Was Hitler right to attack the USSR in 1941?

The poll question needs some further definition. A offensive war based on greed can not be supported in any way. Looking at it from a strategic level it certainly is debatable. Seen from the perspective of Nazi ideology, it is almost inevitable. Hitler's overriding goal was "living space' in the east, and the spring/summer 1941 represented Germany's best window to achive that goal.

 

"Right or not right" a bit to easy but in my opinion it wasn´t right! There are Pro´s like they cant trust Stalin or Stalin was on his way to invade Germany and Contra´s like The country is to big and soak up armies like a sponge and it was needless. Who knows if anything from above was right and what the real reason was. And to say the reason was winning of Lebensraum and the killing of the Untermenschen is a weak point. My opinion is that he wants to show the world " We have beaten Russia better cooperate or we do the same thing with you!" Or simply Megalomanya!

Regards

Ulrich

 

from a moral point of view absolute not ,historic point of view absolute yes because it was the downfall of the nazi regime and the beginning of the free world
I honour the heroes who gave their lives Americans,British,Russians French ,Australians and all other I forgot to mention ,even Germans who where brave enough to try to eliminate Adolf and almost succeeded
If I was a general or a soldier and the order was given to invade Russia I would probably say "jawohl mein furher" looking at the map of the world and think this guy is nuts,and so he was thanks to his personal Dr ,Theodor Morell who injected Adolf with strong cocktails containing vitamines , glucose and more important methamphetamine,why was he so eager to take stalinggrad,just because it bears the name of the man he wanted to destroye,is this strategic thinking ? lebensraum was the objective,but that is just a propaganda name for war
In 1939 the czechoslovakian president became so scared of Göring 's outburst that he fainted ,Hitlers doctor was also present and gave the president an injection believed to be a cocktail of meth
drug abuse is a fact in the third reich Göring was a morphine adict ,Hitler an amphetamine adict ,and many of his shakes and ticks are from drugabuse ,many german pilots took pervetine when long flights where scheduled or short ones for that matter, cocaine was also known in the reich
in april 1945 Hitler took 28 pills a day ,numerous glucose injections , and every few hours intravenous methaphetamine injections
so was it a right thing ? absolutly ,this descission freed Europe and stopped the systematic killing of minorities,dont think for once what a nice community it would have been under Hitlers regime,I dont want to offend anyone but there are still boneheads like many neo nazi groups who still adore this regime and think that it was so fantastic ,go visit Aushwitz,mauthausen,Oradour and contemplate how those people suffered ,listen to the storys of the survivors...
my opinion; Hitler was a little nuts thanks to meth abuse ,
you can not simply overrun a country that is 100 times bigger or more
not even when you have tanks and the other side has sticks
I think history proved this

 

Emil Hacha suffered a stroke. Where do you get this pap from?

 

I dont know what you mean by pap,but I can tell you that Göring shouted at the president (1939)that he would bomb praag ,in reaction to that the old president fainted, scared that the president would die ,Dr Morell who was also present in the room injected him wit probably amphetamines, later he denied this and claiming it was just vitamines he injected;Hacha died the 13th of may 1945 while he was in prison

 

Pierre,

good points! Dont know what had happened if all of those yunks were clear in their brain?! Good that they made to many mistakes to survive.

Regards

Ulrich

 

German propaganda stated that they had evidence to suggest that Russia was already building it's forces up to eventually attack Germany, I think there is a lot of merit to this claim.
If you do any research into the ideology of the Communist concept by Marx and Lennin, in order for this type of communism to work it required the whole world or at least Asia and Europe to be communist to make communism successful. It is this concept that led to the post WWII cold war. NATO (the USA and European govs.) knew that the primary doctrine of the Russian communist system was expansion into as much of the world as possible.

Knowing this Hitler, who was a devout anti communist, felt that sooner or later Russia would be coming to take Germany and that Russia was in fact building up their armed forces to do so. The Russians had amassed quite a bit of forces in the Western border areas as the Germans found out, when the blitzkrieg had succeeded in the early encirclement battles that netted them so many prisoners and equipment. example the Kiev Pocket.

So if it is true that Russia would have eventually attacked Germany (which has a lot of merit) then Hitler's decision to attack Russia when he did makes sense. He knew that Stalin had decimated his officer corps and the Soviet army was going to need some time to build up it's infrastructure and modernize it's army, navy and airforce. The Wehrmacht was "on a Roll" with it's Blitzkrieg strategy that had worked so well in France and the rest of Europe. The Blitzkrieg totally relied on attacking a country or enemy that did not even know it was going to attacked. You can see in the battle of Kursk that it did not work as well against an army that was ready and prepared for the Blitzkrieg strategy.


If Hitler would have waited another year to attack, the Soviet army would have had another year to rebuild it's officer corps and it's armed forces as they had already been doing prior to the combined attack on Poland. If the Russians were given more time to build it's own resources and armies the Germans would have had a much harder time than they did by attacking Russia while the non aggression pact was still warm from their dual attack on Poland and Stalin was not expecting the attack so soon.

Admittedly the Wehrmacht was not really equiped and ready to take on such a massive endeavor as taking and holding such a huge country but if they had waited another year it to modernize more of it's armed forces that year would have benefited the Soviets just as much if not more.

I believe Hitler really did not have much of a choice at this point and needed to attack while his armies were "hot' and the soviet army was not yet ready for a full on battle. Remember that Hitler's sole aim all along (even prior to the beginning of the war) was to take Russia and destroy communism which he had fought in the streets of Germany since the 1920's. He wanted his Lebensraum in the east. He never intended on having to fight France and England and according to his General staff he was very upset and almost in tears when France and England declared war on Germany. He started the war by attacking Poland to have a gateway for his eventual attack on Russia and he had hoped all along that France and England would not interfere. He never wanted to fight a war with France and England and he had hoped they would support his desire to destroy communism which he felt was just as much of a threat to them as it was to Germany. So being that it was his aim all along to use his armies in a war against Russia and communism he viewed the wars with France, England and the other smaller European countries as an interuption to his ulitmate plan of attacking Russia. He would have preferred to attack Russia after Poland but had to side track to fight France and England and then again to help the Italians in their attempts to take countries. Hitler (and he states this in Mein Kampf) did not want to take on the world, did not want to fight France and England, his sole and only goal was to fight communism which was why he was in jail to begin with when he wrote Mein Kampf. Hitler was stewing away in jail from his street battles with the communists that led to his arrest in Germany during the 1920's and it was during this time that his hatred of communism had led him to come up with his ideas for the conquest of Russia the heart of the communism and his goal of Lebensraum.

Ultimately Hitler needed to attack Russia as soon as he possibly could to take advantage of Stalin's coup on his officer corps, where Stalin had something like 20,000 of his officers executed, and to not allow Russia to build up it's own resources for it's eventual attack on Germany and the rest of Europe which he firmly believed would happend sooner or later. The ulitmate goal of Stalin, to spread communism through out all of Europe and Asia was one of his primary fears and his desire for his Lebensraum fueled his need to attack first.

Just remember according to Mein Kampf Hitler's real goal was lebensraum or "living space" in the east, he wanted the farm lands and oil fields of Russia and to fight the ideology of communism. He did not expect nor did he plan on all the "side wars" or another World War that ended up happening because of all of the post WWI treaties. He never planned on fighting France, England or having to help his Italian allies in their wars in Greece and Africa. All of these "side wars" happend because of treaties and they interfered with his Lebensraum goal in Russia. His plan was to take Poland then move on Russia. If he was able to allocate all of his resources to this goal and this goal only he would not have had to use army corps in France, the lowlands, the Balkans, Africa and his airforce against England. His original plan was to be able to use all of the armed forces to fight in Russia and due to the distractions of the "side wars" that I mentioned he was not able to attack Russia in the early spring of 1940 or 1941 as he had planned.

No the German army was not completely prepared for such a massive undertaking but waiting would have allowed the Russians to build up thier armies as well and the attack would have even been much harder for Hitler and the Wehrmacht had the Soviets been given more time to prepare themselves. A war between the countries was going to happen sooner or later anyway, it was the one that started it with a surprise attack first that would have the advantage.

 

It was Trotsky which believed that Communism should be spread through war and conquest, Lenin and later Stalin did not share that view. It was this rift in ideoligies which forced Trotsky to flee Russia and later meet his fait in Mexico.

But then again, there are and have been other types of governments which tried to instill their view and ideals on other countries far more frequently than the "evil" Soviet Union had.

 

Sloniki...Lets not let the expulsion of Trotsky and the Mensheviks aquire any more meaning written into it by modern Russians like yourself. Lenin had a platform policy of exporting Communism through subversion, (The Comintern was set up to promote this idea and proved to be a failure). Lenin was also not afraid of stooping to "war and conquest" either...look at this, for example....

"These polemics revealed once again the cultural chasm seperating Russian and European radicals. Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg spoke of democracy and civil freedom as indispensable preconditions to socialism. For Lenin and Trotsky, who had aquired their political education under tsarism, politics was warfare and victory required unquestioned obedience: in Trotsky's phrase, "intimidation" was as indispensable to revolution as to war - a truism that by sleight of tongue was made to apply not to one's enemies but to one's own people. Both Lenin and Trotsky argued in the terms, sometimes in the actual language, of the most reactionary defenders of tsarist autocracy. But whatever their argument lacked in theoretical substance, it gained from the incontroverable fact that they had aquired power and their German critics had not...."(Pipes, Richard. "Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime 1919-1924", Page 225)

This sounds very much like similarity between the two men doctrinally! Neither one would flinch at sending the nation to war, for this is the way of power players like Lenin and Trotsky. Consider this from page 229....

"To Seeckt and his followers, the very existence of an independant Poland, a French "vassal" state, was an affront, since it provided the vital link in the French campaign to "encircle" Germany. Seeckt, Radek wrote Chicherin from Berlin, seemed perfectly calm and self controlled except when the subject of Poland came up; then his eyes lit up like an animal's: "She must be partitioned," he said, "and will be partitoned as soon as Russia or Germany grows strong." This view was widely shared. Many Germans believed the destruction of independant Poland would in and of itself abrogate the Versailles Treaty - which as we have seen, happened to be Lenin's view as well..."

Here we have Lenin agreeing with future policy that is often credited to Stalinist expansion alone.

Vladimir Ulayanov was certainly not afraid to achieve his objectives by war and conquest. Don't let modern Bolshevik revisionists tell you otherwise!

"

 

sigh,sigh,
as always,people are giving "Mein Kampf " an importance it did not possess.It was not the "Das Kapital" of national socialism:it only was BS,and not taken serious,even by Hitler .
It was about Lebensraum,anti-semitism,anti capitalism,hostility to France,reconciliation with Britain,syphilis,and more BS .
The Lebensraum,anti semitism and anticommunism did not prevent the pact with the SU.It did not prevent Hitler to try a new pact with the SU in november 1940 ,at the visit by Molotow .
Last point :there is NO evidence that Hitler attacked the SU in 1941,because he was thinking the SU would attack him in 1941 .

 

LJAd
so if Hitler did not mean anything he said in Mein Kampf, and his signing of the pact with the SU meant he did not intend to fight them, then how do you explaing the attack on the SU and what do you feel were Hitler's reasons behind it? please give your reasons and explain why and where you got them from.

if it was not for lebensraum, farm land, natural resources and Oil
if it was not to stop the spread of communism
if it was not about untermenschen
if it was not not about anti-semitsim
then please explain why Hitler invaded Russia!

also there is plenty of evidence that Hitler believed the SU was going to attack Germany just as there is plenty of evidence about the other reasons I have pointed out for Hitler wanting to attack Russia first. Most of this evidence is very well known too!
You may want to study some more about Hitler from the First world war up to 1941 and you will get a much better understanding of his reasons for doing and acting the way he did

Mein Kampf did have a lot of rants and rages in it and it was certainly not the Bible used to explain all of his future actions, this is why you need to learn more about Hitler's history during the 1920's to have a better insight into his possible motives and his hatred of Communism

but anyway I would still like to hear about why you think Hitler attacked Russia and what leads you to your conclusions

 

I think you could be mistaken. Not about Gibralter, but about the rest of it.
Of course Gibralter would have been very difficult to take, even more so without Franco's cooperation. Even so, the Germans made serious plans to do exactly this, and might have succeeded.
Even if they could not have over-ran it they could have placed it under siege like they did Leningrad. By holding the Algerian coast the luftwaffe and u-boats would have given the British a rough time.

Moreover, Malta would certainly have been taken, and Rommel's forces in North Africa greatly reinforced. The prize of the middle east oil fields would have been worth any sized German effort. With German ally Italy, and German troops and the luftwaffe in Greece and crete, the British would have found it almost impossible to withstand a serious German assault through Egypt and on to the Suez canal.

With millions of German troops at their disposal, and thousands of tanks and aircraft not being squandered away in Russia, the Germans could have completely dominated the mediteranean, and even the mid-east oil fields.

 

Good thought marc! So you´re smarter than Hitler and his Generals!

Regards

Ulrich

 

While I believe that Hitler believed that Russia wished to destroy Nazi Germany, that alone does not make the assumption a valid proof. Remember that Hitler had "proof" that Poland sent troops over the border on the night of August 31st 1939, generously supplied by Herr Goebbels and Himmler.

Looking at Soviet history dispassionately you would be hard pressed to find a Soviet Pre-emptive attack on a powerfull nation. Yes they invaded Finland, the Baltic states, Bessarabia, during the war, and other SMALL border states after the war. While they did attack Japan in the summer of 45, Japan was by then all but defeated allready (even if they could not accept it themselves). The SU was olny picking up spoils while the oppertunity was ripe.

The Soviets had massive forces during the cold war but did not use them due to the risk of an escalation to total nueclear war. The Soviet Union would not risk war unless it was a sure thing.

For that reason Hiter was safe from Stalin so long as Germany "appeared" to be strong. Hitler presumed that Stalin was out to get him simply because that is how Hitler saw the world

 

Stalin was not prepared for a war with Germany in 1939 but that in no way means that Stalin would not have considered it at a later date. Do you think Stalin would have sat back an watched Hitler take all of Europe, Africa, the mid East, be allied with Japan and who knows what else if had Hitler been successful in all of his endeavors and not done anything about it?

Look at the history of Germany and Europe in the 1920's. In Germany and elsewhere the communists and the other political groups were fighting in the streets against each other. It was during this time that Hitler and his Fascist groups were fighting communist groups in the streets of munich, nuremburg and many other cities and towns, and these fights were with arms and many people were killed. In Hitlers rise to power the whole core of it was based on his fighting of the communist groups in Germany, in the streets, the beer halls, the town and cities,
He was sent to jail because of battles with the communists in the streets. Communists and their ideology were trying to move into all of Europe at that time. So one can only assume that eventually Stalin would also have pursued spreading communism to Europe. However in 1939/40 his army was not ready.
don't forget he had just executed 20,000 of his officer corps and did not have the General Staff needed to organize such an endeavor at that time. So he was not able to muster a pre-emptive attack on any major power at that time.

the main reason the SU did not use their massive forces during the cold war was due to the US nuclear arsenal and after Japan the knowledge that the US would use it.
after the US nuked Japan the SU knew no matter how big their armed forces were they would be facing a nuclear US that had already shown that they would use nukes.

Don't forget the Berlin Blockade and also the cuban missle crises.
Remember when Kennedy and Kruschev had to face off against each other and Kruschev pounded his shoe on the podium to try to intimidate Kennedy who he thought was week.
at that point the Russian tanks and forces were actually lined up and ready to go against NATO and the US and it was not until Kruschev realized he could not bully Kennedy and that Kennedy was not going to back down that he had to relinquish his idea of moving on Europe

also do not forget why there was a cold war. it was because the communist doctrine was to spread itself all over the world, that is why the US got involved in Vietnam, to stop the ideology that in order for communism to completley work (as per communist doctrine) the whole world needed to be communist.

So I will have to research more on Stalin and his ideas to know for sure if he was going to spread communism to Europe but just based on the Communist doctrine I believe he would have tried eventually

 

the topic of this post is Was Hitler right to attack Russia in 1941 or should he have waited. We all know he was planning to attack Russia all along (for what ever reason) so my answer was no he was right to attack when he did, even though he got delayed, they had been planning to attack earlier that spring but could not due to other issues.
I feel that if he would have waited another year the Russians would have benefitted just as much by getting a chance to rebuild their officer corps and their army and airforce in general and he would have had a much more prepared and equipped Russian army to face.

so to stick to the topic I feel he could not have waited any longer.

 

I agree that the SU was not ready for war in 1941, but when? 1945?, '48?, '50?. With peacetime production it would have been at least '45 UNLESS Germany was some how degraded by the west.

The 1920's Germany was filled with political parties from the Anarchist's on the left to the Monarchist's on the right. Hitler's Nazi party competed/fought with nearly all of them at one time or another. We remember the fight with the communist's because they were, next to the Nazi party, the best lead/organised/motovated.

Hitler, in fact, went to prison for attemping to overthrow the Bavarian government, not for fighting communists. The Weimar Government often turned a blind eye to anyone fighting the communists.

The Soviet deployments in 1941 look very much like the deployments during the cold war. Again I point out the SU NEVER attacked anyone unless it looked like a sure thing. Even when it looked like a sure thing they sometimes overreached ( Finland/Afganistan ). They were content to nibble on the edges, but when confronted, they would back down.

I suspect Stalin's strategy was to watch Germany and the West fight to a stalemate, that would in turn bring on the political conditions similer to 1917/1918. In that sort of political/military situation, they would then consider using their military might.

 

my post disappeared and meanwhile,I am out due to some flue
But yet,I will try to post something reasonable.
The reason for Hitler's attack on the SU,was the very bad situation of Germany in 1940.Germany was facing a war with Britain and its commonwealth ,war,that Germany could not win even in the long run .The longer the war,the worse Germany's situation (blockade );if the US and the SU joined Britain,as they did in WWI,Germany was doomed .But Britain only could win with the help of the USA AND the SU .If one of them was failing,the result would be a patsituation .
Germany had no means to prevent the US of joining Britain .After the GOP convention in august 1940,it was obvious that the next president of the US would be an interventionist one . Isolationism was defeated .
All was thus depending on the SU :if it joined Germany,Germany was saved(unless one would argue that an allied victory was possible withoutthe millions of Russian soldiers .
When Molotow was visiting Berlin in november 1940,he refused Hitler's proposal for an alliance with Germany and Japan .Theresult was Barbarossa,which would have a twofold benefit :Germany would be stronger and Britain weakening .
A war against communism and the Jews would of course result in a war without mercy(the Jews would be the first victims ),but,nothwithstanding his antibolchevism ans his antisemitism,Hitler proposed in november 1940,a German-Russian alliance ,what's proving that ideological motives were not causing the attack on the SU(the ideological motives would determine the nature of the war)

 

Trotsky and Lenin began to bump heads prior to the revolution. When Lenin came back from exile in the a German boxcar, he offered Germany Russian emperial lands (Poland included) in return for peace once his revlution succeeded. Trotsky was against this to the fullest, a rift began to form. Its fairly common knowledge that Lenin too wanted Poland back, after all; he did cede it to German as promised after his revolution ( or so the story goes).

As far as Communists and Tsarists Russians were concerned Poland was theirs and would remain as such in due time. German too thought the same thing.

Lenin's and Trotsky held the same view on Poland but not the world. Trotsky wanted Europe and the rest of the world communist and was willing to achieve this through warfare.... Lenin thought otherwise. Trotsky had to go.

 

I respectfully disagree. After the Great War German and Russian relations were excellent. Both countries were outcasts in Europe and fed of each other. Friendly relations continued to grow until Hitler came to power and put an end to all. Russia now became one of Hitlers scapegoats.

Stalin did not attack Japan for the "spoils". He did so because he promised Roosevelt that he would at Yalta. Just as the Ameicans helped with Germany, Stalin too would do the same as soon as Germany fell. The date of the attack occurred on the date Stalin promised.