Well, here’s one quote. The Second World War, John Keegan, 1989: Chapter 9, Barbarossa, p 174:
Sailboat
While I completely agree that the Luftwaffe’s failure, and Goering’s fatuous promise that it would be able to resupply von Paulus, was devastating to the Germans beseiged at Stalingrad, I would argue that it was too late to be the real problem. By the time they needed Luftwaffe resupply, they were surrounded and cut off – the real mistake was tying down so much mobile strength in city fighting in the first place. (Unless, of course, like me, you’d tell Hitler, “You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia…”)
Sailboat
I think I got it wrong, fact is I bloody know I did. ::smack::
What I should have said is maybe if he had been able to drop the required amount of supplies then perhaps the Germans would at least have been able to wriggle their way out and make tracks back to jolly old Deutschland…assuming Adolf gave them the OK.
As it was they starved and eventually surrendered in droves
Adolf wasn’t going to give them the OK, so it was ltimately irelevant. They would have either been stuck there until the Russians finally brought in enough reinforcements, or… well, there was no other possibility.
AS I recall, Hitler’s orders to Gen. Von Paulus was: no surrender, every soldier will fight to the end"…he also promoted von Paulus to Field Marshall (in hopes tha von Paulus would kill himself).
S’okay, the 10-3 will come in and rally those guys. Watch out for that stack of 6-2-8’s over there, though.
What?
Which is actually a question all on its own. To put it bluntly, this is such as illogical order that even total civilians, 70 years later, in another country, know it wasn’t a good idea.
Arguably, Hitler’s orders over Stalingrad destroyed the Germans. Without it, even with their crappy supply lines and poor , they had a decent shot at winning Moscow. That doesn’t mean Stalin couldn’t have won afterward, but it’d be a huge crimp in his position, and the Germans might well have never lost the advantage.
As it was, Goering ate the rest. 
Is it true that GErman soldiers were reduced to eating rats and horse fodder at Stalingrad? How did Gen. Von Paulus allow himself to be encircled-was he more of a Nazi than a soldier? Hitler must have known that Stalingrad was the beginning of the end for Geramny-but why throw 300,000 men away like that?
Because they’re soldiers, and soldiers are supposed to follow the orders of the civilians in charge of the government. Otherwise they’re rebels.
As for Von Paulus, I thought that Hitler promoted him to Field Marshal because no Field Marshal in German history had ever surrendered.
-Joe
Yes. It wasn’t an unreasonable expectation at the time - Germany had crushed a more modern, better equipped, organized, and trained army in France in a much smaller time table.
See my post here.
You really can’t compare the French scenario with the Russian one.
The distances involved meant that the armies in France were far easier to supply bearing in mind that most other mainland European countries had already been defeated.
France could’ve put up a protracted resistance that would’ve lasted much longer and cost many lives on both sides. They chose not to - after the psychological shock of early German victories and their operational and strategic position, they decided to take the negotiated peace rather than fight it out. Essentially, Germany’s opening punches were so shocking and damaging that France lost their will to fight.
That happened in pretty much every German campaign early on. Germany didn’t grind anyone into the ground and completely defeat them - they gave them a bloody nose and they backed down from the fight.
Expectations were that the same would happen to Russia, and it very nearly did. The opening months of Barbarossa were unprecedented in terms of casualties inflicted, troops captured, and land gained. Russia could’ve easily, and almost did, topple from the shock and give up. Germany never intended or expected a total war - they were not at the time in the position to sustain one. But the point is that the expectation that they could win without total war was reasonable and had precedent.
I don’t know about that - sure, it’s actually the case, but I’m not sure how many of the Germans actually comprehended the distances they were dealing with. Eurpoe is a fairly tiny continent. I’ve always thought they had a lack of comprehension as to how big the Soviet Union was.
-Joe
Well maybe the average soldier in the field couldn’t quite grasp the enormity of the country but I’m pretty sure the knobhead(s) that sent 'em into it had a good idea
Y’know, I’m not so sure that’s the case. It’s easy to just talk about “Russia” and not consider how friggin big it is. It’s like saying they were only going to visit “America.”
They might be thinking just about Boston, New York, Washington, and *maybe * Chicago. But then they get here, and discover that you can’t get from one to the next that easily. These cities are spread out of hundreds upon hundreds of miles, and there are cities, towns, parks, and all kinds of things in between.
Yes, it’s not that bright of somebody to think that way, but people do. It’s also probably the huge factor in why the German attack on Russia flatered. Sure, they could cut off and capture the troops (and intially did so). But they just couldn’t advance far enough fast enough. Long before they got anywhere, the Soviets just pulled up more guys.
Exactly. If you’d gone to a German general and told him, in 1941, “The Russians will be able to give up nearly a thousand miles past their front and still keep fighting” the response would have been, “Shyeah, right, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.”
-Joe
Not all the French lost their will to fight, although what you say is true about France as a nation-state. John Keegan noted that many French troops fought on with great resolution even as their leadership was throwing in the towel. He particularly pointed out that colonial units from French Indochina fought with terrible tenacity against the Germans.
Although “national characteristics” of soldiers is a topic prone to exaggeration and mythmaking, the reputation these Indochinese recruits earned going to their deaths grimly against the world’s most feared army should have served as a future warning to France and the United States, seeing as French Indochina later became known as Vietnam.
Sailboat
I don’t mean to say that the French soldiers were cowards, as tends to be joked about a lot. The country was only 20 years from the devastating effects of WW1, and the leadership, once they realized that they were in a terrible strategic position, took the semi-autonomous negotiated peace rather than prolong the war into a bloodbath.
Russia, of course, never got that sort of peace offer, which is part of why they reacted differently to the initial German victories.
The key point I was trying to point out in the post I linked to is that Germany was very close to forcing a Russian surrender anyway - the leadership was teetering on the edge all throughout fall 1941. The common perception was that Germany was screwed the moment they chose to conduct the invasion, but the reality is that they came very close to getting Russia to fold the same way that they did with Poland, France, etc.
In my opinion, Hitler should have listened to his panzer generals (Manstein, von Kleist, etc.), and sent three panzer columns ahead of the infantry, in the center. He could have encircled and capture Moscow in October of the first year of war. Keeping the panzers tied to the plodding (<20 miles/day) infantry columns was a big mistake. By the time of Stalingrad, Germany was growing weaker by the day, and Russia was getting stronger. Should von Paulus have retreated? yes, but before the Gemans were encircled. Stalingrad as the beginning of the end. Germay’s allies (Rumania, Italy, Hungary) no doubt were getting cold feet after Hitler showed his incompetence at Stalingrad.
Anybody know how many German prisoners taken at Stalingrad survived the war?