Hitler Had No Other Choice But To Invade..

..the Soviet Union.

Viktor Suvorov claims that Stalin had made aggressive preparations beginning in the late 1930s and was preparing to invade Germany in summer 1941. Thus, he believes Hitler only managed to forestall Stalin and the German invasion was in essence a pre-emptive strike.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

Thus Hitler had no other choice but to invade.

 

Yawn.

More of the same hogwash. Try and read a book for a change, like "Stumbling Colossus" by Glantz. In the meantime you can read an article on the defector Vladimir Rezun aka 'Viktor Suvorov' here.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JAP/is_3_13/ai_n15627741

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-books-publications/24707-writers-stay-away.html

http://www.ww2f.com/russia-war/13689-russian-invation-germany.html

 

That is just supporting Hitler's reason for invading. Stalin was doing what everyone else was and that is building up his military against an invasion from the highly aggressive and armed to the teeth Germans. Nothing wrong with that.

 

There was no way he could achieve victory over Britain and Hitler knew that sooner or later America would enter the war, facing the possibility of a two-front war he thought he could take Russia then turn his full attention to the West.

 

Personally I think he could have taken Great Britain but it would have been expensive. Would the price be worth...I would think so. Then the US would not have a springboard towards the continent.

 

"Forced"? Take a read of "Mein Kamf"-with the Lebensraum notion and the proposed plantations worked by the surviving RUsski slaves- and you will conclude that it didn't take much coercion at all. "Forced" implies fear which I don't think you can really accuse Herr Hitler of. Now GREED is another matter.
haha,

 

Just more Nazi Apologist drivel.

 

Well put

 

"If new territory is desired" wrote Hitler in his book, "Mein Kampf," in substance it can be secured at the expense of Russia. The new empire must move along the paths trodden by the knights of old." (Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf, Munich edition, 1930, Page 742.)​

 

I think herr Hitler had no other choice but it was not juts because of what Stalin did or did not do with the Red Army. It was politically inevitable.

Besides, if Germany was gathering 3 million men and 3,200 tanks next to your border would you not prepare some kinda defence there,too? I am sure that Stalin and the Red Army were aware of the huge numbers of German troops behind the border.

 

"Under Document 789-PS the American prosecution submitted to the Tribunal the transcript of the conference held on 23rd November, 1939, between Hitler and the members of the German High Command.
At this conference, Hitler, according to his own expression, gave a "survey of the thoughts influencing him in connection with the events to come."
In the course of this survey he declared -- you will find the passage I am now reading on Page 3 in the document book lying on the table of the Tribunal:

"For a long time I hesitated whether I should not begin with an attack in the East, and only then with the one in the West. It came about by force of events that for the immediate future the East dropped out of the picture." (Page 2 of the Russian text.)
​

This statement by Hitler bore witness to the fact that the attack on the Soviet Union remained within the plans of Fascist aggression, and the whole question was reduced only to the problem of selecting the most favorable moment for this attack.

It should be noted that this "Western" version of the start of Fascist aggression was not considered as the most favorable version by the authors of the aggression.
This same Hitler, exactly five months prior to the above- mentioned conference, at another conference of 23rd May, 1939 (Document 79-L), while briefing his accomplices on the present situation and political aims, had said (the passage I am now quoting is Page 6 of the document book):

"If fate forces us into a conflict with the West, it would be desirable that we, by that time, possess more expanse in the East."
​

The vast expanses in the East, according to the aspirations of Hitler's conspirators, were to play a decisive part during the conflict in the West.

Therefore, when the Fascist hordes were unable to force the Channel, stopped at its shores and were obliged to seek new ways of aggression, the conspirators immediately began to prepare for an attack on the Soviet Union. This attack was the basis of all their plans of aggression, without which they could not materialise.
I believe it is not necessary to refer to documents of an earlier period, and particularly to quote any further from Hitler's book, "Mein Kampf," where questions connected with the predatory attack on the Soviet Union were formulated long before 1939.

[Page 236]​

This book has already been presented to the Tribunal, and relevant passages from it were quoted as evidence by our American and British colleagues.
The Soviet prosecution desires to submit to the Tribunal a series of documents which bear witness to the fact that the aggression of Fascist Germany against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was committed with malice aforethought. Among these documents there are files from various archives captured by units of the advancing Red Army, statements by Fascist leaders published in the Press, including those by several of the defendants, and depositions by persons who were in possession of reliable information as to how the preparations for the attack on the Soviet Union were actually carried out. "

Nuremberg - The Trial of German Major War Criminals (Volume VI)

 

It seems a couple of incidences also affected to what Hitler decided to do.

First, when during the invasion of Poland German troops met Red Army soldiers, the German officers later informed Hitler that the troops were poorly armed and clothed and also seemed to perform poorly.

Secondly The Red Army performance in Winter war.

Thirdly The great purge of 1938

Very likely more that just these, but it seems Hitler was also very taken by the footage from the Red Army military parade especially in 1939 as I´ve read which would prove the opposite. Later he changed his mind.

Here´s the parade in May day 1941.

YouTube - Military Parade at Red Square, Moscow (May Day 1941)

 

Hitler had signed a non-agression pact. If he was FORCED to invade, the Soviets would have been attacking him, not him attacking the soviets. Also, the Soviet military would have been much more prepared for Barbarrossa than they were.

Also, Hitler considered the Soviets to be his ideological enemy from the getgo.

 

yep!
this guys turning out to be a hit and run poster!

 

So he had to attack the Soviet Union to protect himself? What about the rest of the western nations?. What about Greece, Yugoslavia, North Africa, the alliance with both Italy and Japan, the Atlantic battles? Were all these steps by Germany to protect herself from the Soviets?

 

According to James Dunnigan, (military author of several books on WW2 www.strategypage.com Stalin had planned to invade Germany first and had even picked the year, 1943.
Another source:

Stalin's Secret War Plans: Why Hitler Invaded the Soviet Union. Richard Tedor.

 

Mods, this thread is likely to become another slugfest. Please do the charitable thing.

 

And yet nobody has said that Stalin did not want to nor plan to attack Germany. The fact is that Hitler wanted to and planned to attack the Soviet Union. He was not "forced" to in the least. He has stated his desire quite a few times before the war even started.

"This statement by Hitler bore witness to the fact that the attack on the Soviet Union remained within the plans of Fascist aggression, and the whole question was reduced only to the problem of selecting the most favorable moment for this attack."

 

If Stalin really did to plan to invade westwards into Europe in 1941 and there was actual proof of this instead of mere conjecture, it would have been shouted from the rooftops during the colder periods of the Cold War, say between 1945 & 1970, as proof of the inveterately aggressive nature of Soviet Communism. If it could proved beyond reasonable doubt that Stalin and the CPSU were planning and preparing for a war of aggression against Germany and the rest of Europe in the early 40s, it would have been used to the maximum in the West's anti-Soviet propaganda denouncing the Soviets as dangerous would-be aggressors and invaders. And it would have utterly negated the appeal of Communism to many of the already self-deluded in the West.

Other questions regarding Soviet aggression could be why did not Europe's Western powers, Britain and France, declare war on the Soviet Union after it had become clear that the Soviets were invading and occupying eastern Poland in cooperation with Germany in 1939? Or why the 1939 guarantees given Poland by Britain and France were not invoked in 1945 to prevent Poland's occupation by Soviet troops or prevent Poland from holding free elections to democratically elect a post-war national government? Why was democratic Poland deserted in 1944/45 in the face of the Soviet invasion and occupation but guaranteed French and British mobilization against German invasion and occupation in 1939?