As I recall, he said something like “I will run wild for six months, but after that …”
The quote I remember goes like this:
Dunno the source though.
Stalin very nearly lost the war (in 1941), because of three stupid things he did:
-he reused to accept that the Nazis were planning to attack him, despite numerous warnings
-he had murdered most of his competent generals, in the 1930’s purges
- he put an idiot in command of the Red Army (in 1941). Marshal Budyenny was the closest thing to the best ally the Germans had.
However, Stalin learned-and later was able to trust some competent generals (like Zhukov).
As for Hitler’s (alleged) interference in the German Army: the Kursk offensive (which was a spectacular disaster for Germany) was planned and carried out by the German high command-Hitler merely approved the plan.
Kursk destroyed the best of the German Army-and greatly hastened their defeat.
If I’m not mistaken, they tried three times. One attempt involved a bomb that didn’t explode in his plane, I can’t remember what the third one was.
They tried to shave his moustache while he was sleeping, so that his own troops would not recognize him and shoot him. It was inconclusive.
Just the observation thatwhen you’ve been invaded from the west and your single most fertile region and much of your industrial centers overrun by one enemy, it’s probably wise not to court a war in an area in the east where you hold lots of sparsely populated territory adjoining lands held by an enemy of your allies. It makes sense they finished off the war against Hitler before being willing to go to war against Japan.
Basically a whole lot of people had to die to put Hitler in the ground. I’ve always felt the West has never given Russia the full recognition it deserves on this count, when it came to beating Germany, they did most of the dying.
However, not as many people had to die as ultimately did, and the reason more died than was strictly necessary is because Stalin was a pretty horrible leader. He made specific decisions that made his military more susceptible to attack from Germany and made specific decisions that made his military less capable to repel attacks and counterattack. Finally, after the war got underway he made decisions that interfered with the proper execution of military strategy and caused needless deaths.
The one thing Stalin did was refuse to ever consider any surrender. However I don’t know that other Bolsheviks would have been especially different than Stalin on this front, and many of them would have been far preferable on virtually all of the other fronts.
More civilians died in the battle of Leningrad than Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. Lenin did not listen to his military advisers and it showed.
Even blind hogs find the occasional acorn. Hitler made so many bad, even delusional, decisions that one of them happening to, in retrospect, be correct doesn’t change anything. I stand by my opinion of Hitler and Stalin; German and Soviet military successes were despite them.
However, in all fairness, we must admit that it’s difficult for a mummy to listen to advisers and to react accordingly.
OK I diagree that the US would not have entered the war against the Germans absent Hitler’s declaration of war. The US was heavily invested in the outcome and even without Pearl Harbour would have been in the war in 6 months…tops. I suspect Roosevelt would have found his reasons shortly after December 7 (or 11) anyways.
In Military History class (USAF 1953) we were taught that the USSR strategy was entirely defensive. Their industry had been moved to or East of the Urals and they would (and did) use a scorched earth tactic in case of a Western invasion. Stalin followed traditional Russian policy by letting the Germans advance to the extreme of their supply lines, then defeating them in winter.
Russian, and USSR, internal politics were not for the weak willed. It’s difficult to judge Stalin from the outside.
After WW2, the US and UK entered Germany as liberators. The USSR entered Germany and the other countries as a conqueror. The wide spread rape of women was considered a natural act of a conquering force. To them it was inconsequential. The conquered nations were stripped of factories, automobiles, bicycles and watches.
On the other hand, Stalin defined and created modern Poland. The USSR fed Europe for years after the war. The USSR underwent a bloom in industry and technology.
Crane
It was indeed a decisive Soviet victory; the Japanese were completely overwhelmed and their attempts to respond were flawed and based on long out of date military doctrine.
However, the Kwantung Army was no longer a powerful force in 1945. They had long been stripped of their best equipment and units to support more important fronts. By the time the Soviets attacked, the Kwantung Army was a shell of its former self, made up primarily of poorly trained conscripts.
I don’t agree with the theory myself, but it’s mainstream and credible. Frankly, it might even hold more sway among academics than the traditional position. Some of the more prominent proponents of it are Gar Alperovitz and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. Hasegawa’s recent book Racing the Enemy in which he argues for this position is an excellent account of the end of World War II that anyone with serious interest in the war should read. As I said, I don’t agree with the argument, but its hardly creationism.
While it’s true that the Soviets treated Eastern Europe as conquered territory, on paper they were more of a liberator than the Americans or British. Throughout the war, the official Soviet position was that they were fighting the Nazi regime not the German people and that the Nazi defeat would be a German victory. The official American and British position was that they were at war with Germany and that would remain true even if the Nazis were thrown out of power.
LN,
Interesting twist!
Crane
I doubt that Germany could have defeated the USSR even without US intervention after Hitler declared war on the USA. The Luftwaffe was badly battered during the Battle of Britain, a lot of equipment had been destroyed (even though they captured a lot after the defeat of the French and the British land armies) and their economy had already started to groan.