By attacking the Soviet Union 80 years ago, he wanted to achieve what Napoleon had failed before. Has not achieved. Were his troops defeated by the Red Army? Or maybe because of ... mistakes of the Führer himself?
"The greatest criminal and monster did not seem to be a clinical idiot, but the list of crazy mistakes he made in 1941 continues to amaze," writes Mark Solonin in his latest book How the Soviet Union Won the War.
Was Adolf Hitler's greatest enemy himself?
Indeed, the beginning of 1941 could have been welcomed by Hitler as the lord and ruler of almost all Europe. If he did not conquer a country, it was either his ally or he was neutral. A broad stream of supplies flowed from the Soviet Union. The British fiercely defended themselves on their islands, but were alone and on the brink of economic collapse. Twelve months later, the Third Reich faced the United States and the USSR - the greatest powers on earth. All this at the request of ... Hitler himself.
Hesitations
When the German army launched its attack on June 22, it seemed unstoppable. The attack went in three directions - north, south and Moscow - it was this central group of troops that seemed to be the most important. The capture of Moscow could have decided the conflict.
"The loss of the capital, the symbol of power and power of the country a month after the commencement of combat operations could not but make an electrifying impression on the army and citizens "- Sołonin writes, adding that who, how who, but such a specialist in manipulating public opinion should know it. Meanwhile, after the capture of Smolensk, Hitler began to behave strangely and slowed down the impact of the attack on Moscow. Why?
Operation Barbarossa began a few weeks later due to the German involvement in the fighting in the Balkans. Hitler supposedly understood that each week of delay was working against him, because winter in the east can be deadly, and yet he delayed the attack. He probably believed that a century ago Napoleon's army did not have such mobility capabilities as his Wehrmacht.
The quick successes at the start of the offensive seemed to confirm hopes that Joseph Stalin's army would be defeated.
The quick successes at the start of the offensive seemed to confirm hopes that Joseph Stalin's army would be defeated. The chances of conquering Moscow in the summer of 1941 were good. Hitler wasted them. Another author, Andrew Nagorski, suggests that Hitler was subconsciously afraid of repeating Napoleon's fate . who did not benefit from conquering Moscow. In Directive 34 he therefore instructed his troops to postpone their plans to reach the capital of the Soviet Union.
Von Bock and Guderian, whose soldiers were already signing up for Moscow, were furious about the new guidelines.
The offensive towards Moscow resumed at the beginning of autumn. However, it is a completely different time - it's hard to drive on muddy roads. "Two and a half months are wasted pointlessly," sums up Solonin.
Disregard
The author of the book "How the Soviet Union won the war" believes that this catastrophic error was a consequence of another - the Germans, yes, attacked Stalin's state with enormous forces, but provided very modest reserves. No new equipment was delivered from Germany.
In the first two months 89 tanks were sent to the front, half of which were light tanks . By the end of 1941, as Sołonin writes, "513 tanks and" assault guns "were sent to the eastern front. The author of the book "How the Soviet Union won the war" asks a rhetorical question:" Is it possible to fight in this way on a front that stretches one and a half thousand kilometers? ”.
It is interesting that the scarcity of these supplies did not correspond to the production capacity of the German arms industry. In 1941, on average, around 250 tanks were produced per month.
And while the Wehrmacht in the east struggled with a stretched front, "45 infantry divisions and 2 two armored divisions stood idle in France and the Balkans" - Sołonin notices. Moreover, in the spring of 1941, just before the attack on the Soviet Union, half a million soldiers were demobilized.
There were different estimates of the time it would take to overcome the "clay colossus", as was called the Soviet Union. Extreme optimists even talked about two weeks, Hitler was more cautious - he believed that he would defeat Stalin in three or four months. However, he was sure of victory. Two days before the attack, he was said to have told his generals:"we just need to kick the door and this whole rotten structure will crumble to pieces."
These belligerent announcements are primarily marked by the disregard for the enemy's forces, which, as we know, is one of the greatest mistakes made by commanders from the very beginning of armed conflicts.
Racism
Another mistake came from another constant feature of Hitler and his state - hatred of other races. The Nazi leader despised the Slavs and other peoples of Eastern Europe. Jews were murdered en masse and planned - it was after the attack on June 22 that the Holocaust began. However, the Third Reich did virtually nothing to win over the other nations.
Meanwhile, many citizens of the Soviet Union, in the Baltic States or in Ukraine and Belarus, hated the communist rule so much that they could support German expansion. By the end of summer 1941, there were 1.5 million Soviet soldiers in German captivity. Later that number doubled. "It was a huge conscription contingent, with a ready command, military specialists of all kinds," writes Sołonin.
In addition, there was also the equipment that remained in the occupied areas. The German generals wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. But Hitler, as Sołonin writes, "did not even try to beat around the bush and present his aggression against the USSR as a liberation campaign" . Another historian, Andrew Roberts, explains the policy as follows:
An immanent part of the Nazi philosophy of the Aryan master race was that the Germans dominated the Slavs in every way, and the numbers, even of tanks, were irrelevant.
photo:NAC / public domain It is believed that the Germans covered enormous distances. That's part of the truth.
It is believed that the Germans covered enormous distances. It's part of the truth. Mark Sołonin, however, gives examples where other troops were able to overcome equally large and hostile areas - such as the allies in North Africa rushing through the desert. So the problem was not only in kilometers.
The scale of German crimes against the local population was so great that soon the inhabitants of the conquered territories turned against the invaders - resistance grew stronger, and the Soviet partisans began to consolidate. "With the spread of the news about how the Germans treated prisoners, the Red Army soldiers more and more often chose to fight to the end instead of giving up," writes Andrew Nagorski.
Hitler's hatred deprived the Wehrmacht of a chance to support it, and the German factories deprived them of cheap labor. Meanwhile, the Germans needed soldiers. In the first months, however, despite their successes, they lost about two hundred thousand people. Antony Beevor in his "Second World War" estimates:
While this was only a tenth of the Soviet losses, the exhausting struggle was dragging on, the Wehrmacht struggled to defend the extended supply lines and defeat the remaining Soviet forces.
It would certainly be easier for the Wehrmacht soldiers if they could count on the local population. But the leader of the Third Reich himself ruled out such an option.
Hitler programmed his defeat even before the first shots were fired in the war with the Soviet Union. Perhaps, if he hadn't made so many mistakes, he would have had a better chance of winning. But would he be the same Hitler then?