Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
Could the Russians have won the war the German without the D day landing or Allied aid?
This discussion has been closed.
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Rusty (U11037352) on Thursday, 30th July 2009
After Stalingrad and the subsequent Russian push westwards, was victory inevitable for the Russians? If normandy landings had happened years later, would Russia have beaten the Nazis and over run Europe regardless?
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Message 2
Posted by MattJ18 (U13798409) on Friday, 31st July 2009
Stalingrad may have been a turning point but victory was by no means certain for the Russians. Had Hitler allowed his generals to make a strategic withdrawal the German army may well have found a decent defensive position and inflicted a heavy defeat on the Russians. If the British, Americans and their Allies hadn't been threatening Germany in North Africa, Italy, the coast of France and in the air over Germany the Germans would also have had considerably more resources available to them. Having said that I think the very fact that Hitler couldn't focus entirely on Russia meant that, in the end, Russia was always going to win. If Britain and America hadn't launched the Normandy landings then the iron curtain would just have been on the Rhine instead.
If Britain had negociated a peace after the Battle of Britain and Germany had been able to focus all of its resources on Russia they might have won. Imagine the Stalingrad advance being led by Rommel and the Afrikacorps and the Russian defence being made without any of the American and British lend-lease materiel. It could have swung things Germany's way. -
Message 3
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Friday, 31st July 2009
In fact the Wehrmacht continued to advance into Russian territory after Stalingrad and renewed their offensive in the spring and summer of 1943. It was only after they had been caught in the trap the Red Army had set at Kursk in July 1943 that the tide turned decisively.
Stalingrad whilst it had symbolic significance coming as it did on the heels of El Alamein as well as being the first occasion when a German Army was surrounded, cut off and destroyed (which Montgomery failed to do with Rommel's Afrika Korps after El Alamein prolonging the North African conflict by another six months) it was Kursk not Stalingrad which proved to be the decisive encounter. -
Message 4
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Friday, 31st July 2009
In fact the Wehrmacht continued to advance into Russian territory after Stalingrad and renewed their offensive in the spring and summer of 1943. It was only after they had been caught in the trap the Red Army had set at Kursk in July 1943 that the tide turned decisively.Β There are indications that, due to Zhukov's utter incompetence, Red Army missed the chance of knocking Wehrmacht right out of the war in the winter of 1942-43. Colonel-General Eremenko wrote in his diary on January 18, 1943, "As Stalingrad Front Staff suggested, we should not have attacked the surrounded forces, but strangle them with blockade - they would not hold out for more than a month. The Donsky Front should have been directed to Shakhty and Rostov along the right bank of the river Don. As a result, it would be a three-prong strike by Voronezhsky, South-Western and Donsky Fronts. This would be an incredibly powerful blow that would trap the entire enemy force concentrated at North Caucasus." (VIZh, 1994, N4). Artillery Marshal Voronov stated, "We had an opportunity to create a new awsome trap for Wehrmacht at Rostov and crash the southern wing of its Eastern Front."(Krasnaya Zvezda, October 28, 1992)
Wehrmacht Colonel-General Zeitler stated, "Approximately in mid-December, another catastrophy similar to that of Stalingrad was looming... As a result of the successful Russian offensive west and south of Stalingrad, the entire Caucasus Front came under threat. It was not difficult to understand that, should the Russians continue the offensive, they would soon reach Rostov, and, having captured Rostov, they would inevitably trap the entire Army Group A." (Fatal Decisions). Field Marshal Manstein insisted that in the case of a strike at Rostov by Red Army, the entire Wehrmacht's Eastern Front would fall apart in December 1942 or January 1943: "the catastrophe of the 6th Army - no matter how grave and depressing it was - did not rise to the level of the decisive defeat in the Second World War. But destruction of the entire southern wing of the Eastern Front opened the way for Germany's rapid defeat. Soviet Command could count on that for two reasons. First, the Russian forces vast superiority in numbers; second - the advantages of the operational situation..." (Lost Victories) Having realized the danger, Wehrmacht command hastily pulled Army Group A from the North Caucasus. So, Zhukov, who was wasting his numerous troops at Sytchevka, missed an incredible chance to shorten the war. -
Message 5
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 1st August 2009
D-Day not being the most important event of WWI (only in the minds of Americans and British) was actually a rushed effort not to fight any Germans (Germans who? the playboys, sons of aristocrats that were partying with the 1-2 million French women who went with them?), but to arrive in time to stop the expansion of USSR in the whole continent. Just think of it. German army (and allies) in the west: some 400,000 at that time. German army (and allies) in the east 2,600,000. Note also that the former where the playboys and the rocket scientists losing time doing experiments, the latter the real German fighting machine.
So it is more than clear that USSR (that became briefly Russian in order to fight that war before rebecoming USSR) would anyway win the war at the very same time even if germans used the remaining 400,000 tendy-boys and rocket scientists from the east. The only thing they would do it to anger more Russians, they would lose, they would be invaded by Russians, Russians enjoying complete freedom to do whatever, would take revenge giving at the same a final solution in the germanic problem (Russians suffered by them repeatedly in the past, and much more in the WWII) by killing all the men, raping all women producing children that would be raised as 2nd rate Slavic speaking citizens of the USSR Empire, the first to unite the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean in Eurasia - cos Russians would not stop in Germany but would do a few more kms to take up all France too (say to punish all those French "collabos").
So D-Day was not at all crucial but for the survival of the Germans themselves as a nation (something they quickly realised)!
However, the point where Russians got a great helping hand from the west was all the aid received (secretly) by Americans and British via Iran (if I remember corerctly). Not so much any weapons (USSR had pretty good ones in the making) but absolutely necessary equipment to be used in logistics, food and of course the much needed trucks to transfer all the things the army needed in the west - the usual communist organisation thought maybe that tanks could travel 2000-3000 and arrive in shape and with enough petrol in the front... That aided aided grealty in accelerating the turning of war in favour of Russians. Had they not had that help, there was even a small risk of really losing the war. Most possibly without that help, Germans would proceed even further, would stay for 1-2 years more massacring the locals and trying to convince as many Germans possible to relocate there until approaching deep into Eurasia, nearer the production sites of Russians with the latter in much better logistical situation then attacking and falling on them. By then Russians would be convinced that the extermination of Germans would be necessary and would kill not only the men but also the women after having raped them of course. They would have all Europe theirs and they would not stop in France, nor in England (once you go so far to have almost all of Europe yours, you just go for the taking at take it all). Thus with Germans out (really out of existence), the war would continue as a US,British,French alliance against Russians where you would see even a pact between US and Japan (and no atomic bombs on Japan but on any place in Russia)... -
Message 6
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Sunday, 2nd August 2009
That explains why the Germans surrendered so quickly in Normandy, then, and why they did not bother to defend the Rhine either!
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Message 7
Posted by ambi (U13776277) on Sunday, 2nd August 2009
"However, the point where Russians got a great helping hand from the west was all the aid received (secretly) by Americans and British via Iran (if I remember corerctly). Not so much any weapons (USSR had pretty good ones in the making) but absolutely necessary equipment to be used in logistics, food and of course the much needed trucks to transfer all the things the army needed in the west"
I think the bulk of aid was delivered by convoy, and there was nothing secret about the aid itself (except perhaps in the SU), though probably the staggering amounts of it were kept vague. -
Message 8
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Sunday, 2nd August 2009
It should also be remembered that FDR extended Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union immediately after the German invasion on 22 June 1941.
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Message 9
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Sunday, 2nd August 2009
It should also be remembered that FDR extended Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union immediately after the German invasion on 22 June 1941.Β FDR had dealt with Stalin, well before June 22, 1941, even when Stalin and Hitler were parties to the Pact that triggered the World War. And it is not all. Western governments had supplied the Bolsheviks with military technology even well before Hitler came to power. This is probably what Nik is referring to. Anthony Sutton described all this in his very well researched book National Suicide; Military Aid To The Soviet Union.
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Message 10
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Monday, 3rd August 2009
However after 22 June 1941 Stalin did not have to pay for this aid. It should also be remembered the enormous assistance the Soviet Union, from its inception, gave to Germany to enable it to recover from WWI and then re-arm, firstly under the Treaty of Brest Litovsk which the Communists signed with Germany and which levied reparations on the Soviet Union and then under the secret clauses of the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922 (the Soviets and Germany had a track record in secret agreements well before August 1939) which gave the reconstituted Wehrmacht access to training facilities inside the Soviet Union.
Up until 1941 the Soviet Union was Germany's biggest foreign supplier of a wealth of raw materials including coal and iron ore (not Sweden as is popularly imagined). After the imposition of the British naval blockade in September 1939 designed to cut off neutral access to German ports the Soviets increased ttheir supplies to Germany since obvviously they went via the land route, the only stopping place beingat a junction where the freight was exchanged from Russia's broad-gauge to Germany's narrow-gauge railway system named...Brest Litovsk. -
Message 11
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Monday, 3rd August 2009
Well done, Allan.
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Message 12
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 3rd August 2009
People are too often amazed at the relationship between Germans (Nazi or not) and the Bolsheviks but for those who rememeber the little story with all Reddies riding the German train to Russia (coming from... Zurich) to go start their revolution with the blessings of the Germans, that should come at no suprise. It was not the Reds but western media (official or less official) that claimed that all that huge expenses needed for the Red revolution to succeed were paid by Zurick and New York bankers. So nothing strange at the end.
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Message 13
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Tuesday, 4th August 2009
Nik It was not the Reds but western media (official or less official) that claimed that all that huge expenses needed for the Red revolution to succeed were paid by Zurick and New York bankers. So nothing strange at the end.Β This paragraph needs some serious parsing, as usual. You're mixing apples with oranges. The socialist parties of different stripes - including Russian Social-Democratic, Italian Fascist and German National-Socialist Workers' Party (aka Nazi Party) among others - were indeed financed by Wall Street corporate socialists (see Anthony Sutton) to one degree or another. But so were some US presidents and other politicians running western democracies. However, Bolshevik fraction in particular, was not on anybody's radar until the Germans saw the opportunity to use them in order to knock Russia out of the war in 1917. The Bolsheviks had been structurally and tactically very much similar to the Mafia, and they had financed themselves in a similar way, for the most part. Felshtinsky described it very well in Vozhdi V Zakonye (Big Bosses). For example, his book describes a well documented shake down and eventual murder of Russian industrial mogul Savva Morozov.
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Message 14
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 4th August 2009
I could not had mixed apples and oranges since I was talking on a fruit-vegetables level not on a more detailed level - details which I often miss (no matter if having, or at least claiming to have, the greater picture). Indeed some interesting info from you Suv, thanks, I will have something to look for the weekend (afterall conspirology that is my hobby, isn't it?).
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Message 15
Posted by OldKingCole2007 (U9190432) on Tuesday, 4th August 2009
While I don't particularly disagree that D-Day wasn't the 'most important' event of WWII, please don't imagine for one second that its purpose was to stop the USSR from occupying Europe. Not least because the Russians had been asking and urging the Western Allies to create a Western front against Germany since Barbarossa.
Whilst it is true that the vast bulk of the German armed forces fought on the Eastern front, to suggest that the German forces in the West were merely playboys, aristocrats and rocket scientists is quite offensive. And they didn't seem to 'very quickly realise' that the Western Allies were their saviours because the kept on shooting at us for nearly a year after D-Day.
Finally, the aid from the West was of huge benefit to the Russians, including weapons; GB and the US supplied almost 20,000 aircraft (at least half of which were fighter aircraft) to the USSR between 1941 and 1945, and these, and other weapons were indispensible, especially in the early years after Barbarossa. -
Message 16
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
OldKingCole2007 the Russians had been asking and urging the Western Allies to create a Western front against Germany since Barbarossa.Β Timing of the D-Day invasion is a major criterion in this argument. I don't think that any serious analyst thought that Wehrmacht had any chance of succeeding after the defeat at Kursk. Which was about the time when the Operation Overlord was conceived.
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Message 17
Posted by Bryan_Fontana (U5277533) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
//Timing of the D-Day invasion is a major criterion in this argument. I don't think that any serious analyst thought that Wehrmacht had any chance of succeeding after the defeat at Kursk. Which was about the time when the Operation Overlord was conceived.//
Earlier versions of Overlord, such as Operations Sledgehammer and Roundup were being forcefully suggested by the Americans long before Kursk, only British intransegence stopped these operations, which would almost certainly have been disastrous, from happening.
As another poster pointed out, the western allies, particuarly the Americans, were desperate to relieve the pressure on the Red Army by opening a second front ASAP, they only differed on the best way to go about it.
The idea that the US and Britain deliberately allowed the Russians to bleed themselves out against the Germans only makes sense with the benefit of hindsight. -
Message 18
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
Bryan_Fontana Earlier versions of Overlord, such as Operations Sledgehammer and Roundup were being forcefully suggested by the Americans long before Kursk, only British intransegence stopped these operations, which would almost certainly have been disastrous, from happening.Β This is non secutur. There were and are plans for every conceiveable military contingency out there. At least, you should hope that the side you're on makes those.
As another poster pointed out, the western allies, particuarly the Americans, were desperate to relieve the pressure on the Red Army by opening a second front ASAP, they only differed on the best way to go about it.Β Why?
The idea that the US and Britain deliberately allowed the Russians to bleed themselves out against the Germans only makes sense with the benefit of hindsight.Β Are you saying that there were military planners who by the end of summer of 1943 doubted Wehrmacht's defeat? In my opinion, if there were any, they did not earn their daily rations. But let me tell you why: even before Barbarossa Hitler found himself in hopeless strategic situation, whereas he had to rely on Stalin for most of his strategic supplies, while his ore supply route in the Baltic and oil supply route from Romania were threatened by same Stalin. He kept himself in the war for much longer than the strategic situation allowed him to do so only due to incredible tactical successes in 1941. His luck was clearly over with the defeat at Kursk. -
Message 19
Posted by Bryan_Fontana (U5277533) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
//This is non secutur. There were and are plans for every conceiveable military contingency out there. At least, you should hope that the side you're on makes those.//
These weren't mere contingencies, most of the US military high command campaigned hard in their favour, only FDR himself appeared sceptical from the start.
//As another poster pointed out, the western allies, particuarly the Americans, were desperate to relieve the pressure on the Red Army by opening a second front ASAP, they only differed on the best way to go about it.
Why?//
It wasn't until Kursk that one could be certain of eventual victory for the Soviet Union (SU), in the dark days of 1941 and 1942 the SU looked at times to be perilously close to going under.
Like I said, the western powers didn't have the benefit of hindsight, they wanted to get significant assets into the mainland European theatre before the SU collapsed and the full force of the Wehmarcht was brought to bear on them. -
Message 20
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
Bryan_Fontana Like I said, the western powers didn't have the benefit of hindsight, they wanted to get significant assets into the mainland European theatre before the SU collapsed and the full force of the Wehmarcht was brought to bear on them.Β What hindsight did they need in the autumn of 1943? Suppose, they had wanted all alone to land in France to save Stalin. Bygones. If they did not realize by the autumn of 1943 that Hitler was as good as done, much more than the hindsight must have been lacking. There had been still 9 full months before the Overlord was executed.
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Message 21
Posted by Bryan_Fontana (U5277533) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
//What hindsight did they need in the autumn of 1943? Suppose, they had wanted all alone to land in France to save Stalin.//
I never said they wanted to save Stalin, they just didn't want to face Hitler without Stalin tying down his eastern flank and most of his firepower.
Nor did I claim that the post war fate of Europe was completely absent from their strategic planning, I'm just saying it wasn't the only factor. -
Message 22
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
Bryan I never said they wanted to save Stalin, they just didn't want to face Hitler without Stalin tying down his eastern flank and most of his firepower.
Nor did I claim that the post war fate of Europe was completely absent from their strategic planning, I'm just saying it wasn't the only factor.Β Well, I think we're splitting hairs now. Essentially, you're agreeing that well before the D-Day the determination had to be that Hitler was going to lose the war, at which point there weren't going to be any facing Hitler at all. Sending hundreds of thousands of troops on such a mission was not just another day at the office for western politicians having to deal with their constituencies at some point or another. One would certainly hope that pleasing Stalin was not the main factor in making that decision. Although, with Roosevelt, one would never know, I grant you that. -
Message 23
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
Old King Cole, well accepted what you say but if I am to compare the Germans in the Russian front with the Germans in France, well I am sorry but the latter seem to have been the richer side, playboys and rocket scientists. There is absolutely no comparison of the quality of army that was in the east with that in the west.
And that is not to belittle the indeed very mediocre results of the western armies against the German army. But the reality is they always needed around double the army to have hopes to do something, quite a shame. This is to stop all those talks about Russians winning Germans because they were more than Germans... well I do not know how many you would need if you had to face a pest of close to 3 million raiders riding on cars all around your desperately flat land...
And no I disagree... what makes you think that if the D-Day did not happen the Russians would stop in Alsace? Why wouldn't they go for the taking of Nazi France too? They would not even need their propaganda for that, north France was Nazi and the south too much sympathetic for it. By those times Russians with some million of army in that front would spare some 200-300,000 to sweep over France (and taste raping there too...). After a generation they would all speak Russian and they wouldn't mind.
1 thing would stop that: an instant piece treaty of US with Japan and consecutive attacks on Russia on all fronts by US, Britain, Free-France and Nazi France joined together, Britain from India, and Japan and so on... Eventually the Reds,already wartorn would have to step down.
But in the absence of any US will to fight the Russians (I do think that is very improbable of course as they would leave the fate of the world to them - it is all a matter of balance as we all know), Russians would simply have all of Europe to the extend that they would not even care for Britain, they could have it anytime. Indeed improbable scenario since the world rarely remains with 1 superpower. There are always other powers too that rise to balance things.
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