Howard Gibson
Senior Airman
Winter kit is a detail. Any plan that involves horses transporting food from Poland to Moscow is a bad plan.
A more effective Dec 1941 preemptive attack on the USA
- Thread starter Admiral Beez
- Start date
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Thumpalumpacus
Captain
I'd argue that when winter is a significant issue, protective cover is not a "detail". It's logistics.
The point was to destroy the Red Army and to push the USSR beyond the A-A line and disable its ability to become a military power again. To gain the resources and the territory in the process.
Enslavement and extermination are mutually exclusive.
I remember two writers under the name Nikolay Tolstoy, but both lived in the XIX century.
33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,207
- Jan 31, 2021
There's also the Ripley Doctrine: Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
(Admittedly a little ahead of the technology of the time.)
Thumpalumpacus
Captain
Not necessarily. The Germans were perfectly happy to work the Jews to Hell and gone and then kill them.
Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
The gulags and the Nazi labor camps beg to differ.
Howard Gibson
Senior Airman
Nikolai Tolstoy is a grandson of Leo Tolstoy. He wrote Victims of Yalta, all about various Russians handed over the Soviets at the end of WWII by the British and Americans.
Howard Gibson
Senior Airman
My mistake. Thanks for your reminder. Victims of Yalta was a good book.
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Exactly, they didn't make economic sense. That was why I disagreed. German economic policies in the occupied USSR were not consistent, but they were not stupid.
Good point. That was understood by the Soviets who created GULag after several years of mass killings. Extermination continued in the GULag system but mostly due to negligence, corruption or as a "punishment".
Thumpalumpacus
Captain
Solzhenitsyn documents some camps which, while putatively aimed at productivity, were specifically designated as extermination camps which were designed to work the inmates to death (i.e. logging camps, gold-mining camps, etc), but at the same time extract the last bit of useful labor from the inmates -- Vorkuta, Kolyma, and others.
33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,207
- Jan 31, 2021
TIKhistory on YouTube a few months back did a three-part video series on the subject of Russians handed back to the Soviets after the war (Operation Keelhaul).
I respect Solzhenitsyn's contribution overall and his "Gulag Archipelago" especially. But his works on this topic were written when Soviet archives were not accessible, so he was not the most accurate source of information. Extermination camps, prisons, detention centres did exist in the USSR/Soviet Russia in various forms since 1918. Were they part of the GULag (established in 1930)? I doubt that because GULag was an important instrument of industrialisation, of the war economy and of post-war development. Saying that we know that the value of life was low in that system and some camp directors (nachal'nik) were sadists and madmen. As, for example, Stepan Garanin was. 10 months as the head of Sevvostlag and over 26,000 prisoners died as per official estimates (real figures might be much higher).
Thumpalumpacus
Captain
I think it's important to understand that GULag was not only an instrument of industrialization -- which you're absolutely right, it was -- but that it was also an instrument of maximizing the utility, to the state, of enemies of the state, after which the lives were discarded.
Of course he's not the most accurate writer on the matter, because 1) his purview was necessarily limited and 2) he has an understandable bias. I do think that he's right in extending the concept of GULag back to 1918 or so even if it wasn't a legal statement of corrective labor camps; such camps seem to have been a tool of Soviet governance almost from the point of their seizure of power.
My point was just that labor camps and extermination camps aren't mutually exclusive, not in Germany, and not in the USSR. I wouldn't doubt that China has some similar sort of thing going on nowadays, either.
Propellorhead
Airman 1st Class
Japan should have co-ordinated with Nazi Germany for a preemptive attack
Hitler's obsession with bombing USA
Hitler had a personal ambition to destroy America as early as 1928.
Most people are aware of Hitler's political manifesto Mein Kampf, written in 1925, but few ever heard of Hitler's other book, "Zweites Buch" (written in 1928 but not published until 1961); In summary main points of that book, are that Hitler "predicted a future war with the United States" (pp. 12-13) as early as 1928. Hitler's long-term goal was to become "Fuhrer of the world," hence his prompt declaration of war against the United States on December 11, 1941.
In fact the Messerschmitt Me.264 Amerika bomber project began in 1937. As early as 1940 Hitler could have ferried He111 bombers to Vichy controlled Guadaloupe, French Guiana, or Barranquilla in Colombia. Maiami was within range for the He111, however various floatplane or flying boat aircraft could have performed raids on New Orleans, types like the He115, Bv139 etc.
None of these raids could have been sustained long term, but they would have distracted US support for Britain and stalled US landings in North Africa.
Later in WW2, both Japan & Germany made efforts to bomb the Gatun gates of the Panama canal had they coordinated efforts
in 1940 US support of the war effort in the Pacific would have been compromised.
There was a 1943 plan by Germany to smuggle two Ju87C-1 Stuka into the Carribbean to bomb the Gatun locks.
LATI airlines SM.83 at Cristobal Colon, Panama in 1942. LATI Airlines flew from Rome to Brazil, Argentina & Chile in 1940
More of a nuisance value, but then, nothing Hitler planned was very rational ultimately.
Hitler would have been smarter reinforcing Guadaloupe, or Vichy French Guiana, as a U-boat base in 1940.
Hitler's obsession with bombing USA
Hitler had a personal ambition to destroy America as early as 1928.
Most people are aware of Hitler's political manifesto Mein Kampf, written in 1925, but few ever heard of Hitler's other book, "Zweites Buch" (written in 1928 but not published until 1961); In summary main points of that book, are that Hitler "predicted a future war with the United States" (pp. 12-13) as early as 1928. Hitler's long-term goal was to become "Fuhrer of the world," hence his prompt declaration of war against the United States on December 11, 1941.
In fact the Messerschmitt Me.264 Amerika bomber project began in 1937. As early as 1940 Hitler could have ferried He111 bombers to Vichy controlled Guadaloupe, French Guiana, or Barranquilla in Colombia. Maiami was within range for the He111, however various floatplane or flying boat aircraft could have performed raids on New Orleans, types like the He115, Bv139 etc.
None of these raids could have been sustained long term, but they would have distracted US support for Britain and stalled US landings in North Africa.
Later in WW2, both Japan & Germany made efforts to bomb the Gatun gates of the Panama canal had they coordinated efforts
in 1940 US support of the war effort in the Pacific would have been compromised.
There was a 1943 plan by Germany to smuggle two Ju87C-1 Stuka into the Carribbean to bomb the Gatun locks.
LATI airlines SM.83 at Cristobal Colon, Panama in 1942. LATI Airlines flew from Rome to Brazil, Argentina & Chile in 1940
More of a nuisance value, but then, nothing Hitler planned was very rational ultimately.
Hitler would have been smarter reinforcing Guadaloupe, or Vichy French Guiana, as a U-boat base in 1940.
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Thumpalumpacus
Captain
Yeah, that didn't work out very well.
The history of German-Japanese coordination doesn't provide much reason to credit the idea of both nations attacking America in Dec 1941 in a planned fashion. They never managed that in the subsequent 30 months either, when Germany finally bowed out.
The Basket
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,712
- Jun 27, 2007
I read Reddit which is not beneficial especially when history is involved.
So Japan. One Reddit expert blamed the west for all Japan's ills. Seemingly not blaming Japan for anything and certainly not holding Japan responsible for anything.
Problem is the civilian politicians lost total control of the military. The military became loose cannons so then only the military could control the military and that is debatable.
Did the West put Japan in a situation? Yes.
I can see the idea of Japan or Japanese apologists blaming the West for everything certainly in the Victorian era and I guess makes sense.
But after the Battle of Tsushima it's quite clear Japan is now a power and no longer weak sauce. So it has now control of it's destiny and ability to choose its own path.
It must be held responsible for it's actions. Certainly in the 20th Century.
No point asking what America or the west could do 6th December 1941. Coz that horse has bolted and half way down the track.
Japan had isolated itself with it's military adventures and diplomatic failures. The diplomatic way was closed as the diplomats could say one thing and the military could do another. You either be shown as perfidious or have to admit your military is uncontrollable.
So straight into the Axis as the only visible alternative. Had the Anglo Japanese alliance held then maybe war would not happen. Or at least against the Western powers. I guess China and Korea were always for the chop but as long as Japan was not treading on our pitch then nobody seemed to care.
So Japan. One Reddit expert blamed the west for all Japan's ills. Seemingly not blaming Japan for anything and certainly not holding Japan responsible for anything.
Problem is the civilian politicians lost total control of the military. The military became loose cannons so then only the military could control the military and that is debatable.
Did the West put Japan in a situation? Yes.
I can see the idea of Japan or Japanese apologists blaming the West for everything certainly in the Victorian era and I guess makes sense.
But after the Battle of Tsushima it's quite clear Japan is now a power and no longer weak sauce. So it has now control of it's destiny and ability to choose its own path.
It must be held responsible for it's actions. Certainly in the 20th Century.
No point asking what America or the west could do 6th December 1941. Coz that horse has bolted and half way down the track.
Japan had isolated itself with it's military adventures and diplomatic failures. The diplomatic way was closed as the diplomats could say one thing and the military could do another. You either be shown as perfidious or have to admit your military is uncontrollable.
So straight into the Axis as the only visible alternative. Had the Anglo Japanese alliance held then maybe war would not happen. Or at least against the Western powers. I guess China and Korea were always for the chop but as long as Japan was not treading on our pitch then nobody seemed to care.
