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Member Article: Was Hitler right to invade Russia in 1941?
by Andrew Wright
It is commonly believed that the invasion of Russia was one of Hitler's
greatest strategic blunders. Up to that point the German war machine had
conquered and subjugated all her enemies (except for Britain), while at the
same time Russia had been providing her with much needed resources such as oil
and wheat. England's position was deteriorating quickly and the United States
was still neutral. The invasion of Russia cut off those precious supplies, and
even though the Russians took unprecedented losses the Germans ultimately
failed to take Moscow and suffered heavily in the winter that followed.
Member Article: Operation
Barbarossa: The Ultimate Strategic Miscalculation
by Patrick Shrier
By the middle of 1941, Nazi Germany found itself to be the master of
three-fourths of Europe. The only nations unconquered or not subordinate to
them were neutral Sweden and Switzerland, England, and Russia. On June 22, the
invasion of Russia, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, after the sixteenth century
Prussian king, began. After massive initial success, the effort would
eventually fail and the Soviets would capture Berlin in April 1945, after four
years of bitter struggle. Hitler became distracted by the potential if the
economic assets of Russia were seized and diverted forces to seize economic
areas instead of destroying Russia’s military. The German failure in the
invasion of Russia was in losing focus of the ultimate objective, which was to
knock Russia out of the war, not seize economic assets, which would follow
conquest.
Member Article: The
Failure of Operation Barbarossa
by Mike Ruzza
"The German Army could have won the Russo-German War if only its leaders had
made better decisions at certain key junctions." Illustrated below are clear
examples of how the German leadership, not just those of the Army, squandered
away opportunities to not only correctly plan the operation, but also to win
it. The failure of Operation Barbarossa to achieve its objectives within a
limited time frame caused the Germans to lose the war by December
1941—everything after that was just trading ground for time until the eventual
defeat. The factors contributing to the failure of Operation Barbarossa are
many: political, military, racial, diplomatic and others. All will be explored
through a mostly chronological format, beginning with an action as far back as
1918. According to Hitler, the German General Staff in the Great War (World War
1) were most responsible for the failure and humiliation of Germany over the
next 20 years. Thus, he himself had nothing but contempt for and no confidence
in those professional officers who made up his own General Staff. Not only had
the German General Staff of WW1 made errors of judgment leading to Germany's
defeat, but "they bore the responsibility for the most catastrophic single
action of the century—the dispatch of Lenin and his colleagues from Switzerland
to Russia in the famous 'sealed train.'"[1]
Member Article: Barbarossa
by Bevin Alexander
The purpose of military strategy is to diminish the possibility of resistance.
It should be the aim of every leader to discover the weaknesses of the enemy,
and to pierce his Achilles' Heel. This is how battles and wars are best won.
This advice goes back at least to Sun Tzu in the fifth century B.C., but it is
extraordinarily difficult for human beings to follow. The attack against the
Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, is the most powerful example in the twentieth
century of how a leader and a nation -- in this case Adolf Hitler and Germany
-- can ignore clear, eternal rules of successful warfare, and pursue a course
that leads straight to destruction. Attacking Russia head-on was wrong to begin
with, because it guaranteed the greatest resistance, not the least. A direct
attack also forces an enemy back on his reserves and supplies, while it
constantly lengthens the supply and reinforcement lines of the attacker. The
better strategy is to separate the enemy from his supplies and
reserves. That is why an attack on the flank is more likely to be successful.
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