Was Stalin a Communist?

[Lord Baal]

No.

But then again, hardliners like Baal and the late lamented Maryland papist who used to haunt these parts think that absolutely nothing could have 'saved Germany' from the moment of the Machtergreifung. And they also think that anybody who disagrees with them is an idiot who knows nothing of history, even though there are plenty of real historians - and good historians - who think otherwise.

That's a rather unfair mischaracterisation of me Dachs, and unusual of you. I merely think it incredibly unlikely that Germany could have escaped the war without an occupation of some sort after the failure of Barbarossa, and I see no credible method of German victory, unless we posit something ridiculous like 'Stalin and Churchill both simultaneously suffer strokes, Red Army accidentally marches for one month in wrong direction.' That's nothing even close to what you're claiming.

 

[Dachs]

That's a rather unfair mischaracterisation of me Dachs, and unusual of you. I merely think it incredibly unlikely that Germany could have escaped the war without an occupation of some sort after the failure of Barbarossa, and I see no credible method of German victory, unless we posit something ridiculous like 'Stalin and Churchill both simultaneously suffer strokes, Red Army accidentally marches for one month in wrong direction.' That's nothing even close to what you're claiming.

Which is still a lot further than a lot of other historians - good ones, like Glantz, Hillgruber, and Showalter - would go. Your opinion may be valid (and I certainly lack the knowledge or interest to argue with you about it) but it certainly isn't unchallengeable.

Even so, yeah, that characterization of you might be an exaggeration. It's hard to tell, because you've clearly been of at least two minds of this in the past few years; you've said that "history is contingent" and "nothing is inevitable" and then within a few hours you say something like this:

Germany's economy was absolute horsecrap. It would be lucky to last until 1950, even with the USSR as an ally and dominating Europe. Many of Germany's actions in the lead-up to war were actually predicated on economic problems in Germany itself. [...] Germany would have collapsed on its own without Britain firing a shot.

Of course, Britain would have fired a shot. I once made a post here on CFC, based on research that I did at university which showed that the British Empire was actually capable of defeating the entire Axis (yes, even Japan) all by itself, with no assistance from the USSR, US or even France. It would have been a long, bloody, world-shattering war - far more so that OTL WWII was - but it was possible.

To be fair, the altar boy was much more uncompromising on that sort of thing than you have been. I was really thinking more about him.

 

[Mouthwash]

You mean the scorched earth policy? No, it wouldn't have saved Germany, either from the Soviets or the Western Allies. Abandoning the front would have merely resulted in the Soviets advancing faster, as, with the exception of the Battle of Warsaw, which is an argument I don't want to get involved with right now, the Soviets seem to have advanced rather slowly against a determined German offence. If the Germans didn't confined their scorched earth tactics to German territory, they'd likely be on the receiving end of some back-stabbing from their allies as well.

Even assuming the Soviets can't possibly advance any quicker than in OTL, this is not Napoleon's march to Moscow. The Soviets, while they did live off the land to an extent, they mostly did so out of convenience. Unless the Germans could cut their supply lines as well as scorching the earth in front of them, it would have negligible effect. Might force them to sleep outside instead of inside, and deprive them or a few rape victims. That's about it.

So why couldn't the Germans do the same? Weren't they starving and cold and short on supplies?

 

[Lord Baal]

Which is still a lot further than a lot of other historians - good ones, like Glantz, Hillgruber, and Showalter - would go. Your opinion may be valid (and I certainly lack the knowledge or interest to argue with you about it) but it certainly isn't unchallengeable.

It's not unchallengeable, but most - yes, I"m aware of the weasel-words nature of what I just said - of the recent historiography on the period is of the mind that Germany wasn't getting out of the war without an occupation after Yalta, possibly earlier. A successful assassination of Hitler combined with a separate peace with the USSR - Stalin kept the option open, though most believe this was merely to use as a bargaining chip with the West - might have kept the door open to some sort of limited occupation, like in the Rhineland after WWI, but that's likely the best option they had.

Even so, yeah, that characterization of you might be an exaggeration. It's hard to tell, because you've clearly been of at least two minds of this in the past few years; you've said that "history is contingent" and "nothing is inevitable" and then within a few hours you say something like this:

To be fair, the altar boy was much more uncompromising on that sort of thing than you have been. I was really thinking more about him.

That's not so much that I am of two minds, it's more that I tend to say "this is not possible" rather than "this is unlikely." My own fault, but it's not like I'm alone in that. I've seen you do it yourself, on occasion.

So why couldn't the Germans do the same? Weren't they starving and cold and short on supplies?

You mean why couldn't they supply their forces during the invasion of the USSR? The problem was not the supply lines, which were probably better for the German invasion of the USSR than the Soviet counterattack, but the fact the Germans didn't have any supplies to send.

Barbarossa was, by necessity, meant to be over within three months, because the Germans only had enough supplies to cover their invasion for three months, give or take. It wasn't a very well-planned invasion - though the execution was superb - but it was intended as a surprise attack, and that part went very smoothly. Germany got the majority of its supplies from the USSR under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and other treaties. By going to war with the USSR, Germany forfeited that source of supplies, which meant they needed to acquire control of said supplies by force before it ran out of its stockpiles. It didn't.