[Looger]

CaptainCrunch,

I think Stalin saw the purges of his officers as a needed thing, there were too many remnants in the Red Army of the young Junior officers of World War I. Stalin wanted a army that was bent to his will, single minded, and unable to make decisions that didn't come from Stalin.

yep, stalin wanted a well-heeled army incapable of revolution. the red army of the 30s was largely formulated by trotsky, thus was untrustworthy.

Its amazing that Zubov (sp?) escaped the purges, but he was very much like minded to Stalin in that he was willing to commit troops to the meat grinder in order to make the enemy bend.

The interesting thing about the battle of Berlin was this. In the last 10 days of WWII the Red Army under Zubov lost 300,000 men, The remnants of the German Army lost 100,000.

That dosen't sound like victory conditions.

zhukov was very much like stalin, i agree it's kind of a miracle he was able to make it. must have made an impression somewhere.

typically it's been said, crudely, that you need 3 times the defending force to overrun them, but that doesn't mean the casualties have to be 3-1 as well.

defense was fanatical and attack was fanatical. the russians had walked over mass graves and execution sites the whole way and were probably in a mood, which helps to explain their behaviour in the aftermath of this battle.

done slowly enough the siege could have spared many russian soldiers but probably would have wiped out or scattered all of berlin's inhabitants using masses of katyusha rockets and other artillery. but it had to be taken by the russians alone, that was the idea.

The other main difference that I can see is that Hitler was obsessed with race. He wanted to protect the Aryan race while weeding out what he considered to be sub human elements. In the end though, he thought he was betrayed by his race.

yes the race thing.

rosenberg blended some bad 19th century science and ancient pre-roman germanic myths - not unlike myths surrounding every ancient culture - to cultivate a cult of purity, of destiny, for the german people. worked quite well, to this day many believe it.

though they had their facts a bit mixed, the 'purity' of aryan blood had long since been lost to predation by slavs to the east, various foes to the west, and most notably vikings to the north. it was not the vikings that were germanic, but germans that were norse. of course nationalities tended to have their own vague characteristics / traits, but would hitler himself stand out in a crowd of 20 czechs?

a lot of what the third reich did was over jealousy. austria, czechoslovakia, poland, etc. had cosmopolitan, heterogeneous, culturally advanced societies and didn't see europe divided racially by a line on a map.

at least a small factor was the german peoples' history, previous to the late 19th century, as a big loser in europe. there had been a couple brief bright spots but in between were centuries of domination by foreign powers.

tell people that they're better than everyone else, enough times, and maybe they will see it that way.

Stalin saw that he would have to go to war against his own people in order to industrialize his nation, and he was willing to kill millions in order to get there. So thier aims while similar were completely different.

maybe he was right. the war between the reds and the whites after WWI in which the western powers were involved, albeit briefly, probably planted a seed in stalinist circles in russia. this seed had a simple message:

the establishment in the west fears communism, and will put troops in russia to stop it.

with a weak and divided russia in the 30s, i find it hard to believe western predation would have been far away.

Its strange if you look at the first half of the century, and saw the rise of these mega tyrants, who were all suffering from some form of dicernable mental condition. The fact that they all came from a similar background is even more interesting.

We might never see anything like it again, if we're fortunate

it's funny, stalin was a peasant from georgia, hitler a peasant from austria.

they should have had more connection with the common man, his desires, his fears, his future.

this era of history is over, something else entirely will kick us in the ass.