Could the germans ever have won on the eastern front? Maybe with a different strategy or goal...

Could the germans ever have won on the eastern front? Maybe with a different strategy or goal? If not please provide source for how hopeless their situation was

Other urls found in this thread:

altyn73.livejournal.com/215297.html
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Better weather.
Attacking far sooner, and faster.
Not alienating the Ukranians
Etc etc, Hitler was a retard anyway

It was hopeless once the Americans gave the Russians the supplies to mobilize

>If not please provide source for how hopeless their situation was

Reality.

Somehow stop Gosplan from sending all those factories east.
Of course, if that doesn't happen, they suddenly have half of their railway capacity freed up.

Even if they had managed to take Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad, Russia is fucking huge.

They had moved factories further east, and there is no way the Germans could ever conquer Russia. Their supply lines were already stretched to their breaking points.

Then imagine trying to occupy all that land with a hostile populace, more Russians to the east, and the Western allies still prepping to fuck Nazi ass

The Nazis were just idiots, anyone in their right mind would know not to invade Russia

>The Nazis were just idiots, anyone in their right mind would know not to invade Russia
Hindsight is 20/20 though. They were cocky after their recent victories, the Soviet Union had just put up an embarrassing show against Finland, and other governments around the world predicted a rapid Soviet collapse. Hitler also didn't want to become too dependent on Soviet imports of important goods like metals, minerals, grain, oil, and rubber. They were all there for the taking from the supposedly weak Soviet state.
And it's not really like Hitler had any other options here; Sealion was an autistic fantasy, but one that the he actually took seriously for a while, causing hundreds of river barges to be taken from the economy in preperation. North Africa was infeasible with its single road stretching over a thousand miles as your main supply line. Sitting there and turtling is also a bad idea when the Soviets get stronger by the day. Hitler invading Russia shouldn't be seen as a bad idea in itself, but the fact that he had put himself in a position where it was the only good option should be.

He was always going to attack the soviets no matter how good his position would be
The detour to the west was because of england though

Hitler would hold a considerable advantage if he camped his troops near the borders and wait for the Soviets to attack
as seen multiple times counter offensive provides a good balance, a mobile counter attack could cripple the soviets and destroy them miles away in a more favorable environment to the Germans
relativistic Soviet improvement in their strategies especially deep battle was only gained from learning after Barbarossa, so basically the Soviets would not gain any lessons that would become so crucial by the time they roll into Berlin,and the Germans wouldn't be so hampered by the millions of casualty strewn in the useless grounds there

get those motherfucken oil fields...Baku or bust.

>Attacking far sooner
Ah yes, into the mud we go

Now how are you going to reach Baku?

>letting the Soviets come and attack you with the full force of their intact industry and an officer corps that wasn't as gutted as 1941

by invading Baku through turkish territory instead of Barbarossa. Hitler should've done more to convince turks

The German army was a mobile, armour centered army, that valued momentum, maneuverability and combined arms doctrines.

If the Soviets invaded in 1943 lets say, they would sooner or later establish air superiority, and would just overwhelm the Germans with thousands of tanks. Also, the lines the Germans have to defend in Poland and Germany are not as long as the lines that developed in Barbarossa, which would mean there would be zero chance for the Germans to counterattack decisively. And finally the most decisive factor as to why Germany did not want in any way to fight a defensive war, was that there was no way to defend the Romanian oil fields if the Russians drove a wedge between Hungary and Romania (like they did in 1945), after they lose the oil fields, its game over.

How would Hitler convince the Turks that they can be trusted?
How would they supply their troops? Mountainous as fuck railroads of Turkey or through the black sea with their non-existent Navy?

>instead of splitting up army group south, keep it intact and send it only to the caucasus so you have the manpower to reach baku
>after having a nightmare supplying over a million men in the terrain you finally reach baku and its oil fields up in flames
>at least we can get them and running in a couple of years
>remember that even if they get rebuilt you still need trains to send the oil back to refineries
>remember that you can't spare any trains because you need them to supply your troops
>remember that you left a massive flank open in the stalingrad area
>get cut off in the mountains
>die

>How would Hitler convince the Turks that they can be trusted?
promising something turks couldn't refuse. im thinking restoring ottoman lands in balkans and arab oil fields, but perhaps Italy was opposed to such concessions.

>How would they supply their troops?
same as they did in Russia during winter or rasputnitsa. it's not like thousands of kilometers of Russian muds and snow was somehow a cakewalk. Turkey's climate, although harsh, was much more adaptable.

>Mountainous as fuck railroads of Turkey or through the black sea with their non-existent Navy?
Turkey's railroads were pretty developed actually, back from ottoman times. There's also airlift capabilities which were demonstrated at stalingrad.

in conclusion, all these questions are irrelevant when you consider how close baku is to turkey. Hitler should've definately done more to convince turks, to give more time to deploy his troops at the armenian border.

>The German army was a mobile, armour centered army, that valued momentum, maneuverability and combined arms doctrines.

myth, the main tool of transportation was the good old horse and cart
the majority of german divisions were infantry divisions with little mobility

>promising something turks couldn't refuse. im thinking restoring ottoman lands in balkans and arab oil fields
So betray your own Axis allies? How would you convince your balkan allies this is a good idea?
>same as they did in Russia during winter or rasputnitsa.
Oh, you mean with horses? Seeing as how Russian railroads were different from German + scorched earth policy. Yeah, good luck.
> to give more time to deploy his troops at the armenian border.
At what cost? The southwestern front? You realise to deploy troops in Armenia you'd either need to take a pool of men out of the reserve or redeploy Eastern front units, so you're basically making yourself more vulnerable, not replenishing the Eastern front, thus giving the Soviets the upper hand. Not to mention you also have the allies pushing your shit in in Africa and preparing an invasion on Italy, how will you try to prevent an Allied land invasion, now that you're basically fighting in a crazy number of fronts and you're stretching your troops thin?
The Germany army had about 1/5th of its army fucked by being killed or injured in the beginning of Barbarossa, so what will you sacrifice exactly?

Instead of killing Ukrainians and Belorusians they should have granted them independence and portray themselves as liberators, not invaders. Convince the Orthodox church that their fight is a crusade against godless Jewish bolshevism, not against dumb Slav animals and their Jewish masters.

>thus giving the Soviets the upper hand.

ever heard of gambits? you give up a shitty pawn for the queen.
baku was too much of an important goal to be ignored.

plus, you only need troops to hold on the defensive - much less troops are needed in such a case. and as a bonus, if you take out baku, ruskies won't have any more oil - siberian oil was still very far from what it is today.

And it's not like Russia had planes that would be capable of intercepting planes or anything. La-5s and Pokryshkin's lendlease cobra wouldn't be a menace to deal with in Armenia, oh yeah you'd also have to split your airforce as well, too, to make sure those airlifts get there safely.

they had no problem with railways, supply problems is another myth

even during the "rail war" (major partisan operation to cripple german supplies) there were no real issue of supply lines, the problem was lack of supplies and reinforcements, not lack of transportation

>ever heard of gambits? you give up a shitty pawn for the queen.
And what is that "shitty pawn"? Southwestern front? Stalingrad? You're implying this thing would go smoothly, you haven't addressed how you'd convince your Balkan allies how "restoring Ottoman lands" would be a good idea, how would Germany deal with horse logistics and again, stretching troops thin?

>supply problems is another myth
Source? Sounds interesting.

Source for supply problems meant for

You're kidding right? This is the experience of just one army group.

...

>Soviet locomotives were of entirely different size than Western ones
>Railroad network was different
>Even Soviets had trouble with supplying when they entered German borders
>Somehow Germany didn't have problems
Ok, also obligatory

They had no chance of winning militarily. The only way they could have succeeded is if the soviet union collapsed politically

That doesn't mean that they didn't get a lot of mileage out of their mechanized divisions and had a strong doctrine built around them.

i dont like to question sources but i will here

during the entire campaign the german units lived off the land, these "supply shortages" somehow didnt stop Typhoon to keep rolling in 41 until november

on the other hand partisans report thousands of kilometers of rails destroyed and trains blown up, while on the same day of reports the german military diary reports "no particaluar problems"

i dont have my book right now with me sadly

>at least we can get them and running in a couple of years
I agree with the rest of the post, but it wouldn't take that long to rebuild trashed oil wells. Would have been impossible to hold, but whatever.

both prospects are very grim
its very unlikely that even the collapse of Moscow would mean the end of the Soviet Union (as we see by Napoleon)
i'm basing more on defense because of world war 1, where they managed to defeat 2 army by superb maneuver warfare

>Typhoon
That's Army Group South. Logistical problems is what stopped them at Rostov. Center had a somewhat better situation. As bad as the German situation may seem keep in mind that the Soviets weren't doing much better.
>on the other hand partisans report thousands of kilometers of rails destroyed and trains blown up, while on the same day of reports the german military diary reports "no particaluar problems"
Yes, Soviet partisans are known to exaggerate their claims.

>reports the german military diary reports "no particaluar problems"
I'm going to nitpick this because Germans would literally lie about their own statistics, a good example would be how they counted tank losses. They also didn't even consider a tank "destroyed" even if it was in the middle of the battlefield, about to be captured by Soviets:
>The railroad station of Tschepowitschi is captured, several enemy tanks are knocked out. Three Tigers operational with twenty in for repairs.
But then you see pic related of the same SS division and its captured tiger tanks who were supposedly "knocked out"
Source of pic and battle altyn73.livejournal.com/215297.html
A shitty point but just wanna say you shouldn't trust German information entirely either.

Typhoon is not south :(

these are diaries, like paperwork for records, not high command, have no benefits to lie

there are battle reports and there are division reports about armament, the latter one is truthworthy since some instances give no benefit if you lie, quite the opposite

i dont really understand hows a schwere panzerabteilung misreport is so important

I know, the first two images are about Army Group South.

>Soviets continue developing their military based on their lacking strategic conceptions

>Germany instead has the time to evaluate its military experiences and to improve its Army even further

>no Great patriotic war too mobilize the motherland

>Soviets suddenly have the problem supplying their army

>Luftwaffe not decimated by attrition and bad airfields

>high mobility battles in poland favouring the Wehrmacht greatly

>no partisans who were often crucial for soviet operations


Nah son. The soviets get slaughtered. You only enhance the German strenghts while slapping the soviets with some serious additional weaknesses.

>inb4 muh the soviets would overwhelm them with tanks

The germans would be delighted to lure so many tanks into a trap in an area with a well developed infrastructure. Look at the encirclements the Wehrmacht pulled off with their forces spread thin, strained supply lines and their logistical ressources seriously decimated (trucks etc.). In Central Poland that would happen on an even larger scale.

>inb4 the rebuilt officer corps suddenly would enable the soviets to perform on a level they acquired after 3-4 years of total war

Nope. The Red Army was subjected to Stalins intense paranoia and political considerations. Its really likely that grey bureaucrats with the right political track record would have decided about the strategical and tactical development of the Red Army.

partisans were little to no use, its USSR propaganda to fuel the "great home defense war"

the reality is they often had to force locals to sign up, achieved little to nothing and often caused more suffering of the locals than the occupants themselfs

From what I have read partisans were crucial for Bagration, to name a prominent example.

But even if you are right Partisans are not the important point.

>Could the germans ever have won on the eastern front? Maybe with a different strategy or goal?

Yeah, so I guess we may as well have an alternate history scenario.

Let's assume the same goal - acquire Lebensraum.

IMO Germany was gambling with Barbarossa. They bought into the "kick the door" meme so hard that they did not take the USSR seriously.

Operation Super Barbarossa

* somehow end war with Britain either through negotiation or """somehow""" invading the Isles
* do not get involved with a Japanese war with the United States
* play up the "Crusade/Jihad against bolshevism" meme and gather more allies such as Spain, Sweden and Turkey
* subvert Soviet authority in Central Asia especially Kazakhstan
* start nuclear weapons program that gets sufficient nuclear weaponry by 1949
* start a naval buildup
* consolidate gains in Europe
* gain sufficient influence in Persia to enable a German invasion from south.
* persuade Japanese to invade from Far East
* get ride of the German-China cooperation meme and help Japan end war in China early, getting an excuse to ship German troops to the Far East.
* actually fight a total war

The Big Day - Operation Super Barbarossa commences in 1949 instead of 1941

* Army Groups North, Center South + other army groups - amphibious invasion Army Group Arkhangelsk, Army Group Finland, Army Group Caucasus- Army Group Persia, Army Group Mongolia, Army Group Siberia etc.. etc...

* Commence with massive simultaneous atomic bombing runs to destroy Soviet urban and industrial centers - Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Smolensk, Stalingrad, Samarkand
* Proceed with a massive invasion with Japan, Turkey, Spain, Finland etc as allies.


Of course, this scenario itself is pretty unlikely, given the extreme amount of diplomatic, economic and industrial effort that would be needed to fulfill the above. It is nearing alien spacebats level. Barely realistic.

It would've required a far more prudent and less careless Hitler.

I don't think it would be easy to "lure so many tanks into a trap" when said tanks are rampaging around in your rear area after exploiting a breakthrough supported by the full strength of Soviet industry.

i can 1000% assure you they werent

>rampaging in a rear area
>breakthrough

You overestimate Soviet Mobility and you underestimate German Mobile defense.

>Operation Super Barbarossa commences in 1949
>implying Stalin wouldn't have attacked way before that

>The Nazis were just idiots, anyone in their right mind would know not to invade Russia
Germany defeated Russia militarily in WW1 only few years earlier. Clearly they had reason to believe that they could beat Russia again.

>implying there is any fucking proof of that