Several military historians have claimed that Hitler drew entirely wrong lessons, from the Russo-Finnish War.
Russia’s performance was a near-disaster-they attempted massive incursions of infantry into Finland-and the small (but well-trained) Finnish Army cut them to ribbons. Of course, the valiant Finns (with their 100,000 man army) could not hold off the Russians in an extended war-and once Stalin appointed competent generals to run his forces, there was little the Finns could do (except stage a fighting retreat).
Hitler saw the disastrous Russian performance as confirmation of his beliefs (that Soviet Russia was a weak state “we have only to kick in the door, and the whole rotten house will come crashing down”).
Of course, the Germans Army had observers with the Finnish forces…and they saw how resolute the Russian soldiers could be (with competent leadership).
The question is: did Hitler’s misconceptions about the Soviets cause him to understimate? In my opinion, he should have launched “Operation Barabaroossa” with one aim only-the capture and destruction of Moscow (and the Soviet government). No scrwing around with Leningrad or Sevastopol-just a hard drive to Moscow, with all the armor and airpower he had.
Well, it was not just the war in Finland where Hitler got his idea that he could defeat the Soviet Union, in the Documentary The world at War a former German soldier mentioned that the German troops advancing to take over Poland met with the Russian troops (they both invaded Poland and had already the non aggression pact) and reported to Hitler that the Russian equipment was very poor.
The Germans apparently missed the implication of how a tenacious defense could hold off an much larger offense much better than the attackers expected.
Of course Hitler massively understimated both the Russian will to fight and its military capacity, so his invasion was eventually doomed no matter what.
But what do you think, ralph? Hmm?
I still think Operation Barbarossa could have worked-but only with one objective-the complete destruction of the Russian Government (kill/capture Stalin and the Politburo).
Concentrate everything into Army Group Center, and smash a way through to Moscow. Capture Moscow in October, 1941, then sign a peace treaty with a new Russian Provisional Government.
It didn’t work for Napoleon - why should it work for the Germans?
Conquering Moscow would have changed nothing. By that point, the Russian people weren’t fighting for the Soviet government, they were fighting for Mother Russia.
Why would a provisional government have been any more willing to make peace than the commies?
The Soviet government had made plans to abandon Moscow and might have survived its loss. I think the big mistake the Germans made was they were looking for a silver bullet - one single thing that would win the war for them. Invade and the Soviet Union will collapse! Win a big battle and the Soviet Union will collapse! Capture Moscow and the Soviet Union will collapse! Kill Stalin and the Soviet Union will collapse! Capture the oilfields and the Soviet Union will collapse! As a result of these beliefs, the Germans kept throwing everything they had into the pursuit of whatever they thought would immediately win the war for them - and never made sufficient plans for what would happen if the war continued. The Germans could have won if they had been willing to make plans for long-term fighting rather than trying to force a short-term victory.
Well, I think one of the real lessons of the “Winter War” was that Soviet command was still very much Stalin’s call-the generals under him were too afraid to risk displeasing the big boss.
As for signing a peace with an anti-Soviet governemnt-very possible-the Ukrainians and Byelorussians saw the germans (initially) as liberators. A whole army corps. (General Vlasov) went ove to fight on the german side.
That is why I believe that a massive punch, with Stalin killed, and the rest of the Soviets scattered, might have brought an end to the war.
Of course, german brutality put an end to this.
No it didn’t. History has created a clear “Finnish Myth.” The fact is the Russians won overwhemlingly so.
The Germans knew the Soviets were not as prepared as they should be, and it was a huge irritation of Hitler that the British and the Italians were tying up his hands. Remember Hitler felt he needed to help Italy in their wars in Greece and Africa.
Hitler always knew he was going to fight the Soviets. He was just very unrealistic about his war aims.
Hiter could’ve done so much more, the minorities in the Soviet Union hated the Russians, but Hitler treated the minorites worse than the Russians did.
One of the biggest mistakes Hitler made was showing how awfully he treated the Russian troops captured. We now know that Stalin was making plans to leave Moscow and retreat behind the Urals. The he changed his mind and ordered civilians to hold Moscow and if the civilans didn’t, they’d be killed. The civilians in Moscow knew if they fought and won they’d be heros. If they didn’t fight they’d be killed and if the Germans took the city they’d be killed as well.
So what was the choice. The Germans literally turned the civilian populaton of Moscow into a massive army that would have to be wiped out, literally one person at a time
The Soviets offered Finland a deal that would’ve left them with more territory than they started out with. Understandably the Finns turned it down and chose to fight and lost quite a bit. Though the Finns won early on, within months the Soviets were overwhelming them and they sued for peace.
Hitler wasn’t an idiot, he was the Soviets were weak but he also saw that they were adaptable and could fight.
Hitler always assumed after a knock out blow people would surrender as France did. But the Soviets could’ve easily went behind the Urals and fought indefinately. The Germans never had a chance of defeating the British Navy to invade the UK. So as long as the British had their colonies (and with their navy they would) they could fight on till Germany collapsed. Of course this may have extended the war 10 or 20 years and made it look more like the Napoleonic Wars than the First World War
That was a diplomatic figleaf. The Finnish territory the Soviets were asking for was populated and developed (plus it was fortified and lay along the main route towards Helsinki). The territory the Soviets were offering in exchange, while larger is area, was unpopulated ice fields.
Ok, I did check the documentary and it was not a soldier but Albert Speer himself that described the method to the madness of Hitler:
It indeed began with the reports of German troops regarding the poor equipment and training of the soviet army.
**Hitler did not believe in those reports. **
When the war in Finland took place the original bad performance of the Finns convinced Hitler (Again Speer reporting on what he saw) that the original reports were true and that therefore an invasion of the Soviet Union would be a repeat of the western campaign.
He forgot about the size of Russia, general winter, not oppressing people so soon, and that Russia had already put their economy on a war footing.
Not to mention it showed the Russians flaws in their doctrine.
Believe destroying Moscow sends the Rus crying do you? Ask Napoleon.
They also forgot how to count. As Stalin said “Quantity has a quality all its own.” The Soviets outnumbered the Nazis two to one.
Dang, correction:
Plus, AFAICT the Soviets’ real goal was to annex Finland. No diplomatic deal would’ve changed that. The Finns had to fight and show the Soviets their resolve.
Didn’t the Winter War happen before the western campaign?
I think Hitler would have underestimated the Russians no matter what. Remember that as part of his racial theory the Russians were considered sub-humans along with so many others. His uber-soldiers were supposed to walk all over them. Which they kind of accomplished in the first part of the campaign.
I think Barbarossa’s delay had a bigger effect than the Russo-Finnish war on the outcome. The whole campaign got off to a late start because Italy’s invasion of Greece wasn’t going well and Hitler decided to help, postponing the march to Moscow. Had the campaign started when planned they would have had that much more time to operate before winter set in, against a that-much-less-prepared enemy, and who knows what might have happened.
Why were the Germans so ignorant of Soviet capabilities? Germany had been (secretly) building planes and training pilots in Russia-and must have known quite a bit about the state of Soviet readiness.
However, generals like Manstein got quite a shock, when they encountered the Rissian T-34 tanks (better than the German tanks).
Not really. Even if they had started in May, they still would have had to deal with the tail end of the rasputitsa (the mud season).
They stopped cooperating with the Soviets at the beginning of the 30s. And the T-34 was just coming in service and had still lot of teething problems. It was not rare for T-34 to go in combat with a spare trannie on their rear deck and the T-34 is still the only tank to have a sledge hammer as standard issue for the driver (so that he could change gear).
Hm. The original start date way May 15, which got bumped to June 22. That’s 5 weeks. How much of a difference do you think 5 weeks would have made, and what do you think would have nullified that difference anyway? Not the mud by itself- Soviet numbers regardless?