Real question /k/ related Had Hitler not interfered with the

>>33653933

>the capturing Stalingrad was pointless meme

>>33653964
So strategically you think it was.more important than securing the oilfields first? Stalingrad was literally the beginning of the end

>>33653933
The Germans would have been defeated no matter what.
They suck dicks at war. Their successes at the start of WW2 were attributed more to the lack of military readiness of their enemies and less to the military/strategic genius of German generals.

Here's one of the most important reasons Germany was fucked from the get go:
Germany is one of the poorest countries in the world when it comes to raw materials, energy, and other resources that are vital for the manufacture of modern weapons.

>>33653933

No.

By the time Hitler started doing stupid shit, it had already become apparent that the war wasn't going to be short, like it had been in France and Poland.
By the end of 1941, whilst Germany's losses may seem small compared to the Soviets, almost all of their losses were combat troops (as apposed to support roles), many of them experienced from previous campaigns, this left Germany's offensive combat able divisions significantly attrited from the start of Barbarossa.
Germany was not at all prepared for a long war, that was their gamble and they lost it.

>>superior logistics

kek, horses and carriages for the meat and potatoes divisions, the Soviets were much better motorised and they were on home turf.

>>oilfields near Grozny

This meme needs to die.
This would have left them even more outstretched, for equally little gain, that oil wasn't going anywhere.

>>33653933
You don't think not taking winter gear and underestimating the Russians was a bigger fuck up?

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>>33654022
>sucked dick at war

What the fuck are you talking about? Where do you prove this without pointing to decisions that Hitler made about military movement when he had no business doing so.

You realise the way modern war is waged today is based very much on what we've learned from the Germans in ww2 or do you deny this?

>>33654077
Yea that was a major fuckup but splitting his force from taking Grozny to Stalingrad was probably the fuckup.

I feel like the your not considering how unprepared for the war the Russians were. Yes id agree Germany was not up for a prolonged war in Russia but the plan wasn't for a prolonged war. In 1941 they were within 40 miles of Moscow right?

>>33654062
How are the oilfields are meme?

>>33654099
>hurrdurr what's strategic planning?

>>33654192
>hurrdurr still no argument

>>33654099
Europe was unwilling and unprepared for another war.
That was the determining factor for Germany's early successes. It wasn't the military prowess of Germany.

>>33654207
>Europe was unwilling and unprepared for another war
Sounds just like Europe today.

>>33654243
yes

The mistake was in trying to take on the Russians to begin with. There is a reason why the Russia-Brandenburg/Berlin alliance was the cornerstone of the foreign policy of Frederick the Great (post Seven Years War) and Bismarck--because both men understood that trying to deal with the Russians through military means rather than diplomatic ones was guaranteed to produce unfavorable outcomes. Hitler, coming fresh from his amazing victory in France, thought that he knew better than these previous heads of state and lost everything as a result.

>Had Hitler not interfered with the invasion of Russia and left it to his generals

If you were not aware, the whole "the war was lost because Hitler insisted on micromanaging everything and not leaving things to us, the generals" narrative is about as true as the notion that the Sherman was a deathtrap or that American soldiers died because the Garand auto-ejected empty clips. The chief architect of this interpretation was Erich Manstein, who we now know to have lied extensively about his own conduct and decisions during the war and who himself played a central role in the disaster at Stalingrad.

Note that I am not in any way trying to defend Hitler or vindicate his actions. He was a warmonger whose numerous wars of aggression killed an entire generation of young men and brought absolute ruin on his country.

>>33654207
Could the same not be applied to russia?

>>33654287
I don't understand the question.

>>33653933
>>>33654077
>In 1941 they were within 40 miles of Moscow right?

No, they were in the suburbs of Moscow. The Germans could see the domes on the Kremlin they were so close.

>>33654183
They had to choose between supplying winter clothing and ammo at this point.

What use would it be wasting precious trucks to move oil refining equipment up to the front? (cause you know, the Soviets aren't just going to hand over pristine industry to you, you would be lucky if they didn't just go full Saddam)

Baku was a very strategic goal, it would have taken months, if not years, for it to start paying off for the Germans; the Germans didn't want a war that would last years because they knew it would be a war they could not win.

>>33654243
They were more worried an
Bout ww1 part 2. Just another stalemate

>>33654322
The Germans spent two years in Stalingrad, simply being in a city does not mean you own it.

>>33654364
I never said they owned Moscow, dumbass.

>>33654287
Are you not aware that the primary objective of the Five Year Plans was to build up the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union so that it would be able to fight back in the event that Western European powers invaded or sponsored an attempt to remove the Bolsheviks from power?

When Lenin was still alive, Stalin was actually against the Five Year Plans as a model for the economy of the Soviet Union. This was primarily because it was being advocated by his political rivals like Kamenev and Trotsky. However, once he gained power and came to understand just how precarious his country's military situation actually was, he immediately flipped on the matter. Millions ended up dying as a result of the attempts to collectivize agriculture and also because of the deliberate expansion of punitive labor for the worst jobs, but it DID develop the Russian industrial base into what allowed the Russians to hold off and eventually defeat Germany on the Eastern Front.

>>33654378
The implication.

>>33654295
Saying Russia was unwilling to fight another war I mean

>>33654411
But that entire plan was never really out into action fully right?
Say hypothetically Germany actually took moscow, and most western Russia. I feel that military leadership was pretty central to the Russian military at the time to Moscow, and I don't believe the Russian military was known for taking their own initiative without having Stalin's approval at the time right? So is it feasible to think taking Moscow would throw the Russian military and defence off balance long enough to effectively take most of western Russia and deny them their factories and the such. Even with moving their production to the Urals and further into the country. I'm guessing most Russian populace lives in western Russia. You don't think that would cripple them?

>>33654411
I guess that's stretching it a bit, the furtherest the Germans for in 41 or 42, if they had Moscow completely would that cripple Russian high command and leadership is what I'm asking

>>33653976
Stalingrad was important to capture for the oilfields further East

You don't just pass up the namesake of your enemy during war

>>33654574
I can't speculate on what the effects of WWII Germany taking Moscow would have been, but let's consider a historical analogue. When Napoleon invaded Russia, he actually managed to defeat the Russian army in a costly battle and conquer Moscow. It didn't have any effect, because the Russians were using a defense in depth strategy even back then.

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>>33653933

No. Watch this lecture called "The Three Alibis"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zinPbUZUHDE

>>33654641
But it cost them the war

And the oilfields could had been advanced on without going into stalingrad.

>>33654331
Ammo vs winter boots? I feel like it was more of a oversight than a decision of one or the other. In an open conventional battlefield the Germans would have the advantage down there wouldn't they? Even if they took a year or so to pay off they would pay for themselves and were critical to the war effort. If those oilfields and agriculture weren't worth the fighting then there wasn't any other objective worth the invasion i can see.

I understand what your saying with they didn't want a prolonged war because they couldn't sustain it, but a prolonged war in Russia was never the plan.

>>33654275
I was not aware. I did not know he embellished his military accomplishments but did that take away from his ability as a commander?

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>>33654062
So the only not to have lost in Russia was to not invade Russia huh?

Since this is a "What if?" and speculation thread, Say Germany decides not to invade Russia and instead decides to play it defensively since war with Russia was all but imminent from what I understand of the political climate between the two countries, would they have stood a better chance?

And not to sound like a Wehraboo but didn't Hitler try to sue for peace with England at one point?

>>33654728
yfw his grand kids traded the knife for crack

>>33654728
Yfw your grandkids use your service record as rolling paper for a fat blunt

>>33654867
I thought stalin actually believed hilter would honor their non aggression pact, after they piecemealed poland together.

>>33654817

Capturing oil fields doesn't really bring the Germans any closer to victory against the Russians; Germany's limiting factor was not oil at the time.

It would be in a couple years time, but Germany was already well fucked by then anyway.

>>33654867
Hitler had been hoping to keep the UK neutral to Germany, but any chances of this went out the window when Chamberlain got ousted (because Hitler embarrassed Chamberlain internationally) and was replaced by Churchill. It was one of Hitler's biggest miscalculations.

>>33655251
My question on WWII always was that could have Hitler just NOT invaded and developed his own country without trying to take over Europe?

I always hear that war was inevitable but at least Germany wouldn't have been the aggressor

>>33655321
The Second World War was not inevitable. It happened because both Hitler and Churchill wanted it, and they opted to achieve their aims through war.

>could have Hitler just NOT invaded and developed his own country without trying to take over Europe

Yes. The previously mentioned Frederick the Great and Bismarck were both able to greatly strengthen their respective states (Prussia and the Second Reich) through a combination of good diplomacy and achieving territorial concessions by winning wars of limited scope. They deliberately tried (Frederick got drawn into one anyway though...) avoiding the situation that Hitler ended up creating for himself, where Germany had pissed off all of its neighbors and was at war with almost everyone else at the same time.

>>33654867

>So the only not to have lost in Russia was to not invade Russia huh?

Pretty much, the Nazis underestimated the Soviet military: they never really got close to victory even though they invaded it at pretty much the ideal time, although to be fair to the Nazis, the Red army hadn't done wonders for it's reputation with it's Finnish shenanigans .

>Since this is a "What if?" and speculation thread, Say Germany decides not to invade Russia and instead decides to play it defensively since war with Russia was all but imminent from what I understand of the political climate between the two countries, would they have stood a better chance?

IDK probably not. Like i said, they invaded at the ideal time, the SU was only going to get stronger from that point on.

The Nazis shouldn't have invaded Poland in the first place desu, but at the same time, if they hadn't invaded Poland their economy would have completely tanked.

Nazism is a self destructive ideology what can i say.

>>33655469
>>33655564
Can't usually have a discussion like this without a /pol/ack sperging out how Germany dindu nuffin so this is a breath of fresh air

Sucks really, Germany did have a good thing going on for its citizens but from what I read about the economics of their time, it seems that Hitler had propped up Germany's economy on credit to get it out of the gutter of the Wiemar Republic

Say Germany didn't flex and humiliate Chamberlain and concentrated his efforts of Russia alone, could they have won then even if the US was backing them up via Lend Lease?

>>33655607
The US would not have extended a Lend-Lease program to the Soviet Union if it was just a dispute between the Soviet Union and Germany. At best, FDR would have given them the same Cash and Carry offer that the UK had at the beginning of World War II. The Soviet Union was viewed as an abomination in both the US and UK, and the only reason we ended up allying with them was simply because the political calculus dictated that they were necessary to win the war.

That being said, I don't see any possible difference in the outcome of your hypothetical USSR-Germany conflict. Remember that the Soviet Union had already started to turn the tide of the Eastern Front on their own before most of the Lend-Lease aid began arriving in 1943.

>>33653933
The mistake was not treating the Soviet areas they took humanely.

Much of the Soviet people were ready to leave the shitty Soviet Union, but the fucking Nazis seemed to try their hardest to seem even worse than the Soviets (from the perspective of the average Soviet person in the lands the Germans took).

Like wow. Fuck. It's just all bad it seems.

Bad guys fighting bad guys, but more good people died than anyone.

>>33653933
No, the invasion saved the Sovet Union, they should have left it alone and let it collapse on it's own by the 50's.

>>33653933

No. The Nazi German invasion of the USSR was doomed from the very start.

>>33655709
You just can't win a war against Russia huh? Or at least you can't invade Russia and expect things to work out for you

If that war hadn't started, you think the Pacific War would've been avoided too?

>>33654099
>You realise the way modern war is waged today is based very much on what we've learned from the Germans in ww2 or do you deny this?

I do. Modern warfare is about on call fire support and logistics not armored spearheads and it has far more to do with how America fought WW2 then how the Germans did.

>>33655717
That's the problem though.

Shitting on slavs is a necessary part of lebensraum and lebensraum is at the foundation of Nazism as the justification for expansion to the east.

>>33655564
The red army was pretty devoid of effective leadership, I still don't know if I can see a victory not within grasp. Say they take moscow, completely throwing Soviet high command into disarray until they reorganize as im sure they're too whipped by stalin and the recent purges to act on their own initiative. Western Russia and most of the bigger population centers are taken, by the time they reorganize and are up to production power theres at least a well defended and reinforced front in western Russia. The rest could follow suit later but that effectively neutralizes the Russia threat. Is this that far flung to imagine from reality? I'm not talking about total victory in 1 go, but neutralizing them to make them not much of a threat for the near future.

And why would invading Poland be the wrong decision? This helped with their initial success in Russia and things were looking pretty good till Stalingrad strategically.

>>33655607
OP here, /pol/ock as well. Were capable of intelligent conversations.
This seems pretty realistic as well I think. Isn't that what happened tho? He didntngo ahead with an invasion of the UK and basically.left them to starve, then that kinda came back on him and nipped him.im the ass.

>>33655717
Im not sure this would change the outcome but it definitely would have helped with partisans

>>33655763
What if the goal was a short term neutralization of the SU instead of total victory?

>>33655893
How so if I may ask, combined arms is rule of land in conventional warfare today, that was practiced and pioneered by the Germans well before we did anything similar back then.

>>33655783
The principal cause for what eventually became the Pacific War were the ambitions of the junior officers in the Japanese military. Most of the elder statesmen and senior leaders were expansionists, but they were careful expansionists. Above all else, they wanted to make sure that Japan retained control of its colonies. The annexation of Manchuria and the war with China happened because a cabal of junior officers decided to act unilaterally and the central government decided after the fact that they would support the actions taken.

Basically, as long as Japan enters into a war with China because of the actions of a bunch of butterbars, it will face an economic embargo. As long as it faces an economic embargo, it adopts a plan where it takes over the Dutch East Indies and attacks the Pacific Fleet.

>>33653933
Nope. Even if you somehow did have magic logistics to the point where you could take and hold all that territory you would be constantly chewed up by partisans and the weather. It would be a massive sink of manpower and materials that Germany wouldn't be able to afford in either world war. With the allies coming in from the west and up from Africa it was only a matter of time. despite what you might hear some wheraboos say there was no conceivable way where Germany could start its expansion the way it did and win.

>>33656047
What about a short term neutralization of russia? Like the one described >>33655971

>>33655971
He didn't invade the UK but the hate for Germany was running deep already because off all the appeasement going on, Churchill didn't forget that shit which is pretty petty when you think of it

Bombing Britain didn't help either with all those V2 Rockets and Bomber runs

He should'nt have started the it was possible for him to have avoided the war altogether

>>33655985
Japan would've been royally fucked if it had the undivided attention of the US, with no Europe to worry about, they could've sent ALL the Army units it had on top of the Marine units

>>33656059
Well define 'short term neutralization'. What does that entail? Due to their justification for invading it can't mean being decent to people in occupied areas so it's pretty much either genocide or destroying the gov/military and retreating before they can reform one way or another. If they reform quickly it would probably be in a way that none of can predict so it's pretty much impossible to hypothesize what they would do. The best thing the Germans possibly could have done would be to not open up the eastern front at all.

>>33655971

>take moscow

How? It took them 2 years to lose in Stalingrad.


>And why would invading Poland be the wrong decision?

It put them at war with Britain and France (and the US by proxy).

>He didntngo ahead with an invasion of the UK

Operation sealion would have been a complete disaster (the entire German military leadership treated it as a joke, the kriegsmarine wouldn't even show up to the planning meetings).

It would have been a competition between the RAF, the RN and the English channel to see how many Germans could sit on the seabed.

You can't just meme away the biggest navy in the world with an Air force that has practically no anti shipping experience.

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>>33654062
The vast majority of Soviet oil came from the Causcasus if the Germans couldn't use it for themselves then they could at least deny their enemy using it. Even if they couldn't hold it they could sufficiently wreck it that it would take the Soviets a year to fix it. Lend-lease would never plug the gap especially with aircraft and uboats out of Norway harrying convoys. OP is correct the Stalingrad sideshow sapped resources from the Causcasus campaign which was Germany's last opportunity to win the war in the East. After Stalingrad if the so much hadn't been wasted at Kursk and production hadn't been wasted on memes like the Tiger tank then Germany could have fought a defensive war and ground Soviet troops into dust. Imagine what Model could have achieved with the resources from Kursk.

>>33653933
>Had Hitler not interfered with the invasion of Russia and left it to his generals, isn't it all but true the Soviets would be crumbled and been defeated?
Invasion would never happen in this case.

getting really tired of these "if hitler had done X he wouldve won the war" threads.

nazi germany's economy was not mobilized or streamlined sufficiently to compete with the USSR or the US. the germany military was a logistic nightmare. hitler's rise to power ensured the subordination of the OKW general staff to nazi ideology. the civilian government was plagued with corruption, nepotism, inefficency and political in-fighting.

bloody wehraboos just need to accept the fact that nazi germany lost and lost badly

>>33654022
I'll take "Who is Erwin Rommel?" for 100 please, Alex