Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Invasion of the Soviet Union Was the Key Turning Point of WW2
Operation Barbarossa was the name given to Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 22, 1941. The battle aims of the German forces under the command of Adolf Hitler were the following: the complete annihilation of the Soviet Union’s armed forces, the collapse of communism, and primarily the conquest of lebensraum (living space) for the Third Reich and its people.
To achieve such aims the Germans created one of the largest and least well known coalitions in history, assembling an army of 4 million men (3 million being German) and hundreds of thousands of cars, trucks, planes, and horses. They came from Finland in the far north to Romania in the far south and invaded the USSR on a 2,000 mile frontier. At approximately 3:00 in the morning on Monday 74 years ago began what many historians believe was the decisive event of the Second World War. I would concur with such a view and here is why.
First, the decision by Hitler to attack the Soviet Union in 1941 opened up an Eastern Front in the war in Europe and thus created a two-front war. This was the mistake many German generals believed had cost Germany the First World War; the surviving generals’ assessment blamed the Nazis’ decisions here for Germany losing the Second.
By May 1941 Hitler was master of continental Europe. Had Hitler decided to go with the smart options, he would have concentrated on bringing Britain to peace terms and thus ending any possible American entry into the European war. Yet he did not, thank God. As Andrew Roberts points out in his brilliant book The Storm of War, blinded by Nazi ideology (i.e., lebensraum), Hitler chose to follow the goals of the party, rather than what was “rational.” In doing so he signed his death warrant. The German Empire simply could not sustain a war in the long run on two fronts once the allied powers mobilized their full economic, political, and military resources.
Second was the sheer savagery and cost of the new front on Nazi forces. Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, to which more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The Eastern Front became the site of some of the largest battles, most horrific atrocities, and highest casualties for Soviets and Germans alike.
The numbers that fought on the Soviet soil were daunting but the amount that died there was even more horrifying. Nearly 25 million people (and this is a conservative figure) died on this front in a four-year period. Not just soldiers but millions of civilians as well. Hitler did not call it a war of annihilation for nothing.
Fortunately for the Russian people and the world, his war had a downside for Nazi ambitions. For you see, out of every four German soldiers killed in the entire war, three died on the Eastern Front. Since German armed forces lost close to 3 million men, that is a startling figure but a telling one. In this figure, one can see how the Second World war came to be lost for Germany.
The other allied nations did not inflict such casualty rates on Germans until late 1944 when Germany was already fatally weakened. It was the ordinary Russians — ill-equipped, terrified, and fused with both hatred and patriotism — who won against their invaders at a terrifying cost. Statistically speaking, it took three to four Russian soldiers to die in order to inflict same result on one German soldier. Now you can imagine why so many Russians died and why their deaths were so crucial to the end victory.
Third, and this is crucial, was the make up of the Russian government. The USSR was a totalitarian communist state which since 1927 had been led by a genocidal communist lunatic. Joseph Stalin had wiped away several millions of his own people and others he controlled during the years leading up to WW2. He ruled with an iron fist and a vicious communist police state which had just finished purging its imagined enemies and rivals in the military and the party.
However, going up against the equally frightening totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany, perhaps it was better that Russia had such a cruel but tight, centralized police state. For no democratic government, not even the U.S., could have sustained and kept fighting against Hitler while losing the millions the Russian people did. If you doubt me, keep in mind the growing disquiet in current generation of American public when Iraq war dead of U.S. soldiers rose to 4,000.
Modern democracies and the ones in the 1940s could not have sustained the casualty rates that Russia endured then and still remained free societies or combatants. They would have sued for peace or stayed out of confrontation. While I personally believe the U.S. and U.K. could have defeated the Nazis without Soviet Union, millions more of their men would have paid with their lives and the war would not have ended in 1945 (or without a mushroom cloud in Europe).
Fourth, the resources that Russia had at its disposal proved crucial to victory. The Russians’ sheer territory meant that it was impossible for the Germans to fully conquer and police it effectively. As the initial fighting ended, the USSR armed forces learned to retreat in an orderly fashion dragging the Germans deeper and deeper into Russia and playing havoc with their very thin supply lines. This would prove crucial as the war went on and the Germans became too few on the ground.
The mineral and productivity resources of the Stalinist regime were left intact behind the Ural Mountains, easily out of reach of Stuka bombers. The Soviet war capacity could be kept alive and allowed to grow, turning out new and ever more effective tanks, armaments, and rockets. However, the biggest resource that ensured Russia’s survival was it vast population. The Russians had a population then of over 100 million people and could put millions to arms, something the Germans found out later. For all the thousands the Nazis killed, more kept coming. This sapped German morale and allowed the Russians to regroup and plan strategies and attacks with more men. This was crucial to winning the war in the East.
I probably have more reasons why Soviet entry into the war changed the course of history but, alas, as of right now I cannot think of them. But as you can see, it was necessary that they did. The outcome of the war in Europe was decided not on the beaches of Normandy but in the steppes, forests, and hill country of the Eastern Front. The greatest and cruelest conflict in history had its worst and most awful confrontations here and the results changed the history of the globe.
Hope you read it and like or comment below. I am not working for RT by the way. As of yet anyway.
Published in History, Military
He gave up nothing of his own! He only agreed with Stalin that Stalin could take less of the East than Hitler would take! Stalin did not even take all of Finland!
What is being given up here? You have to have something or want to acquire it to be able to give it up!
Hitler went to Stalin to prevent him from making a deal with the French & English. He got what he wanted. The price seems paltry. Stalin had a choice of allies–if he had thought he could get anything better out of the democracies, would not he have turned down the tyrant? Having chosen to deal with Hitler, is not it strange that he would make massive payments in war materiel?
Most importantly he gained two years to rebuild the military after purging much of its officer corps and the territorial acquisitions provided the Soviet with strategic depth that proved an asset against the Germans in 1941.
Those territorial acquisition offered no strategic depth at all. & when the attack started, massive numbers of planes & what have you were destroyed on the ground. We’re talking, thousands of machines (per Mr. Paul Johnson’s Modern times). & Stalin ran out of Moscow for a few days. Don’t let’s talk as if he was preparing to be invaded & preparing his strategic depth! Being that he was not facing an attack in 1939, he did not buy time. Being that in ’41 he had all the intel he could want from several intelligence services worldwide, that he would be attacked–he would have prepared had he had preparations for defense in mind already in ’39. In ’39, he just wanted to get stuff.
Mr. Johnson also says, Khrushchev said, Stalin went crazy whenever anyone suggested Hitler would attack-
Hitler had to ask Stalin not to interfere in Poland and give up a large chunk of it for a cheap price. Germany was relying upon the Soviet Union for raw materials. The Soviets didn’t need any of this. Hitler needed to make a deal to secure his position in the east and to protect Germany from the British blockade.
What does ‘had to ask mean’? Stalin attacked Poland two weeks & change after Hitler? Are you saying, Hitler needed Stalin’s help in Poland? Or his permission? Hitler did not need anything from Stalin to take as much of Poland as he took before Stalin invaded & before they finished their separate conquests. Hitler could as easily have taken it all. Poland was defenseless & no trouble.
True. After the deal.
True. So why pay massive payments? How in hell do you not see how weak your position is here: If I walk into a store & pay massive amounts of money to get nothing–I’m insane. Are you saying, Stalin was insane about this? Why would he pay for nothing?
True. & nevertheless, he extracted a massive price instead of being asked to pay a massive price!
The raw materials were not a massive price for the Soviets. They were very cheap. And from an economic agreement, the Soviet Union gets permanent increases in their territory.
And yes, Hitler did need Stalin’s help in the east, and he did need Stalin’s help economically. Don’t forget, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east while the Germans invaded from the west.
And to an extent, Hitler did need Stalin’s permission. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact outlined a Soviet sphere of influence, which included eastern Poland.
1. So we agree that the R-M pact was mutually beneficial with regard to acquiring territory. Neither party gave anything up: Both acquired. But Hitler acquired more & first.
2.We agree that this settled the East for Hitler so he could turn West.
So then Stalin could exact a price for this. What did he get to balance what Hitler got? He got to lose massive amounts of materiel. The notion that oil & kerosene was cheap to Stalin is hilariously worthless. If you tell me, I’ve got something, it’s not worth much to me but it’s absolutely necessary to you–how in hell would that persuade me to give it to you for free? If the resources meant far more for Hitler than for Stalin, then Stalin could have got a great price for them. Instead, he gave them up for nothing.
None of you seem to see that this is an absolute barrier to the way you calculate the balance of power & the interests in this case.
We agree, Hitler needed the resources. We agree, Stalin had no need to rid himself of wealth. We agree, Stalin nevertheless paid Hitler things worth very much to Hitler. & yet you folks feel no need to explain that. It seems outstanding blindness to me: You do not want to confront the obvious: Stalin feared Hitler, not the other way around-
While largely in agreement with you on this point, Stalin is always an interesting study. He feared Hitler, but he also was caught totally off guard when Hitler invaded (even when his own intelligence was screaming at him that the Nazis were about to invade) – what to make of that? Hard to say. He had spent his short peace with Hitler in a massive purge of Red Army officers, then disappeared on what was a likely vodka bender when Hitler invaded. My guess is that while he expected eventual war with Hitler, he didn’t think it would happen for a few years.
I’m glad I don’t have to feel like on crazy pills anymore. I was getting tired of people telling me how Stalin was strongarming Hitler!
I’ve been reading the Realtime WWII Twitter account, which gives an account of what happened on that day in the war, and is currently in 1943.
According to them, “vodka bender” is pretty much what Stalin did, in a Black Sea dacha if I remember right. After a few days, a committee came down to ask him what to do, he was worried they were going to depose him.
Or, according to others, he was masterminding & strongarming & super-powerful.
Too bad they didn’t.
Actually, to quote from The Wages of Destruction, he was:
So Stalin was a mastermind with a strategic vision. Note that Stalin was not coerced into the partnership. Stalin entered into the partnership for his own benefit. I would also add that Stalin got more than Hitler.
I am not familiar with Mr. Tooze’s work, so I do not know how serious to take it.
But as to the masterminding, ok, how come he gave massive resources away which would be used to destroy his armies & how come when he was attacked, he was crippled by panic & let thousands of machines be destroyed? Especially as he had been warned from every direction.
This is the last time I will repeat these points–if you have not seen them above, you have them here, perhaps not very well summarized. If they do not seem to you worth discussing, of course, you need not discuss with me-
In the long run, probably. For Russia, most likely not. While Stalin didn’t do a lot to help his own cause, if they kicked him out, would his replacement have had the same authority to his rule? What if they couldn’t agree on who should take over? I figure Beria, if no one else, would cut some kind of deal with Germany.
As to the R-M pact both sides got something. From 1936 till 1939 the Soviet Union foreign policy was to construct a Popular Front to oppose the Nazis. To that end, Communist parties in the West were directed to stop opposing working with their opponents and to demand common action against the Nazis.
In the immediate runup to the Polish crisis, Britain and France sought Soviet support for an alliance against Hitler in the event of a German attack on Poland. The feebleness of the Western approach led Stalin to believe they were not serious and, in fact, were trying to manipulate the Soviets and Germans into a war in which they could stand aside and watch their common enemies destroy each other. So Stalin decided to turn the tables and see what he could get from Hitler.
Hitler, for his part, worried that his planned attack on Poland would trigger a two-front war against England & France in the West and the Soviets in the East. That’s why he was so intent on neutralizing the Soviets, so anxious for a deal with them and so willing to outbid Britain and France.
Again, with this strange idea. What do you mean Hitler outbid the Allies? What did he give? What did he lose? What did he have to sacrifice!
You are confusing two different time periods; August 1939 when the R-M pact was signed and June 1941 when Stalin had his ten-day collapse in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet invasion.
1. For Hitler he thought he was definitely eliminating any risk of a two front war prompted by his attack on Poland and reduce the risk that, despite their threats, Britain and France would declare war on Germany if he attacked Poland since, from Hitler’s perspective it made no logical or strategic sense for them to do so in the absence of an alliance with the Soviets. Hitler’s goal was to keep the Polish matter a local one and not trigger another world war.
2. Stalin was faced with three options.
First, ally with Britain and France. However, they were unwilling to provide any territorial or economic concessions to him.
Second, remain neutral and live with the consequences of whatever actions Hitler took unilaterally in the East.
Third, make a deal with the Germans which would provide him with large and undisputed spheres of influence in Finland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia; territorial concessions in Poland where the Soviets could let the Germans do the fighting and then march in at the end; an economic deal in which German manufactured goods would be traded for Soviet raw materials; and finally, at least for some period, deflect Hitler’s ambitions after Poland towards the West providing Stalin additional time to rebuild his military.