel free to correct any grammar mistake I make. English is my second language, and I have a lot to learn.
Thanks again

 

If by you mean that the Soviets had gotten their act together by summer 1943, it would have been too late in my timeline as Moskow, Stalingrad, Leningrad had been taken and also the Caucasus Olifields and that the degeneration of communication with the Soviet high command the German forces are now within sight of the Urals, and that the Luftwaffe are now bombing the crap outta the Soviet factories east of the Urals.

 

As a reaction of the stiffening Russian defense on the road to Moscow in July 1941, the Germans decided to divert a large part of their bomber fleet to terror attacks against the Soviet capital. Already on July 8, Hitler had ordered Hermann Göring to level Moscow and Leningrad with the ground – 'to make sure that there will be left no inhabitants that we will have to supply during the winter.' The final order for implementation of these raids came with the Führer's Order No. 33 of July 19, 1941.

But the planned devastation of Moscow became a large failure, quite comparable to the air offensive against Great Britain during the previous year. The Soviet defense forces simply were too strong. As the air offensive against Moscow was commenced, General-Mayor Mikhail Gromadin's Moscow Air Defense District (Moskovskaya Zona PVO) had 585 fighters at its disposal - of which more than half were of modern models (170 MiG-3s, 95 Yak-1s, 75 LaGG-3s, 200 I-16s and 45 I-153s). The fighter planes were divided into twenty-nine Fighter Regiments in 6 IAK/PVO, led by Polkovnik Ivan Klimov.

Furthermore, the overall-commander of the Moscow air defence, General-Mayor Gromadin, had concentrated 1,044 AA guns and 336 machine guns in and around the capital. But the fighting spirit of Moscow's defenders was of as much importance as the numeral strength. 'I swear to you my country and to you my native Moscow that I will fight relentlessly and destroy the Fascists', read the oath sworn by the determinate fighter pilots of the capital's PVO. Such manifestations should not be underestimated in a country with people as drained with propaganda for 'revolutionary unselfishness' as the young Soviet republic. In fact, first major Soviet victory in the war was achieved in the air over Moscow.

The first air raid against the Soviet capital was launched during the evening on Monday July 21. 195 bombers – Ju 88s from KG 3 and KG 54, He 111s from KG 53, KG 55, KG 28, III./KG 26 and K.Gr. 100, and Do 17s from KG 2 and KG 3 – were concentrated against the Soviet capital. They were immediately encountered a strong defense. 170 Soviet fighters were sent to intercept the raiders. Particularly successful were the fighters of 11, 16, 27 and 34 IAPs. Heavy air fighting took place in the searchlight concentration zone in the Solnechnogorsk – Golitsyno area north-west of Moscow. The first aerial victory was scored by Starshiy Leytenant I. D. Chulkov of the MiG-3 equipped 41 IAP. Chulkov claimed an He 111 at 0210 hours. The Do 17 piloted by Leutnant Kurt Kuhn of 9./KG 3 was brought down by the famous Soviet test pilot Kapitan Mark Gallay. When captured, Kuhn attempted to hide the fact that he had bombed Moscow claiming that his bomber had carried no bombs.

Nearer Moscow, the German bombers were met by heavy AAA fire. In total, the anti-aircraft guns of 1 Korpus PVO reported the expenditure of 29,000 artillery shells and 130,000 machine-gun bullets during this raid. Yet, at the cost of four shot down aircraft, 104 tons of high explosives and 46,000 incendiaries were dropped by the attackers during this first raid. These raids caused heavy losses among the civilian population. But the real aim – to burn the Kremlin to ashes – failed completely. The bombs simply could not penetrate the thick, Seventeenth-century roofs on the main buildings in the Kremlin.

The attack was repeated with 115 bombers the following night. Kapitan Titenkov of 11 IAP and Mladshiy Leytenant Lukyanov of 34 IAP managed to bring down their second respective bombers in the illuminated night fighter zone 5. Soviet fighters and AAA claimed the destruction of 15 enemy bombers (the Germans admitted the loss of five). During the third Moscow raid on the night of the 24th, the attack force had been reduced to 100. Due to both the strong Russian defense and the impossibility to keep such a large portion of the diminishing German bomber force away from the growing difficulties at the front, the number of aircraft participating in each raid decreased from 100 during the third night to 50, 30, and finally no more than 15. Within short, the proud Luftwaffe 'offensive' against Moscow had been reduced to mere nuisance raids.

The most successful individual Soviet fighter pilot during the brief 'air battle of Moscow' was Kapitan Konstantin Titenkov, who scored one bomber on each of the four first raids, thus becomin decorated with the Order of Lenin and the Golden Star as a token of a Hero of the Soviet Union.

Sources:
Tagebuch GenO. Franz Halder.
Russian Military Archive TsAMO, Podolsk.
Bekker, Angriffshöhe 4000.


© Christer Bergström, Andrey Mikhailov 2000


As you can see Roddoss72, your theory of the Luftwaffe, just bombing away doesnt hold much water.

please explain....

 

"Please Explain". For you i can't be bothered.

 

As I see that it has become very difficult for you to back up your claims, our chat will come to an end here.


Farewell.

 

I never saw a reply of this kind in this forum, I am really sorry to see this. When someone lacks arguments it's too easy to resort to personal insult, which of course is unadmissable in a civilised forum such as this.

 

If the Germans never succeeded in bombing anything to a strategc effect in the Eastern Front (please provide examples if you don't agree), how would they be "bombing the crap outta the Soviet factories east of the Urals" ?

The Allied bombing campaign against Germany took years and yet even they did not manage to "shut down" Germany, so I'd like to ask you how would Germany achieve that with much more limited means.

 

Ok here is an argument, If Hitler had his way and he went after the destruction of the Soviet Armies and not strategic targets like Moscow, the German Army would be bogged down in the massive job of clearing the millions of POW's that would have ensured, frankly the German Army was never equipped to handle the millions of POW's, Hitler himself never imagined the amount of POW'S his army would capture, why? because Hitler was one who hated to be bothered with simplicities of details.

 

You're right in saying that the German Army was not prepared for such an amount of POW's, but this was not Hitler's responsibility, the German General Staff was responsible for this kind of logistical details.

 

Who in the hell ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, as Fuhrer Hitler was fully responsable as he dictated every decision that occured on the battlefield right down to battalion level, he and he alone was fully responsable nothing more and nothing less.

 

As Hitler was fully responsible with starting the war, this argument sounds like it would apply more towards Napoleon who not only was France's leader but who also commanded the troops in the field himself using nothing short of brilliant tactics. Hitler did NOT command his troops, he only told his generals what he wanted and his generals would come up with logistics of getting this done. Even this wasnt always the case.

 

I agree. Hitler was not one for details. He did not want to deal with day to day reports not having to do with the war itself. It is amazing how anything got done on Germany's homefront. You can bet that the Gauleiters and Reich ministers did a little profiteering somewhere along the line. Even at the front, had Hitler actually try to command at the squad/company level, he would have known how depleted his armies were. Would he be considered an armchair general??