I've been listening to the book:
Ivan's War: The Red Army at War 1939-45


I've long been a skeptic of the theory that Germany could have "won". But I now believe differently.

As you know, the Soviets were dreadfully unprepared for war. Millions of Soviets surrendered to the Germans in 1941. Had the Germans had a different strategy, they could have persuaded those millions of Soviets, along with all of Ukraine, the residents of the Baltic States, the Fins, and more to join them to fight Stalin.

Initially, Soviet troops were eager to surrender rather than face certain death fighting the Germans. According to the book, as the war went on, Soviet soldiers learned of the horrific atrocities that the German SS was committing. As well, they learned of the horrific fate of their comrades in German captivity. Soldiers went from being willing to surrender to fighting until death.

There are three things Hitler would have needed to avoid. One, he would have needed to be content in owning all of Poland and abandoning his plan of "Lebensraum" in Ukraine and the Baltic states as well as Russia. Two, Hitler would have needed to abandon the "Final Solution". Hitler could have deported all of the Jews to France, etc., but putting them into death camps could have definitely been a deal killer. Three, no declaration of war on the U.S. Obviously, I'm taking liberties but whenever discussing alternate history. one is going to take such liberties.

It's probably LIKELY that many Soviet officers, still reeling from the executions of their former comrades (Stalin's purges), would have gladly joined the efforts to remove Stalin. Hell, someone close to Stalin may have simply shot him and that would have been the end of the war and the end of the Soviet Union.

Thoughts?

First, Germanyâ€s problem started when they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Interesting speculation. My general feeling they tried to get to too many areas all at about the same time. The Balkans, Britain, North Africa, Russia. If they had avoided N Africa and started Operation Barbarossa on time, they would have had time and resources on their side. And it would have helped if their ally Japan held off on their simultaneous attacks on the Philippines, Singapore and, and, of course, Pearl Harbor.

Meh, russians helped the germans take Czechoslovakia, so F* them on that front. Also, Russia would have been DOA if they didn't have the U.S. bankrolling thier war efforts once they decided to attack german forces.... Russia wasn't even able to handle Japan on it's own.

Repeating Napoleon's mistake of invading Russia during a blizzard was bad.

(05-30-2021, 07:44 AM)Broly Wrote: Meh, russians helped the germans take Czechoslovakia, so F* them on that front. Also, Russia would have been DOA if they didn't have the U.S. bankrolling thier war efforts once they decided to attack german forces.... Russia wasn't even able to handle Japan on it's own.

The Russians had nothing to do with that.  They did partition Poland.  And Russia smacked Japan pretty hard in the late 1930s, which is one reason Japan left them alone.

Some Russian generals, Guderian in particular, wrote books after the war about "how they could have won", and this was picked up by some western writers like Lidell Hart and spread.

That doesn't make it so.

One overlooked factor in all of this was the Italian invasion of Greece in early 1941 that had a large impact on the German invasion of Russia June 22, 1941 (months before Pearl Harbor of course).  Russia turned back the German invasion on its own with no US help in 1941, and again in 1942 with marginal US aid.  And the Germans made strategic errors no doubt, but that is part of going to war.  So did we.

Not attacking Russia at all is the only way they could have won. At the very least waiting until they had won or had peace with the US and UK. But their "fuhrer" was a nutcase idiot.

Der Fuhrer had his entire premise built on taking lands in the East. He only attacked France to secure his flank so he could attack Russia. He was not an idiot. The COULD have won if they had done nearly everything right in Barbarossa, and even the next year in Code Blue. But they didn't.

Napoleon attacked Russia on June 22 also. Napoleon wasn't French. Hitler wasn't German. Stalin wasn't Russian.

The Nazis could have successfully created uprisings against the USSR in Ukraine and the Baltic states if they didnâ€t go all in on the racial bs. That said, this would have been going against their entire ideological POV-they werenâ€t invading Eastern Europe to get at the Jews, they were invading to take the land from the Untermenschen-the “under people”, or Slavs. Western Europe was the sideshow for Hitler, the East was the destiny.
As a geographic entity Russia is simply too big to conquer-Hitler might have established puppet regimes/independence for Ukraine and the Baltics, but conquering Moscow was never going to happen.
Also, remember that Hitler was defeated w/out the atom bomb. If things stretched out longer, history books might say Halle and Nuremberg instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The USA was just hitting itâ€s stride in war production in 1945, so Hitler was eventually going to be screwed one way or the other, BUT he might not have had a vengeful Red Army in Berlin in April 1945.

Manstein had a strategy in 1943 which Hitler almost adopted that could have been bad, for us. Manstein wanted to use mobile armored groups to counterattack Russian offenses by cutting them off at the neck. He managed this in early 1943 with success, but Hitler was talked into the major attack at Kursk, and Manstein fell out of favor (again). Without Kursk, the Wehrmacht may have been able to hang on long enough to get a separate peace with Stalin.

Manstein arguably was the most capable strategist and tactician in the war on either side.

Manstein took over my grandparents house for a week in 1943, my grandma cooked for him and kept the kids in the barn, my grandpa hid in the woods until Manstein left.

The Germans lived in my wife's parent's house for nearly four years. They left it a mess.

When I say "win" I mean that the Germans could have liberated eastern Europe and then made them their allies.  They could have then used the millions of captured Soviet troops to create a new army to help overthrow Stalin.  The idea that the Germans would have been able to take Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, and hold them into perpetuity was insane.  

Thereafter, Hitler could have withdrawn from France, Norway, and the low countries and I think the tide of public opinion would have been for Churchhill to step down and for the Brits to make peace. 

It's fascinating to consider how the world and history would be so much different today had this happened.

There is a board strategy game I've played a number of times to "reenact" Barbarossa. It's fairly complex, and of course can only mimic reality. The only way I can win as the German player is to take Leningrad in late 1941 and link with the Finns and let them take over the northern areas and then focus on the oil in the Caucusus region. It isn't easy, but if I can cut the oil supply to the Russians, it's over. They will counter attack of course, but usually the German player can hold out.

The main problem is no matter how many Russian divisions you wipe out, they reappear faster than you can take them off the board. And you have to deal with partisans, a real pain, unless you decide to eliminate that option. There are computer versions that are easier to play of course and take less time and are a bit less complicated.

The German generals thought they had it won in summer 1942 in the Caucusus, and they nearly did in a sense. The Russian army at that point was poorly led of course but starting to find itself.

How about if Hitler would have had his scientists perfect a nuclear device instead of rockets?