Defeat on the Eastern Front

I didnt know about the manpower shortage,thanks for the info.
About the germans creating their own problems i agree.

I disagree about the germans exploiting their breakthroughs,when the germans broke through the russians would fall back to the next prepared defensive line so the germans would end up having to do it all again,and again.

gardiner:#2.i guess they could have done with a guy like eisenhower.

 

You know what?i have no idea how the german rear areas worked in russia.I know the german solders retreated to assemble areas later on where they could be assembled into fire brigades but thats about it.

As for feeding the civilians i would encourage joy through work and only feed the hard workers,nice guy

 

good reply kai..

 

Hello macker33,

You are actually forwarding/mirroring the Nazi KZ slogan : Freude durch Arbeit!! onto yourself.

What's wrong with you? how old are you ? do you actually mean what you write???

Kruska

 

Kruska,i wasnt being serious,i dont know what i'd have done.

 

Sloniskp;
Possibly 4:1 if you factor in the guerrilla war. No the Axis lost because the Soviet won-and I do recall a German account stating something about the fighting spirit of the Russian soldier.

 

i think stalingrad was more than it should have been. if hitler had let von paulus retreat then they could have regrouped and regained 300,000 men for future efforts.

kursk was nothing more then the germans flaunting their tigers around and getting pummeled by superior russian defenses.

hitler was a politician, not a general. he should have never went to russia in the first place. it cost the wehrmacht the war.
.

 

russian mass and quick mobilisation from the first day =the only reason for the germans not beying able to win the war in 1941,after 1941 it was a war of attrition they could never win.

 

I think Russians mobilized before the war started. Russian army already opened fronts and country was geared up for war. Politiclly, culturally and economically Russians were better prepared for war than Germans.

 

You are right:Red army (included air force and navy):june 1941 :5.7 millions(=3% of the population) from june to september they send to the front:2.5 millions from september to december:3 millions .The Germans could never compete with that.

 

While having numbers, the Russians were not fully mobilized. Constant shortages were quite evident. The Red Army was only in the process of re mobilizing. Officers being trained, new tanks being built, weapons being supplied and numbers being filled. Remember that when war broke out, many divisions were under manned by as much as 30-40 percent.

Many historians today such as Glantz and Erickson claim that it was simple luck that Hitler attacked when he did and the success which followed. Had Germany attacked one year later or even 3 years earlier, she would have been met with a formidable adversary not the rag-tag group in 1941.

 

1 - The poor road system surely slowed the German forces down in 1941, compared to their lightning advances in Western Europe the previous year. Even worse, the Russians used a different railway track gauge, and all German railway cars had to stop at the frontier to have their axles changed. German tactics, logistics, supply, and equipment were designed for a short war of the kind fought by them in 1940. They were at a severe handicap when ordered to invade Russia but overcame it, for a while.

As the war ground on into 1942, German lines of communication became longer while the Soviet's became shorter. Towards the end of the war, the situation was reversed - the reason why it took almost two years after the Germans were clearly beaten (failure of Operation Citadel offensive in July, 1943) for the Nazis to be defeated.

2. Hitler and Keitel's over-optimism that the war would be over before winter 1941 led to the winter disaster of thousands of frozen German troops. Since the war would be over, Hitler and Keitel saw no need to ship arctic clothing to the troops when amuunition could be shipped instead. Many brave German troops paid for this oversight with their lives.

The leaders of the luftwaffe by contrast, held no such illusions. Luftwaffe Feldmarschall Erhard Milch knew that the war would certainly drag through the winter, and accordingly ordered winter clothing for luftwaffe personell shipped in time so that few luftwaffe airmen froze to death in the artic Russian winter, due to lack of proper clothing .

3. After the failure of operation Typhoon (German offensive on Moscow)in December 1941, Hitler effectively took over all command of the German armed forces. Since he was not entirely daft (that would come much later), Hitler still would often heed the advice of his Generals. But more often he listened to their expert opinions and then simply took his own council. This was unfortunate for Germany - since no one in Germany at the time, could tell Hitler that as a former Corporal, with no formal staff training or command experience, he was the very last person who should have been supreme commander. It would take millions of German lives to prove it, because almost all the failures from that point forward, (Stalingrad, Kursk, D-day, you name it) can be laid squarely at Hitler's feet.

4. By 1943, Germans were fighting on the eastern front (almost 200 divisions employed there alone), fighting another battle against a partisan army in their rear, fighting a defensive battle in the air over Germany and the occupied nations against the full strategic bombing might of the Air Forces of the USA and England, occupying the whole of continental Western Europe, and fighting the Americans and the British in North Africa, then Sicily, then Italy. This would be a massive chore for the USA with much more population and resources, let alone the smaller nation of Germany with only 60 million people and very limited resources (particularly fuel).

Almost every German Field Marshall and General officer recognized at this time that Hitler had indeed committed the German forces to much more than they were capable of but for most, there was nothing to be done about it - since Germany's destiny, on every front and in Germany itself, lay entirely in the hands of der Fuehrer.

 

IMO it's was not just logistics, let's not forget the Germans in a sense "beat" the Russians in WW1 despite fighting a multiple fronts war then as well so beating the USSR would not seem impossible to a 1941 observer as Germany could concentrate East much better than it could have in WW1.
But the Kaiser and his advisors did a much better job in separating the people from the leadership than Hitler was capable of, IMO the root of the German defeat East lies as much in racist policies and lack of focus as in poor logistics.

 

I completely agree with you regarding the racist and cruel policies that the germans employed towards the people on the eastern front. One has to wonder sometimes what hitler was more worried about....the military side of the war or the extermination of other races...

We all know that even in the dying months of the riech he diverted much needed supplies or had them wait on the side while train loads of jews were still being sent to their deaths.

 

Maybe some points:
1)The poor road system was important,but there is another point :there was not enough production to compensate the losses :ex:for the 3,7 cm PAK:in august 1941roduction 50-losses 817
2)Hitler's and Keitel's over-optimism that the war would be over before the winter:I should qualify their attitude as realism:the war had to be over before the winter,otherwise they would be in big trouble . Btw:was it possible to send winter clothing for 3000000 men ?The LW strength was much smaller.About the figures of frost-bite:I have seen a figure of 120000(of whom 14000 severe) what is 4 % "only"
3)Hitler taking over command:in fact since june he commanded already the operations on the east front
4) I think 200 divisions on the east front is exagerated . Btw:60000000inhabitants for Germany? Probably a typo:it should be 80 millions . Cheers

 

I'd say the things that helped the Germans helped with their defeat. Tigers, the supposed world beating superweapons, slowed down many general's advances until they were delivered. Such was the case at the battle of Kursk, where the Germans gave the Soviets time to prepare. Why? Because Hitler ordered him to wait until Tigers were delivered to the front lines. Also, the initial success of Barbarossa may have convinced the Germans that this would be a cakewalk. You really can't blame them, as it was a great success. So if only the Germans lost a little more XD.

 

The dying months of the reich : if you mean 1945 ,then your statement is not wright:the extermination camps were already overrun by the Soviets,and the "supply" of Jews was exhausted .

 

Odd. Death camps were found and liberated by Red Army troops well into 1945. Auschwitz-Birkenau for example was liberated during Vistula-Oder Offensive, and there were literally tens of thousands of camps both in and out of Germany. I don't know to what extent transportation capacity was still used by the camps at 1945, but I will not be surprised if people were still being killed to the very end.

 

Because Germany totally underestimated Russia. They thought that they could just keep beating them, and while they did destroy two thirds of the original Russian army at the start of Operation Barbarossa, they did not bother to hit factories or the Russian industry, so the Russians re built.

Then they attacked the Germans with millions of men and newly made tanks, and the Germans did not have enough men to hold the Russians back. Stalingrad was a big German defeat, and depleted their manpower greatly. At Kursk the Germans made an attack, but it was too late. The Russians had their industry going now, and even if they won Kursk (which they didn't), the Russians would have just attacked again and again and again...and with the Germans occupied in other theatres then they would never have got the manpower. I don't think that Kursk was a bad idea though. It could have worked, and the Germans fought well, but the Russians were able to replensih their losses, while the Germans couldn't.

The Germans also spread themselves to thin. Their Blitzkrieg tactic worked well, but in the end they did not have enough man power to keep attacking the Russians and were beaten back. The Germans maybe could have fought the Russians to a draw if they were not fighting in Africa and Europe, but I think that the Red Armys recources were massive, while the Germans had only limited recources.

(Going a bit off the question now, but I shall say it anyway): Hitler might have forstalled the inevitable attack by Russia by in 1944 instad of attacking the Americans in the Ardennes, he could have sent these last top notch tank reserves and lanced an assult on the Russians, or used them as defense. Instead they were used in an assult, which even if it had prevailed, would only capture maybe Antwerp, and the Allies would just attack and capture it again. So wether the Battle of the Bulge suceeded or not, Hitlers tanks would have been destroyed for little or no reason. However if he has used them on the Russian front for some sort of well planned attack, he could have inflicted heavy losses on the Russians which would have raised German morale and humiliated the Russians.

EDIT: Also, Hitler should have stopped using thousands of troops to kill Jews etc in the Concentration camps, and used them all not he Russian front. He did not, and so many of the German troops (S.S mostly) were not fighting, but killing off innocent lives for no reason.

That is how I see it.