Doppleganger
Active member
Really, If he had such a firm grasp on military strategy, why did he have a war going on two fronts? His attack on Russia was the death knell of the German Army, including the SS. It was also the end of The Luftwaffe. A clever conqueror strikes at his enemy at their weakest point. He doesn't butt heads with a giant. And yes, his racial nonsense was just that. Nonsense. The hundreds of thousands of wasted troops and materials, just to murder civilians he personally thought were inferior, smacks of stupidity and a very serious character flaw. I still believe his best course was through North Africa after France. That he did not see the potential just adds weight to my assessment of him. Also, Hitler threw the idea around that the Sickle Cut strategy through the Ardennes was his. It wasn't. The idea and plans came from Manstein with help from Guderian. That the Russian Campaign wasn't a repetition of the blitzkrieg campaigns in the west should have lit a firecracker off in the back of his mind. It didn't, and eventually Russia swallowed the Heer, the SS and the Luftwaffe. You say his decision to take Kiev and the vast Soviet armies on the right of army group center was sound. I say it would have been sound if he had used his armies properly. He did not. Army group North and Army group South were eventually wasted. The three groups should have been sent directly through the center. Moscow should have been taken as the same time as Kiev or at least a little later. By virtually slicing the nation in half, you have done several things. You have not only disrupted communications but because Moscow is the communication hub for the entire country you have destroyed their communications. Set up your strong defenses and choose who you should attack first. Will it be the Leningrad front or Sevastopol and the Industrial hubs in the central and Southwest. But he shouldn't have attacked Russia in the first place. Why was the T34 a surprise? Canaris should have been sacked at once, but he wasn't. For the three pronged attack attempted he did not have enough troops or Tanks or artillery or equipment. He was an Amateur.
Firstly he didn't have a war on 2 fronts when he launched Operation Barbarossa. Britain could launch night-time bombing raids and such forth but they had no way of assaulting the bulk of German power in Europe. I should also qualify that really I think Hitler showed operational level ability. He was too delusional for grand strategy and indeed Germany as a nation has been historically great at the tactical and operational level but wanting at the strategic level.
Secondly, your observations regarding the Russian campaign (and some of his more delusional policies) stem from Hitler's character and personality flaws, not his lack of appreciation for operations. The planning for Barbarossa was faulty and flawed, but this was partly the fault of the German General Staff, to whom Hitler had charged with coming up with a battle plan. The fault also lies with Hitler but he allowed his own warped prejudices to override common sense by fatally underestimating the average Soviet soldier's will to resist. Hitler is commonly lampooned for targeting Kiev instead of Moscow but ask most historians now and they will generally say that Hitler was prudent to make that decision.
Finally, there's enough evidence now to suggest that Stalin would have attacked Hitler, probably in 1943. This isn't a defence of Hitler but merely to say that he probably realised he had to do something.
Your comments regarding Moscow might have been sound, but equally the Soviets could have continued the fight from their relocated capital. There's no real way to tell.
Yes Hitler was an amateur but he was not a bumbling idiot. At the start he had a clear head but from 1941 onwards he gradually sank further and further into a quagmire of his own making.
And next time use paragraphs! :twisted: