Hitler himself felt that “Bolshevism” wanted to overthrow other ideologies by any means possible. He warned of the attempts by Bolshevism to overthrow the old order through unrest, agitation, and corruption from the inside, and if that failed, than through direct conquest. Confrontation between Germany and the USSR was inevitable, in his mind. He made such beliefs known to anyone and everyone in high levels of party or national leadership, at length, and ad nauseam (his monlogues were known to last a couple hours on a regular basis), and in his book Mein Kampf, published in 1925.
It was Hitler’s direct orders to plan for war with the Soviets. According to the wikipedia entry on the subject, there were several German military planners that warned that the occupation of such vast territories (if achieved) would be a net drain on Germany, but they were instructed to shut up and get with the program.
Barbarossa was a complete failure-it began with success, but by December 1941, the German high command was getting uneasy-the German offensive had run out of steam…and more ominously, the German Army had NO winter gear.
Soldiers were freezing to death in a (abortive) attack on Moscow (Operation Typhoon).
General Guderian reported that the Russians had recovered from the initial shock, and once the Russians introduced the far superior T-34, the defeat of Germany was a matter of time.
No, the Ukrainians initially viewed the Germans as liberators, understandably given Stalin’s deliberate starvation of them previously. Russians may have loved or hated Stalin, but they loved their country and fought back magnificently.
The T-34 was introduced in 1940, before the invasion. While on a tank-vs-tank basis it was superior to anything the Germans had, and was more suited to the terrain, the Soviet use of them was so poor that its technical advantages were almost irrelevant until later in the war.
For instance only a tank platoon commander had radio, the other 8 tanks in the platoon could only observe what their commander did and try to follow along (the Soviets didn’t trust ordinary Russians with radios!). The Germans soon learned to kill the command tank first, the rest were then effectively helpless.
In any case only about 2,000 were built by the end of 1940, by which time the Soviets had already stopped the German offensive through sheer stubbornness, numbers, attrition of the Germans (both by combat and mechanical breakdown) and of course the effects of winter compounded by the Germans’ over-extended supply lines.
I just finished watching a Soviet movie called “Come and See” about the Eastern Front. Wow, talk about a movie that stays with you. Possibly the most intense war movie I’ve ever seen.
I have seen total numbers for all foreign volunteers for the Germans reaching around 400,000 do you have a cite for that one million from Russia alone?
I looked at the search available on Google books, but it does not allow one to see the whole context, it seems that it refers to the number of Russians involved in forced military labor, I would not be surprised if many did help also Hitler in that capacity willingly, but when soldiers are concerned I have seen articles that report that not just any volunteer was allowed into the front.
You’re yet again ignoring why a million Russians fought for the Germans (Hitler didn’t even know of the existence of the Osttruppen initially, it was done behind his back). As I quoted earlier in this thread,
The two bolded parts are intimately related. With few exceptions, Osttruppen didn’t serve for the Germans out of any love of Hitler or hatred of Stalin; they did it because the alternative was death by neglect and starvation at the hands of the Wehrmacht.
There’s a good lengthy article about it here. Some bits of it:
The majority of the Ostbattalions were withdrawn from the Eastern Front starting in September 1943 out of fears of their loyalties. Most German infantry divisions in France had at least one Ostbattalion by the time of D-Day, where they were often more than willing to surrender to the Allies en masse if given the chance, the only thing enforcing their loyalty were the German officers commanding them.
I just noticed the article I linked is the same one Little Nemo did, just on a differant site. I’ve never known feldgrau to be apologist towards the Nazis, the Content and Research disclaimer page reads in part:
Far from Barbarossa not getting enough respect the truth is rather the other way around. It was doomed to failure from the very outset as logistically it was proven to be impossible by the German Staff. Hitler simply would not listen.
I would recommend “Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton” by Martin van Crefeld for the quick overview as to why this was the case.