# Could the Soviets have defeated the Third Reich alone?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-soviets-have-defeated-the-third-reich-alone/627809
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 10, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-soviets-have-defeated-the-third-reich-alone/627809 "2012-07-10T17:03:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-soviets-have-defeated-the-third-reich-alone/627809/41 "2012-07-12T23:16:38Z")
> [@Ele\_the\_Stoic](#):
>
> I think a far more important question would be if the West could have won the war without Russia.
Interesting. [New thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=658352)!
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### Author:  [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2012, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-soviets-have-defeated-the-third-reich-alone/627809/42 "2012-07-12T23:35:13Z")
> [@gatorslap](#):
>
> So Britain’s at peace for a few months. They now have time to re-orient their troops towards the East. Maybe they still lose the Malayan Campaign and Hong Kong, but now that they’re not busy in Europe, they can pour everything in against Japan. With the entire combined Commonwealth forces fighting in Asia, Japan is defeated sooner. It’s hard to imagine Britain doesn’t re-engage in Europe at that point.
Are you talking Commonwealth vs. Japan or Commonwealth + US vs. Japan?
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### Author:  [@gatorslap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gatorslap)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-soviets-have-defeated-the-third-reich-alone/627809/43 "2012-07-12T23:45:12Z")
> [@cckerberos](#):
>
> Are you talking Commonwealth vs. Japan or Commonwealth + US vs. Japan?
Well, the OP doesn’t say Pearl Harbor never happened (not to mention the Philippines).
Even if they keep the US from getting involved, Japan isn’t going to win that war. But, how long that would take, and what Europe looks like at that point, is hard to say.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2012, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-soviets-have-defeated-the-third-reich-alone/627809/44 "2012-07-13T05:36:15Z")
The German defeat is not at all inevitable as it is commonly assumed. Germany had ended earlier wars largely on the psychological effect of blitzkrieg moreso than actual total destruction of the military - aside from Poland.
France was a bigger, richer nation than Germany with a larger and better equipped military. They could’ve dragged the war out into years and millions of casualties. But they had just survived the horrors of world war 1, and came to realize that they’d be at a disadvantage and lose millioins of men. The sting of the dramatic early losses to Germany and their loss of the strategic advantage was enough to make them bow out.
And so too could it have been with Russia. France had the biggest, most modern, most well equipped army in the world at the start of the war, and they were defeated in 6 weeks. Russia was comparatively weak as a military power, and suffered even greater losses early on.
But where France was a liberal democracy, averse to the horrors of war, and collapsed, Russia was a totaliarian state whose government could force the people into fighting long after other cultures would collapse.
But the interesting thing is that the Russian leadership almost succumbed to the same psychological pressure of the amazing German advance. Stalin was in denial and disbelief even weeks into the war, and as the staggering losses piled up, he would often lock himself in his room for hours or days and basically almost have nervous breakdowns. Germany was advancing faster than any army in history, capturing or killing Soviet troops by the millions, and seemed unstoppable. Stalin wavered. The sheer force of the early German victories almost caused the same surrender in Russia as it had in France, but where France tipped over into surrender, Stalin resolved to keep fighting.
People have a naive conception about the German plans towards Russia. They’ll say things like “the Germans didn’t even give their troops winter clothing! How stupid!” but that misses the entire point. Barbarossa was not intended to be a years-long total war, it was intended to be a quick campaign that hit Russia so hard that it forced a surrender, just as it had in France and all of the other previous German victories. Germany knew that if the war lasted more than a few months, the plan had gone awry. Hence, there was no reason to equip their troops with winter clothing, because if you planned for the war to go that long, there was something wrong with your plan anyway and you wouldn’t go to war.
Germany hit Russia with the same psychological weight of early victory and a threat of catastrophic consequences of continued warfare. And the Russian leadership did waver. It wouldn’t have taken that much to push them over the edge. The decisive period of the war was indeed the fall of 1941, and lend lease and non-Russian allied contributions to Russia at this point were negligible - but the existance of allies would’ve provided psychological strength to the Russians. Knowing that they had allies had to have some influence on their decision as to whether to surrender. Given that they were close to collapse and as it was, the news that Britain had made a seperate peace, and that the US wouldn’t be helping with lend-lease might’ve been the last straw.
More than anything, it came down to what was going on in Stalin’s head. The totalitarian nature with harsh control of the populace essentially made it his decision entirely. Allied help up through the most critical junction of the war was minimal, but how much would it have weighed in on Stalin’s mind? Hard to say.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2012, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-soviets-have-defeated-the-third-reich-alone/627809/45 "2012-07-13T12:35:03Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> More than anything, it came down to what was going on in Stalin’s head. The totalitarian nature with harsh control of the populace essentially made it his decision entirely. Allied help up through the most critical junction of the war was minimal, but how much would it have weighed in on Stalin’s mind? Hard to say.
Probably what was going on in Stalin’s head was that he personally wouldn’t survive the disgrace of a defeat. The Winter War with Finland was embarassing enough; for the man who had terrorized the entire Soviet Union for nearly a decade, and in whose name millions of people had been unjustly killed, being shown to be an incompetent bungler in the face of invasion would have been fatal. My counterfactual is that if the Germans had been shrewd enough to offer Stalin a deal- like ceding everything west of the Volga- Stalin would have taken it and spent the following years purging more millions to consolidate his hold on what was left of the USSR.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2012, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-soviets-have-defeated-the-third-reich-alone/627809/46 "2012-07-13T13:04:07Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> The German defeat is not at all inevitable as it is commonly assumed. Germany had ended earlier wars largely on the psychological effect of blitzkrieg moreso than actual total destruction of the military - aside from Poland.
> But the interesting thing is that the Russian leadership almost succumbed to the same psychological pressure of the amazing German advance. Stalin was in denial and disbelief even weeks into the war, and as the staggering losses piled up, he would often lock himself in his room for hours or days and basically almost have nervous breakdowns. Germany was advancing faster than any army in history, capturing or killing Soviet troops by the millions, and seemed unstoppable. Stalin wavered. The sheer force of the early German victories almost caused the same surrender in Russia as it had in France, but where France tipped over into surrender, Stalin resolved to keep fighting.
>
> People have a naive conception about the German plans towards Russia. They’ll say things like “the Germans didn’t even give their troops winter clothing! How stupid!” but that misses the entire point. Barbarossa was not intended to be a years-long total war, it was intended to be a quick campaign that hit Russia so hard that it forced a surrender, just as it had in France and all of the other previous German victories. Germany knew that if the war lasted more than a few months, the plan had gone awry. Hence, there was no reason to equip their troops with winter clothing, because if you planned for the war to go that long, there was something wrong with your plan anyway and you wouldn’t go to war.
>
> Germany hit Russia with the same psychological weight of early victory and a threat of catastrophic consequences of continued warfare. And the Russian leadership did waver. It wouldn’t have taken that much to push them over the edge. The decisive period of the war was indeed the fall of 1941, and lend lease and non-Russian allied contributions to Russia at this point were negligible - but the existance of allies would’ve provided psychological strength to the Russians. Knowing that they had allies had to have some influence on their decision as to whether to surrender. Given that they were close to collapse and as it was, the news that Britain had made a seperate peace, and that the US wouldn’t be helping with lend-lease might’ve been the last straw.
>
> More than anything, it came down to what was going on in Stalin’s head. The totalitarian nature with harsh control of the populace essentially made it his decision entirely. Allied help up through the most critical junction of the war was minimal, but how much would it have weighed in on Stalin’s mind? Hard to say.
Right. Knowing that they weren’t alone and that the vast resources of America were on the way- that made it possible to keep fighting.
I don;t think the Soviets could have won anyway, all by themselves, but they likely would have collapsed without at least moral support.
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### Author:  [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2012, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-soviets-have-defeated-the-third-reich-alone/627809/47 "2012-07-15T00:01:45Z")
> [@Dissonance](#):
>
> I’m skeptical of Hitler having had any real sympathies for or desire to avoid war with Britain. He knew that invading Poland on September 1, 1939 would mean war with Britain and he didn’t lose any sleep over the matter. I know you haven’t made the argument that Hitler allowed the British to escape from Dunkirk on purpose in an attempted gesture at peace, but it is an often repeated one and is utter rubbish. Even if Britain had withdrawn from the war, when Hitler failed to conquer the USSR in a summer and fell into a grinding attrition war with the Soviets there would be good reason for Britain to resume the war.
I just finished re-reading the excellent [_The Deadly Embrace_](http://books.google.ie/books/about/Deadly_Embrace_Hitler_Stalin_and_the_Naz.html?id=6WOjGwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y) by Read & Fisher, which is all about the 22-month alliance between Germany and the USSR. It appears from my reading that Hitler was indeed trying to avoid war with the UK even days before the Polish invasion. Hitler postponed the original date of the attack from August 26 to September 1 mainly to pursue last-ditch diplomacy. The immediate trigger was Mussolini’s refusal to join him for the start of hostilities:
> [@](#):
>
> Originally Posted by **The Deadly Embrace, pp. 277-8**
>
> 'Stop everything!" Hitler barked. ‘At once. Get Brauchitsch immediately. I need time for negotiations.’
>
> As Keitel and Schmundt left, Hitler picked up the phone and called Göring, who had disdained to join the mob in the Chancellery that day. He told him about the Anglo-Polish treaty, and said that because of it he had stopped the invasion.
>
> ‘Is this temporary.’ Göring asked, ‘or for good?’
>
> ‘No,’ came the reply. "I shall have to see whether I can eliminate British intervention.’
>
> Göring’s response was sceptical: ‘Do you really think four or five days will make much difference?’
>
> But that was precisely what Hitler did think.
> [@Dissonance](#):
>
> I have no doubt that Barbarossa was inevitable - it was a culmination of everything Hitler had strived for. In _Mein Kampf_ he writes that the “future of Germany has to lie in the acquisition of land in the East at the expense of Russia.” Lebensraum, pan-German unity with Volga Germans, the destruction of bolshevism and the perceived Jewry that supported it, the slavik untermensh was high on the list of Nazi priories. **If only Stalin had taken a nosy at the book** before making his mind up about Hitler…
I agree - as long as Hitler was in power, Barbarossa was inevitable. However, the same source confirms (at some length) that the Soviets were well-aware of _Mein Kampf_ and its insistence that the Germans were coming for them eventually. Moreover, they point to an instance of Stalin utilizing some of its phraseology as a signal to Hitler in the days leading up to the Non-Aggression Pact:
> [@](#):
>
> Originally Posted by **The Deadly Embrace, p.59**
>
> To Hitler, he [Stalin] offered an invitation, both openly and through further half-veiled signals…
>
> As he came to the end of this part of his speech, Stalin summed up what he described as the tasks of the party in the sphere of foreign policy…
>
> The fourth was a final signal to Hitler and the West, in a phrase which was to become one of the most quoted of all Stalin’s utterances. It was: ‘To be cautious and not allow our country to be drawn into conflicts by warmongers who are accustomed to have others pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them.’
>
> Besides being both pointed and memorable, Stalin’s chestnuts were undoubtedly calculated to strike a chord with Hitler, for in _Mein Kampf_ - which Stalin had studied carefully in translation - Hitler had said while writing of British attempts to reach an understanding with Germany at the turn of the century: ‘The Germans were upset by the idea of “having to pull England’s chestnuts out of the fire for her” - as though there could never be an alliance on any other basis than a mutual business deal.’
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> Germany hit Russia with the same psychological weight of early victory and a threat of catastrophic consequences of continued warfare. And the Russian leadership did waver. It wouldn’t have taken that much to push them over the edge. The decisive period of the war was indeed the fall of 1941, and lend lease and non-Russian allied contributions to Russia at this point were negligible - but the existance of allies would’ve provided psychological strength to the Russians. Knowing that they had allies had to have some influence on their decision as to whether to surrender. Given that they were close to collapse and as it was, the news that Britain had made a seperate peace, and that the US wouldn’t be helping with lend-lease might’ve been the last straw.
An even more interesting counterfactual is wondering how the absence of the UK as an active enemy of the Axis might have influenced Molotov’s visit to Berlin in November 1940, which was initiated at Hitler’s request for the Soviet Union to join the Tripartite Pact as a full-scale military ally.
The talks went nowhere, as Molotov insisted upon a specifically delineated Soviet sphere of influence that would have included Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, Persia, and Arabic lands further south, while Ribbentrop attempted to fob off vaguely-defined promises of British India as alternate compensation.
> [@](#):
>
> Originally Posted by **The Deadly Embrace, pp.532-3**
>
> Inviting the Soviet Union, once more, to participate in this [alliance], he [Ribbentrop] ended with a confident flourish by reminding Molotov that he had not yet answered his question about whether the Soviet Union was interested in obtaining an outlet to the Indian Ocean.
>
> Molotov’s response must surely rank among the most cutting in the history of diplomacy. The Germans, he said, were assuming that the war against Britain had already been won. If therefore, as Hitler had said earlier, Germany was waging a life and death struggle against England, he could only construe this as meaning that Germany was fighting ‘for life’ and England’ for death’. And when Ribbentrop, completely missing the heavy sarcasm, continued to reiterate that Britain was indeed finished, Molotov wearily delivered his final thrust.
>
> ‘If that is so,’ he said, ‘then why are we in this shelter, and whose are those bombs which are falling?’
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