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Date Posted: 10:03:06 05/04/03 Sun
Author: Mr John D Clare
Subject: Operation Barbarossa - some suggestions
In reply to: 's message, "Operation Barbarossa" on 09:21:36 05/04/03 Sun

Why did Hitler invade Russia?
1. Hitler had always intended to invade Russia - Mein Kampf makes it quite clear that he saw Russia as Germany's eternal foe, historically, Germany's sworn enemy, a backward and malicious enemy whose ultimate aim and mission was to swamp Germany with a new barbarism, and which must be destroyed before they destroyed Germany.
2. Russia was communist - the very opposite of Hitler's fascism - which Hitler saw as an evil political force trying to subvert and subjugate Germany. Have you seen the famous Nazi poster 'Sieg oder Bolschevismus' - 'Victory or Communism'
3. Russians were Slavs - by Nazi racial beliefs, therefore, 'untermensch' - who ought to become slaves for the Aryan master-race.
4. Lebensraum. Nazi philosophy taught that the Germans were a growing race, and would need to spread and take 'living space' in the east (in Russia).
5. Timing: the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 had just been pragmatic - to buy time - and by 1941 Hitler had defeated Denmark, Holland, Belgium & France and (he thought) was just about to defeat Britain. 1941, therefore, seemed a good time to turn his attention to the enemy he had always intended to destroy.


Why did he lose?
1. Russia was just too big - remember that it had defeated Napoleon 150 years previously. German supply lines became very long, and simple logistics meant that their armies at the front ran short of necessities. Resistance groups attacked Hitler's supply lines to make things worse. In the meantime, Russian factories in the Urals continued to supply the Russian armies with everything they needed - they were too far away for Hitler to bomb.
2. Scorched earth policy - the Russian armies did not let themeselves fight a huge battle and be defeated, they just fell back in good order, destroying everything behind them. The Nazi army captured burned fields and cities, and could not live off the land.
3. The Russian winter decimated the German troops, who were equipped only for a quick, blitkrieg, summer campaign.
4. USA and Britain sent money, medical supplies and weapons to the Russians.
5. Britain was not defeated, so Hitler was left fighting a war on two fronts - he could not commit all his forces to the Russian campaign as he had thought.
6. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Dec 1941, bringing America (the most powerful nation on earth) into the war. From that time on, it was only a matter of time before Hitler lost the war (never mind the Russian campaign).
7. The Russians hated the Nazis with a political and racial fervour. They fought fanatically - at Stalingrad, men retreated from a position only when the ground was on fire beneath them and their clothes were smouldering. In addition, they had a political regime which did not hesitate to sacrifice Russian soldiers' lives; Stalin sent 20 million people to their deaths to defeat Hitler.
[8. In 1942 Hitler made a strategic mistake. Thinking Stalingrad was all-but-won easily, he diverted most of his forces south to take the Caucasian oil fields - giving the Russians the chance to hold Stalingrad and annihilate the 6th army.]

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