Thursday, February 14, 2008
Germany's fatal error: Operation Barbarosa
From a historians point of view, invading Russia is probably the worst mistake one can make as a military strategist. The vastness of terrain, the large populace, and the horrible weather all make invaders into Russia severely handicapped when attempting to take over such a large and inhospitable country. Why didn't Germany's leaders realize the fatal errors made by Napoleon's army and others when attempting to invade Russia? Why didn't they invade in the spring as opposed to summer? Why didn't they go after Moscow as opposed to be land greedy? The logistics of invading Russia are just immense and the possibility for failure is enormous. This seems like a great example of military leaders not learning from history and attempting to conquer a nation based off political sentiment.
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I have also wondered why Hitler never learned from History and why he thought it was wise to open up a second front of the war. To listen to historians, I think most people have decided it was because of his drug abuse. However, I do not understand why he did not want to take Moscow. It seems to me that if you can control the capital and the major cities, that you could control all of Russia and have a lot more land to spread out.
Although I do agree that trying to take over Russia was fatal error to Germany's plan, they were actually pretty smart in deceiving the Russian military. With the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, the Germans were able to fool Soviet officials by putting off the actual date of the Russian invasion and discredit some of the top generals. Hitler played some smart mind games.
I have always felt that Hitler's greatest mistake was not wiping Britian off the map. I think the Nazis did not try hard enough in the Battle of Britian and became bored and instead decided that they would not ammount to any threat. Because of this, they turned their attention to the East.
If there was no threat in the West, Hitler could have allocated all of their resources on the Eastern front in order to destroy the Russians. Eventually this enemy in the East would have to be countered because Stalin would have eventually invading Hitler's Reich.
Invading Russia was partly because of his ego. Hitler wanted to have the most powerful army and by finishing off the Red army, the best supplied and armed at the time, he would achieve that. Also he would gain used of all of the Russian army's resources after defeating them. He was too preoccupied with power to think about the obstacles.
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