Seriously, what the fuck was Hitler thinking when he invaded

>>2463522
Warm weather

>>2463522
"They are extremely incompetent, look at Finland
Besides, they inflate their numbers and tech advancement for propaganda"

>>2463522
After the Russo-Japanese war, the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War and the Soviet-Finnish war, and the Great Purge, it looked like the USSR is:

1. Starved for military aged men.
2. Starved for capable commanders.
3. About to implode and collapse any moment now.

Any person with IQ above room temperature would look at the situation and say Germany will win very easily and quickly.
Nobody, not the Germans, not the British, not even the Russians, expected that the USSR will be able to hold on to their core lands, let alone win the war, let alone push Germany back.

If I was a gambling man in 30s-40s Europe, I'd be very, very surprised that France fell to Germany, especially that fast, but I'd be twice as surprised that the USSR didn't fall even faster.

Hitler was an incompetent commander. Great orator but that's about it.

>>2463573
If a person in his position, given his knowledge, chose to NOT attack the USSR, that person would be a moron.
Every capable commander would've invaded the USSR then. It did appear to be an easy, quick war.

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He was probably thinking about his unusual genitalia and how he wanted to go ahead and end Nazi Germany, as well as his life, before he pooped himself too many times.

I've often wondered why Hitler wanted to eat a big meal of spaghetti right before he committed suicide? Didn't he know what could happen if there was stool in his colon when he died?

Hitler wasn't very good at war. It's actually kind of infuriating. Had he left everything to his generals, he would have fared much better, I think. Not a victory, (it was pretty much lost from the beginning) but a more favourable peace treaty could have been arranged.

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>>2463562
Here's a capable commander he didn't purge.

>>2463629
>>2463573
This, his generals were always butthurt that he insisted on doing stupid strategic shit like attacking at Stalingrad and Kursk.

>>2463522
is this picture a photoshop?

>>2463734
No, he is playing a popular joke. You may have seen a bear variation of it on /his/, the original joke uses a rabbit. The KGB is asked to find a rabbit in a forest, and since there are no rabbits, they bring a peasant, give him a rabbit suit, torture him until he confesses to being a rabbit and the case is solved.
Thus the "I am a rabbit" sign on him.

Imagine if the SU would had invaded germany. The battlefield would be german poland. would had germany won a defensive war in the polish stepes considering that they would have the panzer division at full strengh and with veteran crews and no overstrech supplies

Also hitler in desesperation would had mobilized and appoint a good general instead of himself as commander in chief

>>2463734

>being this historically illiterate.

Stalin turned up to US / UK / USSR conferences twice in a rabbit costume. It was based on an old KGB joke about finding a peasant in the woods and dressing him as a rabbit. Stalin was a pretty funny guy.

I swear it's like some people on /his/ have never read a book.

>>2463777
This guy >>2463703 thought that the Soviet army should just keep going after invading Poland, and not stop before Berlin.
The Germans would be surprised, since they deliberately stayed away from the Soviet part of the Poland battlefield, even when it compromised their attack plans. They were very careful about NOT having any friendly fire or other incidents with the Soviets.
Imagine if Stalin had listened, Germany invades Poland, does the bulk of the fighting, and then straight outta nowhere the Red Army comes in, the German forces are instructed to not engage the Soviets, and to fall back. The confusion, the rapid loss of land, the inability to properly form up a line in what was essentially foreign country without proper maps or railway coverage.

Then WWII would be the Allies trying to save Germany from the USSR, and Hitler would be some sort of hero governing from exile in London.

>>2463734
no, uncle joe was an absolute madman and pranked other world leaders all the time

>>2463780
i read stephen kotkins biography on stalin, never heard of this though. pretty funny desu

>>2463804
The war in finland was crucial for exposing flaws in the soviet army though and made the soviets go in full war production after it developping actually good tanks, The soviets would not have had a good time

>>2463835
More like the Purge was crucial in removing pro-german pro-tzarist generals and leaders, who would coup and join the nazis if they fought.

>>2463843
this, the purges were 100% justified
if Stalin really was such a hardcore murderer as people claim then he would've purged khrushchev and rest of the revisionist gang aswell

>>2463522
Why did Stalin dress like a rabbit?

>>2463629
>>2463705
Had he left everything to his generals, the successful cut through the Ardennes would have never happened and the Western Front would have been a stalemate forever.

>>2464171
see >>2463743 and >>2463780

>>2464171
He was furry like most commies

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>>2464171
He was secretly a bear, but the KGB forced him into saying he is a rabbit.

>>2464180
Wait, this is actually real? kek what a madman

>>2464200
Not yet, but we are making it real by repeating it often enough.

>>2463562
so this is the power of communism

>>2463629
He did do some smart things though, like discontinuing paratroopers after Crete. Sure, he was no genius but outright portraying him as a buffoon is a bit far.

>>2464178
Probably would have been better, desu.

>>2464204
I liked the Zhukov human waves meme more

>>2464219
Two of the events listed were communists failures or shortcomings.

>>2464225
>If we come to a minefield, our soldiers are ordered to dance the kazachok until there are no mines left, then we eat the roasted remains.

t. General Admiral Big Boss Chief Marshal Garter Knight Zhukov

>>2463562
The thing about the purges, is that nobody knew how long retraining an entire army structure would take.

Turns out that its 2 years, if the education and pensioned officers is still around to do the training.

>>2463522
They are weak and if we do not fight them now we will fight a losing war later.

>>2463522
He thought it would be easy as fuck like it was in WWI

>>2464304
did he miss the whole part where russia wasn't a feudal backwater shithole 100 years behind on the rest of europe anymore?

>>2463522
Statistics that showed the distance wouldn't be a problem since the Soviet Army was third rate at the time.
No one thought that Britain and America would send the aid, let alone so quickly, that they did to the SU, and it really isn't oversimplifying the question to say it alone turned the tide. The first battle of Moscow would have been a minor setback.

>>2463522
He has seen how badly the soviet army performed in the finnish war and came to the conclusion that defeating USSR would be very easy. But soviets learned from the mistakes of winter war and kicked his ass in the end

>>2463804
>Then WWII would be the Allies trying to save Germany from the USSR,


Unless, of course, they decide "Good riddance to bad rubbish", as Britain and France were already at war with him and had been quite displeased with his antics for years, and instead try to grab as much as they can from Germany while the Soviets are keeping them busy on the other side.

>>2463562
>Russo-Japanese war
Shit that happened 40 years before Barbarossa and was technically a completely different country? How the fuck was it relevant to anything?

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>>2464611

Please get some idea what the fuck you're talking about.

>>2464657
People will talk about the decline of the Roman or Ottoman or even Spanish empire by mentioning a battle taking place a century or more before the utter collapse, yet 40 years is too long?

They did bad, then they did bad again, and they dig bad again, again. It doesn't require much genius to see the trend.
And it was 40 years from WW2, but not 40 years from WW1. Don't jump steps.

>>2464671
I'm pretty sure if someone wanted to invade Italy today he wouldn't give a single fuck about the military prowess of the Roman empire.

>>2464379
Yes, war-torn shithole deprived of manpower (both educated and uneducated), ruled by incompetent communist tyrants, populated by genetically inferiour folk.

Hitler was quite unironically thinking Hakenkreuzes would be flying over Moscow before Christmas and there was little suggesting opposite.

>>2464688
Pretty sure that scaling any argument up to absurdity to mock it is not a proper counter argument to it.

>>2464703
Furthermore there was a bigger gap in technology and strategy between 1905 and 1941 than there was between 300 AD and 700 AD.

>>2464664

I tend to agree with your overall point rather than the guy who said it was all thanks to lend-lease being sent quickly, but your source refers to American deliveries.

British military aid started flowing to Russia much more quickly than American aid and British tanks and planes in particular were important pretty early on.

http://www.historynet.com/did-russia-really-go-it-alone-how-lend-lease-helped-the-soviets-defeat-the-germans.htm

Hitler was the most unusual guy in the 20th century!

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There was nothing normal about him, and believe it or not, he even got sick at times.

>>2467070
He was the Napoleon of the 20th century, loser who rose from nothing to being basically the emperor, waged war against all the other world powers and ultimately lost.

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>>2467099
Fuck off Lindybeige. Napoleon was a brilliant general and an equally brilliant political leader. In contrast, Hitler was a complete moron who couldn't win a single war, and only got as far as he did because other countries weren't as prepared for war when Germany started chimping out.

>>2467164
t. Jean Pierre

>>2467164

>napoleon
>brilliant general

he couldn't even break the weakest great power army in europe at waterloo

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>>2464186

>>2464233
Out of all of those only the great purge and perhaps the Finnish war were related to the Communist ideology

Did the British and Americans expect a nazi victory over the soviets? And if so what where their plans on dealing with it? Would it have meant Britain sueing for peace?

>>2463522
He had intelligence indicating that they were going to attack Germany after building up. The longer it took for the inevitable war to start, the worse it would be for Germany. The invasion was the only sane option for Germany, but had some very poor timing and preparation.

>>2468404
>He had intelligence indicating that they were going to attack Germany after building up.

[citation needed]

>>2463620
it was a final jab at the italians for being shit

Probably something along the lines of "well now we should invade the soviet union :)"

>>2463522
Barbarossa commenced in June 1941. At this time, there were no Allied Armies in Western Europe:

>Denmark had surrendered and was occupied.
>A Nazi puppet government had been installed in Norway and the government in exile had fled to Britain.
>The Netherlands had surrendered, with a government in exile fleeing to Britain.
>Belgium had surrendered with their King interned.
>France's legitimate government had surrendered to the German's and reached an armistice agreement that saw the north and west of France occupied by the Germans. De Gaulle had set himself up as a government in exile in London, and Giraud in Algiers.
>Luxembourg had been occupied and was eventually annexed.
>Spain was neutral but supplied materiel to the Axis powers.
>Switzerland was in a state of armed neutrality.
>Finland had just lost the winter war to the USSR and would eventually fight with the Germans in Barbarossa.
>Italy, of course, was allied with the Germans.

So in June 1941, when Barbarossa commenced there was not a single standing army left in continental Western Europe (except the Swiss, who maintained their neutrality throughout) opposing Hitler. Across the channel, there was the British Expeditionary Force licking its wounds after having fled Dunkirk. In its escape from the continent, the BEF had left much of its supplies, ammunition and armaments behind. They were lucky to escape with their skins.

>>2463522
>>2469027
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClR9tcpKZec

>This all naturally was inevitable, you see. I had a conversation with Molotov [Soviet Minister] at that time, and it was absolutely certain that Molotov departed with the decision to begin a war, and I dismissed the decision to begin a war, and I dismissed him with the decision to - impossible, to forestall him. There was - this was the only - because the demands that man brought up were clearly aimed to rule, Europe in the end. (Practically whispering here.) Then I have him - not publicly...(fades out).
>Already in the fall of 1940 we continuously faced the question, uh: shall we, consider a break up [in relations with the USSR]? At that time, I advised the Finnish government, to - negotiate and, to gain time and, to act dilatory in this matter - because I always feared - that Russia suddenly would attack Romania in the late fall - and occupy the petroleum wells, and we would have not been ready in the late fall of 1940. If Russia indeed had taken Romanian petroleum wells, than Germany would have been lost. It would have required - just 60 Russian divisions to handle that matter.
>In Romania we had of course - at that time - no major units. The Romanian government had turned to us only recently - and what we did have there was laughable. They only had to occupy the petroleum wells. Of course, with our weapons I could not start a, war in September or October. That was out of the question. Naturally, the transfer to the east wasn't that far advanced yet. Of course, the units first had to reconsolidate in the west. First the armaments had to be taken care of because we too had - yes, we also had losses in our campaign in the west. It would have been impossible to attack - before the spring of 19, 41. And if the Russians at that time - in the fall of 1940 - had occupied Romania - taken the petroleum wells, then we would have been, helpless in 1941.

t. Adolf Hitler

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*blocks your path*

>>2469039
>le unite russians under one mass grave man
>le storm the germans until they run out of ammo man
>le sent the infantry to disarm the minefield man

What a joke that the mongols have a monument to him in their capital, they think him a second Genghis Khan, since they led so many of them to die in Berlin.

>>2469046
But did it work?

>>2469074
No, it didn't work. Tens of millions of russians died, it would've cost them less men to just surrender and give the germans Ukraine.

>>2469078
Yeah, cause Hitler would have just wanted Ukraine

>>2463522
They looked weak from Hitlers point of view(ww1, Finland, the purges etc), but he knew that the soviets were growing in power faster than Germany so he needed to act fast.

War with the soviets was inevitable and Hitler did the right thing strategically by attacking. If only Hitler and his ideology was not such shit the Germans might(maybe) have won.