cbr said:
option short side said:
cbr said:
JJMt said:
cbr said:
BQ_90 said:
thinking more about this thread. Why Hitler doesn't cross the Maginot Line? France and England didn't have any notion in attacking. So what if Hitler parked some troops there to counter then focus all,his attention eastward. Then he wouldn't have wasted all the energy and man power with Atlantic wall.
I think there wouldn't be a Europe first attitude in the US if Hitler didn't occupy Western Europe.
Then would Hitler had enough to beat the Soviets?
there is no way hitler could abandon the west with France intact and attack Stalin. France would absolutely have gotten off their asses if the border was open. Also, Russia was, despite america and british propaganda even to this day, moving more into an offensive position against Germany as Barbarrossa approached. they were basically as vulnerable as they could be due to this, and that is part of why the germans were able to encircle and eliminate entire corps when Barbarossa opened. Along with all fuel and ammo dumps being set up for a russian offensive in poland, and most of their air force within striking range of the border.
Do you have any recommended books or other sources for the assertion that Russia was about to attack Germany? I have read that German revisionist historians are making that claim, and I'm interested in finding out more about it.
Ill think back. Barbarossa covered it. Its not really debatable, just from force disposition alone. Stalin was not bold, but he runs over poland the minute hitler got bogged down in france and his logistics was ready. Just happemed too fast. Or he does it the next summer as his growth and advantages became much more pronounced.
Even hitler could not encircle and capture millions of troops and wipe out the entire air force and all their fuel stores on a 2000 mile front unless the disposition was offensive, rather than defensive.
With the exception of a few crack divisions, the Atlantic wall was manned by weak,novice, under strength divisions. I think the Soviets would Have eventually attacked Germany but I don't think the literature suggests it was imminent.
I always wondered what would have happened had Hitler listened to Admiral Donitzs and pursued a mediterranean strategy over invading the Soviets. With just a few more divisions Germany could have pushed the British out of Africa and captured the oil fields of the Middle East and Turkey. England would have to ship supplies all around South Africa and eventually be starved out. Meanwhile Germany would border the soviet oil fields in the caucuses.
France was irrelevant to the Soviet front in 41, it was basically r&r for troops between tours in Russia.
The reason literature doesn't cover Russia preparing an offensive against Germany is because it would go against propaganda from both Russia and America.
Stalin was indecisive about the attack apparently, but his formations were absolutely offensive. That's why hitler did it. He had no chance of winning a long defensive war in Poland. He thought if he had a chance if he surprise them first. He was right.
Honestly Italy and Japan's incompetence probably saved the world from hitler but doomed the world with the soviets. No one will ever know which was worse in the long run.
If Italy hadn't bungled the baltics and even North Africa, and japan had maintained the threat on Russias eastern borders, and hit the British empire in the Indian Ocean and suez, linking up with the Germans, turkey would have probably joined them and the soviets might have fallen.
Hitler was always going to go east.
Lebensraum was not in Norway, the Low Countries, or France.
Lebensraum was in the east - in European Russia.
When Hitler invade Poland, he expected England and France to make pro forma declarations of war, then call it off once the conquest of Poland was a
fait accompli. They didn't, so he invaded France. When France fell, Hitler expected the English to decide they no longer had an interest on the continent, and end their part of the war.
The Red Army's dispositions in the spring of 1941 owed everything to the fact that, at that stage, Stalin was a military incompetent (and had killed most of the Red Army's best officers), and had ordered the Red Army to defend on the border, instead of backing off to defensible terrain.
Stalin may have been planning for an offensive war against Germany, but not in the spring of 1941. In the spring of 1941, Stalin was doing everything he could to appease Hitler. The Red Army wouldn't have been ready for offensive operations for another year or two. (Note that until Hitler invaded Russia, Russia was not receiving Lend-Lease aid, either.)
