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Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:47 am
by RF
Following on from the previous thread concerning Japan entering WW2 before Barbarossa, perhaps here we could examine what would have happened if Barbarossa was postponed until Germany achieved victory in the West.

I would presume that if Stalin decided to invade Germany it would only be done so secure in the knowledge that the IJA could not attack Siberia from Manchuria, ie Japan is at war with the USA.
I would also assume that given the state of the Soviet Army such an invasion could not be realistically attempted until 1942 at the earliest.
So when would the Soviets attack? In summer weather, under ideal combat conditions for the German panzers? Or in winter, bearing in mind the Soviet experience in Finland during the Winter War, and where winter conditions in eastern Europe would be less severe than in the interior of the USSR.

To me a Soviet attack on Germany is a no-brainer. The Germans, unlike 1914, have Poland as a buffer. It offers to Hitler the ideal demonstration of the tactics offered by Guderian in Achtung Panzer! in that the Soviets are moving further westward and the Germans have time to concentrate massive counterattacks with which to encircle the Soviet armies far further to the West than in Barbarossa. Failure of such an invasion at that point poses personal risk to Stalin from people such as Lavrenti Beria, particulary as such an invasion would be more difficult to present as ''The Great Patriotic War'' so Stalin would be easier to kill or remove from office. Also what happens if vast swathes of Ukranian and Baltic state troops defect to the Germans and join the Heer and Waffen SS - in far greater numbers than they did under Barbarossa? And if Hitler didn't have time to think about ordering full racial genocide so that only the Jews were persecuted in Russia, then thgere is the possibility of the Soviet Army disintegrating. A further factor, should it be needed, is that forces from Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria (which refused to involve itself in Barbarossa), Croatia and Slovakia would fight much harder than they did in 1941/2 because their homelands are in the front line, with real prospect of saving their countries. And Finland would hardly remain neutral.

Providing sufficient panzer strength is in position, there is in my view only one winner from a Soviet attack on Germany - Hitler. That is unless the points detailed in the above paragraph are overcome.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:49 am
by RF
As a separate note here, if the Soviets were the aggressor, would the western Allies be prepared to help them?

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:57 am
by jazsa80
One of the key failings of Germany's attack on Russia was her failure to forfill the liberator act. If they had of not pursued the Genocide thing alot of manpower would have been lost to Russia and gained by Germany. In doing that, in my opinion, would have seen the door kicked in and the whole place collapsing.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:21 am
by RF
I very largely agree with this. Hitler's melogomania would not allow him to accept an independent, pro-Axis Ukraine (not even when that issue was specifically raised with him by Ukrainian nationalists) or even independence for the Baltic states. A major blunder.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:42 pm
by lwd
RF wrote:I very largely agree with this. Hitler's melogomania would not allow him to accept an independent, pro-Axis Ukraine (not even when that issue was specifically raised with him by Ukrainian nationalists) or even independence for the Baltic states. A major blunder.
I must admit that I'm not sure what "melogomania" means. However Hitler had been promising the Ukraine to the German people as their "lebensraum". It simply was not on the table. Now that wouldn't have prevented the Germans from lying a bit and not taking adverse action so quickly which might have resulted in more help from the Ukrainians.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 2:56 pm
by RF
Maybe it wasn't ever on the table. In August 1939 to June 1941 the Soviets were repeatedly told that Germany would transfer its ''Lebensraum'' to of all places Central Africa!
Hitler wanted his complete empire, hence use of the phrase melogomania. Instead of settling for White Russia and central Russia up to the Urals he wanted Ukraine as well.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:11 pm
by lwd
Ok, PLS don't take this as crisim of your typeing/spelling but I've got myself in trouble a number of time recently assuming I knew what people were trying to say when I should have asked. Do you mean megalomania? (if I hadn't looked it up I would have misspelled it) if so I'm not completely sure it applies as at least one the definition at:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/megalomania
sates:
2 : a delusional mental disorder that is marked by feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur
and argueably Hitler's delusions were centered around his beliefs concerning race.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:22 am
by RF
Yes. And Hitler regarded all Russians as racially inferior. So his ego and predjudice wouldn't allow an independent Ukraine.

It is likely that there are several different spellings of this word, from country to country which speak the same language but in a slightly different way, as evidenced in the multitude of variations between US English and the English spoken/written in Britain, and the Spanish in Spain as opposed to Spanish in Latin America.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:30 am
by jazsa80
Its funny how people hold Russia as this unbeatable nation in regards to ww2. It seems that the 'huge manpower reserves' has put russia in the unbeatable class of nations. Its not til you read into it that you discover that Russia was at the end of its rope in beating Germany. Take away the lend lease program, and most importantly, the trucks and Russia is not really the Juggeernuat that people believe.

Nation vs nation, Germany is more than a match for the Soviet Union. Iooking at certain key points it is plainly obvious. If we take the Allies tank losses from west europe and tack them onto Russian War t-34 losses we see that there would be no t-34s left in 1945.

Those who think that the USSR was a match , one for one, for Germany really need to go to the library and read some books.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:17 am
by RF
jazsa80 wrote:Its funny how people hold Russia as this unbeatable nation in regards to ww2. It seems that the 'huge manpower reserves' has put russia in the unbeatable class of nations.
Those who think that the USSR was a match , one for one, for Germany really need to go to the library and read some books.
The whole premise in initiating this thread is that the USSR could have been defeated in WW2 - without much difficulty in fact, by a German Fuhrer who had some brains in his head and not ignorance and prejudice. Getting the Russians to shoot first by invading is in fact the ideal strategy.

And lets not forget - Russia was defeated in WW1.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:47 am
by JtD
Napoleon got to Moscow and Russia still wasn't defeated. The reasons for the "defeat" in WW1 were not primarily military, but political.

In the Winter war in 1939/1940 the Soviets demonstrated a very clueless approach to modern warfare, much like the Western Allies in 1940. It is doubtful that they would have had the quick successes the Germans had in 1941. However, it is certain that the Germans would have been forced to redirect a lot of resources to deal with that attack. Also, the Soviets wouldn't suffer the same huge losses they historically suffered in 1941, making them more of a threat than they historically were. A counter attack by the Germans equaling Barbarossa isn't militarily possible, unless Germany had prepared for an invasion and was just waiting for the Soviets to attack.

WRT to Russia fighting on it's own, the Germans never had the means to control a territory of the size of the Soviet Union. This is evident from the large amount of partisan activity in German held territory. They also weren't able to deal with the logistics required by a front several thousand kilometers away from the German industry. Eventually, the German invasion could not result in an occupation of the SU, maybe some territorial gains in the Western SU and a dirty partisan war for several decades in addition to an all out war on an Eastern Front. This is not a victory.

RF, your original premise was that Germany should have focused on the development of wonderweapons, like intercontinental rockets carrying nuclear warheads, ready by about 1942. Had the resources been allocated to that instead of conventional arms, the German expansion would probably have been stopped in the Czech Republic in 1938, if it ever got that far.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:10 pm
by lwd
JtD wrote:...WRT to Russia fighting on it's own, the Germans never had the means to control a territory of the size of the Soviet Union. This is evident from the large amount of partisan activity in German held territory. ...
The Nazis never had the means because they turned the population against them. Germany with a different leadership might well have been able to exploit the disconent in the Soviet Union to control it at least for a while. This could also have struck a blow against the popular support of the Soviet war effort.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:38 pm
by JtD
I agree, but killing Eastern Europeans was as much part of the Nazi agenda as killing Jews. They didn't want to occupy Eastern Europe, they wanted to ethnically clean it. Take that away, and they don't have a cause for invasion in the first place. Sick but true.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:44 pm
by RF
JtD wrote:Napoleon got to Moscow and Russia still wasn't defeated. The reasons for the "defeat" in WW1 were not primarily military, but political.
Russia was defeated in WW1. They were unable to continue fighting to any effective degree.

Re: Soviet invasion of Germany

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:54 pm
by RF
JtD wrote:
RF, your original premise was that Germany should have focused on the development of wonderweapons, like intercontinental rockets carrying nuclear warheads, ready by about 1942. Had the resources been allocated to that instead of conventional arms, the German expansion would probably have been stopped in the Czech Republic in 1938, if it ever got that far.
German expansion should have been stopped by the Czech Army in 1938 - had the Germans invaded. But Chamberlain prevented it.

My premise was that Germany would be properly mobilised for total war. The full resource utilisation involved would have greatly increased armaments output as well as cater for the development of new weapons. We are not talking about a third world economy like Uganda under Amin or Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but one of the world's largest economies with a technically based, well educated private sector. The Nazies ruled Germany by imposing bureacracy and stifling private enterprise, a major blunder.