Barbarossa: why did it happen?

Complete Bull Poopy

The German army was tiny compared to the Soviet military machine in the summer of 1940, if you'll check the facts I think the German military grew by at least 50% between France and Barbarossa.
13 divisions(more than I thought) were tasked to the initial Sealion plans. Also its not numbers but quality that matter here the most. The elite of the Wehrmacht were planned to assault Britain leaving second line troops with French tanks holding the Vaterland.
Also, by the end of August Sealion had been thrown out. So those troop movements are merely the initial stage of the shift of resources. You cant cross the channel in the fall.

Anyone looking at troop strengths and a map can easily see it would be lunacy to attempt a British Invasion and leave the USSR intact.

 

Oh, completely agreed tallyrand; with what Germany had historically, they could not have invaded England. I proposed a hypothetical scenario in which Germany would have had long term plans and built up accordingly for sealion. Invading Britain is not in and of itself impossible; its been done before. Its just Germany never really planned for it in advance, so there is no way, historically, sealion would have succeeded. The destruction of a mobilising USSR is much more important than an offensively impotent Britain.

 

Barbarossa in 1941 was not primarily an intended strive for "Lebensraum". Barbarossa was a campaign fought to consolidate "Fortress Europe" before a assault on Britian in 1942. Hitler wanted simply could not afford a strong, unreliable continental power behind him and thought Germany and Japan could rapidly defeat the SU in a prospective 2-front war. It was also aimed to deprieve GB of the hope she had of a "continental sword" to bring her to the peace table.

 

The war in Europe revolved around the Russian Front: the defeat of Russia was Germany's primary goal. The Battle of France was merely to secure Germany's back door, and as far as England, the Germans had only a rudimentary understanding of beach landings. Any sort of mass assault would have been impossible. (The BOB had more to do with Goering than anything else.)
If Hitler was afraid of a Russian attack (and I believe he was not,) he had merely to dig in his defences in Poland. It's hard to imagine the Russians getting past a fortified Wehrmacht.
As I've mentioned in other posts, many of these strategic decisions were the results of financial considerations and agreements made years before.
The paper (money) trail looks something like this:
In 1924, American banker Charles Dawes stabilizes Germany's ruined economy. The Dawes Plan uses $800 million in loans to restucture Germany's economy, consolidating gigantic German chemical and steel combinations into cartels, one of which is I.G. Farben. Three Wall Street houses, Dillon, Reed & Co., Harris, Forbes & Co., and National City handled three-quarters of the loans used to create these cartels. (This type of State Capitalism forms the roots of Fascist political-economics later.) This was also the year when Hitler shot to political importance. In April, he is sent to Landsberg prison, but only serves 9 months of his 5-year sentence. Hitler did not so suddenly rise to popularity by giving speeches to drunken veterans in German beer halls: he had lots of money behind him. Money from I.G. Farben, Krupp, as well as the banking syndicates which were re-financing these German industries.
1924 was also a crucial year for the Soviet Union. In January, Lenin dies (somewhat mysteriously) of a stroke. It was generally assumed in the West that Trotsky would be the logical successor, but a triumvirate with Stalin, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev was formed immediately after Lenin's death, and effectively excluded Trotsky from power. This was an unexpected shift in the Soviet power structure. The collosal financial forces which were busy restructuring post-war Europe into their New World Order were counting on Trotsky as Russia's new leader: not Stalin.
(sh*t... it's midnight already. I'll have to get back to this later. -- KT)

 

In 1940 The Wehrmacht had 136 full sized divisions, included 10 armoured divisions. Most of them were regular German infantry divisions. That is not 2nd class units AT ALL. And if "Seelöwe" required as maximum 26 divisions, one or two Panzers, I think there is quite enough left to defend the Reich against the Red Army of 1940, supossing that it was going to attack.

Of course that Hitler's decision of invading Rusia was his primary "task" as leader and founder of the 1.000 years German Reich. It is obvios if you look in the maps of the German expansion that every conquest was preparing the ground and strategy for the next one. With Austria you have got Czechoslovakia in the mouth of the wolf. With Czechoslovakia you add another hundred kilometres of border to Poland, which will have to defend and with Poland you have common frontier with the Soviet Union!

Hitler wanted to smash the Bolshevism, smash its more strong enemy and to give the German people the space and lands they needed. There are no other major reasons.

 

It happened because the propoganda machine known as Hitler had read his people thinking that if German expansion ceased, morale would drop and he would lose support. So he pulled a Napoleon that spelled his defeat and ended an alliance with Russia that was crucial to Germany's victory that, obviously, didn't happen.

Even after it started, the division of forces at the Caucauses (despite protest from many generals including Jodl) was the final straw and it was downhill from there.

 

Is there any evidence that German morale would fall like a brick?

Are you saying Hitler would be over thrown my the man in the street, if Hitler had not attacked Russia?

The logistic planning for Barbarossa was flawed right from the very start.

 

Yes, you are right!

I haven't read the whole thread, but Adolf was not happy about the war with Britain and would have been happy to have peace after the occupation of France. But fortunately he had to deal with Winston!

His thoughts always went to the east. He needed the Ukraine for food, he needed the Caucasus for oil and he needed the Russians, Ukrainians etc. as slaves.

And he needed something to solve his problems with state indebtedness. As the nazi party never had any idea how to govern a country they just spent and spent and spent money.

Additionally there was no real plan for the end of Barbarossa! Going to the Ural and build an Eastwall between Archangelsk and Astrachan?

 

I am under the impression that it was more ideological reasons that lead to the invasion of Russia. Destroying communism, Russia was inferior and so on. I may be wrong but I believe that is what Hitler was saying in Mein Kampf.

 

Yup.... The Aryan race needed more fertile land which should be taken from the sub humans in the east.

Lot of good that did him.

 

I agree with this. Destroying the barbarian Bolshevists was of a major concern. Also the the red barbarians were poised to attack Germany and the rest of Europe. As it is, Hitler was at least responsible for the bolshevik hoards only getting half of Europe instead of all of it.

 

IMO, Hitler wanted to make Nazi Germany a true world power, and to be that Nazi Germany needed enough natural resources at their direct disposal - enough natural resources were only available in Soviet Union (or Africa but that would have been vulnerable solution because it would have required control of the seas).

There aren't too much natural resources in France, for example, so "stopping" after France would have left Nazi Germany very weak and vulnerable to "economical sieges". Nazis just didn't have enough natural resources for heavy tanks, strategic bombers, new big u-boats, etc -- without capturing the Soviet Union.

Even today Germany has the same problem: Let's say some global "super-flu-bug" creates chaos and all the countries close their borders. Life in Germany will immediately start to decline in many ways.

Or take a look at the oil and U.S.


_

 

How quickly we forget that the only reason why the "perfect" race didnt die out in East Germany, was because the "Red Barbarians" provided all which they themselves failed to receive from the Glorious Reich.

 

In a word, greed. Hitler was riding the crest of the wave at the beginning of Barbarosa. He had defeated France and held virtually all of Europe in his grasp. Rommel was seemingly romping all over the British in North Africa, the British had been soundly defeated in Greece and Crete. In the Atlantic the U-boat campaign was reaching a climax of sinkings.
From Hitler's perspective all was right with the world and victory certain. The OKW was chatting about the possibility of taking Gibralter and even possibly the Canary Islands! Why not invade Russia? It was the gleaming prize of Liebenstraum! The potential bread basket and resource horde that would make Germany the world power.
Hitler invaded because he was convienced he could win. His track record on that looked pretty good.

 

This is off topic, but I had always said that focusing on the South East would have worked out much better. Hitler had, actually, a very smart alliance with Russia. Had Germany crushed the English in Africa, there would have been a yellow brick road to the Middle East.

 

Which time period are you talking about actually, Slo? After WW2? During WW2?

After WW2 at least to my knowledge everything the Red Army could remove was shipped to Russia. The only reason why after WW2 East Germans did not die was cold war. I think Stalin was quite disappointed as the Western powers did not start making Germany into a farmland and shipping Germans to "slaves" all around the world as the "plan" originally required.

 

During and after. As far as I see it Stalin could have ordered the executions and destruction of the entire population and infrastructure of East Germany. Instead it was rebuilt, Soup kitchens were established through out the entire city to feed the population with the same food that the Russian soldiers ate. The Russians failed receive such treatment from the uninvited guests.

As for the so called slave labor, the people were used to rebuild the country which they destroyed. Im not aware of any Germans enslaved during or after 1955.

Correct me if im mistaken.

Not sure I understand "The only reason why after WW2 East Germans did not die was cold war"

Please explain

 

I do know in the Soviet sector, and more urgently in sectors the Soviets knew they would have to return to the West, that they did strip alot of machinery and other materials for shipment back to the Soviet Union. Junker's Dessau plant was basically emptied and eventually shipped East.
On the plus side for the West, the Soviets proved relatively incompetent in doing this operation. In many cases they pulled the machinery or equipment, moved it to a rail head or other shipping point, and then just left it all sitting in the open uncrated and unprotected. Western observers uniformly state that this resulted in much, if not all, of this equipment turning to rusting junk of little or no value.
The Soviets also did not provide the kind of monitary aid the US did in the West to European countries ravaged by the war. In East Germany there were signs of WW 2 building damage well into the 90's. Many destroyed buildings were simply left in place and never repaired.
German POW's and other "persons of interest" like scientists and technicians were often sent to the Soviet Union and held there as part of the work force well into the 50's. A mere fraction of them ever returned to Germany. Scientists and technicians like the Pennamunde rocket developers were taken to the Soviet Union and used until they had no more value then released. They were never integrated into Soviet programs the way the US did with German technicians. The Soviets could not bring themselves to trust the Germans to even a slight degree.

 

Couldnt this be because the Soviet Union herself was destroyed and the priority was not to repair Germany or its allies which invaded but the victimized countries? As for the aid from the United States ( while very singnificant ) was afterall only possible because the U.S. remained unscathed after the war and had the resources for such a large scale operation?

Is this any different from what the United States did? Countless of scientists were used for NASA and other projects, but then were discovered to be NAZI's and after their work was completed were kicked out and shipped back to Germany.

 

sorry guys.... i know it's an interesting subject but i want u to go back to the thread

my simple question is: despite in '41 many (probably deep down most) nazi commanders and strategists were not in favour of the invasion of USSR why did it happen anyway??? and why such a huge task was planned so badly??? why no one seriously opposed barbarossa???

i know, there are many explanations. here's one among many: the nazi put all the power in hitler's hands because he was the best at leading and control the masses. Ok, but what happens if such a powerful man one day becomes mad? barbarossa, that's what happens.