Gentlemen, could one of you comment on the critical role played by the events that took place at Castle Wolfenstein?

On the other hand, the Russians knew that they were extremely thinly stretched on the Eastern boarder thanks to the all out assault from Barbarossa. It was a poorly supplied makeshift force that was intended to make the Japanese think that the forces were larger, better equipped, and more capable than they really were. In reality, they were living on a prayer that the Japanese would not open hostilities again. This this was a situation that the Japanese Empire could have taken better advantage of rather than committing suicide in taking on the Americans, while better helping the Germans by attacking British Singapore instead of taking the bait from the Americans to start hostilities (so Roosevelt could enter the war without the condemnation of those voters who favoured neutrality). Instead the Russians sighed a sigh of relief when intelligence came that Japan had no intention to break the peace pact. They had been let off the hook in a major way, and could now safely withdraw Eastern and Siberian forces to use in the winter counter offensive against the Germans.

Of course, another potential traditional southern ally of Germany they neglected in Hitler's massive hubris were the Turks/Ottomans in the Middle East. Once again, if they had gone into the Middle East to secure fuel supplies and renew old allegiances before attacking with someone much sharper like Rommel at the helm from the South of Russia/Middle East, they would have had a better fighting chance. And, yes, the precedent of Alexander the Great was there too. 

Control of the Middle East would have not only starved Britain of an oil supply, they could have then shipped fuel from the Middle East via Singapore to Japan in exchange for military support. To this day, all oil to the Far East/Oceania goes through Singapore and with the British in control there and the Americans helping to enforce the embargo, Japan was starved of a solid oil supply. And once again, if the Germans had fought to secure the allegiance of the Ukrainians (who are to this day anti-Russian and pro-Western) with their oil supplies, in exchange for a little autonomy, rather than considering them Slavonic Untermensch to be exterminated, a particularly strong Southern offensive line to cut off the Soviet fuel lines that avoided the bitter cold of Northern Russia  - as favoured by the professional strategists in the Wehrmacht - might have been successfully pursued as the same time as Japan put the pinch on from the Far East.

As often happens in military failures, the petty politicians who believe their spin, and who crown themselves as chief military strategists run roughshod over professional military advice. So in the Wehrmacht went with an offensive front ridiculously widely spread from far north in Leningrad all the way down to Stalingrad just to capture politically symbolic cities named after Lenin and Stalin along with the capital of Moscow. Even the siege of Stalingrad was stupid - they should have just surrounded it and pushed on to the oil fields as originally planned. When things got tough in winter up north, they should have pulled out of Leningrad and Moscow to fall back onto concentrating the prong of the attack towards the souther oil fields. Instead came Hitler suicidal order to "stand fast".

It was all a repetition of Napoleon's failures. As a young and ambitious general he was brilliant but once he crowned himself emperor he became more of a politician who tended to increasingly believe his own spin. Military strategy dictated by politician spin is the mother of all disasters - hmmm... haven't we seen history repeat recently?

As for the Duke of Windsor. He was right to see the potential for a Europe dominated by fascism: the means and potential were there. And if instead of going off and doing totally stupid things, Hitler had concentrated the full fury of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Reichsmarine on the British Isles without the distraction of the Eastern Front, Windsor may well have gotten his wish to go from Il Duke to Il Duce of Britain. Even if Britons had fought on the beaches and the hills, it was unlikely that the British voting public would have allowed their Prime Minister to have sacrificed anything - even 20 million voters, just to defeat Hitler. That was not a concern that Stalin needed to have - he was more worried about being captured by Hitler and strung up by the neck with piano wire and couldn't care less how many of his people he sacrificed to stay in power.

Last edited by Sator (2011-10-01 21:07:43)

My wife's mother was born in the Ukraine in 1942 and she has some interesting tales to tell of the period. Her father was one of the few men in her village to survive the hostilities and was seriously shell shocked and battle scared. Despite this, there was a lot of jealousy because a lot of the women were left widowed and the impact of the fatalities during WWII are beyond the concept of most of us.

Her grandfather also had to go on the run for a couple of years for being a capitalist during the Soviet created famine in the 1930's as he owned a cow. Had Adolf and his chums played the master race card differently, then the locals would have supported them. Of course after the war, the Great Patriotic one, Stalin succeeded in Sovietizing the Ukraine.

The German invasion initially followed a scorched earth policy and they took all the food and the Romanian troops were amongst the worse for random massacres and killing of women and children. During the long retreat the Germans started to ask and beg for food, in the knowledge that they would be held to account by the Russians.

I'm very much interested in the air war in all theatres, particularly the Eighth Air Force, I find the bravery of the crews awe inspiring and the horror of the bombs almost beyond moral justification. It intrigues me.

In any event, two totalitarian master race systems i.e. Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany would have instantly turned on each other in the event of victory.

Last edited by formby (2011-10-02 06:58:26)