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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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The only reason endrd up losing to the Soviets was because he went back on his own original war plan. He didn't want to fight a war on two fronts. The idea was to knock out France, which he did, then defeat the UK, which he didn't do. He expected the UK to sue for negotiations but they ended up resisting him for far longer than he expected. Since the US was supplying the UK and keeping them afloat, Hitler was cautious. He wanted to avoid a war with the US, so he turned his attention elsewhere, which was invading the Soviet Union, while not securing the Western front.
Despite this, Hitler still managed to reach the outskirts of Moscow and he was close to winning, but he got cocky and impatient by ordering his armies to march through the winter and unwisely split a few of his armies at the wrong times. He also made his biggest mistake by declaring war on the US when the US declared war on Japan after they attacked Pearl Harbor... Even though didn't have to. After trying to previously avoid war with US, he went and did it for no good reason. This brought second wind to the allies as Americans weapons starting pouring into the UK and the Soviet Union as well as American troops pouring into the Western front. This forced Hitler to divide his attention and resources which gave the Soviets valuable time and opportunities to recover and strike back.
Too bad the Soviets ended up occupying Eastern Europe much like the nazis but under new management rather actually liberating them.
Hitler was never even close to winning. The fact is, the war plan was screwed from the moment the Sovs decided they were going to fight back after the surprise attack, despite Stalin's initial breakdown. One of the first things the Sovs did after Operation Barbarossa began, after all, was to begin moving industrial equipment east. They were preparing for the long haul - while Germany exhausted itself considerably in the opening stages of the invasion. Once the initial surprise of the attack was over, the sheer material calculus was just not in their favor - casualty ratios and equipment loss were about equal, but the Sovs had something like 3 times the population and had the same proportional advantage in vehicle production. Taking Moscow just would not have made enough of a difference.
As for the UK, they were receiving lend-lease BEFORE the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Dude the Wehrmacht reached a town called Krasnaya Polyana which is 18 miles away from the center of Moscow. If they took over Moscow, which was a very real possibility then the Soviet Union would've fallen like France, or at the very least the European portion of it would. I would assume the oppressed minorities within the empire would used them opportunity to get independence. What the Soviet Union pulled is nothing short of miraculous. People don't realize just how close Hitler was to taking down the Soviet Union.
I didn't imply that they weren't?
That's not how capitals work. France itself only nominally fell because it appointed an ultraconservative collaborator (Petain) to the highest position of government.
Most of the oppressed minorities were in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, and very quickly found out that the Nazis were no liberators. Most of the remaining Soviet population was Russian, not ethnic minorities. A few of the central Asian SSRs were around, but their governments weren't oppressed, but participants in the oppression - why would they rise up?
Lol what? If you conquer a country's capital, that country falls unless its government moves elsewhere and establishes a foothold which doesn't happen often. When the Germans conquered Paris, the French government basically collapsed and from the Germans were able to take control and establish puppet governments.
Nobody thought that the Nazis were liberators. Everybody knew Hitler wanted to expand Germany and turn it into an empire. However, the Soviets were thought of as liberators by non Soviet Eastern European nations, and they quickly learned after the war that weren't exactly free, just under new management.
Those governments were Russian puppets. Russia was always a multi ethnic empire that favored Russians and oppressed the rest. There's a reason why Stalin went through his "deportation" (read: genocide) plans. They weren't good.
I think it's pretty clear given the context that I meant the rate of shipments accelerated
Yeah, like when DC fell in the War of 1812, or when Moscow fell in Napoleon's invasion, or when the Japanese took Nanking during the Second Sino-Japanese War, or-
See, this is the insane thing - many DID think of the Nazis as liberators. Numerous national independence movements were suddenly excited to collaborate after the start of Operation Barbarossa, for about all of three or four months, at which point it became apparent that the Nazis were even worse than the Soviets.
I'm not arguing that the Sovs were good. Far from it. My point is that there weren't well-formed independence movements waiting in the wings to take power should the Soviet government falter - all power was tied up in the Party and its bureaucracy, and the only organized institutions capable of taking action would have been Soviet puppets who were 'all-in' on the Soviets by a mixture of clientism and purges. If Moscow fell, the idea that the Central Asian SSRs would suddenly turn, or lose their grip, just... doesn't strike me as realistic.
I wouldn't say 'pretty clear', but if I misread it, I misread it.