Why the operation Barbarossa?

Alright, with everything published about world war 2, I feel I have a quite good general understanding about what went on then... except for one thing: Hitler's spring 1941 decision to invade the USSR.

The first thing is, it's impossible to invade the USSR, because even if you take Moscow, that's only the beginning of the USSR. There are six thousand kilometers of freaking USSR beyond Moscow.

If Hitler was the big fan of Napoleon people told he was, he would have known that conqueering Moscow isn't the end of all, but only the beginning. Napoleon did take Moscow, but the city was burnt to the ground by the Russians themselves and Russia was still existing all around the destroyed tiny dot of Moscow on the map. The USSR couldn't be occupied and Hitler knew that. Then what did he expect?

Barbarossa had 3 military objectives: Kronstadt port near Leningrad, Moscow and oil of the Caspian Sea. As the major threat from the Soviets over the Germans has always come from the land and that the country couldn't be neither invaded nor occupied, only the third objective, the Caspian Sea, was really strategic. The two first ones were just a waste of energy as even if Leningrad and Moscow fell, there were still vast taigas with millions of Russian peasants ready to fight all around.

But yes, I can understand that the Caspian Sea oil was really strategic as it was making Germany too dependent on the USSR. But even then, controlling the damn' oil supply from Astrakhan to Berlin over 2,500 km of enemy land was still extremely optimistic. Just by saying this, there is already enough to discourage anyone to make such a suicidal thing as invading the USSR.

So now let's think about the other alternative, which was to not invade Russia. The issue here is that time was playing against Hitler.... as the USSR would have raised a huge army making them more and more difficult to fight in case they would declare war. Had Hitler maintained peace with Stalin, he could have faced an aggression by 1943/1944 that he couldn't have overcome.

That may be right... but I hardly see how Barbarossa could avoid that anyway considering that a rough estimate of... let's say 75% of the USSR war machine would have still been left intact even in case of Barbarossa's success. And regarding Germany's oil dependency, taking control of the Suez canal, and then of Saudi Arabia, would have been much more efficient as a strategy than getting wild over the lands to reach Kazakhstan. But this would have meant naval warfare.

So overall, we could only guess that if Hitler hasn't targetted Suez, then that means he was incapable of controlling the seas... which were still dominated by the Brits. So we go back to the initial point, as Hitler had at least 3 good years from June 1940 before the USSR get enough powerful to be able to kick his ass, then wouldn't it have been wiser for him to focus first on... England?

That may sound silly, but it still makes better sense to me than launching a flawed doomed-from-start operation such as Barbarossa.

Now I'm ready to here what the History buffs around have to say about it.

Because Germany was effectively bankrupt by 1941.

Owen Glyndwr said:

Because Germany was effectively bankrupt by 1941.

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Thanks, why not, but how sending 4 million armed dudes in a military expedition over thousands of kilometers of land would make Germany less bankrupt?

Wealth is in the Seas. That's where international trade is going on. Thus triggering Suez would have been more strategic if the whole idea was to get revenues. I won't write back what I have already told, your remark doesn't address what's told in my opening post.

The same way sending several dozens of Spanish mercenaries in a mysterious new world did: plunder.

Tolni said:

The same way sending several dozens of Spanish mercenaries in a mysterious new world did: plunder.

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Okay, I'm ready to accept that. The only aspect annoying me is that it looks like an excessively short-term strategy. I like to believe that if people take their decision the way they did at any given time in History, no matter how evil or sick they were, it is because they believe that's where lies their best interests.

And what disturbs me here is that by June 1940, Nazi Germany is largely considered as having won it all. They are still allied with a USSR which is not yet ready to attack them. And besides plunder, which is a valid argument, the risk/benefits ratio of Barbarossa seems very bad overall. Worse at least than other alternatives such as sending those 4 million dudes to England.

From 1933 to 1940, the whole German strategy made some kind of sense. I can understand why the Anschluss, why the Sudettes, why Poland. I can understand how he destroyed both France and England military forces in June 1940. But then why stopping the front westward and why opening a new one eastward? That's just... weird. He didn't even seemed interested to take full control of the French colonial empire.

Marla_Singer said:

Okay, I'm ready to accept that. The only aspect annoying me is that it looks like an excessively short-term strategy. I like to believe that if people take their decision the way they did at any given time in History, no matter how evil or sick they were, it is because they believe that's where lies their best interests.

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Oh they do. But you know, remember your Keynes'. In the long term, we're all dead anyway. Germany can't make plans for 1950 if they can't make plans for 1945.

And what disturbs me here is that by June 1940, Nazi Germany is largely considered as having won it all. They are still allied with a USSR which is not yet ready to attack them. And besides plunder, which is a valid argument, the risk/benefits ratio of Barbarossa seems very bad overall. Worse at least than other alternatives such as sending those 4 million dudes to England.

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But there was no way possible for them to send those 4 million dudes. They didn't have the transport craft, they had no hope of seizing control of the seas or air. They had just as much hope of sending those 4 million dudes to the moon.

And this gets into the larger problem Nazi Germany faced in 1941: On paper, they had won great victories, but it was untenable. They were economically dependent on the Soviet Union, and militarily outmatched by Great Britain, they had alienated the United States which would ensure material support to Britain in perpetuity of the conflict, and their internal development was hopelessly corrupt and rotted.

By 1941 Germany had already lost the war. They had already been outmaneuvered in every direction, and boxed in.

As always, Hitler and the Nazis tried to get out of their hole by raising the stakes even higher. That was the strategy that had gotten them into power in the first place. They bet it all AGAIN, because they had nothing to lose.

He didn't even seemed interested to take full control of the French colonial empire.

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How could he have? Axis influence in the French Colonial Empire was entirely dependent on French good will. To even attempt it would have made the whole operation dependent on the Italians, and even if the Italians had been capable and prepared for the war, they'd be unable to push west from Libya any farther then they'd been able to push east.

They were economically dependent on the Soviet Union, and militarily outmatched by Great Britain,

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Out of curiosity, do you have any numbers for how economically dependant Nazi Germany was on the Soviet Union?

Also, could you elaborate on how they were militarily outmatched by the UK?

ParkCungHee said:

But there was no way possible for them to send those 4 million dudes. They didn't have the transport craft, they had no hope of seizing control of the seas or air. They had just as much hope of sending those 4 million dudes to the moon.

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Sending 4 million guys 2,000 km away to fight in Volgograd or Kursk doesn't seem easier to me than crossing the 30 km of the Straight of Dover. This hasn't even been attempted... I've never read any source about any plan from Germany to actually make a negative Overlord. I agree the British navy was clearly superior to the German but the Germans had the air superiority (otherwise no blitz), they had the material superiority as well, and the distance to cross was so short.

The way I feel it, and from what I've read, Hitler simply never really wanted to invade England. It has never been an objective for him, and I simply cannot believe that Barbarossa seemed safer than at least trying to take over England. If a plan to take over England would fail, it couldn't endanger Germany, certainly less at least than opening a new front eastward.

The more it goes, and the more I'm forced to believe that the attack against the USSR was simply not strategical, but ideological.

Marla_Singer said:

Okay, I'm ready to accept that. The only aspect annoying me is that it looks like an excessively short-term strategy. I like to believe that if people take their decision the way they did at any given time in History, no matter how evil or sick they were, it is because they believe that's where lies their best interests.

And what disturbs me here is that by June 1940, Nazi Germany is largely considered as having won it all. They are still allied with a USSR which is not yet ready to attack them. And besides plunder, which is a valid argument, the risk/benefits ratio of Barbarossa seems very bad overall. Worse at least than other alternatives such as sending those 4 million dudes to England.

From 1933 to 1940, the whole German strategy made some kind of sense. I can understand why the Anschluss, why the Sudettes, why Poland. I can understand how he destroyed both France and England military forces in June 1940. But then why stopping the front westward and why opening a new one eastward? That's just... weird. He didn't even seemed interested to take full control of the French colonial empire.

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Pretty much what PCH said. Germany in 1941 was in an untenable position. Their war machine was powered virtually entirely on captured spoils and most of those were running out by 1941. The didn't realistically have the materiel or supplies to hold their captured land. They didn't have the industry to support themselves. The Nazi political platform was predicated on their military superiority, meaning the slightest misstep could bring the whole thing down. The box was closing in. They weren't going to take Spain or Italy. They had already alienated the US. Britain was unassailable. They didn't have the landing boats necessary to pull off any kind of realistic invasion of the British Isles, and Churchill was not backing down. They'd run into the exact same problem they had in 1917. Britain's navy was blocking off access to the Atlantic and the Germans were powerless to do anything about it.

Moreover Germany was heavily dependent on the USSR for oil and supplies. The USSR was expecting repayment for their supplies (I believe in that year or the next) and Germany didn't have the money to pay it off. Additionally it was abundantly clear that Stalin was planning an invasion of Germany at some point in the immediate future. The only advantage Germany had over the USSR was speed and surprise. If Stalin was allowed to let the war happen on his terms the superior industry, manpower, and economy of Russia was going crush Germany definitively. 1941 was the only realistic chance Hitler was going to get to keep the charade going.

As to "learning from Napoleon" the fact of the matter was that he had. Napoleon was done in because he overestimated the speed at which he was going to invade Russia and therefore didn't adequately outfit his troops for the harsh Russian Winter. Hitler did. Nazi forces were well equipped to handle the winter. But it wasn't the winter that did in the Nazi advance, it was the Russian Spring, where heavy rains turned the Russian roads into deep, thick pits of mud that rendered Nazi trucks totally useless.

James Stuart already went into the particulars of the operation itself and why it failed on a strategic level. If he wants to give that again here he's welcome to.

Marla_Singer said:

Sending 4 million guys 2,000 km away to fight in Volgograd or Kursk doesn't seem easier to me than crossing the 30 km of the Straight of Dover. This hasn't even been attempted... I've never read any source about any plan from Germany to actually make a negative Overlord. I agree the British navy was clearly superior to the German but the Germans had the air superiority (otherwise no blitz), they had the material superiority as well, and the distance to cross was so short.

The way I feel it, and from what I've read, Hitler simply never really wanted to invade England. It has never been an objective for him, and I simply cannot believe that Barbarossa seemed safer than at least trying to take over England. If a plan to take over England would fail, it couldn't endanger Germany, certainly less at least than opening a new front eastward.

The more it goes, and the more I'm forced to believe that the attack against the USSR was simply not strategical, but ideological.

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He never wanted to invade England because there was no way to do so. It doesn't matter if you have air superiority if you don't have the boats to achieve the landing. A parachute drop was not going to be effective. Look at Market Garden or the Invasion of Crete for evidence of how effective those types of operations are. How else were they going to get to Dover? Swim? England was never seriously entertained as an option because there was literally no way it could happen. Russia was Hitler's only realistic option left.

As PCH and I (and surely James Stuart at some point) have and will point out, the greatest threat to Hitler and the Nazi Reich was not England or Russia. It was time. The Reich was operating on borrowed time. They did not have the industry, manpower, or economy to sustain themselves, let alone their conquests. Without another conquest to sustain themselves, Nazi Germany realistically would have collapsed naturally (assuming no Soviet Invasion) some time in the mid-late 1940s.

There's a quote floating around, by a Nazi officer (Paulus, or Mannerheim? Not sure.) that had they known the possibilities of the Soviet Union, they would have invaded in 1939. How plausible is that?

Marla_Singer said:

The first thing is, it's impossible to invade the USSR, because even if you take Moscow, that's only the beginning of the USSR. There are six thousand kilometers of freaking USSR beyond Moscow.

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First and foremost thing which is important to understand. Vast majority of Soviet industrial, agricultural and human resources were concentrated in western part of the country. Six thousands kilometers of freaking USSR beyond Moscow (or, to be more precise, beyond Urals) were mostly uninhabited. There was no such thing as "vast taiga with millions of peasants".

Marla_Singer said:

Napoleon did take Moscow, but the city was burnt to the ground by the Russians themselves...

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Once again Russians are being portrayed as insane fanatics...
Moscow fires started when Napoleon forces were looting the city.

Marla_Singer said:

Barbarossa had 3 military objectives: Kronstadt port near Leningrad, Moscow and oil of the Caspian Sea.

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No, Barbarossa had a military objective to reach Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line. To disable most of Soviet industrial potential, destroy Red army and make the territory of 3-rd Reich unreachable for the Soviet air forces. Essentially disabling the capability of USSR to continue fighting. It was possible to do, at least from the perspective of German military planners and the data available for them. It was theoretically possible to knock out major German adversary from war and sign a peace treaty with remainder of the country - in a timeframe of several months.

Marla_Singer said:

but I hardly see how Barbarossa could avoid that anyway considering that a rough estimate of... let's say 75% of the USSR war machine would have still been left intact even in case of Barbarossa's success.

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In theory, it could be possible to destroy about 90% (or more) of Soviet war machine in first battles near border, in a couple of weeks. In the same way as French military potential was destroyed in 1940. In both cases Wehrmacht was quite successful, except that Soviet potential was underestimated by German strategists. In simple words, in case of Barbarossa, part of Soviet forces was deeper in Soviet territory and after initial defeats they came as reinforcements. Also, before the war started, Stalin ordered to prepare evacuation of most important military facilities from western part of the country, to Siberia, beyond Ural mountains. Which in many cases, prevented Germans from capturing or destroying the equipment important to continue military production.

A lot of replies here are correct - resources, threats from Russian mobilization, etc.

Also Hitler in his "Table Talks" talks about the critical threat to Romanian oil. He plainly states in private conversations with Bormann that it was impossible not to do something about this danger to Germany's oil supply. He did end up saving the oil with the first strike, then things got more complicated as he underestimated Russia's industrial capacity and size of army.

red_elk said:

In simple words, in case of Barbarossa, part of Soviet forces was deeper in Soviet territory and after initial defeats they came as reinforcements. Also, before the war started, Stalin ordered to prepare evacuation of most important military facilities from western part of the country, to Siberia, beyond Ural mountains. Which in many cases, prevented Germans from capturing or destroying the equipment important to continue military production.

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Alright, you write 3 paragraphs to tell me how much I was wrong, and you conclude in saying that I was actually right. It's okay but it's just weird.

To put it simply Google Earth tells there are 1,000 km from the Polish border to Moscow, and still another 1,000 km from Moscow to the Urals, and yet again another 1,000 km from the Urals to Omsk (which is the beginning of Siberia and a city which developped a huge weapon industry during ww2). I remember the lyrics of the Katyusha song, talking about a young boy who left his village to fight at the far away border. That tells everything about the scale of Russia.

All this to come back to the initial point. There is absolutely no reason to believe that capturing Moscow would have meant the end of the USSR. And it was just impossible for the Germans to go any further. Barbarossa was simply doomed from start.

Ron Cogan said:

A lot of replies here are correct - resources, threats from Russian mobilization, etc.

Also Hitler in his "Table Talks" talks about the critical threat to Romanian oil. He plainly states in private conversations with Bormann that it was impossible not to do something about this danger to Germany's oil supply. He did end up saving the oil with the first strike, then things got more complicated as he underestimated Russia's industrial capacity and size of army.

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And Russia's freaking size for God damn' it. It's not an easy piece to swallow...

Probably the Nazis did just like many of you have done in this very thread: they believed that Russia was ending at Moscow, and the Soviets made them understand that the country actually only begins from there.

Hitler based his grand strategy on ww1 experiences. Moreover, he was primarily a politician and a quite ideology-driven one for that.
So the picture is clear.
1. ww1 failed becaudse of naval blockade ergo alliance with Britain and raw materials from the East.
2. British aristocracy in assumed agreement with crushing communism so assumed fall of Churchill sooner or later, no stab in the back, racial brotherhood coming into play on the long run.
3. Stalin surely in compliance with the thesis of world revolution attacking sooner or later.
4. Soviet system untenable, rotten, will collapse.
5. It nearly did. Without Western aid and all the patriotism and resilience of the wrongly despised Russian muzhik it would have.

Marla_Singer said:

Alright, you write 3 paragraphs to tell me how much I was wrong, and you conclude in saying that I was actually right. It's okay but it's just weird.

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You were right about the fact that Hitler in real world didn't have capability to destroy USSR. The wrong part of your statement is that size of Soviet territory was a main reason why it was impossible. German military planners were aware of the size of country's territory, what they were underestimating is Soviet resilience and military potential which greatly increased in period between 1939-1941.

Look at the table by this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa#Soviet_preparations

Between 1 January, 1939 and 22 June, 1941, number of divisions in Soviet army increased from 131 to 316, almost 2.5 times. Manpower increased from ~2.5 mln to ~5.8 mln., etc. Quality of equipment increased too, new tanks and planes (T-34, KV-1, IL-2), famous BM-13 "Katyusha", started to appear in army. Germans were of course to some extent aware of these preparation, but they greatly underestimated the scale of it.

If Barbarossa planners were correct about Soviet potential, they had a chance to decimate Red army in first weeks of war and then, proceed to Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line with much less opposition than they had in reality. Size of territory would create some logistical problems for Wehrmacht, but it was possible to deal with. USSR would collapse in a few months in such scenario.

In reality, USSR was prepared for war and managed to drag Germany into war of attrition. After that, it was only a matter of time when Germany will lose. Other factors, such as Lend-Lease, weather, etc. affected only the timeframe of war, destruction and human losses which USSR would suffer. These factors probably saved lots of lives, but ultimately were unable to change the outcome of war.

red_elk said:

You were right about the fact that Hitler in real world didn't have capability to destroy USSR. The wrong part of your statement is that size of Soviet territory was a main reason why it was impossible.

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Why?

Only the size and geography of Russia (the size of the rivers, the lack of road infrastructure) made it possible for the Soviets to devellop a massive weapon industry in the East at the very same time that it was getting trashed on the German front. Not to tell that maintaining such a wide front from Leningrad to Stalingrad wasn't an easy task for the German invader. Overall, it's predominantly a matter of size.

Just to give an idea, the distance from the Polish border to Omsk is the same as the distance from NYC to Los Angeles!! If Russia would have been the size of Belarus, it would have been conqueered in no time.

Now I agree with you that the Nazis underestimated the capacity from the USSR to devellop a heavy massive weapon industry from Moscow to Novosibirsk. They imagined as you told, that all the strategic ressources of the country were in the West, between Ukraine, the Baltic Sea and Moscow. History has proven that was obviously wrong as most of those regions had been conqueered and the Soviet war machine still developped in the East. But once again I'm sorry but I repeat, Napoleon already proved 150 years earlier that it's not because you get in Moscow that it means you have conqueered Russia. If that was true in the early 19th century, it could only be even more true in 1941.

Marla_Singer said:

Why?

Only the size and geography of Russia (the size of the rivers, the lack of road infrastructure) made it possible for the Soviets to devellop a massive weapon industry in the East at the very same time that it was getting trashed on the German front. Not to tell that maintaining such a wide front from Leningrad to Stalingrad wasn't an easy task for the German invader. Overall, it's predominantly a matter of size.

Just to give an idea, the distance from the Polish border to Omsk is the same as the distance from NYC to Los Angeles!! If Russia would have been the size of Belarus, it would have been conqueered in no time.

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The thing is that distance to Omsk is irrelevant, because Hitler didn't plan to invade Siberia. Or even anything far beyond Volga. If he succeeded with Barbarossa objectives, USSR would be unable to do much harm to Germany or to recapture lost territories. Soviet leadership would be forced to sign a peace. And this scenario would be very plausible if USSR had for example its military of 1939 year, without immense scale upgrade forced by Stalin in 1939-1941.

Size of European part of the USSR is still very big and certainly poses challenge for any invader. But for German military this challenge alone was not unbearable. And for the Soviets, having thousands of miles of own territory behind their backs would not help much, if most of this territory is just forest with bears and squirrels. To win a war, you need workshops, crop fields, oil wells and lots of people, most of this stuff was in European part of the country and could be occupied in first weeks of operation. Some industry was evacuated beyond Urals, yes, but the industrial power of major Soviet population centers in European part of the country was incomparably higher.

To add to what red elk has said, capturing Moscow would have been very important for Germany - both for propaganda reasons, but also for the more practical reason that it was the major transport hub in Russia. Both East-West and North-South rail lines converged in the Soviet capital, and it's loss would have significantly impared the Soviet ability to transport men, machinery and supplies between the regions of their vast territory (e.g. bringing the fruits of the relocated industry to the front lines...).

Of course, taking Moscow wouldn't have instantly won the war, but had the German's done so during Barbarossa, they would've have been closer to the point where the Soviet Union would be forced to negotiate.

In the long run, the Soviets likely would've been able to compensate for the loss of this transport capacity, but the entire German strategy was based around there not being a "long term" for the war, and had they been correct in their assumptions, had the Soviets not had the size of army they did and had, as a result, the Germans succedeed in their initial goals, there's certainly a chance there wouldn't have been - maybe not a huge chance, but a chance none-the-less, and the combination of economic and ideological factors that constrained the German government meant that they took that chance.

According to Speer, Hitler didn't even plan to seriously negotiate with the Soviets after the collapse of European Russia. He considered the continuous nuisance of a neutered Russia to be a good thing do to his social darwinist perspective. The plan was to simply leave it, like the African interior in the 19th century.