Howard Gibson
Senior Airman
Winter kit is a detail. Any plan that involves horses transporting food from Poland to Moscow is a bad plan.
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Winter kit is a detail. Any plan that involves horses transporting food from Poland to Moscow is a bad plan.Clearly. Wehrmacht went into the USSR without winter gear and got caught flat-footed for it. The Russians/Sovietshave the advantage of being able to trade space for time and etting winter kick your ass.
Winter kit is a detail. Any plan that involves horses transporting food from Poland to Moscow is a bad plan.
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.But again, the whole point of attacking the Soviet Union was to enslave and exterminate them.
I remember two writers under the name Nikolay Tolstoy, but both lived in the XIX century.Writers Nicolai Tolstoy and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn have claimed that the Germans could have invaded the Soviet Union
lol, how'd that work out for them?
One thing Monty got dead-right was his first rule of war: "Don't march on Moscow."
Enslavement and extermination are mutually exclusive.
The gulags and the Nazi labor camps beg to differ.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.
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.I remember two writers under the name Nikolay Tolstoy, but both lived in the XIX century.
They are not mutually exclusive. They just don't make economic sense.Enslavement and extermination are mutually exclusive.
My mistake. Thanks for your reminder. Victims of Yalta was a good book.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.
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.They are not mutually exclusive. They just don't make economic sense.
Or moral sense.
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".The gulags and the Nazi labor camps beg to differ.
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".
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.
About some books: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).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.
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).
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.
View attachment 654226
LATI airlines SM.83 at Cristobal Colon, Panama in 1942. LATI Airlines flew from Rome to Brazil, Argentina & Chile in 1940
View attachment 654224
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.