What if Hitler hadn't delayed in the invasion of the USSR?

[naervod]

As we all know, Hitler invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941. However, I don't know how many know this, but the scheduled date of the was some 5 or 6 weeks earlier, in middle to late May. However, the invasion was pushed back because Hitler had to help his somewhat incompetent ally in SE Europe. What if Hitler had invaded as planned? As we know, Hitler stopped just outside of Moscow, largely due to the fact that winter was setting in. What if Hitler had gotten those extra five or six weeks before winter? It is entirely feasible he could have captured Moscow, and then what? Discuss.

 

[blindside]

I feel even if Germany launched Operation Barbarossa somewhat earlier, they were still doomed. There were far too many men that the Russians could call upon. They were helped by American aid which allowed more men to be transferred to the battlefield. Plus Germany wouldn't have its hundreds of thousands of auxilliary troops from Italy and southeast Europe to throw at the massive Russian army. It's hard to say though. If threat from Americans didn't exist, Germany could move many more divisions from France to fight the Soviets. If they could take several large population centers it could seriously slow down recruitment for the Russian army and perhaps lead to their demise. But I'm sure in that case, the US would have stepped in to relieve Russia.

 

[Sheep]

I think Moscow would have fallen. Stalin would of lost control over the Soviet government as warlords sought to control over their neighbours would of flourished. Sooner or later the Red Army would of diintegrated and the level of resistance would of fallen to partisan level.

The only thing that helped Stalin was the Siberian forces arriving just in time and the winter. Give Hitler an extra 5 to 6 weeks and the Siberian forces would not of made it to Moscow in time.

 

[privatehudson]

There was a lot more delaying the invasion than just Mussolini, for example, it took some time to re-deploy the Luftwaffe's resources and planes from the west. Also Hitler not supporting Mussolini simply wasn't an option, allowing his ally to look even more incompetent than he was would have been a bad blow to Axis standing in the world. The question of taking Moscow would have entirely depended on the level of resistance the Russians could have produced, had they fought as they did at Stalingrad then 6 weeks would have made no difference anyway...

 

[pawpaw]

also if he left the british in greece and the jugo's free, he would had to leave divsions there to protect his flank--making there unavailable for russia

 

[privatehudson]

The British being in Greece was also a no-no because it would have meant they could strike directly at the Romanian oilfields with air-raids.

 

[Ace]

The Balkan campaign certainly did not help the Russian campaign, but, all things considered, it did not cost Hitler the war in Russia. "IF" he had followed the plan, it is just possible the Russians might have collapsed by Christmas. Turning south to take Kiev and 667,000 prisoners did not win the war, but staying on track to Moscow would have. With Moscow in German hands, Lenningrad and the Ukraine would have fallen and the Russians would have been retreating to the Urals. Moscow in 1941 was not the moscow of 1812!! In 1941 it was the major rail hub of the USSR, without it north/south rail movement was almost out of the question.

Don't forget that the Germans did an excellent job of converting the Russian railroads to "European" gauge and were pushing their railheads toward Moscow as fast as they could. If they had taken Moscow in August, they would have had rail supply there by late October!!

 

[Birdjaguar]

I think the real questions are whether or not The Soviet Union would have made peace after losing Moscow and if not, would the Russians have been able to mount the same war effort in 1943-44 that allowed them to push the Germans back if they had lost the Moscow area in 1941.

 

[Zeekater]

5 weeks, this also meant that there would be less supplies from the US already.

BTW, Moscow could have been captured if Hitler hadn't diverted the attention from Army Group Center to Army Group South, to capture the Ukraine and the Kaukasus.
The towers from the red square were visible to the German troops at that time...

The supplies from the US were of much help for the Russians, perhaps a more northern strike could have meant taking Murmansk (or cutting it off), which in turn might have had a serious influence on the rest of the war.

 

[privatehudson]

We must be careful of assuming that because Moscow was in sight, the fight for it would be a simple affair. Much would depend on the resolve of Stalin and available men and resources at the time. The germans reached Stalingrad and the Volga at the start of the fighting for the city, but months of heavy fighting didn't take the city...

 

[Ace]

IF Hitler had maintained the push to Moscow instead of making a hard right turn to go to Kiev, the result at Moscow would have been the same as the result at Kiev. Moscow would have fallen just like Kiev fell, and then if he wanted to, he could have turned in behind the Russians in the Kiev bulge and smashed them without leaving Moscow to the Soviets as a marshalling yard to regoup their forces.

Lend/lease really didn't impact the Eastern Front until 1942 and by then it would have been too late for Stalin to recover. If Moscow had fallen in 1941, the Russians would have been unable to launch effective counter attacks in 1942/43. For starters, the Wehrmacht would not have been savaged in the winter battles by the Siberians and would have been much stronger in spring 1942. And that kind of German sucess would have really hurt the movement of factories to the East.

It means another "what if", but if the Germans had taken Moscow by late August, what impact would that have had on the Japanese?? Would they have still attacked Pearl Harbor
or would they have had second thoughts and turned toward Russia?

 

[privatehudson]

Why do we assume that Moscow would have fallen so easily?

 

[jonatas]

Russia still would have won.... there were incredible power struggles within the German SS and the Army... these contributed to inefficiency to an extent which is generally unacknowledgded... even disregarding these... Russia would have won in the long run... a five week difference would have meant more suffering, but Russia would have won regardless... Russia suffered the worst casualties of any country in WWII... and still returned to dominate Germany... if it wasn't for d day... Russian would have overrun Germany entirely

 

[steviejay]

Germany would still have lost.

Hmmmm......... I think Germany would have run themselves to death chasing the Red Army across Russia but eventually the end event would be the same. Russia just had too much space to fall back on.

The only way I think Germany could have won would have been to capture Stalin or something like that but then, an actual invasion of Moscow would have made Stalingrad look like a cornershop robbery.

 

[Ace]

You guys have read too many Russian versions of "The Great Patriot War". A real objective analysis of the situation will show just how close run the real war was. By the end of July 1941, the Soviets were evacuating Moscow. Only Stalin and the Soviet Military HQ was still in the city. The main point is that Kiev did fall. If the Germans had gone on to Moscow instead of turning south, the result would have been the same. Only with Moscow gone, the soviets would have been in really bad shape.

As to the SS, in 1941, it had only 5 or 6 divisions which were not nearly the force they had become by mid 1943. If the Soviets had not had the victory in front of Moscow to bolster the morale of the people and troops, 1942 would have been a very rough year for them. And with Moscow gone, the 1942 drive to the oilfields would have been much easier for the Germans and if the Soviets had lose control of the oil, they would have been finished! T34s do not run on air.

 

[joespaniel]

Ace is correct concerning Moscow. It was THE rail junction for all of European Russia and the largest military industrial center in the USSR. Hitler's characteristic failure to follow planned operations, turning south when he could have had Moscow cheaply in August-September, was fatal. It cost him the war in the East.

If Moscow had fallen, the Red Army was basically finished because it would have had no more supplies. Armies need millions of tons of food and ammunition to exist. All of that came through Moscow by railway.

BTW, Lend-Lease from the USA began in October 1941.

As for the original topic, the so-called six weeks delay, was not exactly true. The German and Russian generals have stated that the spring rains left the roads a mire of mud until early June. Russia did not have many paved roads. Thus it was never possible to begin in May at all.

Leaving the British in Greece as the Italian armies retreated was not possible either. That flank had to be secured before Barbarossa could begin.

The attack on Yugoslavia was pure vengence on the part of Hitler, though. Enraged over the coup which followed Yugoslavia's signing the Axis pact, Hitler ordered Operation Punishment, which included the Luftwaffe destroying Belgrade in continuous bombing waves for three days. Many thousands of people were killed.

So, Hitler lost a few weeks of fine summer weather taking his revenge against the Yugloslavs for their "defiance". It has been one of the most controversial topics of the entire war for the last 60 years.

Could the German armies have taken Moscow with those extra few weeks? Maybe. Maybe not. But it is nearly certain that they could have taken Moscow in September if Hitler had not made his typical amateurish changes in plan. The same thing happened at Stalingrad, when he kept shifting the armored forces between armies.

The principle of Maintenence of the Objective is a very basic military axiom, amongst others that Hitler could never seem to grasp.

 

[joespaniel]

It means another "what if", but if the Germans had taken Moscow by late August, what impact would that have had on the Japanese?? Would they have still attacked Pearl Harbor
or would they have had second thoughts and turned toward Russia?

Until the German debacle in front of Moscow, Hitler did not want the Japanese to attack Russia. When it seemed that Germany was going to win on it's own (July-August), he actually encouraged Japan to seek conflict with the USA, hoping to divert US attention away from helping Britain.

Japan lost interest in the USSR after the defeat in Mongolia (the undeclared Soviet-Japanese war of 1939). They had their eyes on the rich colonial holdings of Britain and the Netherlands to the south in 1941. If anything, the fall of Moscow would have probably spurred Japan to seek war with the US and Britain sooner than it did.

 

[rilnator]

I believe the Soviet Union would have been defeated had Hitler attacked 6 weeks earlier.

Leaving greece and Yugoslavia would have been uncomfortable for the German's Balkan plans but I don't think the British would have been capable of launching a large attack in that region. They could have bombed Ploesti though.

6 more weeks of clear skies and hard roads would have gotten the Germans to Moscow a lot quicker. With or without Hitler changing his mind. Von Manstein, who was chief of planning for the Russian campaign said at Nuremberg that it was a common view amongst the generals that Hitler's foray into the Balkans cost them the war against Russia.

 

[dgfred]

The Balkan campaign certainly did not help the Russian campaign, but, all things considered, it did not cost Hitler the war in Russia. "IF" he had followed the plan, it is just possible the Russians might have collapsed by Christmas. Turning south to take Kiev and 667,000 prisoners did not win the war, but staying on track to Moscow would have. With Moscow in German hands, Lenningrad and the Ukraine would have fallen and the Russians would have been retreating to the Urals. Moscow in 1941 was not the moscow of 1812!! In 1941 it was the major rail hub of the USSR, without it north/south rail movement was almost out of the question.

Don't forget that the Germans did an excellent job of converting the Russian railroads to "European" gauge and were pushing their railheads toward Moscow as fast as they could. If they had taken Moscow in August, they would have had rail supply there by late October!!

Right on the mark Ace, excellent observations.

 

[Ace]

Right on the mark Ace, excellent observations.

Thanks.