About the Soviet mobilisation :Let's start from the following 'The Wehrmacht must be prepared to defeat the SU in ONE rapid campaign '. 1)What is 'rapid' ? :I think at last september,giving the Ostheer 3 months to reach the A-A line . 2) How ?By destroying the Army in Western Russia and advancing to the A-A line . 3)Why one rapid campaign A)Because otherwise the SU could mobilise her overwhelming manpower and industrial resources B )Because the condition of the Wehrmacht and the Arming Industry did not allow a long war . A+ B means that the only way for success was to win the war before september . Let's now look at A :the condition of the Red Army :in the West were concentrated 2.7 million menwith most tanks,artillery and aircraft .If those could be destroyed before the Russian mobilisation,the war was won .Could the Russian mobilisation begin earlier ? The Germans were thinking no,because 1)in 1914 the Russian mobilisation was slow 2)if the Russian mobilisation was quick,the plan had no chances (wishfull thinking ) Let's now look at what hapened :from Stalin's keys to victory ' :in july the Russians mobilised 1O9 divisions ,in august 78 ,in september 30 + 34 tank brigades .All this indicates an enorlous mobilisation of manpower and weapons from the first day on .In september the Russian frontstrength was 3.5 and they had lost 2.7 ,thus they had send3.5 million men to the front in some 1O weeks.The German assumption that in september the Russian frontline would collapse,was flawed . Point B :the condition of the Wehrmacht and the arming industry will follow . Cheers
About the condition of the Wehrmacht :in june 1941 there were 3.3 million men(including Security divisions and the OKH reserveswhich were only later engaged ) with fewer artillery and aircraft than in may 1940 .The Pz were qualitatively not better than the Soviet ones . Quantitatively :3850 (of which 35O of the OKH reserves )and 25O Sturmgeschutze against 12683 in the Russian operational forces (Stavka reserves and inoperational forces not included ).Soviet artillery (without mortars )in the operational forces :32000 against some 73OO ;aircraft :10700 against 2700 . Both the German and Soviet army were mainly WW I armies,depending more on horsepower than on trucks .Of the 153 German divisions,there were only 19 PD ,who were depending on the ID for protection and support .Result :row between Guderian,saying 'the infantry is to slow'and von Kluge saying 'the tanks must wait on the infantry . A lot of divisions disposed only of captured civilian trucks,totally unfit for the war in the East . Logistics:a big problem(Source :the Reichsbahn in WW II ). and 'Germany and Railway Bottlenecks in the East on AHF ' Some ex:Panzerlosses in the 3th quarter(SG included ):1505,replacements :116 (Source :Va Banque P 89 ) For the 4th quarter :losses :1O24,replacements :391 . Same situation for trucks and horses. About manpower Total losses in the 3th quarter :685000 against 275000 replacements In the 4th quarter :500000 against against 232000 replacements . In reality,the situation was even wors,because the rein forcements were arriving very late on the front (source AHF The Axis Forces monthly strength 1941 project ) Also from AHF (recently by Quist ):monthly strength figures of the Ostheer June :2765276 July :2650626 august:2579879 september:253911O october :2381337 november :2362463 december:2112002 Last point :the armaments industry nly in december 1940 did the army get priority(relative );the result was a.o.that the tank production for the 3th quarter was :1023 and for the 4th quarter 1152 .A comparison with losses and replacements is bewildering . Final conclusion :all this is proving that the only chance for the Germans to win in 1941,was to win at last in september ,but that this was prevented (mainly )by the for the Germans unexpected Russian mobilisation from the first day on . Cheers
BBC says that the errors were that hitler believed the red army was primitive,[...] Oh yeah, he did. In fact guys in the whrmacht and the SS were shoked by the T-34 and the KV's, and they craped their pants every time they saw one(except if there was an 88 somewhere around). Not exactly the same thing for the Luftwaffe, but many of the pilots were really annoyed by the russian planes of which (almost) all were robust and dificult to shoot down. Biggest mistake? Surviving the gas attack he was in in WW1.
An interesting reasoning. May I summarise it by saying the plan was a good one considering the information available, the problem being that execution was troubled with a different reality? In that case then I would suggest that the real mistake was made when the German war production industry was allowed to slow down and was not able to deliver the weapons and equipment to sustain the German army in the field when the tactical battles started to go against them. It is my understanding that the strategic decisions which Hitler made were logically sound and based upon a good appreciation of the issues as well as being aimed at achieving clear objectives. These decisions included the invasion of Russia and declaring war on the USA. Within the limitations of the capabilities of German armed forces the strategic roadmap outlined by Hitler was probably the best that anybody could do. But when the risks of not achieving key tactical objectives ( Moscow, BoftheA, BoB, total destruction at Pearl Harbour) become reality then the lack of production of weapons/equipment to mitigate those risks sealed the fate of German ambitions. In my opinion, the two mains causes contributing to the failure of war production failure; 1- that German women and non-combatants were not allowed or encouraged to work in the German war industry (unlike the Britain and the USA who changed legislation and actively called up women into their war industries as well as actively targeting German production), and 2 - the German military weapons/equipment were technically sophisticated and more difficult to produce in massive quantities (in this respect the British designed Sherman was real winner in the battles of North Africa and Normandy). If the German war production machine had be able or allowed to keep pace with the defeats of German forces in the field then overall success may have been achieved later.
Hitlers first mistake has got to be not chancing his arm in invading Britain. As soon as an invasion force was landed with all the ensuing casualties that would occur,and Paratroopers dropped,how far would the Germans have reached,we'll never know. If,they passed the stoplines after a few weeks and were approaching London,would Winston Churchills goverment leave for Canada?At what point would the goverment leave,Stalin came very close to leaving Moscow,would it have been very similar? Would Britain be divided for a period of time amid huge casualties,as each side gradually destroyed the other at certain points? How much help could we have expected?Surmising Wales,Scotland,the Midlands and the North of England was still in British hands,how quickly could Britains defences,attacking options be organised? All French troops evacuated from Dunkirk would have been part of the defences ,the brave pilots who joined us would have been available alongside civilians and our own Army.The Navy would have been active. Could we have eventually forced the Germans back,and forced them to surrender or retreat?Who knows,but the task of taking control of Britain could have taken years with many,many,thousands of casualties. Hitler opened a 2 front war into the vast expanses of Russia,that was a gamble,but no more than leaving the British isles unbeaten.
Hitlers first mistake has got to be not chancing his arm in invading Britain. As soon as an invasion force was landed with all the ensuing casualties that would occur,and Paratroopers dropped,how far would the Germans have reached,we'll never know. If,they passed the stoplines after a few weeks and were approaching London,would Winston Churchills goverment leave for Canada?At what point would the goverment leave,Stalin came very close to leaving Moscow,would it have been very similar? Would Britain be divided for a period of time amid huge casualties,as each side gradually destroyed the other at certain points? How much help could we have expected?Surmising Wales,Scotland,the Midlands and the North of England was still in British hands,how quickly could Britains defences,attacking options be organised? All French troops evacuated from Dunkirk would have been part of the defences ,the brave pilots who joined us would have been available alongside civilians and our own Army.The Navy would have been active. Could we have eventually forced the Germans back,and forced them to surrender or retreat?Who knows,but the task of taking control of Britain could have taken years with many,many,thousands of casualties. Hitler opened a 2 front war into the vast expanses of Russia,that was a gamble,but no more than leaving the British isles unbeaten. Iam not wanting to reopen the SL thread (perish the thougth ),but was it not be established that SL had no chance (for 7 reasons ) ?
In that case then I would suggest that the real mistake was made when the German war production industry was allowed to slow down and was not able to deliver the weapons and equipment to sustain the German army in the field when the tactical battles started to go against them. It is my understanding that the strategic decisions which Hitler made were logically sound and based upon a good appreciation of the issues as well as being aimed at achieving clear objectives. These decisions included the invasion of Russia and declaring war on the USA. Within the limitations of the capabilities of German armed forces the strategic roadmap outlined by Hitler was probably the best that anybody could do. But when the risks of not achieving key tactical objectives ( Moscow, BoftheA, BoB, total destruction at Pearl Harbour) become reality then the lack of production of weapons/equipment to mitigate those risks sealed the fate of German ambitions. In my opinion, the two mains causes contributing to the failure of war production failure; 1- that German women and non-combatants were not allowed or encouraged to work in the German war industry (unlike the Britain and the USA who changed legislation and actively called up women into their war industries as well as actively targeting German production), and 2 - the German military weapons/equipment were technically sophisticated and more difficult to produce in massive quantities (in this respect the British designed Sherman was real winner in the battles of North Africa and Normandy). If the German war production machine had be able or allowed to keep pace with the defeats of German forces in the field then overall success may have been achieved later. About your point 1:from 'the wages of destruction ' (Adam Tooze ): The fact that more women were not mobilised for war work is sometimes taken as one more symptom of the inability of the Nazi regime to demand sacrifices from the German population .In this respect it had often been contrasted to Britain,where an increase of female participation in the workforce was the key to sustaining the war effort .Such comparisons,however,are comlpletely misleading,since they ignore the fact that the labour market participation of German women in 1939 was higher than that reached by Britain and the USA even at the end of the war .In 1939 ,a third of all married women in Germany were economically active and more than half of all women between the ages of 15 and 6O were at work .As a result,women made up more than a third of the German work force before the war started,compared to a female share of only a quarter in Britain .A year later,the share of German women in the native work force stood at 41 per cent ,compared to less than thirty per cent in Britain .Not surprisingly,over the following years,Britain caugth up .But even in 1944 the participation rate for British women between the ages of 15 to 65 was only 41 per cent,as against a minimum of 51 per cent in Germany already in 1939 . In large part,this difference was accounted for by the structural differences in the British and German economies .Of Germany's 14 million women workers in 1939,only 2.7 million worked in industry .By far the largest sector of women's work was peasant agriculture,which in 1939 employed almost 6 million women .By contrast,of Britain's 6 million working women fewer than 100000 were employed on farms . The wages of destruction :P 358 and 359 .
Your argument nr. 6 has one big flaw: The Germans didn't care to know much about the Red Army or the Soviet Union. Their expectations were based on experience from WW1 (when the huge Red Army collapsed very fast), on their experience in the war against France (which had been a feared opponent. Yet beaten in a few weeks) and on their ideology (SU was a Koloss auf tönernen Füssen - see the paradox? SU was weak, had to be weak, because they were slavs. Well, at the same time they were "ruled by the Jews" which the Germans (among others) considered a fierce, cunning and dangerous enemy). And you seem to forget one part of the equation: Hitler. Hitler had announced the war against the Soviet Union already in Mein Kampf - and the reason wasn't "winning the war" (Nazi-Germany couldn't lose the war anyway). Do you have any proof on what you say about the German assumptions on Soviet mobilisation? Did it once get from thought to paper and can be checked somewhere? (That's a neutral question, I'm not attacking you. Just curious, because so far I haven't seen any document covering that question.) About the German assumptions on Soviet mobilisation : On 14 august 1941,Halder wrote in his diary :At the start of the war we reckoned with 200 enemy divisions,now we have already counted 360 . In my opnion that's a proof that the Germans did not expect the Soviets beying able to mobilise 16O divisions in 7 weeks ,that assumption was the condition sine qua non for the success of Barbarossa .
About the German assumptions on Soviet mobilisation : On 14 august 1941,Halder wrote in his diary :At the start of the war we reckoned with 200 enemy divisions,now we have already counted 360 . In my opnion that's a proof that the Germans did not expect the Soviets beying able to mobilise 16O divisions in 7 weeks ,that assumption was the condition sine qua non for the success of Barbarossa . I don't see how this contradicts the statement that the Germans didn't really know much about the SU when they were planning their attack...? Besides I didn't contradict you on Russian mobilisation in the first place, did I?
I don't see how this contradicts the statement that the Germans didn't really know much about the SU when they were planning their attack...? Besides I didn't contradict you on Russian mobilisation in the first place, did I? Halder's diary is a proof of the German assumptions of the Russian mobilisation,for which you asked a proof .
Halder's diary is a proof of the German assumptions of the Russian mobilisation,for which you asked a proof . Damn you're right, I did indeed. I admit I forgot about that (blame work overload) but still, I was just asking, not doubting. :curtsey:
I don't see how this contradicts the statement that the Germans didn't really know much about the SU when they were planning their attack... Aha! No, but they also did not know that they did not know much and therein lay a big rub! Or did they? :icon_smile_blackeye
Damn you're right, I did indeed. I admit I forgot about that (blame work overload) but still, I was just asking, not doubting. :curtsey:
In large part,this difference was accounted for by the structural differences in the British and German economies .Of Germany's 14 million women workers in 1939,only 2.7 million worked in industry .By far the largest sector of women's work was peasant agriculture,which in 1939 employed almost 6 million women .By contrast,of Britain's 6 million working women fewer than 100000 were employed on farms . The wages of destruction :P 358 and 359 . LJ, thank you for confirming my contention that British and USA war industry greatly out-produced the Germans, partly due to the double the number of women workers in British industry ( from your data - British = 6M, German = 2.7M, we may assume similar ratios for US). In the First World War and the Second the over whelming numbers of weapons and tanks was the only deciding factor in both conflicts. This single fact makes all of the discussion about mistakes quite irrelevant.
LJ, thank you for confirming my contention that British and USA war industry greatly out-produced the Germans, partly due to the double the number of women workers in British industry ( from your data - British = 6M, German = 2.7M, we may assume similar ratios for US). In the First World War and the Second the over whelming numbers of weapons and tanks was the only deciding factor in both conflicts. This single fact makes all of the discussion about mistakes quite irrelevant. I think there is another fector :in WW ii (almost 70 years ago )production was determined by civilian manpower,not by machines and Germany had less available manpower:agriculture required 43 % of the female workforce (6 Million of 14 million )and 20 % of the male workforce (5million of 25 million ),the result was less men and women available for the war industry and less men available for the armed forces . Notwithstanding that more than 25 % of the total german workforce was working in the agriculture,40 % of the German import before the war consisted of food .
