June 22nd, 1941

[CaptainCrunch]

Today marks the start of the world waking up to the news that Hitler had begun his invasion of his former ally the Soviet Union. A miscalculation that would lead to the end of the Nazi Regime.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1142448629447372801


German troops drove hard on the Surprised Soviet Military and stunningly passed Soviet trains on the way to Germany carrying grain and fuel oil.


Eventually the German's would be defeated by the harsh coldness of the Russian winter and the inability for the German's to supply their troops. They were thrown back by the resurgent Soviet Red Army and such weapons as the Soviet T-34 tank.


This invasion lead to the eventual raising of the Soviet Red Banner over Berlin and the horrific atrocities visited on the German civilians there.

[CaptainCrunch]

The German's drove deep in Russia on the first day with very little resistance.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1142457877187256320


Eventually Stalin ordered a rapid retreat with the Russian's burning everything of value that the German's could have used.


Then the weather turned and the German's got bogged down by the red mud of fall.


Its interesting that the Russian citizens probably hated Stalin more then Hitler, and if the German's would have taken the role of liberators instead of following a brutal strategy of basically extermination that the Russian's might have tried to help the German's in driving to Moscow.


Hitler's ego also got the best of him as he decided to drive on Stalingrad which is where the German Army was eventually defeated.

[White Out 403]

Had their been any coordination between Japan and the Germans the Soviets would have had a harder time with the Nazis. Not to mention the Italians having to be bailed out delayed the invasion months.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by White Out 403

Had their been any coordination between Japan and the Germans the Soviets would have had a harder time with the Nazis. Not to mention the Italians having to be bailed out delayed the invasion months.

Yeah, these are both really valid points. The lack of a Japanese invasion of the East allowed the Soviets to shift a whole army of hardened winter troops to the Western Front. The Soviet experience in winter warfare and the time that was given by the fighting retreat and the change in weather conditions allowed Stalin to not only rally the people, but consolidate his forces.



The Italians really didn't have a good war, Mussolini's imperial aspiration were thwarted in Africa and the Southern front of Fortress Europe was poorly defended and forced Hitler to shift some of his more elite forces to defend his southern flank as the Italian Army turned out to be a paper tiger.


When you study military history you see a lot of examples of leaders that decided to open fronts without consolidating what they had, this was clearly the case here as Germany while it had a vast and extremely well trained and equipted military couldn't fight on three fronts at a time (Southern, Russia, Western Front).



The logic of it is that Hitler had a pretty firm alliance with Stalin and could have spent a lot more time on dealing with Great Britain and tried to beat the English into submission. Instead Hitler scattered his forces and became weak all over.

[Max Cow Disease]

Always a fascinating front, and certainly one that altered the course of history in a big way. It’s amazing how the Soviets were able to relocate so much of their industrial capacity to the east for eventual counterattack, and how they seemingly never wavered in resolve or manpower. Hitler’s increasing self-confidence in his own abilities as a combat general certainly didn’t help matters for the Germans, as the numerous opportunities presented to them for tactical retreat (which Hitler always of course refused to the chagrin of his generals), could have at least resulted in a significant prolonging of the war.

[CaptainCrunch]

At the height of the invasion the Soviets were rolling t-34's right out of the factory and straight to the front in massive numbers. The German Generals by the time that the offensive had ground to a halt weren't trusted by Hitler and vice versa and because they weren't allowed to retreat by Hitler were encircled by a fast moving Red Army.

It also helped that Georgy Zhukov who I consider to be one of the best fighting generals of WW2 and Ivan Konev who was a supreme general in his own right simply out fought and out guessed the German High Command and General Officers.

Hitler forgot the key lesson in war and that's when to fold your cards and save your army to fight another day. By the time Russia rolled into Germany they were pursuing the remnants of a beaten and exhausted Army with a severe leadership problem. That doesn't mean that what was left of the German's didn't fight bravely. The Russians had just ground them under and broken them.