>the Soviets lost a shitload of personnel and materiel to Barbarossa

Lies. All lies.

>Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike; Hitler never had a choice to avoid war with the Soviet Union, only whether to attack or to be attacked

Partially true. Soviet government knew that war with so big and aggressive neighbor was inevitable, so they prepared military accordingly, especially after Finnish war fail. Army got new equipment and reforms, but they planned to finish them in 1942. No one knows if USSR would really attack in 42, but Hitler's strategy had some valid points.

There is a widely criticized book about planned Soviet offensive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icebreaker_(Suvorov)

>the Soviets lost a shitload of personnel and materiel to Barbarossa because they had an offensive force on the border, waiting to blitz all of Europe

This isn't the one reason. Although forces were concentrated near border, Soviet doctrine stated that it is ok, and our glorious Red Army can stop enemy offense and go into counterattack in any case. And Soviet forces had no proper defense lines at post-pact occupied territories, so they were stationed where they could.

There were plan to build proper defensive line but they didn't do it in time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov_Line

Another reason of losses is incompetence of officers, especially after purges, when most of trained high-level guys gone. Equipment also wasn't good, and moral and training level of average soldier was pretty bad.

Moral and training advantage of Germans existed almost to 44-45.

t. didn't watch the video because 35 min of listening is too much

Well actually Soviets were in the process of disabling their defences and moving it near the border from the previous one with Poland.

>>17165
>the Soviets made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to start another war between France and Germany
This is plausible in the same sense that the Western powers wanted Germany and the USSR to wage war and destroy each other, but there were a lot more factors involved. Interwar Germany and USSR had shared interests in partitioning Eastern Europe and overcoming isolation, and their cooperation dated all the way to the Weimar period (see: Lipetsk airbase).

Related with thread, there is a book called 3rd reich victorious, it tells about possible way to achieve axis victories, though not necessarily dominating one, just the ones enough to germany not to lose war in a terrible way.

The book is in more in depth than I can tell, I suggest every kc tier people should take a look, easy to find it as pdf.

let's see if it works.

How did I miss this thread?
Anyway. Gonna watch the video, actually it's on right now. Actually it's paused right now but whatever.

>>17165
Anyone heard this theory?
Yes, but reality is more complex as previous posters pointed out.

>>21593
I think the key of winning against Russia isn't in defeating her but taking the control over her. I'm not entirely sure if it's doable but Germany might had a chance doing it. They could have posed as liberators who frees the people from the oppression of evil bolsheviks. But for this they would had to give up their Lebensraum dream. Or postpone it to later date.

>>21598
>>21598
Controlling wasnt a viable option without treating USSR minorities very well, we know especially SS treated them as second class people. Which wouldn't be that much of case if the invasion handled by imperial germany instead of nazi germany.

>Anyone heard this theory?
I think I stated that allies germany's development and violation of versailles. I think they did that on purpose to weaken USSR and germany then take control of both. Such theory also exist though idk how much people agree on with that. Remember red hysteria was real during those times.

Not sure if I'll finish this video today. One tidbit at 7:17, he says that land lease didn't matter, the SU didn't need all that war material to win.

>>21599
>>Anyone heard this theory?
I wanted to quote that from OP but forgot meme arrow.

>>21602
>>21602
>I wanted to quote that from OP but forgot meme arrow.
I know, just wanted to say that anyway.

>>21605
As far as I know minorities quickly dissapointed with german treatment hence the all partisan act against german army.
I dont say they were as bad as fully blown stalinists.

>but there were no full-going ethnic cleansing of every Russian or such
would be extremely stupid thing to do, atleast in middle of war.

>>21605
There's doing it and doing it. Huge difference. In case of the events in WWII the doing is very half-assed and feels more like a coincidental thing, they went with the grain. There were some men to pick up so they played on their anti-soviet feelings. It also feels that it was just a propaganda. What I read that mostly Ukros and other "minorities" sided with the Germans.
On the other hand there were lively partizan activity behind the German lines. Ofc a part of those partizans were originally soldiers (I dunno ratio) for example from destroyed units who for some reason didn't fell into captivity, and many leading figures were NKVD officers. If there were proper attempts to win people the operation of these partizan units would have been impossible as guerillas can only be successful if they enjoy the support of the locals. And they did. This means the Germans didn't.

>>21610
>France or South Europe, where Germans were much more friendly to everyone.
In case of Denmark and Norway the soldiers got instructions in the combat order not sure the exact idiom, maybe it's routine order, in Hungarian we call it "order of the day" or "daily order" how to treat the civilian populace. I think they had similar in case of France but not the SU.

>>21612
>In case of the events in WWII the doing is very half-assed and feels more like a coincidental thing, they went with the grain.

Yes. Eastern campaign was shitty planned by Germans, they relied on initial rush and were euphoric about easy European conquest. Big and old enemy - France - gone to nowhere in year, who else could stop glorious Aryan people? So, Germans really thought that it will be relatively easy thing, and no one expected what happened next.

>What I read that mostly Ukros and other "minorities" sided with the Germans.

It is pretty complex question.

First - most of "minorities" (considering Ukrainians as minority is pretty wide speculation though) had some nationalist anti-soviet forces already. Such forces in Russian mainland were nonexistent, because half of them emigrated in civil war, and others were crushed in 20s (Tukhachevsky even used chemical weapons against Tambov peasants). National republics, especially far from center, were less controlled and had serious anti-Soviet and anti-Russian sentiment. "New lands" like Western Ukraine or Baltic, even had armed resistance, so it is obvious that these people would be overrepresented at German side.

Second - USSR ordered mobilization early, and most young people who can fight already were in Soviet army. Military propaganda did a good thing and they wouldn't want to support Germany in the war (except for people like Chechens as I wrote before). Many people and industries were evacuated to Siberia (many known modern industry companies like Uralvagonzavod started as this).

Third - post-war historiography on USSR side openly talked about evil nazi-collaborators from minorities, but was almost silent about RLA and Russian forces, it was a taboo (and often remains today). There is even no official count of these people. One source (from wiki) says that biggest part of pro-German armed forces (400k people) were Russians, next (250k) were Ukrainians, other groups were smaller. It still pretty shady thing because being member of pro-German forces was criminal offence, people were jailed and sometimes executed long after war for this. No one from these people want to say about war past.

Main problem was bad planning from German side and shortage of time. Most of territories were occupied for maximum 1-1.5 years, and Germans had nor time nor resources to build proper system for military recruiting in situation when heavy warfare happens in few hundreds kilometers away.

Although all that war was an error for Germans.

>On the other hand there were lively partizan activity behind the German lines.

Partisan effectiveness was overestimated. They surely did problems for German forces, but they weren't real threat. Considering that almost 70 millions of people lived on occupied territories, that activity was very small. Even Russian wiki says that in 41-42 partisans didn't do real harm to German supplies. In 43 and later Germany already lost, so it doesn't matter.

>If there were proper attempts to win people the operation of these partizan units would have been impossible as guerillas can only be successful if they enjoy the support of the locals. And they did. This means the Germans didn't.

But they tried, although failed. Considering time constraints and resistance from USSR, Germany didn't had a chance. Especially when they couldn't take Moscow or Leningrad to demoralize pro-Soviet forces.

>>21620
>>21620
>Yes. Eastern campaign was shitty planned by Germans, they relied on initial rush and were euphoric about easy European conquest.
imagine being so retarded, trying to invade russia during summer.

If only hitler paid attention to geography class during his highschool times.

>21620
Will probably reflect that. Not today, next is sleep goddamit this is the second post I have to delet coz I clicked reply by accident, I'm exhausted. But:
>>17171
>There is a widely criticized book about planned Soviet offensive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icebreaker_(Suvorov)
The dude in video highly builds on that book. You really should watch. Breddy indresding.

>>21620
Russia was actually in a pretty bad state before the war internally. The most common argument is that the T34 outclassed the Panzer IV, but it wasn't being produced enough before 1943, they practically got boosted to full strength by the American and British lend-lease.
How Germany could've won the war in the east:
>smash the British at Dunkirk, making opinion of war in England much more negative
>Churchill doesn't come into power and keep fighting the Germans, thus they accept the peace offers with both Germany and Italy
>this means no lend-lease from Britain + more allocation to the east
>they don't have to invade Yugoslavia to get to Greece, nor invade Egypt as that was a British problem
>this means Barbarossa begins in May, and things go as well as the start, but soldiers are prepared with winter equipment
>Japan attacks the USSR from the east, forcing troops from the Siberian front to stay and fight the Japanese, meaning the Germans don't get pushed back west initially
>as Britain is out of the war, America cannot partake in a strategic invasion of Europe, even if Hitler declares war on them (which was for unprovoked attacks on German assets and lend-lease to the USSR, it only made the war official)
>with more troops allocated, Leningrad becomes much-more one-sided, and if a better German contingent + the Finns attack them at the same time, it could fall)
>Hohols, Cossacks, Tatars, and Caucasians all see this as a victory for the Axis, meaning that they would still join, possibly in much larger numbers than before
>Hitler still reroutes the 4th Panzer army early to take the oil fields in the Caucasus, the Germans would be able to take on the Soviets in Stalingrad much better
>with the Caucasus subdued, and most key-cities in the west taken, Moscow would be up for the taking, and at this point, the Red Army would collapse just like the whites in the Russian Civil War

>>17165
>Germany was going to lose to Poland
wat

>>21626
I'm pretty sure OP meant lose Poland to the Soviets, which was partitioned between a German west and a Soviet east.

>>21627
No. Guy in video states that.

>>21628
Seems like he's just a total assburger then.

>>21630
Not necessarily. It might be a good idea to look into the problem a little closer. Now I think I'll play the devil's advocate and try to argue in favor of what he says. This will take several post, not even sure if I'll finish it.
The first thing maybe to question is the importance of Poland for the Soviet. For this we should try and see the Soviet intention and motivation.
Originally at the bolshevik takeover the idea of exporting communism and creating the World Revolution was an ideal they wished to reach, this is an idealistic approach we could put it in another way: they wanted to take control not just in Russia but the other parts of the world. During the history of communism, they managed this partially both in direct and indirect ways, at the end WWII they basically conquered half of Europe, and during the Cold War quite a few places "converted" to communism/socialism all over the world. Both can be considered as the "export of communism".
But right after the bolshevik takeover the export proved to be an impossible thing, all the other places the communist revolution failed. In the Hungary it went for a while but because they didn't get support from Russia, in the end it failed here too. Does this mean they forgot about it? I don't think so, simply froze the plan for a while and started play a long game.
Than Stalin came to power, who might not seem to be an exemplar communist, much greater egoism. But this isn't going against the original idea simply it means a more practical imperialist approach (instead of idealistic "export communism") which uses the idea of world revolution to make others bow to his power. He still played for the whole world.
So Poland herself wasn't that important, they wanted Europe.

>>21631
But for this, they needed France and Britain to attack Germany.
First the Soviet baited with the Spanish Civil War, but F n B signed a Non-Intervention Agreement and they kept to it. Poland was a much suitable bait, because F n B guaranteed her safety and promised they attack Germany if she attacks first.
So the Soviet baited Germany into attacking Poland, with he Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and it's implication that they will assist in the conquest of Poland. The Germans counted on them to attack Poland, they planned on it. The Germans also planned the invasion on the premise that France and Britain will attack them, they had to keep forces and war material/supplies in the back, especially that they thought after they defeated Poland together with the Soviet, they have to move forces back to west to fend off F n B and turn the defense there into an offense and defeat them too. Only after they saw that F n B isn't actively attacking on the west they turned to north first and made sure they will control Denmark and Norway. Therefore they only had just so much troops and supplies to keep up for a short time.
But the Soviet didn't attack, but waited. Waited for France and Britain actually doing something. But they didn't so they said, eh fuck it and finally invaded (after they secured an agreement with Japan) but by then the German troops there were exhausted.
This exhaustion should be examined, not an impossible idea, but were they really?

Huh, this took only one more post.

>>21632
One thing I forgot.
The dude says in the video that the German wartime production was at very low speed at that time, it was far from it's full capacity.

>>21621
When else can you invade, Timur the Lame? At Spring and Autumn you have rasputitsa, that is swampy mud all over everywhere, and at Winter you have Le Russian Winter. Scandinavia is warmer than Belarus, the more to the east you go the worse it gets.
And that's the warmest path in, in the east there is the literal North Cold Pole, that is a place colder than The North Pole for a change.
Both Nappy and Hitler planned to winter at Moscow, except the first one had Moscow burned by the locals and the second one fell short. There is no other way to invade Russia on foot. And then even if Hitler succeeded, Moscow street fighting would have been StalingradX10, and the govt would chill at Samara same way it chilled at St.Pete's 130 years before.

>>21625
>Japan attacks the USSR from the east, forcing troops from the Siberian front to stay and fight the Japanese, meaning the Germans don't get pushed back west initially
They tried twice beforehand, at Primorie and Mongolia, and both times had their asses handed to them. Japs are terrible at land warfare. Perhaps the IJN is cool, the Imperial Army was shit.
They had big plans for the Russian Far East during the total collapse of 1917-1921 already, yet withdrew because their soldiers suffered unacceptable losses due to cold of all things (+America getting upset too). Occupation of Russian Far East would be a terrible drain, not possible, not with an already full-swing campaing in China.
>Moscow would be up for the taking
Nappy took Moscow, didn't change anything. Again, Russia doesn't end at Moscow. There are tens of millions of people on the Volga, Kazan oil fields were already being exploited and Samara prepped to be temporary capital. If the worst comes to pass, there are Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Omsk east of the Urals. Russia is impossible to occupy, it's a fact.
Maaaybe Hitler could have created some client Russia state to fight its Soviet twin on its own weight, most probably never would.

Anyway, the war was lost before it even began. Maaaaybe smashing the British at Dunkirk might have changed something, but most probably not.




There's a more interesting theory for you to ruminate. The WWII actually prolonged communism for 40 years more that it should have lived on its own. Stalin's industrialization was a total disaster in terms of cost/benefit, like anything communist, and Soviet science was dead in the water, because it seems scientists don't like to be slaves in gulags with families taken hostage (I'm looking at you, Korolev). Those that weren't already purger on made-up charges or blissfully emigrated and produced nice things in the US like Sikorsky.
Anyway, Stalin's USSR was that close to total civilization failure, it couldn't reproduce modern technology and with villagers enslaved in the kolkhoz was destined for famine. So instead of dissoluting before full famine strikes, like in late 80's, it would disintegrate for the same reason in late 40's. That's the reason for planned conquest of Europe, it would be the USSR till Lisbon in 48 or so, or no USSR at all by 48.

Then the WWII happened and the USSR got so much bennies with Land Lease to keep it afloat, and then took whatever industry it wanted from the Eastern Europe, having said Eastern Europe chained for further exploitation. So it subsisted on whatever industry and science it could get from the Reich's leftover, which allowed it make it two decades more till the oil price boom and survive on it for another couple decades.
By the 80's the oil price fell + stolen 40's industrial tech was waaay outdated = collapse, famine averted thanks to international aid. Except it happened 40 years later than it should have had.

>>21638
>>21638
>When else can you invade, Timur the Lame? At Spring and Autumn you have rasputitsa, that is swampy mud all over everywhere, and at Winter you have Le Russian Winter
In winter just like the türco-mongols. Where the enemy can't dig trenches in rock hard ground, terrarian is relatively flat, you are not dependent on bridges as rivers are frozen, not to mention russia is not urbanized and they were dependent on non urban frontlines more than western front.

It's a basic geography knowledge. Also napoleons army had great diseases. It's not my problem if you don't know why when to not invade russia and cant analyze why napoleon failed.

>And then even if Hitler succeeded, Moscow street fighting would have been StalingradX10
considering the fact many sovoks forced to fight, I doubt highly, I doubt even more highly if the SS wasnt mistreated locals, encouraged by their ideology.

Also not losing the air fight agains britain because of retarded Göring would help brilliantly.

Pretty much your entire ergument depends on x take moscow therebefore axis taking moscow would provide same outcome. This is a determinstic thinking of you as you lack proper knowledge to analyze why they failed in the first place.

>>21638
>>21638
>Both Nappy and Hitler planned to winter at Moscow
both of heir invasion started in summer.

>>21638
>There's a more interesting theory for you to ruminate
We really should tackle the first one on the plate. There are several statements in the video to examine.

>>21639
>In winter just like the türco-mongols.
There's truth in it. Not winter itself was the problem for the Germans at the end of '41 but that they didn't have proper equipment. However if we assume that Stalin would have attack soon (like the dude says in the vid, and not years later) than Germans didn't have time to wait for winter they had to utilize summer.

>>21641
>>21641
But just for sake of rushing sending your soldiers without proper winter equipment and a doctrine heavily relies on non-winter warfare is grave mistake as we seen.

>However if we assume that Stalin would have attack soon
Soldiers on german border were very disorganized. Plus soviets during that time (correct me if I'm wrong about this) still didn't know japanese wouldnt attack unless germans take moscow, so there is no huge amount of soldier redeployment as we expect from possible mass assault. So yeah, soviets were also cautious and stalin was aware of huge proper officer gap due to infamous purges.

>>21643
>>21641
Also operation barbarossa started after german air force depleted, so germans wouldnt benefit from good weather as they lack air superiority. Airforce do better job when the weather is better, in this case summer, so germans also let soviet airforce do its job better by starting the invasion during summer.

>>21639
>In winter just like the türco-mongols
The Mongol-Tatars attacked on horse 750 years ago. From the east. Onto a long disintegrated dozen of kingdoms, not some ubercentralized empire.
Not relevant.
Like, I get it that the horse cavalry doesn't care about mud or snow. Have fun horse charging tanks and artillery forts. Horse carriages had the same eternal problem with rasputitsa and snow to get any artillery with themselves.

The Mongols could allow themselves take only their bows and arrows and tents, you can't fight the XX century war with just handguns and lances. Already 250 years after the Mongol invasion all the khanates were conquered by Cossacks with firearms with little effort, things change.

The closest analogue would be air raiding, but German air force was already weakened by losing the Battle of Britain.

>considering the fact many sovoks forced to fight, I doubt highly
So, Stalingrad x10. Or do you presume the USSR changed its policies that much before Stalingrad? It didn't.

Anyway, you presume to have some higher yet 'basic geography knowledge' knowledge both French and German generals lacked while most likely not being even an army officer. Poor stupid generals, aye. I suggest you reconsider your uppity approach to operations planned by peoples who were actually in the army actually conquering shit successfully.

It they chose to attack the USSR that time, it means there already was no better time. Waiting till 42 would have Germany and rest of Europe raped harder that Izmail at 1790.

>>21647
>>21647
>Not relevant.
It is, since forests of north were big issue for typical steppe army and I dont remember them dying by shitting their pants.

It's also relevant, since the army was highly mobile, not infantry core slow army, german army was highly motorised and mobile but unfit for winter war doctrine.

I get that russia wasnt strong as much as soviets, but nazi army shot its foot before soviet russia pulled the trigger. And I don't say mongols win therebefore germans would automatically win, I'm just stating the facts that analyze from the situation, so solely declaring war during winter is not equal to flat out dominating victory for germans.

>So, Stalingrad x10
stalingard is not soviet's communication and transportation center. Japans didn't state they would join the war if stalingrad has fallen. Stalingrad does not have soviet central electrical power grid. Stalingrad didn't have hoarded grain (though they would most likely burn it out of desperation)

Also taking the communication means you cannot force many other sovoks to fight for USSR meanwhile taking stalingrad does not really offer such benefit. Also focusing on moscow means no need to seperate the eastern army into 3.

>knowledge both French and German generals lacked
I highly doubt old prussian elite didn't know this, in fact I don't doubt I'm really sure half of generalstaff refuse it. As for french, I have to remind you during revolution lots of invaluable frenchmen which includes officers tasted the cold steel.

So yeah, healthy amount of elitism helps your army to not fuck up massively.

>>21647
He clearly stated why was a good idea to attack in winter here: >>21639
He didn't say it's great because the Mongols did that but because:
>Where the enemy can't dig trenches in rock hard ground, terrarian is relatively flat, you are not dependent on bridges as rivers are frozen
Hence the Mongol chose winter, hence the Germans should have done that too because regardless the military tech, they could have benefited of it.

>>21643
>Soldiers on german border were very disorganized.
Nod really. The units prepared for an offensive campaign and not to be attacked. - Well if we assume Suvorov and the dude in the video is right.

>>21644
>german air force depleted
>lack air superiority.
Didn't really mattered - again as playing the devil's advocate - the Russian planes consisted mostly close air support ones as typically fit for the offense, they also were deployed very close to the front on bases that fell quickly victim of the German Blitz.
This is also worthy to check. I mean the composition of Russian air forces, was it really how the dude says.

>>21649
>>21649
>. The units prepared for an offensive campaign and not to be attacked
No, I would claim true word is prepearing and I would bet it would be during 1942. Everyday germany was losing due to exposure from the air which hindered their industrial capacity in long run.

>Didn't really mattered - again as playing the devil's advocate
It mattered in long run because, germans lost their gambit in the sea around 1941-1942 against britain. So lacking air superiority means you should expect a naval landing, of course allies were cautious still. But we can easily say if allies didnt gain the air superiority there wouldnt be naval invasion or naval blockade which eases the german troops on the east greatly.

I dont completely disregard what suvorov says, but I would claim the documents do not exactly point out 1941 or earlier rush as soviet mobilisation was still continuing, officer gap was still a thing and ideal strategy would let britain and germany weaking each other assuming stalin was really evil genius even if not I think there would be some (how many I have no idea, but easy to assume they were not overly confident) red army officers support such approach.

>He clearly stated why was a good idea to attack in winter here
Also because russians liked to take initiative during winter for the reasons I stated, so the idea wasnt really so absurd.

This pic is from a time where germans still have upperhand on land. Though it's okay to some of you being cynical about pic as it's from w*kipedia. You can still check operation uranus.

t.britannica mustard race

>>21651
>Everyday germany was losing due to exposure from the air which hindered their industrial capacity in long run.
Germany's production grew continuously until the factories were captured, Allied bombing did little.
The SU was mobilizing for two years by then (summer of '41) they had numerical superiority on the German border. And as you said the mobilization was ongoing they could send continuously fresh troops to west after their campaign started.
>if allies didnt gain the air superiority there wouldnt be naval invasion
True. They absolutely needed air cover for that. But that came later in the war.
>officer gap was still a thing
Woudln't matter the new officers risen to their ranks just would have to learn their trade during real action which they did anyway, only during on the defence. Their fuckups wouldn't matter as they could have cover the losses laughingly both in material and manpower. They wouldn't even lost all those troops they did after the German invasion started.

>assuming stalin was really evil genius
I think generally we really underestimate both Hitler and Stalin. The first one obviously because of the failure and defeat, the second one we usually just don't pay enough mind, we shrug: he was an evil psycho dictator.
Being a genius doesn't guarantee success or leading role in anything. To rise in power that takes ambition and ego which frequently don't paired with intelligence - as we experience in our own governments on many occasion.
But sometimes it does pair and one rise who can play anyone like a harp. A little scary to think of it because this actually implies that there are secret conspiracies and they could do whatever with us and we cannot do a thing about it.
Stalin may have that evil genius. Some might say that if he was such a genius why things weren't better in the SU? Well, maybe he was genius because he knew people are generally shits and whatever they touch will turn into turd and he calculated failure into his masterplan as well. He didn't care because he didn't have compassion, he only cared about gaining more power, and maybe cared about this game as he maybe thought about it as such.
Hmm. I'm starting to get carried away, also sleepiness is creeping on me.

>>21670
>>21670
>Germany's production grew continuously until the factories were captured
where can I check third reich's industrial capacity after failure in britain?

I also said on long run, not literally just before barbarossa started.

>But that came later in the war.
True but let's be honest here, allies can't make naval invasion and soviet counterattack is sucessful even though they get more loses than they supposed to be due to lack of allies divertion.

How would the allies react? Do you think they would just let soviets swallow entire continental europe? This is the part it gets interesting as allies not being able to launch naval invasion and soviets possibly winning and rushing towards berlin would give axis some interesting but also kinda unpredictable diplomatic options. I can't tell you or anyone enough how much air superiority mattered.

>Woudln't matter the new officers risen to their ranks just would have to learn their trade during real action which they did anyway, only during on the defence
And it costed them high amount of manpower. I'm just trying to say it's not a good way to prepeare an invasion, of course they could just ignore it due to their overconfidence about manpower and stuff.

>I think generally we really underestimate both Hitler and Stalin
atleast on chins, gitler is not underestimated, in fact overestimated in military sense. he was an uneducated corporal, the only one of the good things he done for the army is mechanising it but even that does not come from geniusness or any kind of tactician skill. He really liked the idea due to his experiences from ww1 where trench warfare often lead to stalemate and hitler really hated that, rightfully so. But it was an emotional decision, just like his lust for "wünderwaffe"

I see him as manipulating genius that certainly had social skills but failure about in military, science and culture. Prussian elite was more than capable of winning the war also if not for nazi regime jews would stay in germany which many were served during ww1, which means good amount of scientists wouldnt have to escape, which is quite often underestimated, as having proper scientific and academic tradition takes centuries.

>. I'm starting to get carried away, also sleepiness is creeping on me.
It's only 10.20 PM macaristan.

>>21638
>They tried twice beforehand, at Primorie and Mongolia, and both times had their asses handed to them. Japs are terrible at land warfare. Perhaps the IJN is cool, the Imperial Army was shit.
The Japanese would still be able to force the Siberian troops to the east, thus not letting the Germans get pushed back west initially, which would be the objective here.
>Nappy took Moscow, didn't change anything. Again, Russia doesn't end at Moscow. There are tens of millions of people on the Volga, Kazan oil fields were already being exploited and Samara prepped to be temporary capital. If the worst comes to pass, there are Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Omsk east of the Urals. Russia is impossible to occupy, it's a fact.
Napoleon's invasion of Russia lasted literally only around 5 months, and was forced out after the winter, something that Hitler's troops survived even without proper winter clothing.
And again, as I said, the USSR was doing very bad internally, it was industrialising, but it wasn't producing enough stuff (while Germany was), and was living off lend-lease until 1943. Without the British lend-lease and with more German allocation (as well as no bombing on Germany), the Wehrmacht would prove a much better match against the Red Army, especially the first couple of years.
What I'm saying here is that they could possibly have the Red Army collapse just like what happened to the Whites after WWI.

>>21638
Basically have what happened in this video here, but plus Finland, Italy, and the Tripartite Pact aid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EnQ_3anpWQk [Embed]
I don't completely agree with it, but it offers a good idea on how Germany would've done against the USSR without the British or possibly Americans.

>>21671
>It's only 10.20 PM macaristan.
It was 8 PM. But nowadays I stay awake late but I always get up early mostly in the same time, I got used to it. I'm sleeping like 6 hours per day for weeks now. All right I'm off.

>>21638
>And that's the warmest path in, in the east there is the literal North Cold Pole, that is a place colder than The North Pole for a change.
>Again, Russia doesn't end at Moscow. There are tens of millions of people on the Volga, Kazan oil fields were already being exploited and Samara prepped to be temporary capital. If the worst comes to pass, there are Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Omsk east of the Urals. Russia is impossible to occupy,

You don't need to occupy country fully to win the war, you need only do that level of damage so country would stop active fighting. Russia is pretty much empty east of Urals, end was even emptier in 1941 than today. Conquering biggest industrial and agriculture regions and main cities could force USSR to stop the war, at least to stop the active phase of war when army can do serious offensive operations. Especially in 1941, when industry wasn't moved east properly.

That was the Hitler's plan and it wasn't too stupid, but he failed. If blitzkrieg part was relatively successful at start, control part was failed completely, although in winter of 1941 and even in 1942 USSR also was on the edge.

Comparison with Napoleon isn't direct, it was different time and different technology level.

>Japan

Japanese were just cowards with delusion of grandeur, they wanted Pacific and conflict with USA, and weren't good ally to Germany at all. But striking in the worst time for USSR (like in 1941-1942) could change the course of war, even if it wasn't easy fight. Even losing to USSR in land war in 41 could give enough pressure to USSR to allow Germany to stay for more.

>So instead of dissoluting before full famine strikes, like in late 80's

It wasn't dissolved because food or anything related to general population. Every political change in Russia/USSR history was change from the top, not from the bottom. 1917 was liberal revolution of higher classes at start, 1989 was reformatting of union by elites (union didn't really died, and almost same commie ruling class still in power). So, Stalin's USSR could be in stasis state for years. Just look at modern Central Asian states for example, they have nothing but still exist.

Maybe it would be some kind of second world country, but not collapsing failed state.

>>21683
>>21683
>Japanese were just cowards
how so?

> Even losing to USSR in land war in 41 could give enough pressure to USSR to allow Germany to stay for more.
Even if germans win, japanese would gain too little in peace table compared to germans. Risk is too big and gain is too little.

Not to mention japanese army more fittingly designed to island hopping and controlling the coasts.

>terrible ally
They took britains south asian colonies they took hongkong, with lower materails they achieved more. Meanwhile hitler couldnt even defeat some airforce in malta and gibraltar let alone take them.

If denying allies from resource rich southeast asia doesnt help I dont know what helps them. Japan not joining axis, signing non agression treaty with USSR and focusing on allies seems better option for them. Japan still wouldnt able to beat USA especially with a move like pearl harbor but atleast they could force USA to have sensible peace treaty where japan retreats from southeast asia and china but have small citybase like hongkong along with manchuria assuming murricans dont use nuke of course.

>>21672
>>21625
>The Japanese would still be able to force the Siberian troops to the east, thus not letting the Germans get pushed back west initially, which would be the objective here.
Probably true, but the question of wheter or not they would precludes that of wheter or not they could. Japan wouldn't attack the USSR, not just because of their past defeats in border skirmishes but also because of the cost/benefit ratios of their two options (attacking USSR or attacking the West), as mentioned in >>21687.
Attacking the USSR would require a commitment to face a superior enemy on difficult terrain, with victory exclusively possible if an ally on the other side of the world succeeds, with little reward other than Vladivostok -north Asia is resource-rich but the resources are all dispersed, and as Japan couldn't count on more than limited territorial gains this means few resources could be conquered. In short: a lengthy, risky and difficult campaign for little gain.
Attacking the West allowed Japan to employ the best of its military strength against a poorly defended flank of European colonial empires, with plenty of juicy resources up for grabs. For a resource-starved Japan with an idle Navy, this was the obvious choice.
And don't forget the political struggle between Army and Navy. The Army had already gotten Japan bogged down in China and now the Navy wanted its turn.

>thus they accept the peace offers with both Germany and Italy
Getting Britain out of the war would be even bigger than that. The Acchiles Heel of Germany's economy in both World Wars was the crippling naval blockade cutting off its access to key imported raw materials, and global trade in general. Lift the blockade and Gitler gets a monumental economic boost.
But it's also easier said than done. There were military reasons for the failure to annihilate the Britons in Dunkirk, so an all-out attempt to destroy the retreating defeat could be harmful to the remainder of the French campaign or just fail. And even success at Dunkirk wouldn't guarantee a British exit from the war; Hitler repeatedly underestimated Britain's will to wage war and take it to its very last consequences.

>>21690
>Getting Britain out of the war would be even bigger than that.
Not really. Even in our timeline, Britain was close to accepting the peace offers. The Earl of Halifax who refused the position of PM wanted to make peace with Germany for example. If they actually saw the Britons get annihilated at Dunkirk, it's very likely they would want to make peace with Germany.
Much of Britain's will to wage war was a Churchill thing, just to let you know.

>>21687
>how so?

Because main reason that they didn't attack was their defeat from Soviet army in limited conflicts of 1939. Placement of their forces didn't allow USSR to withdraw army from Far East, but attack, even not successful as blitzkrieg, could do much better effect in worst (for USSR) years of war.

>Even if germans win, japanese would gain too little in peace table compared to germans. Risk is too big and gain is too little.

And if Germans lose, Japan also lose much. Sometimes you need to do something risky and unsuccessful to win in big picture. USSR army also wasn't really so powerful and strong until late part of war, and Japanese forces aren't that bad.

Maybe with success at Far East and Europe with combined actions of Germany and Japan would stop USA from joining the war (especially without Pearl Harbor), giving time for Axis to consolidate more forces and pacify occupied lands.

Although all these alternative theories are very weak, because sometimes even small differences may change history much.

>>21696
>USSR army also wasn't really so powerful and strong until late part of war
Powerful is relative. Later Red Army was powerful compared to early Red Army, but early Red Army was very powerful compared to other countries' militaries. It's failure at the start of Barbarossa - I'd like to follow the original track of the thread - wasn't because it was weak, had shitty tanks, inexperienced officer corps or any other usual excuses the post-war propaganda/history writing came up with but because they planned for offense, they prepared for offense, they were deployed for offense, they were equipped for offense, they didn't made any preparation for defense.
In relation to this, the argument that after they invaded Poland they left their entrenched positions and they didn't have any in their new area of deployment is kinda true but since then 1.5-2 years passed, that should have been enough to build new ones in Poland if they prepared to keep those borders and they had no plans to move further west. If they had plans on push more toward west but not in the immediate future (as in the summer of '41) but years later, it would have been also sensible to create fortifications in case of a German confrontation. So yes, they didn't have entrenchments, but they didn't have it because they considered their positions very temporary.

>>21696
>>21696
>And if Germans lose, Japan also lose much
not if they didn't join to axis.

As you said there too many things to consider, I would imagine soviets would want a peace treaty if japan was sucessful against soviets because I doubt they would risk moscow for vladistovok which would also make japan-german relations worse.

I also make lots of typos like Türks in youtube comment section, fug.

>>21700
Let me tell you about typos...

So started reading Suvorov's Icebreaker. Or moar liek pecking it for information morsel. And ofc I started it in sensible order, from the back. Meanwhile tho looked into other stuff like that tank encyclopedia Turkish Bernd posted. But then I noticed a video among the recommended ones:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UxQE05OaOBc [Embed]
I prefer those military historians who has already grown pubes.
Back to the book:
The few lines I read feels very lopsided. Previously I mentioned it's customary to think Hitler and Stalin weren't geniuses for reasons. The author change that. Now only Hitler and his men aren't considered geniuses. I'll go further the book set them as retards. Here's an quote (at a picture):
"Joachim von Ribbentrop signs the pact dividing up Poland. He did not know Great Britain and France would declare war on Germany in response. Stalin did."
See?

>>21732
>>21732
>He did not know Great Britain and France would declare war on Germany in response
Hitler was trying his best to start a war, he didn't really care much about chamberlain's appeasement policy, if they didn't decalre war, hitler would invade another country again anyway.

The foolish ones in this case are france and britain (read chamberlain) Because France not wanting another war and trusting maginot line too much cause them to not pursue a bloody war when germany invaded poland, brits didn't want to be the ones only getting their hand dirty while nobody is doing anything.

It's very predictable that, western powers who wanted to carry on the status quo would be very mad when two rising radical powers dealing with each other(molotof-ribbentrop pact) Invasion of poland just gave them legit excuse to declaration of war.

>>21736
For that quote: I think F n B even warned Germany, that they will attack them in return of attacking Poland.
>Hitler was trying his best to start a war,
He really did. Personally I don't think he needed to be baited for that. Also the war with the Soviet Union was inevitable, for at least two(three) reasons.
1. ideological:
1/A. Communism had to be eradicated.
1/B. Lebensraum
2. Economical: they needed resources for the industry and had to break the insulation that prevented to get these. Hitler didn't build a colonial empire but a continental.

>>21765
https://lebensraumyth.blogspot.com/
And Hitler would've restored the colonial empire in some way regardless.

>>21771
Soviets didn't violate any agreement with Germany by annexing Lithuania. Molotov and Ribbentrop adjusted the agreed-upon spheres of influence on the 28th of September, allowing Germany to have a greater share of Poland in exchange for Lithuania.

>>21771
Foremost:
>WARNING
I'm looking forward the time when things can be published without such warnings. Sometimes it feels that the last two centuries are pure politics they cannot viewed as history yet, we still don't have the distance.
And now for the content:
I think they mix things up. They mistake a military campaign with a colonization, what the creating the Lebensraum would have been. Not a war, not plundering but creating endless fields of farmlands where strong blond happy Germlings could live and multiply among idyllic pastoral conditions. So yes, colonial in a way, to reply your line.
So the authors of that page is either a bunch of dumbasses who don't know what Lebensraum is or they mix things up on purpose, basically strawmanning.

>>21777
Then Lebensraum was already achieved. They already had German towns in Romania, Poland, Ukraine, the Caucasus, even Turkey. Unless you're saying it was to consolidate influence in Eastern Europe, in which yes, it was partially. Germany wanted Poland and Ukraine though as independent states under German influence though, not a direct annexation.

>>21782
>Then Lebensraum was already achieved
nope, what you say is only handful places, not a considerable population at all. and idk why you say germany didn't want ukraine directly, is it because during the war they were a Reichskommissariat? I really think they would get 're-germanified'

>>21784
>idk why you say germany didn't want ukraine directly, is it because during the war they were a Reichskommissariat?
That and the fact that in WWI, the German Empire wanted to take the Baltic States and Ukraine as independent states under German influence.
>I really think they would get 're-germanified'
I doubt they actually would've taken all of Ukraine as it is portrayed in the usual narrative. The extent they exaggerate it is laughable.

>>21782
Ofc Lebensraum wasn't a new idea the national socialists come up with but older, but it wasn't achieved, surely not from the NSDAP and it's leaders' viewpoint.
In the Mein Kampf (I can't give you exact page number, I have a Hungarian edition, it's in the 14th Chapter, about the eastern politics, I see a subtitle here: "Eastern Politics again, after 600 years") Hitler declares that they have to secure arable lands for the German people and he points to Russia. He literally names her as the land where they have to take over from the Jews which lead her and secure it's soil for the new German leading stratum, which build those countries (which then belonged the the SU) in the past with the workforce of the Slavs.

>>21786
They thought the politics of the 2nd Empire faulty. Source: same as above (Mein Kampf, 14th Chapter abour the eastern politics).

>>21788
>as the land where they have to take over from the Jews
That was regarding the Russian Empire, not the USSR.
>Source: same as above
It just confirms my point that they were trying to only create influence in the east, not territory.

I've read the fourteenth chapter now.
He lays out the need for a territorial extent proportional to a country's population -which Germany lacked- with self-sufficiency in food production and militarily defensible borders.
His ideal of a succesful foreign policy is the Ostsiedlung, as it directly added territory to the fatherland and allowed it to be settled, Germanized and ultimately become an integral German territory.
His view on overseas colonies seems to be that they're not ideal, but are still better than nothing and Germany's enemies have been strengthened by their colonial possesions.
His stance on the moral legitimacy of expansionism is that of might makes right.
He views past German borders as merely temporary results of political maneuvers, and desires to annex at least some land beyond them.
He explicitly says that a revision of borders would require war.

Most importantly, he repeatedly speaks of acquiring new territory to the East.
>Without respect for ‘tradition,’ and without any preconceived notions, the Movement must find the courage to organise our national forces, and set them
on the path which will lead them beyond the confines of the ‘living space’ which is theirs to-day, to the acquisition of new territory.
>From the past we can learn only one lesson, and this is that the aim which is to be pursued in our political conduct must be twofold, namely, (1) the acquisition of territory as the objective of our foreign policy
>It can be solved only by the acquisition of such territory for thesettlement of our people as will extend the area of the mother-country and thereby not only keep the newly-settled population in close touch with the parent-country, but will guarantee the entire territory the enjoyment of those advantages accruing from its total size

And more. This, of course, could be taken to mean "territory" as in "sphere of influence". After all, German settlers could still live in the new Ukrainian/Polish/Baltic puppet states to the East, just as the Japanese settled Manchukuo, fulfilling his vision of a "territory on which our German peasants will one day be able to rear sturdy sons".
But that's not what he seems to be implying. At no moment he speaks of puppet states, indirect control or a sphere of influence, but only the language of annexation and expansion. Furthermore, he shows himself skeptical of allying with liberation movements in other nations:
>The völkisch Movement must not play the advocate for ether nations, but be the protagonist of its own nation. Otherwise it would be superfluous and, above all, it would have no right to clamour against the past, for it would then be repeating the action of the past.
>The old German policy suffered from having been determined by dynastic considerations, the new German policy must not adopt the sentimentally cosmopolitan attitude of völkisch circles.
>Above all, we must not form a police guard for the famous ‘small oppressed nations,’ but we must be the soldiers of the German nation.
And later he also dismisses cooperation with Balkan, Egyptian or Indian nationalists, not just because of their unrealistic expectations but also because
>I, as a nationalist, who estimate the worth of humanity according to racial standards, must, in recognising the inferiority of the so-called ‘oppressed nations’, refuse to link the destiny of my own people with the destiny of theirs.
He includes Russians in this category, and it wouldn't be unfair to presume that he held other Eastern nationalities (except maybe Balts) in the same regard.

I conclude the man was truly thinking of annexing Eastern land at the time he wrote Mein Kampf. This doesn't necessarily mean he still wanted to do that at the time he waged war against the USSR, because he could have changed his mind over the span of twenty years or could have settled for a different policy because of realpolitik, but there's evidence from his own words of annexationist desires.

And citing the Ostsiedlung as his ideal that must be replicated is another evidence he wanted to annex land. A "Mitteleuropa" of Eastern nation-states under German tutelage would be incompatible with a new Ostsiedlung.

>>21794
No. They thought the light/limited approach of the 2nd Empire was wrong.

>>21796
>This doesn't necessarily mean he still wanted to do that at the time he waged war against the USSR, because he could have changed his mind over the span of twenty years or could have settled for a different policy because of realpolitik,
True. They gave up so they could rise into power, maybe they gave up other things. Tho MK was an important part of the ideology of the national socialists and ideologies always can be pulled out on a whim. It doesn't seem like to be any official plan of substantiate anything they concentrated on the war and it's effort. However Lebensraum was a longstanding idea in German "school of thought" it's hard to give up such things, and this is why I listed it as an ideological reason behind attacking the SU. This I post as partly directed to Danish Bernd.
Also I find it cool you checked it.

>>17171
Read 'bout 60 pages from that book. Main problem is with the theory that only circumstantial evidence can be presented. He presents a lot tho.
Obviously we can't have real evidence (e.g. the plans themselves) as:
1. if there were no plans to attack, there won't be any;
2. if they wanted to keep it in secret, it would be hard to find (tho many secrets gets in the open later);
3. if they wanted to cover up (for example they wanted to profit from the victimhood status or seeming innocent, peaceful) then they would have destroyed it.
>Molotov Line
The Wiki article says Suvorov make note of it in his book. I not yet reached that part I think, he mentions the Brest fortress in connection with the NKVD units for sure.
However Suvorov mentiones Kursk where the Soviet managed to create an impenetrable deathtrap in short time. I checked, they built those defenses about two and a half months. They had over 1,5 years in Poland. They clearly didn't build it with the mind on defense. Sounds like a pet project they spent their free time on.
What interesting in that line is that it extends only to the Carpathians. The confrontation zone however goes down to the Black Sea, and this southern area has key importance since from these part they could reach the Romanian oil fields, without them all the shiny machines of the Germans would be scrap-metal.

>>21832

Problem with these theories that plans don't really prove them. Every army of big country has plans for everything, attack, defense, invasions. Especially when generals have time.

So, you can find multiple offensive plans from USSR/USA/whatever, but this doesn't matter that these plans were really considered seriously.

USSR of course had plans for attacking Germany, but pre-war placement of troops doesn't prove that USSR really considered attack, but also doesn't disproves this.

Army was in process of reforms and re-equipment that would be finished in 1942, but would USSR attack in 1942? Maybe, if political situation will force this. Placement of troops near border without proper fortification also isn't a solid proof - it may be sign of mismanagement and slow work.

>However Suvorov mentiones Kursk where the Soviet managed to create an impenetrable deathtrap in short time. I checked, they built those defenses about two and a half months. They had over 1,5 years in Poland.

It isn't fair to compare USSR army of 1941 and 1943. Pre-war situation was much more different, purges, inadequate leadership, overestimation of own power - they had everything. Look at Finnish war for example. In 1943 command chain was replaced multiple times, many old-timers are gone, and high leadership became more sane. And army became much stronger.

I don't try to prove that USSR didn't want to attack, I actually think that attack was more probable than pacifistic defense, but I don't think that USSR would attack even in 1942, only if situation becomes critical.

>>21942
Rather than not taking seriously, as you said every major country has possible war plans against other major countries, they are largely theorical. If I recall right during interar period USA had plan against Britain and her colonies.

Like you I don't say soviets wouldnt attack, I just think they would try to guarantee their victory by waiting.

>>21945
Canada actually had plans to declare war on the US AFTER WWI.

>>21945
>Like you I don't say soviets wouldnt attack, I just think they would try to guarantee their victory by waiting.

I don't think that anyone in pre-WW2 times expected that waiting may help. Germany grew stronger in time, especially after occupation of Europe. More time passed, more industry and integration will appear in occupied zones. Same with USSR, if Germany will wait, Union became stronger after army reforms.

Soviet historiography said that war was inevitable because historical rules etc, and maybe they were right. Waiting was risky.

Although all this is very debatable. Maybe starting war against USSR in 39 would be better for Germany, maybe war would be completely avoided if Hitler stopped for few years, and other unexpected things would happen etc. At least we've seen that warlike situation in 50s (until ICBM became thing) didn't end in war, even when both sides thought about this.

It is very hard to theorize about this realistically.

>>21948
>>21948
>ore time passed, more industry and integration will appear in occupied zones.
They didn't exactly had all raw resources they need, they wanted the finish the war and avoid stalemates for a reason.

I mentioned above why would they wait. Also we always say war is inevitable because of reasons listed, but we forget that both stalin and hitler had highly totalitarian regime and cult of personality, what they personally think was more important than what we estimate. For example chamberlain quickly replaced after making terrible diplomatic mistakes, as their state wasnt totalitarian and had a 'background core' the people heavily affected britains politics behind the screen, I assume I can make sense with these words.



>>21947
Did they? I really only vaguely remember interwar period and possible war plans during that time.

>>21949
Yep.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Scheme_No._1
Both were after WWI, but before WWII.

>>21947
>>21949
>>21950
It's just seem silly from our day and age. There were plenty of times prior when the US-Canadian border was crossed by hostile units.

>>21942
Plans are important.
For the critiques of the "Barbarossa was a preventive attack" idea one main card is the absence of direct evidence. Since the Soviet didn't attack the next best thing would be a plan.
I agree armies are tend to make all kinds of plans. But then, where is the Soviet attacking plan? There are miles written on the German ones all over, but noone speaks about the Soviet Unions'. Even Glantz, who mentioned in the Wiki article above as one of the main opposer of Suvorov's book, only mentions a defensive plan and an "answering strike" plan in his books (checked: Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia, 1941 and Barbarossa Derailed Volume 1.). If they planned for all possibilities where is the explicit attacking one? Unless they made exceptional steps to keep it hush hush there should be one.
So then no attack, no plan, only circumstantial stuff remains.
Btw, just found out that Zhukov sent a proposal to Stalin for a Soviet preventive attack, Timoshenko initialed it, but not sure Stalin saw it - found in another book of Glantz (The Soviet-German War 1941-1945, Myths and Realities), sadly the book doesn't say much on the debate.
>It isn't fair to compare USSR army of 1941 and 1943. Pre-war situation was much more different
Ofc they have the luxury of working in peace without getting shot at. All right, seriously if the time difference would be a few months then ok, they fiddled too much and had problems, but it's over 1.5 year. The Soviet could build and construct very efficiently, especially if it was about army and war.
This is similar to the officer problem. Due to the great cleansing the Red Army lacked in experienced officers. But that was 3 years before '41. Since then they went through at least a war against fortified Finland, a Blitzkrieg against Japan, and the occupation of the Baltics and part of Romania, then Poland. I don't think the Soviet officers didn't know their job by the time of Barbarossa.

I'm at about the half of Suvorov's book, but in the meantime I looked into David Glantz's Barbarossa Derailed too. I wrote here >>21732 what I read in the Icebreaker that Germans were idiots and didn't know obvious things... I found in Glantz's work the other side of the coin.
Read and be amazed (Chapter 1 page 21):
Soviet War Planning: Defense Plan-41 (DP-41) and the “Answering” Strike
Ironically, the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov Non-Aggression Pact, which Stalin negotiated with Hitler in August 1939, actually contributed to the catastrophic defeat the Red Army suffered during the initial stages of Operation Barbarossa. By signing the infamous pact, Stalin hoped to forestall possible German aggression against the Soviet Union and, while doing so, create a “buffer” or security zone by seizing eastern Poland and the Baltic States. However, the subsequent Soviet invasion and occupation of eastern Poland in September 1939 and the Baltic States in the fall of 1940 brought the Soviet Union into direct contact with German-occupied territory.
So what basically Glantz says, that they wanted to create a buffer zone (what was already existed in the form of the countries between Germany and the SU), but the Soviet leaders didn't know the SU will border Germany with the occupation of Poland.

>>22161
You are right, strategic plans and operational plans are different. Would be right to assume some plans never existed only in Stalin's head as mostly he was the state himself, like Louis XIV just in another color, and the will of the state and people.
Suvorov in Chapter 19 writes about "red envelopes" which were waited at the army HQs in a safe for opening, containing instructions needed to be carried out when the order arrived. In the next chapter he writes about a thing he calls 5th May directives which seems to be the same as the red envelopes. He doesn't make the equation explicitly tho, this is my conclusion.
Nevertheless in relation to the envelopes he says the order to open them never came but some commanders still did it as the Germans began the attack and looked for instructions they could use. They found none, what they read, it was useless. We only know this - he says - and the actual contents are still unknown.
About the 5th May directives he writes the commanders were ordered to wait for further instruction because something extraordinary turn will come in the future and only read then. He speculates about it's contents, why couldn't be a defense order, or several orders for different scenarios, and why it had to be an offensive set of instructions.

I read Zhukov memoirs too (or most of it I don't remember now exactly), my grandparents have it. In my possession I have Kamanin's летчики и космонавты (in Hun. ofc) which I also read. The first half that is, and a little from the cosmonaut part. What I can clearly recall - as it felt odd - that both books sounded exactly the same, as if one person wrote it. Maybe the translation and the military jargon do that, maybe these were written along certain expectations how they should sound, but I pretty much can imagine about the Soviet regime and propaganda machine that it ordered these books to be written and were written by shadow-writers using the same schematics. Nevertheless as you mentioned Zhukov's memoirs represents the "official" post-Stalin position, which frankly the same as the previous one in this topic, the Soviet Union can't be an aggressor. E.g. it took them 50 years and the collapse of the SU to admit Katyn Kurwa. So basically Zhukov in his book invents excuses why the Red Army was unable to stop the Germans until Moscow.

Suvorov says about the "Molotov line" that it had dual purpose. One, they were offensive fortifications, basically strong points which can be held by small force and can offer fire support in the very first step of the attack. Two, as they were built right on the border, in the open where everyone could see it, they were a show for the Germans to mislead them into thinking that the Soviet prepares for defense. This intention is failed - he says - as the Germans did the same thing on their side (and what the Germans prepared for? an offense). Suvorov also mentions that back in 39 in the East, Zhukov did the exact same thing, the difference was that the Japans were misled successfully.

Elsewhere in Icebreaker the author touches an important thing. And it's the rhethoric of the bolsheviks/communists/marxists which western writers constantly misunderstand. I think he is kinda right. The communists didn't (don't) exactly mean the same when they talk about something. Or rather they have a special view on things and have different definitions than normal people have. Most known example when they say liberation they think occupation. Or when they occupy a country, they say they liberated it (I'll get back to this in a minute). It's like Orwell's 1984: war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
For the communist there's two types of war. An aggressive unjust, and a defensive just. An imperialist state only can wage unjust wars, all they do is aggression, oppressed states, oppressed people's war however always just. Oppressed people, the proletariat, defends and liberates itself through these wars. And when the Soviet Union attacks a country, normal people (the reactionary imperialist oppressors) only see a sovereign country attacking another sovereign country and occupying it (like it happened with the Baltic states) but for the communist it's just the proletariat liberates itself from another country's bourgeois oppression. Because for the communist not one nation exists (he is internationalist) only proletarians and bourgeois, he sees the whole world's proletariat one body whereupon the imperialists built their states separating them from each other. In the Soviet Union there's no bourgeois so they have the arms for the self liberation of the workers in other countries.
So when the communists talked about preparing for defense that didn't meant they prepared for defending their own country, but defending the proletariat from the imperialist aggression, the proletariat of Europe, west from the Soviet Union. Translated to normal people's language: they prepared to attack Germany.

What I really don't like in Suvorovs book is the abhorrent way of handling sources. He gives a Bibliography, but no footnotes or endnotes. He frequently use inline source notations but only for quotes or other lines where he paraphrase something. He presents a bunch of data without any support, for example the talks about the BT tanks and their capabilities but doesn't give anything where he got these details. Ofc I can look it up in other books if he talks about legit stuff, or on that site Turkish Bernd posted, but wtf, these things supposed to be there.

I soon finish the Icebreaker, I'm at somewhere in the last chapter. Supposedly, as I have it in two formats, probably different editions, or rather different edits, and what I read might missing a chapter and the "Conclusion".
So I already mentioned I don't like how badly he treats the sources, but there's something else. Sometimes he uses superlatives, inflates certain aspects of the circumstances to make more believable what he writes.
Nevertheless he puts forward many arguments, might be worthy to check the truth of them if it's possible.
One more thing: he gives the date of the Soviet attack, and that's July 6, 1941. He builds some reasoning behind but it feels flimsy.

>>22744
Heh, was on the last page.

>>22744
>July 6, 1941
How does he explain it?

>>22784
It was Sunday.

>>22785
That's his reason for why Stalin would initiate his drive towards the Pyrenees on that day?

>>22786
Yes.
So basically the most of the book is partially about that the attack would start sometimes summer, not even in autumn. The Soviet military buildup culminated in the spring of '41, and the established two echelons, a bigger first one which main job was seizing/destroying the Romanian oil fields while simultaneously driving a punch into Germany, then the smaller second echelon could arrive and drive further to the west (with the start of the war mobilization would follow gaining millions of soldiers, and the new units would have been equipped by all those factories which were captured/destroyed by the war in our timeline by the Germans).
The concentration of the Second Strategic Echelon would have been completed on July 10. But the Soviet military theory ordains that the offense should start before the completion of this. And "Zhukov and Stalin liked to deliver their surprise strikes on Sunday mornings". The last Sunday before 10 July was on the 6th.
A certain General Ivanov said: "The German troops succeeded in forestalling us literally by two weeks".

>>22788
Oh and the reason why they should attack earlier is that the second echelon could be hauled by trains into the already captured enemy territory, so it could faster arrive to the front.

>>22788
>General Ivanov
Most likely this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semyon_Ivanov

>>22790
Yeah it's that guy.
From the book:
General of the Army, Simion Pavlovich Ivanov, then a colonel in charge of the operations branch of the 13th Army headquarters
The date of 10 July was written by Suvorov like this:
...The Soviet troop movements began in February. They were stepped up in March, reached enormous proportions in April and May, and became truly all-embracing in June. These movements involved those divisions which had already been moved up close to the German frontier; those which were preparing to invade Iran; and those which had remained in the Far East. The full build-up of Soviet troops on the German frontier was planned to have been completed by 10 july.
He accredit this data to General Ivanov, and gives the source: ''Nachalnyi Period
Voiny, Moscow Voenizdat 1974, p. 211'', but he doesn't quote him (at other places he does) so I dunno which part of this was actually written by Ivanov. Maybe just the date.

>>22801

Here is that part of Ivanov's book (in Russian though): http://militera.lib.ru/science/npv/08.html

He says that phrase (two weeks) about movement and redeployment of Soviet forces that started some time before the war as answer to German forces movement.

>>22803
Awesome!
Here's the date.
"Переброска войск из внутренних округов осуществлялась железнодорожным транспортом с соблюдением маскировки и без нарушения графика движения мирного времени. Войска должны были завершить сосредоточение в заранее намеченные районы с 1 июня по 10 июля 1941 г."
According to google translate, this says:
The transfer of troops from the internal districts was carried out by railway transport with observance of masking and without violating the schedule of peacetime. The troops were supposed to complete concentration in prearranged areas from June 1 to July 10, 1941.
"observance of masking" I would go with: "cover" or "cover story" or something.
Breddy gud.

Maybe I'm quiet nowadays but started to gather the arguments of the Icebreaker, to make a tl;dr sum. It takes longer than I thought.

>>22998
>"Joey Steel"

Imagine the pain Russians and Ukraine would have avoided if the camera man there had blasted that kikes brains all over the wall.

Too bad, no guts, they took a lot of pictures of their own decimation.

>>23003
>kikes
Georgian. He was America's fault all along.
Made me wonder how different things would have played out if someone removed him. From here they were all sack of shits, one more deranged then the other and schemers all. Was he really an unreplaceable evil genius? Khrushchev seems like a grey mouse compared, but maybe the times made him look different, he played an other role. But back then, after Lenin death there was still Trotsky too and many more who later was erased.
Ofc the question can be asked if the "great historical figures" shape history or is it made of impersonal processes that flow on their course.

>>23008
Georgian jews are one of the oldest ethnic groups in Georgia, dating back to the captivity by Babylon. What makes you think Yosef Jugashvili wasn't one?

>>23009
Actchually I don't need to disprove something what needs to be proved first. I'm not the one with the burden of proofs.

>>23008

WTF is that shit I am not even clicking on that crap. Looks like something your kid drew?! My parrot makes better memes and he is legless and blind.

As to OP's question, well duh, of course it was a Jewish trick, and that's why it is so satisfying to pull out of Syria and let Russia and Israel knock the shit out of each other because they can't co exist without the USA as a foil. Watch what happens.

Russia will invade Israel right after they invade Turkey. Well, between Israel and Russia, it's a race to conquer Turkey. I say USA stays out of it, this is not our fight.

>>23011
Does he paint with his feet?

>>23010
Well, the truth is that there's no actual proof he was one, just speculation.

>>23013
I've never heard/read any speculation about him being a Jew. He pretty much was suspicious of the Jews for their conspiratory nature and banding together. Heard somewhere he accused Kaganovich that he is a Jew first and communist only second. He was anti-zionist and anti-Israel. I've no idea how speculations could exist about him.
About Hitler, I know of it. About Mao, that too.

I've found an essay on the subject from a source that is naturally biased towards concluding that he's a Jew, but ultimately rejects the thesis:
https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/11/was-stalin-jewish-and-does-it-matter/

Most of the arguments for his Jewishness are onomastic, pointing to his and his close ones' names as evidence. However, a closer look at etymologies show those claims are very weak.

>Turning to Mr. Tarrell’s article as a cogent point of reference, his first contention is that Stalin, born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzugashvili, had been given a name that would have been unthinkable for a non-Jew in Czarist Russia: Iosip (Joseph).[4] The question arises, however, as to why the christening of Gentiles with Old Testament names in Czarist Russian would be “unthinkable,” since the Orthodox Russian tradition is also drawn from the Old Testament? Rather, Iosip is a variation of Iosif, which is the Russian, Romanian, and Greek form of Joseph.[5] Another Russian variation is Osip. The “p” in Iosip can be found in various European languages. The Hebrew version is rendered as Yosef.[6]

>Terrall states of Stalin’s given middle name, Vissarionovich, that “there is evidence that the name Vissarion is a Jewish name. For example, Vissarion Bielinsky was a Jewish writer in Russia…”[11] Vissarion is derived from Greek, Bessarion, and means “who he gives new life.” His father’s name was spelled Besarion.

>The primary case for Stalin’s alleged Jewish origins is that his name Dzugashvili (variant: Jughashvili) means “son of a Jew” in Georgian, Dzu supposedly meaning “Jew.” Terrall states a relatively widely believed claim that “Dzu means Jew.” However, according to Montefieore, the name means “son of Juga.” Montefiroe states that the name is derived either from Ossetian, meaning “herd” or Georgian (djuga) meaning “steel.”[12] The latter Georgian meaning would surely account for the adoption of “Stalin,” “Man of Steel,” by Iosif Vissarionovich.

>Stalin’s great grandson, Jacob Jugashvili, writes:

>There is no word Jew for Jews in the Georgian language. . . . Jew in Georgian is Ebraeli, so the theory of “son of a Jew” (which is very tempting considering our name in light of its English spelling) is simply, wrong.[13]

>Of this “Jew” sounding part of the name, Jacob Jugashvili explains that usually the surname is written is Russian as Dzhugashvili because there is no “j” in the Russian alphabet, so Russian uses the letters “d” and “zh.”[14]

>>23011
>Russia will invade Israel right after they invade Turkey. Well, between Israel and Russia, it's a race to conquer Turkey.
Nothing will happen at all. Bibi, Erdo and Putin have other concerns.

>>23015
>Does it Matter?
Every detail matters. Maybe future historians with a different angle, different mindset than we have will need the data if he was or wasn't. But ofc this can be said about everything.
More important question: what did he gain from making his Jewish origin a secret if he was?

>>23008
>Made me wonder how different things would have played out if someone removed him.

It depends on time and who would replace him. For example, Beria was a pretty liberal person (in original sense of course) and may do many different reforms to USSR, although he was part of Stalin's team and would be removed from power at any anti-Stalin coup (and it happened).

Considering Stalin's Jewishness - it is hard to tell. Of course there is always a theory that every ruler of USSR/Russia (and not only) was a Jew. But for Stalin proofs are pretty weak (Khazarian ancestry, Jewish wifes, "Koba" nickname), although it is debatable, and many proofs look suspicious.

>>23021
>Beria was a pretty liberal person (in original sense of course) and may do many different reforms to USSR
Even decades prior to his death?

>every ruler of USSR/Russia (and not only) was a Jew.
Some joge, when two Jews are having a chat and one says he reads anti-Semitic newspapers.
- Why? - asks the other.
- Full of good news! According to this we rule the world!

>>23011
>Russia will invade Israel right after they invade Turkey
Putin and Netanyahu aren't even enemies though. The only reason they've been clashing is because of Syria.

>>23028
>>Beria was a pretty liberal person (in original sense of course) and may do many different reforms to USSR
>Even decades prior to his death?

It is hard to say. In 1937 he stopped mass scale repressions. In 1953 he released million of prisoners, banned prisoners torture, had an initiative to remove passport controls etc. Maybe it was only a way to survive in post-Stalin world (and looks like it was only this).

It didn't help him and he was shot though.

Considering possibility of death of Stalin - yes, it is pretty complex question, who would be leader and how history would turn. Pre-purge and pre-war commie party was pretty much different compared to post-war.

It is common concept that person couldn't shape history, and turning points of historical process is inevitable (especially in Soviet historiographical paradigm), but I don't think so (although can't prove this of course). Maybe even miss of that guy in 1914 could prevent the war and change history completely.

>>23037
How these guys of pre-Khrushchev era (with Khrushchev since he was active participant those times) are treated in Russia now? How they teach about them, what's the "official" state opinion, how people think about them?
I know in Germany Hitler is treated literally worse than Hitler, but certain military figures, even the SS, gets better treatment, acknowledging their military accomplishments is somewhat more socially acceptable. I also know about many Russian's nostalgic feelings toward the SU, and the ban of the movie Death of Stalin.

>>23040
So Russia is still in the phase when she can't say the shit is stinky. Not an easy position. Also those proverbial chairs are really uncomfortable.
Slowly generations who lived in the communist era will start to die out, and only those remain who were born after the collapse. Since they will only know the current system they won't have nostalgic feelings toward the SU. On the other hand they could gain an idealized, glorified picture of CCCP which has not much common with the reality. It would be important to give them a knowledge which is closer the the latter.

>>23046
>Slowly generations who lived in the communist era will start to die out, and only those remain who were born after the collapse. Since they will only know the current system they won't have nostalgic feelings toward the SU. On the other hand they could gain an idealized, glorified picture of CCCP which has not much common with the reality.

It already works as in second case - the most pro-Soviet people are people who didn't really lived in USSR and have some strange utopian image of it. Of course there are pensioners who still think about "old times", but they aren't really USSR-lovers as media portrays them.

And modern state of the world also brings questions, i.e. if everything is going into unfunny shit (especially Europe, that was beacon of good life for Russians for ages), it is attractive to question current system (i.e. globalistic capitalism) and support some alternative. USSR is the closest alternative thing that average Russian (and not only Russian) could imagine.

>>23049
Right now Europe is still doing fine all considered. In every day and age were always warning voices and the future always looked uncertain. Right now too, only the challenges we face are different. How we perceive things the media has strong influence on it - if we, personally don't follow media outlets so much, those whom we interact with still do and they relay it -, otherwise we just see a little slice of the world day by day. If Europe is a model example for Russia then the Russian media should be careful with the picture it paints for the people. Tho the best propaganda machine is the one which can turn people's opinion in a minute from friendly to hostile and back on demand.

All right. So I've finished the book twice, made nice notes. And here's a tl;dr list of Suvorov arguments. Their order is mine.
1. Change in military doctrine: from "defense in depth" to "deep operation" or "Soviet Deep Battle".
2. Military buildup - the creation of the First and Second Strategic Echelons.
3. Composition of the First and Second Strategic Echelon.
4. The offensive nature of military equipment.
5. Preparation for the sovietization of occupied territories.
6. The offensive mentality in training of the armed forces.
7. The relation between placement, composition of the units and the new doctrine.
8. Unusual tidbits - just evaluate them from an offensive point of view, they will make sense.
9. Obsolescence - certain equipment and formations became obsolete with the start of Barbarossa.
10. Only offensive plans were made.
11. The impossibility of keeping this force together for a longer period of time.
12. They know the Germans will attack but they thought later.
13. "Warnings" (of Churchill and Sorge's) were useless.
14. Motivation - the ideology behind the planned offense, the world revolution, long term planning.

Except for the last four I have a few short paragraphs written for each. I just wanted to load up something because I promised to do so this week. These lines above first meant to be as titles so some I had to change and may not be the best. In the next few days I want to give the short versions of them too, I hope that will make it clearer.
Also some things might missing, or should be changed.
While the essence will come later, Bernd, you could start add your onions or guess what are these points about really.

>>23429
Hmm, I might should have added these:
15. They weren't idiots.
16. Not everything is stupidity what we don't understand.

I'll move on with two points per day. This will give me time to refine each a little bit and finish the ones I still haven't written.

>>23450

Both of these points may be explained (at least partially) by few arguments:

First, it was obvious that war is near, and tensions of late 30s only grew higher and higher. We need to remember that in isn't 2000s, not even 70s, when armies became overly mobile (mass mechanization + better rail/road network) and more effective (less people, more heavy weapons). In 40s armies still need much time to move and deploy, and they all about manpower. First world war that had tremendous amounts of forces ended 20 years ago, and military theorists still believed that it may go in same route. So, moving forces closely to border and militarization is a obvious move in these times. Upgrading equipment is also a thing, especially when you are worse than your future opponent (and Germany had modern industry plus all of Europe as backup)

Second, Soviet leadership may be deluded by it's own ideas. They weren't idiots of course, but when ideologists constantly say that your political and economical system is more progressive and modern than other, it is easy to believe that you also couldn't lose. So, after initial enemy attack, brave communist forces would crush everyone and go into offensive to liberate struggling western proletariat. That is why it ended with more offensive than defensive doctrine. It is also logical that you need to do offenses even in defensive situations (i.e. counterattacks), because being only defensive and passive is a way to lose even with weaker enemy.
Success in conflict with Japan gave more confidence to USSR, then we had seen what happened with overconfident Soviets in Finnish war. That war also gave another reason to amass more forces and speed up equipment upgrades.

I also want to notice that all these doctrines and theories are less relevant than military theorists think (of course they care about it much, it is their work). In reality strategy is more opportunistic, it is obvious that you need to strike into weak spots and continue to increase successful army movement. Both sides know it and prevent enemy from gaining ground and using your weakness, so real operations are more messy and chaotic overall, more depending on situation than on predefined concepts from books.

>>23454
Thanks for playing the devil's advocate. I had a helluva day I'm gonna reply a little later in a bit more length.
Suvorov many times pull out the official (because where every uni and research institute is state owned and the government decides what to teach there really is an official history) explanations of certain "ideologically uncomfortable" events, and arguments supporting the "we din doo nuttin" attitude. I might have to make a new list for this, kek.
As you previously expressed you too think the Soviet would have attacked but later, maybe in 1942. I gave a reply what I found (the 6 July 1941 date) and what supports it, but there is something else, will be in the list ofc.

>>23454
One more thought and then I go and lose my consciousness until tomorrow. I hope.
The Germans did the same as the Soviet. They had a defense line at the Oder but then with capturing half of Poland they abandoned it and when the time came they started to move all units to the Soviet border. Why? Because they wanted to attack the Soviet Union. Noone questions that, since that's what happened. But let's say the Soviet attacked first, how stupid the Germans would looked like?

The next two.

3. Composition of the First and Second Strategic Echelon.
Every army in the First Strategic Echelon was complemented their regular units differently. They were boosted with mechanized corps with large amount of tanks (16 corps each with at least 1000 tanks) and motorized infantry. Mechanized corps are the main tool of punching a hole in the enemy lines.
Beside the unusual high number airborne assault units marines were also set up. Both are worse than regular infantry in defense but has very particular use in offense.
Mountain units were transferred to places where they were useless in defense (the steppes of Ukraine) but across the border there were the Carpathians.


4. The offensive nature of military equipment.
It's common to view the Soviet weaponry subpar compared to German but it was the other way around. In two instances the criticism seems valid but looking at it closer and from another angle it doesn't seem bad.
First the BT tank family, built by the thousands, since the T-34 and KV-1 were objectively superior anything the Germans could field. The BTs had better armor and weapons then most German tanks however the performance - not just on difficult terrain but on the flat Mongolian steppes - lacked. But it's most notable feat was speed, not on terrain but on paved roads it could move like lightning. The tracks could have left behind and could roll on wheels. The SU lacked paved roads, but further west, Europe had lot, especially Germany.
Second the Soviet airplanes. They weren't as fast or maneuverable as the German planes, they had however massive firepower. Their use - according to Soviet doctrines - wasn't clashing with enemy air force but to destroy enemy planes with a surprise strike while they were on the ground. For this task they were glorious. Obviously this task can only been done if the war isn't ongoing but starting with the first strike.
Beside the regular aircrafts tons of gliders were built some could carry heavy weapons, trucks. Only use is bringin airborne forces behind enemy lines.

>>23470
>Their ideology propelled them to go forward and "liberate the proletariat" there. And they wouldn't stop there since their main targets were the western countries - they told so in their publications since the Great Revolution.

Stalin slowly downplayed the World Revolution thing, and in the end it was "we can build socialism in one country". Loss in Spanish war also put some skepticism in.

>More reason just to keep with Stalin Line to defend the country. It was also for slowing down enemy and give time to bring in reinforcement.

But overconfidence brings other reason - having defenses far from border means losing territory until glorious Red Army goes into liberating counterattack. Having forces near border means that no land would be given to invaders.

>Also this counter-attack part didn't exist in any heads. As you mentioned WWI was very fresh in the memories they didn't really know how a mobile warfare would play, so concentrating mechanized forces for a counter-attack and develop that into a breakthrough (and then develop that into deep battle) is a very alien thought

It is pretty complex question. Yes, WWI was in memory, and generals always prepare to previous war, but interwar times had pretty serious change in strategies. Especially with introduction of mass tank armies, that were synonym of mobile warfare. Would anyone invest in so much tanks if they had old-style trench warfare in mind?

>>23498
>They were boosted with mechanized corps with large amount of tanks (16 corps each with at least 1000 tanks) and motorized infantry. Mechanized corps are the main tool of punching a hole in the enemy lines.

Soviets thought that mechanization is the future, offensive or defensive, doesn't matter. Every operation has tactical and strategical offensives. Mechanized units are versatile, they are better overall than any pure-infantry ones. WWI legacy also influenced this - everyone remembered that lack of maneuverability was biggest problem, even successful breaching of enemy lines often resulted in nothing, because forces couldn't achieve success before enemy moved reserves. But now it could be fixed.

>4. The offensive nature of military equipment.

Yes, this is often used as main argument for Suvorov's supporters, especially about BT series of tanks. But we'll seen that pre-war military thought was more theoretical than practical, and fast wheeled tank may be seen as universal solution, not only offensive. Reality proved that it isn't true, and BT wasn't good at all, but who would know this before big war?

T-34 wasn't fully ready in 1941 and wasn't that good. KV is different story, it is heavy tank. Everyone had heavy tanks (excluding Germans for some reason that I don't know), and comparing them to average common tank isn't a proper thing. Light tanks were workhorses of armies until mid of war, and Soviet light tanks (mostly BT) weren't much superior.

>The SU lacked paved roads

Main part of SU - western - had enough roads to support army movement, and no one really considered warfare in Siberia or somewhere. Before evacuation of 1941, east part of Russia was even less developed than now.

>Second the Soviet airplanes. They weren't as fast or maneuverable as the German planes, they had however massive firepower.

Overall they were just bad. There were plenty of experimental concepts and planned future models, but they weren't good match for German planes. Soviet air fleet was underequipped and had serious problems with pilots.

>>23502
>5. Preparation for the sovietization of occupied territories.
>After that they weren't dismissed and disarmed, but new units were formed. Brigades, divisions and even a corps.

Because territories weren't fully "pacified" in 1941. For example, Western Ukraine and Baltic states had local insurgents even in late 40s, even after war and waves of occupation. And of course USSR would want to sovetize everything, as empire-like state.

Purges and action against anti-soviet elements in own society also gave fuel to rising political pressure. There was constant struggle with "internal enemy".

They weren't disbanded later too. Officially NKVD forces were so kind of police, but in reality there were police part and army part (so called "internal forces") that lived well until the end of USSR and then later. They had APCs, tanks and air forces (mostly helicopters), used conscription to fill ranks (compared to police part that had separate colleges and universities).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Troops_of_Russia

For example, they did serious work in Chechen war. For many reasons army can't act inside of country every time, but these guys could.

>>23507
>"we can build socialism in one country"
But not that was happened. First they got the Baltics, part of Romania, Poland, tried Finaland. Later got half of Europe. Even Yugo became communist. Then China, North Korea. The whole Cold War was about turning third world into communist.
>losing territory
That was the strategy for Russia for centuries. They weren't queasy losing masses of people, they done that in peace too, supposing they were feared to lose land (what would be recaptured anyway - overconfidence can whisper that in their ears too) isn't reasonable.
>Would anyone invest in so much tanks if they had old-style trench warfare in mind?
No, they had attack in mind. This is why Soviet had about five times more tanks than the Germans.

>Soviets thought that mechanization is the future, offensive or defensive, doesn't matter.
The 9. point about Obsolecence is partly about this question. After the German attack mechanized corps were disbanded. Because they were useless for them in defense, they become obsolete with the Barbarossa.
>Reality proved that it isn't true, and BT wasn't good at all, but who would know this before big war?
BT was tried at Kalkhin-Gol and it wasn't good on terrain. It was supposed to be use on paved roads, what the west didn't lack.
>T-34 [...] wasn't that good.
That's relative. Compared to German tanks it was fine.
>enough roads
Maybe railways. Even on freshly liberated countries there wasn't enough. Favors defense. It only needed minefields, anti-tank trenches and such. But they didn't constructed such things. With the lead of Zhukov they reinforced bridges and built many kms of roads and railway - exactly to help transport troops to west for an offensive.
>airplains
These support Suvorov. All the disadvantage of the air force can be disregarded if they strike first and catch Luftwaffe on the ground. And as Suvorov wrote: this cannot be done during war, only during peace.

>>23508
But new formations were sent to the armies which then moved right up to the frontier (in June). They did no cleansing activity. Then After Barbarossa begun these OSNAZ divisions were transformed into regular infantry divisions (also 9. Obsolescence).

7. The relation between placement, composition of the units and the new doctrine the "deep operation".
The "deep operation" described the military buildup, groupment and offensive strike as one, fluent process. A theoretical attack like this should go something like this: 1. set up the first echelon; 2a. move them into position, 2b. set up the second echelon; 3a. start the first echelon's attack, 3b. move the second echelon into position; 4a. first echelon stops exhausted, 4b. second echelon arrives and starts it's attack. Something like this, but even more fluent.
In reality the *b. line of events went a half-phase earlier - as I said more fluently. The Second Strategic Echelon (SSE from now on) was started to set up while the first finished forming, and moved while the First Strategic Echelon (FSE from now on) was at the end of it's move. But both still was in the movement phase when the German attack came - but the SSE was in the right time to move in when a supposed attack of the FSE could begin, a couple of weeks later.
One army, the 9th was particularly strengthened, this unit was on the Romanian frontier - in the reach of the German Achilles' heel, the precious oil. The closest way to Germany was through the late Poland. But the stronger wing of the Soviet Army - in terms of attack (airborne units were grouped there) - was on the left, in the south next to Romania. At the entrance of the Danube Delta the Danube Flotilla was stationed, in a very open positioned but from here they could reach quickly to the oil fields.
A special rifle corps in Crimea was preparing for landing assaults from ships, and an airborne corps had also exercises at the same time (on 18-19 June 41) also in Crimea. The most logical place where they could execute similar actions in "live" is Romania.
Two army was complemented with mountain divisions, the Carpathians run in two directions from Soviet territory: toward the Romanian oilfields and toward Austria. Along both lines the German access to the oil could be cut.
From the beginning of June 1941 the FSE units were moved right up to the border, while the SSE was concentrated behind. For the combined arms strike the air force was also moved to aerodromes close the frontier (40-120 km's so they could strike deep into enemy territory). The culmination - the attack - never came, the Germans struck first.

8. Unusual tidbits - just evaluate them from an offensive point of view, they will make sense.
Like the Plinsk Flotilla in the middle of the marshes of Belarus or the previously mentioned mountaineers. They all have their use if we assume they were prepared for attack, they were placed there for a reason.
In case of the Plinsk Flotilla it's existence become clear when the canal, which was built from Plinsk to Kobrin, from the Dnieper to the Bug, is pointed out. They could sail up on it and go on offense. After the German attack the canal was blown up and the Flotilla was disbanded. But the canal was redug when the tables turned, a flotilla was formed, and moved up on that canal. The units of this flotilla was seen the end of the war in Berlin - attacking from that position wasn't a fool thing.
Ammo, equipment and fuel was kept close to the border, often on railroad cars where they were vulnerable, but it is advantageous during an offensive campaign, easier to move it after the advancing troops. Especially when the enemy has no time to destroy railroad lines, because caught by surprise with the attack.
As the FSE occupied it's place in the frontier the commanders from upstairs came to the front and reconnoitered the land in front of them personally. For weeks, very thoroughly. Some command posts were set up so they can see the other side of the border well. High ranking leaders flew over German territory to see what's up below. They said they did it accidentally. Observing the land in front of the units only needed for an offensive war. On defense the land behind needs to be sized up. Btw German commanders did the same.
Stalin becoming the head of government on 6 May 1941. This was a highly unusual event. He did everything to keep himself away from responsibility. He built an extremely centralized hierarchy with himself on the top but he always remained out of the spotlight, made decisions but relegated the responsibility. As we say it, he liked to slap the stinging nettle with someone else's dick. With this move now he stepped out into the lights, it was unusual for him. But there weren't a reason for it, no internal, no external. But one day before came the "5 May directive". The plans in a red envelope that was sent to every army HQ and put into a safe with the command: wait for the order to open it, and do what it says. He was meant to give this order as a head of the government, in the open watched by the whole world. He wanted to be remembered as the person who gave the order that started the liberation of Europe, or even the World.

>>23517
>But not that was happened. First they got the Baltics, part of Romania, Poland, tried Finaland. Later got half of Europe. Even Yugo became communist. Then China, North Korea. The whole Cold War was about turning third world into communist.

But this wasn't World Revolution that original bolsheviks demanded. Most of these countries were occupied in power play between big countries. Only former parts of Russian Empire and neighbors got "the communism", others had just "friendly socialistic governments" that could move pretty far from traditional political line. As analogy - modern US surely pulls countries like Iraq and Afghanistan into their sphere of influence by installing local "democratic" governments, but this isn't really an export of US capitalistic system, just power grab.

>>losing territory
>That was the strategy for Russia for centuries. They weren't queasy losing masses of people, they done that in peace too, supposing they were feared to lose land (what would be recaptured anyway - overconfidence can whisper that in their ears too) isn't reasonable.

But they were. Losing land is pretty painful for oversized imperial ego of many people. Even annexation of small Crimea (that already had almost open border with Russia before) made everyone forgot about any economical and political problem.

>BT was tried at Kalkhin-Gol and it wasn't good on terrain. It was supposed to be use on paved roads, what the west didn't lack.

And Khalkhin-Gol proved that BT isn't a future, so they stopped designing wheeled tanks. Maybe it was just an interwar error? It is also not fair to say that BT was purely a road tank. It was an average light tank, and wheel-moving was an addition.

>>airplains
>These support Suvorov. All the disadvantage of the air force can be disregarded if they strike first and catch Luftwaffe on the ground.

But this can be explained just by technological inferiority. They just couldn't build good planes.

>>23573

Considering placement and such: Zhukov, for example, states that Soviet command expected attack on south side through Ukraine and explains concentration of forces there. There is no way to protect Ukraine without amassing forces near Romania also. And, of course, having forces grouped somewhere also works as limiting factor to the opponent - it would see that USSR is properly defended.

Of course it is easy to support both way of thought here, just because having large forces somewhere may mean that they would attack soon. But this doesn't prove that attack is planned (at least in near future). As I wrote before, USSR thought that it can crush any offense without losing land, and placing everyone far from border doesn't work when it is planned to win border fight. No one expected that Soviet army will be crushed so fast, so no one thought that USSR need to place more forces far from border. It is easy to see mistakes while having modern knowledge, but before war both sides had wrong estimations.

>>23573
>Observing the land in front of the units only needed for an offensive war.

But having any information is always better than having none.

Actually, Suvorov often criticized for incorrect work with sources and doing pretty wide assumptions from nothing. For example, many of military units he described weren't real units but non-mobilized forces that had people only on paper, and in reality had only command structures. For example, 9th army in Bessarabia existed in 1940 but not in 1941, and was formed again after start of the war. Suvorov wrote that this army was ready to strike into Romania.

There is some pretty popular critique of Suvorov's work, I don't know if it had any translation into English, but maybe even google translate is enough. It is short and mostly covers "Icebreaker". There were another books from this author, but they are more generic about the war.

http://militera.lib.ru/research/isaev_av1/index.html

He has opposite political position though, so he is also biased, but without sensationalism.

>>23578
>Soviet command expected attack on south side through Ukraine and explains concentration of forces there.
Fugate mentions this from the Axis perspective on his book on Operation Barbarossa. The Germans did entertain the idea of concentrating their strength on the right (southern) arm to take advantage of its flat and open terrain, but dismissed the idea and focused on the northern flank because they expected difficulties in sending supplies from Germany to the Ukraine via Southeastern Europe.

>>23578
>>23579
Well the SU spent almost 50 years to make innocent victim out of herself and today's Russia also cultivates that line of the argument (tho now voices can tell otherwise - I assume -, previously they couldn't). Enormous amount of literature presents the events as preparation for defence. So one has to read between the lines and see the data and re-evaluate them. I think Suvorov did that.
I also criticized his handling of the sources above somewhere. For a historian this is a side he/she can attack. But most (if not all) what he wrote is verifiable with research, tho some parts of it will be only available for those who take it seriously (such as professionals) or willing to put it much effort (and go to Russia and tries to look into archives which aren't necessarily available for the public). But this is the case with works of professional historians, frequently can't verify the things they say with online queries (be it duckduckgoing or getting a book from libgen or an older source from archive.org). I also should note, giving precise sources not necessarily mean correct presentation, said historians too on not one occasion refer to a source and write the opposite of it - or worse.

But let me put the summary differently:
One basic goal of communist is Taking Over the World. Of Course!
Stalin was a megalomaniac desired to Take Over the World. Of Course!
They had a doctrine with true attacking spirit.
They built up the army so it can carry out this attack.
They placed the units in a suitable positions to carry out this attack.
They had equipment designed to carry out this attack.
The personnel's training exercises prepared them to carry out this attack.
They prepared the sovietization of Europe.
Then these well known notorious liars say they just wanted to defend themselves - and we believe it because they said so.
I think the intention of Suvorov's book is something like this - I excluded the question of the supposed date of the attack - and he really has a point there.

That's been said naturally I'll reply and continue.

>>23600
It's my wrong ball. I accidentally the left when I should the right.

Hello!

>>23579
Thanks. When I dl'd the .rar there and try extract I get an error.
Couldn't find it in English on libgen. I wonder if it's ever published in Hungarian, will check.

>>23578
They can always fall back to permanent revolution. Today we're helping the soc-dems. Tomorrow we'll change them to socialists, after that we'll dismiss them for communists.
They produced BTs right up to Barbarossa. Even made upgrades (on paper or irl I dunno).
Il-2 wasn't a bad plane tho - for example. It just wasn't a fighter. The lameness of weaponry is somewhat overplayed, and in case of Germany equipment the excellence is overestimated.

Here's the next point (I have to work more on the 10th):
9. Obsolescence - certain equipment and formations became obsolete with the start of Barbarossa due their offensive nature.
The previously mentioned BTs and airplanes were only good in a very particular situation. Barbarossa prevented to exploit their strength and showed their weakness. And this was the time when abandoned the development of the BTs and started to favour T-34 and heavier models.
Mechanized corps were disbanded because their use was to pierce through enemy lines during the first strike, and not holding a defensive line, holding the front together.
Political troops were also transformed into regular infantry units. On defense they weren't needed.

10. Only offensive plans were made.
For starters I have to mention the deep operation doctrine, I already told it's highly offensive nature.
They created plans but there were none defensive among them because when the Germans attacked they didn't just pull out and used the one which were made for this case. The Soviet high-command had to improvise and come up with new plans. And when they sent the first directives these still weren't defensive in nature but still offensive. Cautious, restrictive but offensive. Because this is what they could build upon so suddenly.
The original plans were sent out with the 5 May directive. It was ordered to wait for the signal and use the content of the envelope. However in a defensive war there is no need for waiting the instructions as the defense starts automatically. And it starts not from the highest ranks (not the high command notices first that the enemy attacks) but from the lowest (the soldiers on the field is alerted first by the projectiles flying towards him).
If there were defensive or counter-offensive plans the German attack couldn't have disrupted these (and the Soviet plans were disrupted, that's why they had to figure out new ones right at the moment) it would just put them in effect.

>>23614

I don't think this was even translated to English, at least I couldn't find it easily.

Although there are western critique of Suvorov too, from Glantz for example.

>>23623
>They can always fall back to permanent revolution.

But permanent revolution is a trotskism, and Trotsky is the enemy of USSR. At least in late 30s.

Of course all this just words, if Stalin had a chance to control, for example, UK via revolution, he'll sure would use it, be it trotskism or not. But then all discussions about ideology becoming futile.

>They produced BTs right up to Barbarossa. Even made upgrades (on paper or irl I dunno).
>Il-2 wasn't a bad plane tho - for example. It just wasn't a fighter. The lameness of weaponry is somewhat overplayed, and in case of Germany equipment the excellence is overestimated.

Il-2 was pretty good plane, considering cost, simplicity and effectiveness. But it wasn't really ready in early 41.

Considering BT - Suvorov overestimates offensive potential of these tanks. Wheeled movement was considered a solution to low tracks lifespan that was problem of tanks of that period, and wheels were good solution. Other solution was using a tank transporter (that is actually used even today for same reason), but Soviet industry couldn't made enough of them while country needs every piece of machinery (including civilian tractors for mass industrialization). Dilemma was having 1 tank and 1 transport vs having 2 tanks. USSR had shortage of tanks (considering size of country and strength of enemies), so 2-tanks way was chosen.

I'll link to Isaev here too: https://translate.google.ru/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmilitera.lib.ru%2Fresearch%2Fisaev_av1%2F06.html

>>23658
>Suvorov overestimates offensive potential of these tanks
I don't think so. Their main use wasn't forcing a breakthrough, but after breakthrough when vulnerable targets had to be attacked behind the front lines and when connection with landed airborne units had to be established and secured.

>>23658
>Glantz
For now I only found this:
"The Myth of Stalin’s Preventative War:
On 15 May 1941, General G, K. Zhukov, then Chief of the Red Army General Staff, sent Stalin a proposal for a preventative offensive against German forces concentrating in Eastern Poland. Although Defense Commissar S. K. Timoshenko initialed the proposal, there is no evidence either that Stalin saw it or acted upon it. The proposal and other fragmentary evidence provides the basis for recent claims that Stalin indeed intended to conduct a preventative war against Germany beginning in July 1941 and that Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa preempted Stalin’s intended actions.
Current evidence refutes that assertion. As subsequent events and archival evidence proves, the Red Army was in no condition to wage war in the summer of 1941 either offensively or, as the actual course of combat indicated, defensively."
In: The Soviet-German War, 1941-1945 - Myths and Realities p.23.
Since he's specialized in the Red Army he has tons of books and publications. True without much diligence but will continue my searches.

So basically that's about Suvorov. I'll look into this >>23579 book but I'm not promising anything I'm little fed up with WWII right now. Tomorrow 15th March, national holiday, I'm planning something related to post as always.

>>23676
>11. The impossibility of keeping this force together for a longer period of time.

You are overestimating effect of army numbers on Soviet economy. Agricultural economy in late 30s was pretty much ok (for USSR) and there were plenty of manpower available even with large army. War proved that reserves were pretty big, and even after first mobilizations country was still relatively ok. Only after all mobilizations and loss of main agricultural regions USSR started to get problems, but even they were solved. Considering industry - USSR could restart everything after evacuation and power only grew in time, especially in late war periods.

>Many units were ordered to quickly erect some barracks. Then they were moved out of their temporary quarters to the frontier, where everyone got into tents. IN parallel with this the units of the SSE started to arrive but they weren't billeted in the barracks FSE left behind also were placed into tents.

That just common Soviet mismanagement. Mismanagement is a trait of commies anyway. For example, nuclear sub fleet suffered supply problems even in 80s. Ports at North Sea didn't had proper power, so subs often stayed with working reactors and their lifetime was seriously shortened. And this happened in 80s, not in 40s.

>12. They know the Germans will attack but they thought later.
>So the GRU monitored this and while more and more German units were grouped to the border they reported the Germans weren't preparing for an attack because they weren't producing the material they would need to fight a war against the SU.

There were plenty of reports about forces movement, and movement of Soviet forces in early 1941 was and reaction to this. But yes, high government didn't believe that Germany would attack.

>>23757
>You are overestimating
I'm not. That's what the Icebreaker says.
>That just common Soviet mismanagement
It sounds like a systematic thing.
>There were plenty of reports about forces movement
Yes there were, still they didn't consider it a threat because they thought it wasn't a preparation for attack (the Germans could have prepared for defence as well). The thing is both sides went through the same motions as if there were a mirror between them (the regrouping to the frontier, the commanders' reconnoitering, the obvious and spectacular buildings of fortifications etc.)
>movement of Soviet forces in early 1941 was and reaction to this.
But the Soviet force movements started after the occupied Poland. The '41 part of it was just a continuation.

>>23759
>I'm not. That's what the Icebreaker says.

Sorry, that was just a some wording style.

>It sounds like a systematic thing.

Maybe it is more Russian thing, although I don't know how it was in Empire years. But mismanagement was a big thing in USSR and modern Russia. Conscripts who fell ill with pneumonia because they didn't receive winter clothing is a thing that happens in modern Russia, for example. And this isn't shortage of equipment but just overall stupidity. USSR dissolved mostly because of that stupidity too, although external pressure did some work.

>Yes there were, still they didn't consider it a threat because they thought it wasn't a preparation for attack (the Germans could have prepared for defence as well)

They considered it, at least on military command level. In April and May there were multiple orders to prepare for potential conflict, but they weren't too effective. People rarely too stupid to ignore possibilities, even if they consider them only partially probable.

>But the Soviet force movements started after the occupied Poland. The '41 part of it was just a continuation.

I wrote here about early 1941 movements, when forces were amassed slowly near border. That is argument that Suvorov use to prove attack plan, but, as I wrote before, it could be attributed to reaction of "ally" movements.

>>23658
That Chapter 6 is funny.
>Suvorov: we had so much BTs isn't it suspicious?
>Isaev: no it isn't we had so much more tanks, we didn't want to attack with the BTs!
>Suvorov: for BT's speed they sacrificed armor
>Isaev: lies! BT had very good armor, see they couldn't have planned to attack with it!

This one needs saving from oblivion.

i just caught a communist trying to take food from my birds.
tomorrow will give him to my cat

>>30745
If you had to capture the thief yourself your cat isn't doing his job well.

>>30747
Sounds like tzarist Russia.

>>30747
The cat has risen to an executive position in his department, and any specialized units for this type of uncommon work were laid off to trim the fat, so the main branch had to improvise a one-time solution.

This is how capitalism works.

>the Soviets made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to start another war between France and Germany
It's possible, it certainly isn;t something they would have been too worried about.


>the Soviets wouldn't've even joined the war, except Germany was going to lose to Poland (ending the war without weakening the Western powers)
No, Germany was winning quite one sidedly, the Soviet involvement was minimal. The main thrusts came from the German side, Germany actually had to give up land they had taken because it was in the Soviet agreed zone.

>Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike; Hitler never had a choice to avoid war with the Soviet Union, only whether to attack or to be attacked
Yes, a war was going to happen one way or another. A major concern was that the Soviets would attack Germany while it was at war with France which was a part of the need for a fast campaign there. The Soviet Army was deployed along the border in a defensive manner but it was also in manner that could eaasily be changed into an offnsive one.

>the Soviets lost a shitload of personnel and materiel to Barbarossa because they had an offensive force on the border, waiting to blitz all of Europe

Possible.

>>33298
>The Soviet Army was deployed along the border in a defensive manner
No. Suvorov spends quite a lot of time on this. Nothing made sense from a defensive view. Not even the "defensive" fortifications they built.
Here >>23429 is a concise list of the arguments made by Suvorov, I detailed them throughout the thread, if you are interested.

>>33299
Thanks, it looks quite good, I will read it tomorrow(it's quite late here).

I should have been more descriptive, I was more referring to the strategic deployment of the units not the doctrine or equipment. They were deployed along the border in a broad defensive manner not in the kind of concentrations that one would use for an offensive, however, they were also deployed in such a way that they could quickly redeploy and form concentrations in strategic areas for an offensive.

>>33300
It's about the unit composition too. You'll see. Good night.

>>23450
>>23498
>>23502
>>23573
>>23574
There is some sense to it but it's also exaggerated a bit. All armies are offensive in nature or should be, it's not possible to win a war when relying solely on defensive, defence is just a temporary phase to gain an opportunity to attack. The BT tank being faster on roads is to be expected, all tanks are and the BT tank was designed with British suspension anyway.

>>21638
Great post

>>21638
>and the second one fell short

Only due to a redirection of the main effort to the south at the last moment, meaning that when the offensive was resumed it was to late.

>Moscow street fighting would have been StalingradX10

Actually no. Firstly the Soviets were not actually in a very good position in Moscow before the German delay and they were planning to leave even after the delay before they decided to stay and fight, secondly they didn't have the resources they had at Stalingrad and around Stalingrad and thirdly it kind of would not matter even if it did turn into a brutal street fight as even that would heavily disrupt the railway hub of the Soviet union(Moscow) and thus all Soviet Logistics.

bump

This could be applied to the current situation as well in a way.

If Russia wanted to invade Poland and Romania to plug the gaps this would be the perfect way to do it. Right now they have their peace time force wearing down the Ukrainian army and pulling in western equipment which as time goes on is weakening the west but also this galvanises Russia herself, Russia would not have been able to start a full-scale war against NATO a year ago or maybe even now, the popular support would not be there. But as the war goes on Russian society starts adapting to the new norm, in addition to that they are seeing NATO assistance in Ukraine and are seeing how NATO essentially is already in conflict with them, many might feel like NATO is the aggressor and NATO wants to destroy them and the Russia media would have an easy time of spinning that tale with some of the rhetoric that has been said by Biden and others so far. Russia could keep this going for a few months, drawing in more western equipment, causing relations to get even more heated between NATO and the west and getting the population even more relied up. Then they could mobilise the entire Russian army under some pretext about protecting the newly incorporated Donbass regions of Russia, saying they are going to defeat Ukraine and that the only way this can end is if Ukraine is conquered entirely. Only once they reach Lviv, they just keep going.

And of course the longer this war goes on the more of a chance there is that NATO might send troops or do something else that might escalate it to a war, there is that too. And then you could say the US expected all this and actually wants it to happen.

>the Soviets made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to start another war between France and Germany
>the Soviets wouldn't've even joined the war, except Germany was going to lose to Poland (ending the war without weakening the Western powers)
>Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike; Hitler never had a choice to avoid war with the Soviet Union, only whether to attack or to be attacked
>the Soviets lost a shitload of personnel and materiel to Barbarossa because they had an offensive force on the border, waiting to blitz all of Europe

This is all complex excuses for the Soviet Union's incompetence and Hitler's insanity. Russians always embellish Russia's blunders, especially FSB Officers.

>the Soviets made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to start another war between France and Germany
>the Soviets wouldn't've even joined the war, except Germany was going to lose to Poland (ending the war without weakening the Western powers)

The Soviet signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact because it was massively advantageous for them. Free territory and an alliance with their powerful neighbor, after getting a bloody nose by Finland. They were happy to get half of Poland without having to do anything. Mototov-Ribbentrop was Germany giving the Soviets free land of value to them. Why would they say no?

>Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike; Hitler never had a choice to avoid war with the Soviet Union, only whether to attack or to be attacked

Was Operation Barbarossa a pre-emptive strike? Not really. Hitler hated the Soviet Union. He spend his young adult years fighting with communists in the streets. He passionately hated communism, as much as he hated the Jews. The Ultimate Goal of Barbarossa was the destruction of the Soviet Union, Communism, and Russia. Hitler didn't hate France. France was Austria's archrival, but Hitler respected France. Hitler respected Great Britain. Hitler did not respect Russia or the Soviet Union at all.

Hitler thought, after crushing France, he could easily steamroll the USSR, genocide the Russia people, salt the earth, destroy communism, and open up land for Germans.

>the Soviets lost a shitload of personnel and materiel to Barbarossa because they had an offensive force on the border, waiting to blitz all of Europe

This is mostly true, but the Soviet Union wasn't going to blitz all of Europe. They baaaarely beat Finland, and were suffering from officer purges. They had an offensive force at the border because they were lead by Russians and Russian Generals are aggressive idiots.

They didn't think Germany was going to attack them. They were considering attacking Germany but were too inept to do it. They thought that, if the event of a war came, the Soviet and German army would clash in one big aggressive battle and the Soviets would win. They were still using the preWW1 playbook.

So they just left their army in an aggressive formation on the Polish border waiting for the German army to walk through them. Which they did. And The Soviet Union had to rebuild its army from Scratch just outside of Moscow.

All that said, Russian propaganda is pretty straightforward. Whenever Russia does something stupid, the spin is they did it intentionally, that they are so strong that it doesn't matter, that they will conquer the world because they are the most powerful people and their leader is the smartest man on Earth. All failures are just fate not lining up with Russia's superior strategy and military.

Just ask yourself, do competent armies get crushed like the USSR did? Do you think they could conquer Europe after failing to conquer Finland? Do you think it was all part of a master plan to get your entire army destroyed, the largest encirclement in history, the civilians genocided or enslaved, Moscow and St Petersburg sieged or reached, and to murder your officers that you blame? Does that sound smart to you?

Your Darkstream video lines up with Russian propaganda almost exactly... with some Russian military facts (and lies) mixed it.

Russia used up its ammunition, trust me, they didn't use 15% of their ammunition in WW2...

They didn't use paratroopers in the winter war because they didn't need to and the paratroopers weren't that good. The Soviet Paratroopers mostly fought as ground infantry in WW2 because they weren't that good at drops and the Russians didn't have a good airforce anyway. But the Soviets had a very large number of paratroopers, that were useful on the ground during WW2, so they were applied in that manner when needed.

Russia didn't invent "blitzkrieg". Blitzkrieg is a continuation of classical German maneuver warfare tactics from the 1700 and 1800s but applied to modern technology at the time, tanks, aircraft, infantry, artillery, etc. What the Russians had was deep battle, and a similar fascination with tanks and paratroopers... but the Soviet Deep Battle was different in that it was focused on the tactical level, striking far behind enemy lines, as opposed to the blitzkrieg with was tactically focused.

German Generals also claim they didn't invent blitzkrieg, the media did, which may be right as well.

I said tactical but I meant strategic. Deep battle was a strategy while blitzkrieg was a tactic.

>>50149
>>50151
>>50152
It's all interesting what you woite, albeit I disagree with many things, not necessarily because I agree the premise of the thread. Or not disagree, but points to criticize.
Perhaps I will.
However. Now I have to give couple notes for you, and encourage you to read the whole thread.
The video is based on a book titled Icebreaker by Viktor Suvorov, a former GRU officer. Through the thread we thoroughly discuss his claims and we pile upon a lot of stuff.
Starting from here >>23429 I present what I found in that book. I gave caveats a bit below:
>I will keep this compact but not necessarily will be comprehensive. Also this will contain more of my thoughts how I make sense of what I read than Suvorov's original lines. Most of the things he wrote are either anecdotal, or intuitive logic on his behalf. I really suggest reading the book, or at least what I extracted from it and posted in the thread.
I don't think we arrived to a certain conclusion, probably everyone took something out of it.
Since then I came across this >>49895 The guy is a historian who had the chance to search the Russian Soviet archives, what he found supports Suvorov's thoughts.
Personally I believe in general strokes they might be right, but it's sure not in every detail.

>>50154
Eh. These should have been in separate lines like this:
>I will keep this compact but not necessarily will be comprehensive. Also this will contain more of my thoughts how I make sense of what I read than Suvorov's original lines.
Most of the things he wrote are either anecdotal, or intuitive logic on his behalf. I really suggest reading the book, or at least what I extracted from it and posted in the thread.

>>50154
>>50155
I mostly agree with your arguments and against the Viktor Suvorov and the video.

Preemptive strike is exaggerating the situation. Germany attacked them both because they were a threat but mostly because Hitler hated the USSR.

It is... possible... there could have been a strike on Germany in the future. The evidence shows the Soviet Union probably planned on it at some time. But the preemptive strike invasion of all Western Europe is exaggeration to hide incompetence.

>>50156
This thread was posted when this board was more lively, we had some users, all quite knowledgeable with their unique perspective. They give breddy gud opinions, worth a read me thinks.

>>50149
>Soviet Union's incompetence and Hitler's insanity
Both are frequently stated but both seems like topoi. Nor the SU was incompetent, neither Hitler insane.
Yes, the SU on all levels did fuckups but they adapted quick, they had vision, and breddy gud ideas.
Yes Hitler's health deteriorated by the end of the war, but he never was insane. Not like Stalin, who was a megalomaniac psychopath without a question.
>massively advantageous
Sure, but free land for a country which had nothing but lands is 20th grade in importance. But yes there were many advantages.
>They were still using the preWW1 playbook.
No. They were after Khalkhin-Gol, check that battle out. The Soviets were thinking in mobile warfare, with combined arms action. All their units were motorized at least, and large formations mechanized. Their infantry and artillery used trucks to get around (when not traveling thousands of kms on rails) meanwhile most German infantry was still tramping on foot, and their guns and howitzers were towed by horses.
They payed large price in Finland because the terrain and Finnish defense use of the terrain denied the mobility and the actual combined use of the arms. The fortified lines of the Finns were very similar to the Stalin line, except was less grandiose.
>Russian Generals are aggressive idiots.
Nod really. They beat the Whites and the Intervention. The stance in geostrategy changed. They built up large military, successfully beat Japan (which defeated the Tsarist Russia them at the beginning of the century), Stalin felt it's was time to go on the offensive everywhere.

>>50149
>Whenever Russia does something stupid, the spin is they did it intentionally
Soviet propaganda wasn't like that at all when explaining away the defeats that followed Barbarossa.
They said nothing about the massive Red Army groupings on the western frontier, they just kept it quiet. They overstated Germany's preparations for war in the interwar period, and hugely downplayed the Soviet military buildup. According to them the SU did peaceful building activity in those years. They painted a picture of the peaceful Soviet Union which correctly kept itself to the terms of the M-R Pact. The SU was attacked treacherously by surprise by the Germans.
Post-Stalin times they piled the responsibility on Stalin. They said he had all the information but he mistook everything with German provocation, which they made to provoke the SU attacking first. He did moved some of the industry to the East, and couple of units from the Japanese border to the west but he did not take the whole thing seriously as he should have. He also "dismissed" without a reason many officers during 1937-38.
They also stressed that everyone expected the SU to fall very quick (they gladly quoted boasts like "we will win in 14 days" and such), only the soviet people's heroism saved the day.
They claimed the Germans had advantage both in quantity and the quality of the armaments. But in manpower and experience too, claiming they already had two years of fighting behind them (while the soviet soldiers were busy with peaceful building work...).
They said many country attacked the SU, while the SU had to defend herself alone.
They shut the fuck up about their own forces. They never said how many divisions they had on the front, or how many troops, tanks, artillery pieces, airplanes. But they gladly told stories about "four divisions of Moscovite communists who bravely marched out to defend Moscow" and other bs (when Germans arrived to Moscow, not at the start of the Barbarossa).

>>50157
>Yes, the SU on all levels did fuckups but they adapted quick, they had vision, and breddy gud ideas.

The SU military was inept at the start of WW2. It took the Germans all of 3 months to go from Poland to Moscow all while inflicting the largest encirclement in the history of war repeatedly... You know what city held out for 3 months? Mariupol...

Sure, the SU military was large and had strengths, as any military of that size would. It had some surprisingly good tank designs during a time period when tank designs had no military thought behind them. The T-34 and KV series comes to mind of course. But the Soviets also had a lot of rather bad tank designs and weren't gifted at mechanics anyway. Anyway, the Soviet military was inept at the start and it showed.

>lands is 20th grade in importance

Um... no. Look at how far Russia is willing to go today for Crimea and the Donbas... They would love to get Poland, especially since Russian lands isn't well developed like European land. A big poor nation like the USSR would love to get ripe central European developed lands to plunder.

>They were still using their preWW1 playbook

What I meant by this was more that, they were thinking in a classical battle of annihilation sense. If War between the Germans and Soviets came, it would come in one big aggressive battle and the Soviet forces should be ready to go on the offensive. They weren't prepared for a defense in depth, draw out attrition style war. Again, it showed as they were pushed all the way to Moscow in 3 months.

>denied the mobility and the actual combined use of the arms

How do you "deny the combined use of arms"?

The problem with the Soviets in the Winter War was that they didn't know the terrain and they were restricted to roads in which the smaller finnish force could ambush and destroy Russians marching on... not unlike the Battle of Kiev in 2022.

If the Russians were good at combined arms, that wouldn't be a problem because they would apply the right weapons to the situation (light finnish troops on skis). But they weren't.. So they got cut off, surrounded, and destroyed.

>>50158

Russia propaganda is like that. I can't tell you how many times I have heard the "our mistakes are actually strengths you just don't know how strong we are fear us" line.

I call a horse a horse. I don't convince people that donkeys are horses.

>>50159
I will reply to the rest hopefully tomorrow, for now just the last point.
>Russian propaganda is like that
You have no idea what are you talking about. I skimmed a Hungarian history book about WWII, published in 1961 and which quotes literally from the official History of the Communist Party. The book is carbon copy of Soviet history books of the topic. It confirms everything what Suvorov says about how the topic was presented to the Soviet people after the war.
What you say is just memes, Russian poster behaviour on imageboards, and taken from Polanball comics and such.

>>50160
>skimmed
Skimmed for the particular post above.

>>50160

>What you say is just memes, Russian poster behaviour on imageboards, and taken from Polanball comics and such.

We are talking about a former GRU officer... Former GRU officer says Russia is strong and can do no wrong and their leader is the smartest man in the world.

Okay buddy...

>>50162
Suvorov is one bloke telling his opinion. That is not Russian propaganda. 99,9% of GRU officers would tell things otherwise.
You are confusing things.

>>50163
Well I am going based on the video, specifically where he said “Hitler was an idiot, Stalin was a genius, Stalin played Hitler with Barbarossa”

How can any of that be true? Barbarossa was one of the worst military disasters in world history?

Suvorov does bring into account the Soviet perspective that is often forgotten in the West, but there is ample evidence on the German side that the attack was premeditated with the goal of the destruction of the USSR.

Stalin probably did have confidence that, in the event of a war, the USSR would be in Berlin by fall of 1941. Who cares? It shows how out of touch he was, not how genius and powerful he was.

>>50162
>Former GRU officer says Russia is strong and can do no wrong and their leader is the smartest man in the world
Plus Suvorov did not say that at all.
>>50159
>"our mistakes are actually strengths you just don't know how strong we are fear us" line.
Neither this.
Nowhere Suvorov says getting beaten by the German at the launch of Barbarossa was part of the plan.
He clearly says the German attack collapsed all the Soviet plans. It's the other way around.

You note Crimea and Donbas and Mariupol, pulling current events into the discussion tells me you extrapolate from the current stance of Moscow, that if a plan fails they just say they did not want to achieve that - or at least what you think is the current stance of moscow.
Another problem with this that Moscow nowhere stated what they wanted with the initial attack.
They did not claimed beforehand that they wanted to capture Kiev. We, the outsiders, guess that it was in the plans (yeah, they really thought it will be like a 2nd, Crimea maybe I'll write about this too).
But they can freely claim they did not want to capture Kiev, they just wanted to distract forces from the south and such. We don't know for sure and can't know for sure.

>>50164
>Stalin played Hitler with Barbarossa
This was never said by anyone.

>>50152
That's a controversial subject around these parts.

Well, now that he probably isn't here, it's time to reply in more earnest. Probably will go on in a couple of posts in the following days.

First back to the previous post, just above >>50166
Stalin played Hitler to get into a war with France and Great Britain. Barbarossa was an unseen event by him, it took him by surprise. Suvorov spent time on explaining this too (eg. warning from Churchill, or the sheep price index).
We have to remember in the interwar era there was no CIA to play anyone on Earth, or US based multinational giants to buy the rest. All the major powers had their independent will, which wasn't subordinated to the US master. They had their foreign politics and secret services weaving a web to catch all the others and further the cause of their own country. It wasn't a two sided game of the Cold War.
Communism had quite a few sympathizers all over the world, and recruiting agents for the SU was easy. Stalin was also a devious psychopath who played the Soviet Game of Thrones, and outsmarted all the competing Jews. Furthermore it would be a mistake to confuse the various eras of the Soviet Union, these aren't Andropov times with the lazy corruption and high level of inefficiency.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact not just allowed the SU to act unchecked inside the limits of the agreed border of influence, but it allowed to get into a serious war with France and GB for Germany. One of Moscow's goals was pushing Germany into that mire they expected the war to be. They calculated well the war started. But they did expect what noone expected that Germany will breeze through several countries including France. So that was a failure, they wanted the Germans to bogged down for years in the West as they did in WWI. And failing to recognize they are next are partially for the wishful thinking that the Germans are preparing the landing in Britain.
On the side note they surely observed curiously the Blitz, which had some resemblance to their Deep Operation/Battle doctrine.