Hitler should never have invaded the Soviet Union

>Russians won the war meme

...

>Germany should've invaded the Soviet Union

Because there's no evidence whatsoever of it and you would think that an aggressively expansionist UK would not be cringing before Hitler during Munich the way they did.

>WW2 and the cold war are single conflict

If Soviets invaded poland first and then Germnay invaded the USSR would Germany have been allies with France and UK?

The Soviets only invaded because of the MR pact and Germany doing the bulk of the work. The situation you're supposing is non-feasible.

the allies should have invaded russia after the krauts were defeated

Because Germany was a massively powerful war machine at the time?

>Germany should've invaded anything at all

They wouldn't have invaded. They desperately wanted to stay out of the European war at almost any cost. They tried getting France and Britain to come to the table on military alliance against Germany to stop the war before it happened but Anglos gon Anglos.

Winter isn't the problem really, at least the grounds solid in winter

spring is when EVERYTHING turns to mud in Russia as ice melts. good luck with your "mad dash"

Correct. He shouldn't have been grabbing clay so fast and should've waited for the SU to attack first so he could rally the Western powers against them.

>Hitler should have dealt with the UK before invading Russia
>Hitler should have gone for the Middle Eastern oil
>Hitler should have sat around doing nothing while he was in the middle of a resource crisis and his opponents were growing stronger

And when Stalin continues his 17 year policy of non-expansion because he's actually not a reckless idiot who would attack if the likely result is a pan-european alliance against him?

The accepted means of invading Russia has always been to exploit political fractures in the body politic
WW2 and to a limited extent the napoleonic campaign were near existential conflicts by a unified empire, which is the last thing one should want over that vast expanse.
Again, the germans won the eastern front in WW1, operating throughout the seasons, right up the muddy season. They did it because they knew no one really wanted to fight and figured out how to best exacerbate the divide between soldiers and their officers, ethnicities against other ethnicities, which is the proper strategy against Russia, just as the proper strategy against germany is and always has been attack on two fronts and make the war long.

Stalin was projecting power by building up troops on the borders of the Reich but I think he was considering invading the rest of Romania (see the secret recording of Hitler and Mannerheim).

Doing this would of helped neutralize Germany since the Krauts would have been cut off from their major supply of oil. That said, Hitler had wanted to colonize Russia and Ukraine. That was obviously the main motive for Hitler.

If he was going to gobble up all of Romania, why stop at Bessarabia with no meaningful resistance?

w-what's wrong with liking tanks

>What is the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact

you certainly cant if your commanders dont issue you with winter gear because they're spooked about napoleons ghost

In other words, indication that he wasn't interested in gobbling up all of Romania.

To assert that Stalin would be stopped by the MR pact in 1940 but not in 1941-42 is pretty absurd.

Nothing, but sometimes people autistically obsess over them to the point that they forget the other things that go into a war, like foot soldiers, other war machines, supply lines, and the economy fuelling it all without which tanks would be useless heaps of metal.

>waited for the SU to attack first

He'd be waiting a very long time then. Stalin knew that attacking Europe was a bad idea.

>hitler should have sued for peace when he still controlled a huge amount of russia as a bargaining chip

This is the exact point where Hitler should have stopped trying to expand or annex more territory.

>The Red Army was ready to take on the Wehrmacht in 1940

Stalin knew this was not true and was trying to buy more time for his own military to modernize.

Would not have worked, the Soviets would take it as a sign of weakness and press the initiative.

Those borders are hideous.

>map autism made hitler invade poland

Go on, show me some evidence of modernization between 1940 and 1941. They just kept building more of the same crap and having the same terrible organizational system. They were in no way more ready, and compared to how the Germans really did improve their forces considerably over the 40-41 gap, they were in a comparatively worse position.

You may not like it, but that's what peak performance looks like.

Why wouldn't they be? Soviet military was in a disastrous state for decades and needed to be restructured completely.

>>Hitler should have sat around doing nothing while he was in the middle of a resource crisis and his opponents were growing stronger
He wouldn't be going through a crisis if he didn't shaft Hjalmar Schacht.
Four year plan was a mistake.

As embarrassing as it was, the Winter War was ultimately a good thing for the Soviet military because it forced them to get their shit together.

They never had a higher military spending as a percentage of GDP than Germany, even during the war.

Not him, but I'm pretty sure they did in 1942-43, but I don't actually have my copy of Wages of Destruction on me, which has the data.

They were in the middle of a major military reorganization and mobilization were the Germans attacked. And the T-34 was put into production in that time (around September 1940).

No

Also, the Soviets agreed to invade Poland to establish a boarder with the Reich so they could invade at a later date.
Germany had the same idea.

The non agression pact guaranteed war and the initiative was priceless.
Hard to believe Hitler fucked it up.

underrated post

From "Accounting for War: Soviet Production, Employment, and the Defence Burden, 1940–1945" by Mark Harrison, p.126.

>They were in the middle of a major military reorganization and mobilization were the Germans attacked.
Please, cite this. Mobilization due to German attacks occurring should not of course, count.

>And the T-34 was put into production in that time (around September 1940).
May, actually. Bit so what? Every country in the world was testing and improving and modernizing tanks. The U.S. was doing it, and they were far from a war footing in 1940. The Germans were certainly putting out more of the advanced medium tanks in that same time period; again, what makes you claim that the Soviets were in a greater position of relative strength? Especially if they're in a position to overrun Ploesti and rob the Germans of pretty much all of their oil?

And the Germans diluted their forces more than improve them during that time.

>Please, cite this.
War Without Garlands.

>what makes you claim that the Soviets were in a greater position of relative strength?

What the fuck are you on about? The point I was trying to make is that the Soviet Union was not in a greater position of relative strength at that time, which is why they wouldn't dare violate the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Which is what you questioned me about earlier.

No they didn't. What possible basis could you use for claiming that? Why are the numbers of pretty much every pieces of heavy equipment relative to the number of infantrymen go up for Barbarossa relative to Fall Gelb? Why are all those PZ 1s and 2s replaced by 3s and 4s? Why are the artillery pieces heavier, and there are now self-propelled variants?

>War Without Garlands.
That is the title of a book, not a citation. Please show the text you're using to base this claim upon.

>What the fuck are you on about?
Learn to read.

USSR's strength vis a vis's Germany's strength is greater in 1940 than 1941. Especially since a short, knockout attack when pretty much the entire Wehrmacht is in France that overruns Ploesti means the Germans have no fuel to fight with.

>irrelevant stuff that misses the point entirely.

Very interesting, and Harrison's good. I could have sworn Tooze came to the opposite conclusion though, but I'll yield to you for the thread until I get my copy back and can check it in detail.

No. The August 1939 borders were perfect from an ethnic standpoint, with all the world's German-speakers united under one flag. If Hitler stops there, he's the new Bismark, the great reunifier of the German state. He can retire with his legacy as one of the great statesmen intact. That's realistically the best overall outcome he could have gotten.

MAYBE BECAUSE THEY WERE WORRIED ABOUT AN EXPANSIONIST SUPERPOWER (WHO HATED THE SHIT OUT OF COMMUNISM) WHICH WAS INVADING ESSENTIALLY EVERY COUNTRY CLOSE TO IT AND EXPLICITLY STATED IN IT'S DICTATOR'S MANIFESTO THAT IT NEEDED TO ANNEX THE EAST IN ORDER TO SURVIVE

Seriously, if Stalin didn't militarize in the 40s, he would have been a fucking idiot

God I hate "muh preemptive strike" fags. Stalin was perfectly content with Poland

>That is the title of a book, not a citation.
It's 5am where I am so I'm not arsed finding text in a book you have not read.

> Why are the numbers of pretty much every pieces of heavy equipment relative to the number of infantrymen go up for Barbarossa relative to Fall Gelb? Why are all those PZ 1s and 2s replaced by 3s and 4s? Why are the artillery pieces heavier, and there are now self-propelled variants?

They obviously improved them but they also spread their equipment and vehicles out amongst their divisions and they added tons of captured equipment (much of it obsolete) along with the greater numbers of conscripted, inexperienced men.

>USSR's strength vis a vis's Germany's strength is greater in 1940 than 1941. Especially since a short, knockout attack when pretty much the entire Wehrmacht is in France that overruns Ploesti means the Germans have no fuel to fight with.

The Red Army had just been embarrassed by the Finns and the Wehrmacht had fucked the Poles and then rolled over the French in six fucking weeks! Stalin was clearly intimidated by these German successes.

Regardless, we're arguing in circles.

Before I go, I'll restate my mild opinion for clarity: I think that Stalin was considering an invasion of Romania at some point down the line as a way to cut the Germans off from the oil, reducing the German threat to the Soviet Union. He did not want too do it until the Red Army was fully mobilized and had updated it's equipment and doctrine. I believe this was because he was genuinely concerned with the state of the Red Army after the Winter War and was concerned about the speed and decisiveness of the Germans victories in Poland and France.

tldr: fuck you

The '39 borders were never going to last for sheer geopolitical reasons. The Danzig Corridor is simply indefensible, with or without Danzig itself. The best you can hope for is 1914 borders and the remainder made a puppet state/GG of Warsaw by any other name.

>It's 5am where I am so I'm not arsed finding text in a book you have not read.
Okay, well, you're wrong. Stumbling Colossus, by Glantz.

>They obviously improved them but they also spread their equipment and vehicles out amongst their divisions and they added tons of captured equipment (much of it obsolete) along with the greater numbers of conscripted, inexperienced men.
You are simply incorrect.

>Before I go, I'll restate my mild opinion for clarity: I think that Stalin was considering an invasion of Romania at some point down the line as a way to cut the Germans off from the oil, reducing the German threat to the Soviet Union.
Yes, I got that. And the obvious counterpoint is that if he was going to do that, he'd do it towards the end of June, when his army is in Romania and Germany's army is in fucking France and can't actually stop him. Breaking off for a year or two while Germany keeps building an even stronger force so that maybe, some years down the line when you will almost certainly have less of an opportunity than you do right now, you can knock out the oil, is insanity.

Do you remember the part of the book where you saw it? I'm not finding anything in the tables or appendix.

1914 borders would be ideal, but the corridor is tolerable.

It was in the section where he's going into the Speer's reforms and how they were attempting to compensate for lack of expertise with a lot of mass mobilization of enthusiastic amateurs leading large mobs of people. He goes into how it was really the Soviets who made that work, and something something about the extent of their economy which was diverted to war purposes.

>Okay, well, you're wrong. Stumbling Colossus, by Glantz.

My claims are based on what I read in War Without Garlands, by Kershaw. But I'm not going to claim that I'm right and you're wrong. I've been meaning to pick up something from Glantz, maybe I'll have a look at that.

>And the obvious counterpoint is that if he was going to do that, he'd do it towards the end of June, when his army is in Romania and Germany's army is in fucking France and can't actually stop him. Breaking off for a year or two while Germany keeps building an even stronger force so that maybe, some years down the line when you will almost certainly have less of an opportunity than you do right now, you can knock out the oil, is insanity.

I should note that my opinion is that Stalin considered invading Romania after those German victories, not before. Which makes everything you've said there moot.

But whatever, time for bed.

I do find it interesting that, even with Hitler's autism killing 10% of Germany's population and reducing it to a husk occupied by Amerisharts and Adidas Squatters, Germany recovered and became the largest economy in Europe and de facto hegemon of the continent. With really high living standards, highest in the world bar the small northern states. It makes you wonder how powerful Germany would have been if they had actually listened to Schacht and kept growing economically instead of larping as Orks.

It's the second of august 1934
You are adolf hitler
How do you win the war?
Go

Don't start a fucking war.

Unironically kill myself.

CYANIDE
Y
A
N
I
D
E

Is it the section with
>If there was a true 'armaments miracle' in 1942 it occurred, not in Germany, but in the armaments factories in the Urals. Despite having suffered territorial losses and disruption that resulted in a 25 per cent fall in total national product, the Soviet Union in 1942 managed to out-produce Germany in virtually every category of weaponry.

I see statistics of how the Soviets outproduced the Germans in weaponry, but not how they generally devoted a greater percentage of GDP to the military. As you can see from Harrison's chart, the Germans spent a greater percentage of their national income on defense than any other power, despite having relatively low armaments output early on. This is because they were investing heavily into air and naval projects and industrial plants as part of their strategy of preparing for a final confrontation with the Anglo powers, something Tooze explains very well. This is something that Speer followers sometimes don't understand; more armaments output (muh hordes of 109s) doesn't necessarily mean a higher degree of mobilization. Tooze shoes this perhaps unknowingly by stressing how mobilized Germany was from day one, how the unimpressive production figures were explained by other priorities, and pointing out the fact that the Soviets specialized in producing weapons systems to the detriment of other products like trucks and industrial equipment, both important Lend-Lease goods.
>The best single explanation for this remarkable triumph was the extraordinary concentration of Soviet production on a limited number of weapons produced in a handful of giant factories, permitting the fullest possible realization of economies of mass-production.

Make frens with Teddy Roosevelt

Honour Molotov Ribbentrop, give up plans for eastern Lebensraum. That's it.
The easiest way to win a war is to simply change the goals and expected outcomes.

>Germany could have won WW2

You're still fucked when America starts dropping nukes on you. Germany literally can't win WW2 in any meaningful way, because any scenario which would extend the war past 1945 results in Germany getting nuked. The only winning move is not to play. Nazi Germany must scrap plans for any further expansion during or after August 1939.

Yes and no. The goal is mostly, by avoiding a two front war, to end the war in the west before entering in any engagements in the east (and preferably, not doing so at all).
In any case, the preferable course of action would be to continue with operation sea lion, naval and aerial superiority be damned, a proper opposed landing. It would most certainly have been bloody and costly in every metric available to military planners, but with our powers of hindsight we can say it would probably have been less costly than the entire eastern front. Assuming Germany knocks out the UK, the US simply doesn't have a proper base from which to conduct a nuclear attack on Germany itself, save for an invasion of Europe without Britain as a staging point. It's got to cross the atlantic battle-ready, no doubt with support of at least a couple carriers.
Before I get too into this, let me say I ain't rooting for Germany, this is merely a bit of entertainment. And let's face it, nothing I've proposed would have been at all considered politically feasible. In a sense, what I've said had been dead in the water right from "give up eastern lebensraum".

Germany could have knocked out Britain even without Sea Lion, capturing Malta,Crete and Cyprus, convincing Franco to take over Gibraltar, and finally invading Egypt and closing the Suez canal would have been deathblows for the British. After that the Germans can just march over to Iraq and Palestine at their leisure and take over those as well.

>convince Franco to take gibraltar
This is not a front Germany could defend, nor would it be expected that the Spanish could hold it. Movements on british territory are constantly hampered by british access to the sea, and the RN at the time was still a force to be reckoned with. The reason I suggest attacking Britain directly is because

A) the narrowness of the channel is the only way to counter british naval superiority
B) decisively taking out the British on the islands itself ideally reduces the length of the war, long wars being universally regarded as the next worse thing to a two front war in prussian/germany strategic thought since the end of the Franco-Prussian war, for good reason.

Sure, the germans could muck about in the Mediterranean, but as other user said, so long as the isles are still there the US still has a staging point for its own military operations, right up to the use of atomic weaponry.