Eastern front : won from the start ?

Marienburg,

Is your view of Germany being able to defeat the Soviet Union in 1941 solely based on capturing or destroying Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad? Does this mean that if Germany had not done so by 41' as History shows, you agree with Germany not being able to accomplish its absolute victory on the Eastern Front?

I am also going to assume that this is based on the entire Soviet population giving up after the loss of these cities?

Won the war in 2003??
Be so kind as to differentiate between the insurgency in Iraq, and the insurgency in Belarus in late 41' to 44'

 

Note that I am not stating that Germany would have won the war with just one or two changes to history. What I argue is that they could have and so the war was not won from the start. By 1942 Germany had very little chance of beating the USSR; even if they had taken Stalingrad by the end of that year the Russians had the production and reinforcements to slice through the very weakened German lines that would have been severely stretched to maintain any semblance of a front at that point.

If the Soviets lost Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad they would have lost the majority of their population in the first place. Secondly, I doubt too many Russians would want to sacrifice themselves for a clearly lost cause - the loss of the greatest cities of the Soviet Union would have had been extremely demoralizing. Except to the Japanese, who at this point may well have opted to stab the Russians in the back and take eastern Siberia, if they were not already committed to the Pacific War. Even if the Japanese did not immediately attack they would be sorely tempted and this would cause the rump Soviet state to have to keep a large force near Vladivostok just to act as a deterrent.

Now, if Germany conquered those three Russian cities I do believe the Soviet Union would have been demoralized and crippled. They would lick their wounds but be unable to really mount an effective assault on the German occupier. I grant you that the Germans would have a large problem with partisans and they would have to expend a very large force just in keeping this insurgency down. However, with no little chance of the Soviets retaking Russia I doubt the insurgency would have been as bad as it was in the real time line, when it was clear that dying in the insurgency could help Russia free itself of the German invader.

Sure. The Belarus insurgency occurred not far from a strong, independent USSR that could help arm the insurgency. The Russian partisans were helping recover Russia, which was only partially occupied. In Iraq the situation is quite different. The insurgency has no hope of defeating the US militarily and only seems effective because they are fighting not to militarily defeat the US but to beat them on the propaganda field. The only way the US will lose in Iraq is the same way they lost in Vietnam - by having the home front lose the will to continue the war.

Actually, sloniksp, I am not American and am not hoping for American "victory" in Iraq. However, I recognize that they won the war in 2003. A good portion of what we see as the insurgency is actually sectarian violence amongst groups hoping to control the post-war Iraq world. They are not hoping to return the country to its pre-war situation.

 

Excellent post, chocapic. The following sentence of yours ably summarizes my position:

It is very difficult to determine the end result of singular changes in the historical timeline because each change engenders further changes. The capture of Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad would have been devastating because this would mean that Germany controlled the majority of Russia's population, industry and transportation. The capture of one of those would have had negative consequences both militarily and in terms of morale, but we can look to 1812 and Napoleon to see how the capture of just one would not have been the end of the Russians. However, Moscow was far more important, especially in 1941, than it was in 1812, as it was the capital. In addition, Moscow is the central city in the list of three and a central transportation hub. With Moscow captured Russian forces would be split north and south and with Leningrad under siege Stalin would have had to retreat either to Stalingrad or more likely further east and this would mean a long supply line necessary to retake Moscow. One of the biggest factors in the battle for Moscow was the enormous supply problems, including very, very lengthy supply lines for the Germans while the Russians could produce materiel and forces in the capital and send them to the front within a day or two.

 

The Japanese attacking in the east option was not a very real one in my opinion. The Red Army forces in the East was quite enough to face any kind of attack with some 300,000-400,000 men, 2,000 planes and 1,000 tanks ( my approximation). This has been discussed earlier in more detail. Only as troops were moved to the Moscow front the quality of men and armour got lower, but still the area in the East was definitely not "empty" for the Japanese to enter.

ALso by August 1941 already the Japanese themselves considered the German offensive to be in huge trouble as the " Giant " was not falling down. We know the Japanese had separate codes for warfare between Britain, the US, and Russia, so it is possible however that all these possibilities were under consideration in autumn 1941.

 

Now this sounds familiar, President Bush and his comanders thought the same thing about Iraq and its population. Get rid of Saddam, Capture Baghdad, Basra ( with the help of the British ) and Fallujah destroy their military and industry and the Iraqies will greet "us" with flowers, as we are now the liberators and there is nothing the Iraqies can do.....

As it turns out, not the case at all.

.

I think this can be compared to Iran helping Iraq, financialy and militarily.

Moscow recovering from battle, Leningrad in a 3 year siege and Stalingrad completely destroyed. Millions dead or captured, virtually no airforce till late 42' almost anything and everything up to Moscow has been destroyed...... Hardly in any position to help Belarus no?

It is estimated that the Belarussian partisans were responsible for over 300,000 German deaths until liberated by the Soviets. Not bad for guys who didnt have any food, tanks or planes. What makes you think the Russians wouldnt have done the same thing, especially when they so much more land to do it from and a much larger population?

I guess I must ask, with over 3,350 U.S. deaths, what has the U.S. military really accomplished Iraq in 3 years? Besides ofcourse the Democratic elections.

Yes, I figured that much

I guess it all depends on ones definition of victory. I personally think that Iraq was better of with Saddam and his dictatorship then Bush and his democracy.

 

On drawing parallels between Iraq and the Soviet Union during WW 2:

Right off, this is not a really good comparative basis. There are vast culturial differences between the two that effect events.

A few specifics: I doubt that either the current US administration expected the Iraqis to simply dance in the streets and adopt democracy straight away although there was a lack of understanding about the tribal, feudal nature of Arab culture. Certainly, the Germans did not see themselves as liberators of the Soviet Union but rather as conquerors. While many peoples within the Soviet Union (particularly those not ethnically Russian) saw the Germans at first as liberators they changed their tune when the truth became apparent.

The partisan war in the East was very much not only a "popular" uprising but also as much or more irregular warfare by essentially a guerrilla army orchestrated by the Soviets. Many "partisans" were nothing less than simply Soviet troops and officers in civilian clothes operating behind German lines. Comparing this to the Iraqi insurgency where a combination of extra-national terrorist groups not affiliated with any official government like al-Queida and local groups that have tribal, religious, or feudal ties to their immediate area and limited local political goals that are, again, not part of the "official" government is wrong.
If anything, the partisan war in the East has far more in common with Vietnam than Iraq.

One reason that the partisan war in the East (and in Yugoslavia) were so effective was that they were, like in Vietnam, an extension of a working governmental military engaged in a coordinated operation against a common enemy. In Iraq, the goals of the various factions are as varied as the factions themselves. Many, probably most, actually ignore the US as they do not see them as a major cause or obstacle to their immediate political goals. This is why so many of the casualties are Iraqis not the US. If the opposition in Iraq were equivalent to that in the Soviet Union in WW 2 or Vietnam, the bulk of the casualties would be US ones with fewer civilian casualties.

*The US has internalized Iraq's political problems. Iraq is no longer a threat to its neighbors as it had been under Saddam.

*The US has eliminated the funding source to terrorism that Saddam was. Just because Saddam wasn't particularly supporting al-Queida does not exclude that he was giving literally millions to other terrorist groups.

*Ended programs like the oil-for-graft program that lined the pockets of many UN officials and others to the tune of more millions in black market sales of military munitions and other associated "stuff."

Well, that is getting a wee bit off topic.

 

Dick chenney has said this in numerous interviews and today is still being criticised for it...... ( Dancing in the streets, not embracing Demacrocy overnight )Even though some dancing occured, it melted away with equal speed.

Not entirely, as there were a few Soviet soldiers left behind, most were civilians that were displaced when their villages were burned to the ground. As a lot were hunters, this is where their marksmanship came in.

I have read where entire villages of Iraqies were gathered up and told to vote for a candidate and a party. Most had no idea who the candidate was or what he was going to do.... This party got all the military backing and funding from the U.S. Can you guess as to which party won?? this is your democratic election and an Official Govt.?

The one's fighting are the ones that seem to disagree.

There was a special on MSNBC on how a SUNNI women with her children was not only given safe heaven by SHIAS but also armed protection at her front door and she was not the only one. Giving the interview herself, after asked why the shias have not killed her and her children, her reply was " the tribal leader told me not to be afraid as we all now have a common enemy "

I guess an enemy of my enemy is my friend.....

In 35 years Saddam went to war twice once with the help of the U.S. itself
After the 1991, Saddam realized his true place and sat quietly.

Can you think of anyone else recently who has gone to war twice but in a much shorter time??

Funding to terrorism??? Bush himself already admitted to no such proof or links to the accusation.

So start a war in the middle east, kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people along with 3,350 brave American lads just so the Bush can punish a few evil UN officials? Ah ha, it all makes sense now!

As there have still no weapons of mass-destruction been found, I hope you can understand me discrediting the " black market munitions and other stuff "
example.

And without further a dew ( just so otto doesnt close this thread for going off topic ) I think that Germany's fate in the East was sealed in the first months of 42'.

 

Trying to bring this poor thread back on course... C'mon guys, there's the Free Fire Zone for exactly that kind of discusson! Verstehen Sie?

So you say the Germans were just changing plans. Sure!

1941
June - Start with a triple objective - Leningrad, Moscow, Ukraine.
July - Moscow no longer important. As AG North and South are stalling pull out the Centre Panzer groups and re-assign them North and South. Issue a directive stating that as the war is nearing it's end part of the troops will demobilise.
September - Orders the Panzers back again to AGCentre to resume advance on Moscow.
October - No lack of objectives, quite the contrary, objectives aplenty, although rather divergent which is no great omen. From North to South: the Murmansk railway, Leningrad be taken, Moscow as well, the Crimea, Rostov and Maikop oilfields, Caucasus cutt-off by taking Stalingrad. Look up these objectives and say how many were achieved in the end. It rains a lot.
December - Moscow offensive cancelled by losses, weather, logistics and Russian counter-offensive.

All these changes of heart I call undecisiveness, you say it's flexibility.

1942
Who cares about Leningrad or Moscow? Screw them. Now we're going for the Caucasus and cut-off the Volga. Again two geographically divergent objectives.

Now we're not going to simply cut the Volga off, there is this nice city we simply have to get, Stalingrad.

Now we don't have strength enough to capture either and the Russians are on the offensive again. We retreat from the Caucasus but not from 'that' city.

1943
In 1941 we attacked all over the front, in 1942 we managed to attack with only one Army Group, in 1943 we're atacking only one sector of the front.

Oh, we're attacking the most obvious feature of the entire front, and at least for this time we decide on a closer, single objective, the Kursk Salient.

A pity we can't reach it. That's the end of it because this will be the last time we are going to be able to launch a large offensive and will be retreating all over. So no need to bother about plans, we'll simply react to the enemy from now on.

In a nutshell here it is.

A conclusion? The Germans were not that good at making plans, or rather sticking to their plans and making them work. There is even a book called "Why the Germans Lose at War" (Kenneth Macksey) more or less on this subject.

 

I would disagree. See for example the article:

Organization of Partisan Units Examined by V. Andrianov in Voyenno-Istorishcskiy Zhurnal Jan 1984 trans.

http://www.redarmystudies.net/smhj/1984/1984_01.pdf

It is pretty clearly stated in this article that partisan activity was highly organized and controlled from higher levels both within the Soviet government and the Red Army and, that many of the units had either an army core or were actually army units in operations.

 

Ok you got me.... a " few " wasnt the best word to use, as there really were a lot of Russian soldiers that were simply stuck or just unable to withdraw. However as many soldiers as there may have been, I am still going to say that overall, there were more civilians then actual military combatants, would you disagree?

 

This is correct, indeed the Party made strenuous efforts to keep the partisans as firmly as possibly under it's control, in order to maintain them as a tool of Central Governement. Otherwise there was the serious risk they would go too free-thinking or outright anti-soviet - see what happened to Gen. Vatutin. After the war the former partisans had a number of problems being under a cloud of suspicion of less than enthusiasm for the Central Government due to the typical Stalinist paranoia.

 

Sorry, sloniksp, but I don't buy this comparison at all. What is fueling the Iraq insurgency is religion. The Iraqi insurgency is heavily weighted towards suicide bombers - men (and women) who have religious sanction for their actions and believe that they will immediately enter paradise when blowing themselves (and hopefully a few others with them) up. The communist philosophy hardly inspired such fanatic devotion.

Not at all. Iran is a completely independent nation with a very long history of bad relations with Iraq. Don't forget that while the Iranians are helping out their fellow Shia in Iraq, the Iranians are ethnically Persian (an Indo-European group) while the Iraqi Shia are Arab. The Shia in Iraq don't actually want Iran to take over the country; the partisans in WWII were fighting with Soviet assistance to help the Soviets retake the western Soviet Union.

The Partisans were indeed far more effective closest to the frontline, being less effective the further away from the Russian frontlines that they were. Allow me to quote from the wikipedia article on Soviet Partisans that directly addresses your points:

"However, as the frontline moved further away, the logistical conditions steadily worsened for the partisan units, as the resources ran out, and there was no wide-scale support from over the frontline until March 1942. One outstanding difficulty was the lack of radio communication, which wasn't addressed until April 1942. The support of the local people was also insufficient.[9] So, for several months, partisan units in Belarus were virtually left to themselves. Especially difficult for the partisans was the winter of 1941-1942, with severe shortages in ammunition, medicine and supplies. The actions of partisans were prevailingly uncoordinated.

In the circumstances, the German pacification operations in Summer and Fall 1941 were able to curb the partisan activity significantly. Many units went underground, and generally, in the late Fall 1941—early 1942, the partisan units weren't undertaking the significant military operations"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_partisans

So the Soviet partisans were indeed not very effective in areas distant from the Russian frontlines. However, they were effective close to the Russian front. I think your vision of partisan operations is problematic as you seem to think they would be a huge drain on the Soviet Union's materiel. On the contrary, most of the partisan operations used small arms or explosives to blow up rail lines. The Soviet Union lost a lot of small arms in the first months of the war but they could easily produce those in large numbers.

I think you need to reconsider those numbers. "Indeed, if early Soviet accounts are to be believed, the Germans suffered more than one million casualties from guerrilla activity alone - about one-sixth of all their soldiers who fought in the East. At the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, General Jodl, Chief of Operations of the Wehrmacht High Command, in whose interest it would have been to exaggerate the menace of the partisans, doubted whether German casualties in the Soviet Union at their hands were as high as 50,000. Recent studies suggest that they were even less, at between 15,000 and 20,000, not including those of the Eastern volunteers who also took part in security operations. In this sense, at least, the phantom war lived up to its name, appearing to possess immense form but, in reality, having little substance. This, however, was often overlooked by the Germans, who, in the extreme violence of their security measures, appeared not only to have misunderstood the proper conduct of anti-guerrilla warfare, but also to have overestimated the partisan danger. As the Head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, admitted a few months before the Germans were driven from the Soviet Union: ‘Perhaps we have overreacted to these bandits, and by this have caused ourselves needless problems."
Matthew Cooper: The phantom war: The German struggle against Soviet partisans, 1941-1944
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_partisans#_note-cooper

Sloniksp, I'm not arguing that the US has conquered Iraq and defeated the insurgency. They won the war in 2003, however, the war against Saddam Hussein's regime. While the Soviet partisans in WWII were fighting the Germans in hopes of bringing Russian territory back into the fold of the Soviet Union, almost none of the insurgents in Iraq are fighting to bring back the old Baath regime. In fact, one of the biggest causes of the continuing insurgency is the difference of opinion over what form the new Iraq should take.

In many respects, you are probably alright, and I'm not arguing that Iraqis are better off now than before the war.

 

Sorry, Za Rodinu, but your attempt to prove your point through a humorous list of German mistakes merely documents Germany's falling fortunes in war, and the concomitant reduction in forces they had at their disposal. In war, if the odds are increasing against you (as they were as Germany went through the war and the forces of its enemies grew at a greater rate than its own) you don't sit back and wait until you reach parity with the enemy - something that is never going to happen. You have to keep fighting and so your focus is necessarily going to shrink.

Your trouble seems to be that you don't see that by focusing only on the ultimate end goals of course you are going to figure that the Allies had the better strategic vision since they achieved their end goal - the defeat of Germany. Since Germany didn't win the war it necessarily follows that they did not achieve all of their strategic and tactical goals. And if you aren't achieving your goals then I would hope that your tactics and immediate strategy would change.

Funny, if the Germans were so bad at making plans or sticking to them how is it that they handily defeated Poland in 1939, the Allies in Norway and western Europe in 1940 (even after the Allies found a copy of Fall Gelb), and Greece and Yugoslavia in 1941? Your hypothesis doesn't stand up to the fact that Germany was continuously victorious for two years over almost all of the land armies of Europe. The reason why Germany lost the war in Russia thus is to be found not in some fundamental internal failing of the Germans but in Russia itself. The huge Russian landscape, the extremes of the Russian climate, and the fighting spirit and enormous reserves of Russia much better explain Germany's loss.

 

I agree this was quite unlikely. However, note that I brought up Japan in terms of the scenario where Germany actually captured Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad. That didn't happen and would have been tough for Germany without some major changes to the historical timeline. However, if Germany did capture those three cities, I think the temptation for Japan to stab the Russians in the back would have gone up, especially if they weren't yet involved in a Pacific war. Japan was if anything even more opportunistic than Germany in WWII. They didn't decide to focus on Southeast Asia until Germany had defeated France and the Netherlands in May, 1940. A lot of Japan's decision for the Pearl Harbor attack came due to US hostility and especially the embargo. I don't think it takes too many changes to the historical timeline to have Japan ready to stab the USSR in the back.

I thought it was more that since Russia was clearly embroiled in a fight for its life on its western frontier the Japanese figured they had nothing to fear from the Russians in Manchuria and so could finally focus all of their attention on the attack on Britain, the Netherlands, and the USA.

 

I don't think it is correct to compare what happened in the war against the USSR with the campaigns against Poland, Denmark and Norway, France and Benelux, Greece and Yugoslavia. The latter were campaigns executed within much smaller timeframes (weeks, months), against much smaller geographical locations and against clearly defined military objectives.

There was no time nor occasion for, for instance in France, to 'stop on the way to the Channel, divert to the rearguard of the Maginot line, and after we clear this we can revert to the original objective'. Even then we are aware of the stop orders, the 'cold feet', the halt before Dunkirk, etc. IF (God, I hate ifs!) the French command were not so incompetent, which it was and there is no way about this, things would not have run so smoothly. But that's not the point, the point is the French campaign was guided by clear objectives and little wavering.

The Germans were victorious in Europe for two years as you say but these two years were not defined by continuous campaigning, there were large intervals of inactivity between each spurt, the Polish campaign took five weeks followed by the invasion of Norway six months later.

As for

of course these help explain Germany's loss but these are not the only factors, factors include the lack of competence in general terms and for a number of reasons shown during the conduct of the campaign as discussed above. The Russian kilometers do not shrink for Russians, nor is the Russian mud any less sticky for Russian trucks, nor the blizzard less biting for Russians. If the latter indeed was, then it is not a mark of competence to plan for a good weather campaign and disregard the possibility of Russian winter.

 

The Russian defenders were much more acustomed to the cold than the Germans. I recall reading that on the onset of winter the Soviets found the cold to be healthy and felt they had the advantage. They also knew their own land and were used to the extremities. As for the mud I will give that to you. "Rasputitsa" favored no one. But my point is that the Russian soldier definitely had a lot of advantages over the German soldier.

 

And the German soldier had a lot of different advantages over the Russian soldier.

Now concerning Winter. Iin World War I the Germans had fought since 1914 on an Eastern Front, plus they occupied Ukraine for a significant amount of time after the war. Also Caulaincourt's memoirs of Napoleon's 1812 Russian retreat, as well as War And Peace were well know, plus Baron Marbot's works, etc. There had always been a German close presence in Russian soil since the Teutonic Knights. There simply is no possibility at all the Germans were not aware of the meaning of the Russian winter.

Of course if you convince yourself the campaign is going to be another Blitzkrieg to be over in weeks or a couple of months, so you just hope for the best and don't count on winter, then the least thing you are is irresponsible.

What is this, then? Incompetence? Hubris, closely followed by Nemesis? I pity the Landser, so mistreated by his higher superiors. "Lions led by donkeys" indeed!

 

Yes, if some of the upper echelon idiots had had the sense to realize and plan for a prolonged campaign, history may have been a bit different. If that ignorant corporal had looked into what happened to the French back in 1812, I think he would have come to the conclusion that Soviet Russia was not France, Poland, or The Netherlands. The Steppe in the dead of winter was more deadly than a company of T-34's.

To get back to the origninal question: I believe that the triumph of Soviet will and perseverance over the lack of German foresight and planning was how the war on the Ostfront was won.

 

How is it wrong for me to point to German successes in earlier campaigns when your argument is that the Germans were fundamentally incompetent. I refer you to your own words: "The Germans were not that good at making plans, or rather sticking to their plans and making them work." Clearly you are wrong since the earlier campaigns do not exhibit the claims that you are trying to level against them. I'm sorry you don't like the facts, but just because they contradict your pet theory doesn't invalidate them.

So now you admit that the Germans were, at least in the French campaign, able to follow through on their plans. You now contradict your earlier words.

Again, your logic is seriously flawed. Of course these two years were not a period of continuous campaigning. One of the most crucial aspects of strategy is knowing when to attack and when not to attack, but I assume you already know this. So, I have to ask, what was your point here? In no way does this fact cast any aspersions on German abilities.

You showed no general lack of competence on the German side. (Boy, talk about hubris, especially after your claims were so easily shown to be baseless.) Za Rodinu, if Germany managed to defeat all those other nations, including the Allies in France in truly astounding time, your claim that the Germans were generally incompetent simply appears beyond ridiculous. The Germans were quite good at campaigning. The only place they ran into problems was in Russia. So what was it about Russia that explains why the Germans lost? Not general incompetence because the Germans steamrolled over the Russians right up to the start of winter weather in Russia. I've already gone through the reasons that make sense about why Germany lost the Russian war. Your attempt to cast the Germans as a bunch of Colonel Klinks has no basis in fact.

The rasputitsa always helps out the nation on defence for the simple reason that it slows offensive movements down to nearly a halt, allowing the defence extra time to arrange a better defence. In 1941 it most definitely helped out the Russians because not only were they on the defence, they were on the defence just outside of Moscow. Their supply lines were many times shorter than the German ones, and the German ones were bad to begin with as they had to transfer rail lines to their own gauge and repair transportation routes that had already been fought over and damaged. It is also well known that Russian vehicles and weaponry were often designed to function in the bitter cold of the Russian winter while the German vehicles and weaponry were not built with such winters in mind.

Now, I agree that the Germans seriously miscalculated how long it was going to take to defeat the Russians and their ability to absorb crushing defeats. However, this mistake in no way demonstrates a general incompetency amongst Germans.

 

There is a big difference between being aware of something and being actually prepared for it. The Germans knew about winter but hadn't planned on fighting a war in it and so did not have equipment or clothing that could function properly in winter weather.

Your characterization of the German attitude as simply "hoping for the best" is mistaken at best. The Germans didn't just hope for the best but their problem was underestimating Russia; its size, its ability to absorb defeats, its weather etc.

Given how you've already been seen contradicting your own earlier pronouncements and how your arguments are so easily dismantled I would be more cautious in talking about incompetence and hubris if I were you. Try to be less partisan and see the world in more than just black and white and you'll have a better understanding of why things happened the way they did in the past.