was the german assault on russia doomed to failure due to the vast geographics of the land?

I think the German army although being tactically unequalled,was to small for the task of conquering such a numerically great enemy in such a huge geographical space, theoretically the soviets could have retreated all the way to vladivostok if need be, imagine the lenthg of thr German supply lines then, no i think Hitler had bitten of more than he could chew in Russia.
The experienced gambler he was, this invasion was the the one gamble promising a world history altering prise, but with a unexeptable high ri!sk involved, the Fuehrer was basically irresponsible in what he did ordering such a operation,particularly in the light. of their poor intelligenge on Soviet resources

 

give you r opinion and lets discuss for interests sake!

 

The Germans didn,t have the manpower or the industrial might take Russia.

They were a bully who messed with the wrong country and more than met there match.

 

Actually, even though Germany had 75m people compared to the Soviet Union's 190 m, the sum total of German military production was still greater than that of the Soviet Union by a little.

But the Soviets were not fighting the Western Allies at the same time.

 

Yes, Germany simply didn't have the industry for an all out war with russia.

 

If you read Ivan's War you will see how bad of a shape the Red Army was in those first 18 months of the war and yet for a Army in such a bad shape stopped the Germans taking Moscow shows also that the Germans were not super men.

Poor planning and poor logistics did not help the Germans one bit.

 

I wouldn't give all the credit to the Russian Army stopping the Germans from reaching Moscow. There were several key decisions made that hindered the Germans (the choice to encircle thousands of men instead of capturing key, strategic locations) to the point where the Russian Winter - and one of the worst Winters in recent years at the time - hit them hard on the outskirts of Moscow. It doesn't matter how great your army is, its not going to go anywhere when its frozen in place and not equipped for the harshness of the Russian winter.

The vastness of Russia did have a (documented) psychological effect on the German troops, when all they could see were just fields and fields in every direction for hundreds of miles. Its like being out on the ocean for long periods of time w/o seeing any islands or land. It makes you feel really small and hopeless. I forget where I read/saw a program on the psychological effect on the troops, but it was there.

 

don't think anybody did at that time...

 

They also had to walk and retreat on foot across this great expanse, which is extraordinarily unsettling.

 

Agreed...they did a damn good job in slowing the Germans down who were not given proper winter clothing for winter...Kiev...poor lubricates in there tanks...horse power...not fully motorise...the list goes on.

 

I have a book with tank production numbers and the most the germans produced was around 8000-9000 in one year that same year the russians produced around 25000-26000.

I will look for the book and find the exact numbers.

 

But they were fighting Germany's allies, about 8 other countries....

 

In hindsight, it's easy to see Barbarossa had little chance of success. The blame for its ultimate failure, as well as its success in the very beginning, was due entirely to one man, Hitler. Most of his Generals opposed it for the reasons you state, and openly warned him against it. Even Goering had serious doubts about Barbarossa and tried to talk him out of the idea, something he rarely did with Hitler. But Goering explained, "The Fuerhrer has made up his mind, and no power on earth can talk him out of it now".
Hitler's decision, although quite faulty in retrospect, was not entirely without logic. Hitler had fought in WW1 from beginning to end, on the Western front, and in that war German forces had advanced east against the Tzarist Russian army for thousands of miles before the Tzarist collapse and surrender in 1918. So there was ample reason for Hitler to believe h is forces might cause a similar collapse against the Red Army.

Hitler also knew all about Stalin's senseless purge of his own officer corps during the 1930's (and there is even evidence that German intelligence helped supply information to Stalin against his own leaders). When he first announced his plan to attack Russia, he answered all objections by pointing out his belief that "the armies are leaderless".

Perhaps most importantly, there is one fact that is seldom discussed in history books despite the fact that there is plenty of evidence for its truth: Hitler believed that Stalin was planning to attack him first. Stalin made several statements after signing the German-soviet non aggresion pact indicating that it was merely to buy time until Russia was ready to attack Germany (and some sources even specify the year he was planning to do it: 1943.). (Unprovoked soviet aggression against Finland and Poland, and several other actions by Stalin before Barbarossa, seem to show that Soviet foreign policy was almost as aggresive as Hitler's, and that the Soviets were far from the peace-loving pacifists they often claimed to be).

Barbarossa was certainly one of the most major mistakes in history but its origin and implementation were due entirely to Hitler. As stated, few German Generals believed it would succeed and Hitler was counting on a short war, a very short war, since even he knew in a long war Germany might lose. But he told the critics in 1941 that the Communist system was a house of cards and "We need only kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down".

 

They were weak and small countries that could only provide Germany with more poorly armed foot infantry divisions.

There was little reason for Germany to produce much more. They did not have the fossil fuels to keep a significantly larger tank force operational. Also, German weaponry was much more labor intensive compared to Soviet models and their material production was allocated to products in different weights.

 

I do think it was doomed from the start. And it all has to do not only with Hitler's own megalomania, but that of the German General Staff, Von Clausewitz in its full.

The German war doctrine advocated for a quick, surprise, amazingly violent blow that would knock out the enemy in the first round. And it worked pretty well with Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Yugoslavia and Greece. Now, what if such a violent blow didn't work? What if Germany faced an enemy who could resist the blow and hang on until the next round?

That was the case with Great Britain (with its God-given insularity and the fierce Royal Navy and RAF in between) and the USSR (with its enormity, huge industrial base and the toughness of her people). And the answer is that Germany lacked the doctrine to fight a prolongued, attrition war. The Germans sucked at logistical, long-term planning, fighting set-piece battles, deception and intelligence. Those things were not in their text books...

I disagree. Yes, all of Germany's strategic decisions prior to 'Barbarossa' were fatal: the lousy intelligence, the laughable logistics, over-confidence, bad occupation politics, no clear overall plan at all... But the decision to encircle thousands of men instead of capturing key positions was Germany's natural (and only) war doctrine. Actually, the Western Allies could have learned from it, instead of letting escape hundreds of thousands of German soldiers over and over (El Alamein, Messina, after the Anzio/Cassino breakthrough, Falaise), only to find them re-armed and re-deployed in the next deffensive line...

And it was a very effective doctrine. The USSR lost 3 million men in 1941 alone... Though they did learn to use that same kind of German inflexible thinking to their advantage, like at Stalingrad, where Paulus' forces insisted in pincer movements and round-ups within the city streets. The real problem was that German doctrine expected surrounded troops to quickly surrender. Soviet troops did not. Instead, they forced German infantry to mop 'em up, thus bleeding such units. Do you know that, by November 1941, when frostbite casualties hadn't yet taken place, infantry divisions were down to half its strenght? Soviet resistance.

Also, there has to be discussed (and it has in this forum) to see whether the loss of key positions (Stalingrad, Leningrad and even Moscow) could have gotten the job done.

And if weather is to be considered a factor, the late rasputitsa, late spring rains in May and early rains in September had a bigger effect on frustrating 'Barbarossa' than general winter.

 

Hitler was not the only one who wanted to invade Russia. Many Generals (after their success in the West) stood side by side with Hitler... Keitel, Hoth and I believe Kleist were a few. Some even gave Russia as few as 8 weeks. It was Hitler who thought more like 3 months. As arrogant and militarily incompetant as he was, he would have never made such a decision by himself.

We seem to be reading different history books. Are you familiar with Alexei Brusilov?

In 1917 Germany was once again fighting a two front war and in a costly stalemate. Germany did NOT advance thousand of miles into Russia as she was stuck eating up her precious resources and man power. As a result, Falkenhayn reached the conclusion that Germany could not hope to achieve a real decision as long as her army had to fight simultaneously against England, France, and Russia. He requested the chancellor to make a separate peace with one of these powers. That power was Russia and the deal was (supposedly) struck with Lenin, who happily agreed as he needed his Bolshevik Revolution to succeed. The plan worked and Germany happily accepted as she desperately needed men and supplies for the west.

This is plain rubbish. What Stalin told Molotov while signing the Ribbentropp pact was... "im reluctantly signing a pact with the very same nation, who's ultimate goal is to destroy us." Stalin said this because he read Hitler's Mein Kampf and knew very well what his intensions were. Stalin did however sign this pact because he did indeed need time to build up his forces. THERE IS NO, NOR HAS THERE EVER BEEN ANY EVIDENCE STATING THAT STALIN WAS GOING TO ATTACK HITLER.

An unprovoked attack on Finland and Poland?

Yes they werent super powers but neither was the Soviet Union in 41' and an additional 1 million men on the side of Germany didnt help not to mention an additional 1 million Soviet volunteers.

 

Agreed...infact during 1940 Stalin stepped up his materials to Hitler...oil...steel...so on.

To borrow Za's phase...Hitler tried to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

 

Friend there is plenty of evidence of Stalins intent. you have to dig a bit. It has obviously not been highlighted since Hitler and the Germans will forever be painted as the bad guys. Dunnigan's books in particular are alone in digging deep into the facts of world war 2 and he cites many sources in what i say since he did not pull them out of thin air. Maybe it is enough to say that Hitler and Stalin were practically one and the same since both realized there could never be a matter of co-existance and it would be either one system or the other. Stalin sacrificed 30 million dead and a ruined nation (which he knew could be rebuilt, and the Americans would even provide the resources) but he got what he wanted, global hegemony. (If this was not their train of thought, why and how did war come about in Korea in 1950?) If you happened to be a complete sociopath like Stalin, this was well worth the cost.

 

1917 November 9 Lenin forms the world's first Communist government and quickly asks Germany for an armistice.( which side started the armistice talks is not the issue here )

1917 December 3 A truce is signed between the new Russian Bolshevik government and Germany, ending hostilities on the Eastern Front, and permanently erasing Russia from the Allied ranks.

1918 January The Bolsheviks sign an armistice with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks take Russia out of the war, freeing tens of thousands of German troops to fight the Allies in the West.

1918 February 9 German Foreign Secretary von Kuhlmann issues an ultimatum at Brest-Litovsk, which the Russians consider as annexationist. This causes division within the Soviet leadership.

1918 February 18 The German command launches an offensive along the entire Russian front after the Soviets refuse Germany's terms for peace. 700,000 Austro-German troops are thrown against the newly formed Red Army and begin closing in on Petrograd, Moscow and Kiev.

1918 March 3 The Bolsheviks sign a separate treaty of peace with the Germans at Brest-Litovsk. Under its terms, Russia recognizes the independence of the Ukraine, Finland, and Georgia; gives up control of Poland, the Baltic states, and a portion of Belorussia; and cedes Kars, Ardahan, and Batumi to Turkey. The treaty will be nullifieded by the defeat of Germany in November 1918.

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Frustrated with continued German demands for cessions of territory, Leon Trotsky, Bolshevik People's Commissar for Foreign Relations (i.e., Foreign Minister), and head of the Russian delegation, on February 10, 1918, announced Russia's withdrawal from the negotiations and unilateral declaration of the ending of hostilities, a position summed up as "no war — no peace".

The consequences for the Bolsheviks were worse, however, than anything they had feared the previous December. The Central Powers repudiated the armistice on February 18, 1918, and in the next fortnight seized most of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic countries. Through the ice of the Baltic Sea, a German fleet approached the Gulf of Finland and Russia's capital Petrograd. Despite strikes and demonstrations the month before in protest against economic hardship, the workers of Germany failed to rise up, and on March 3 the Bolsheviks agreed to terms worse than those they had previously rejected.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Notice the map of the territory surrendered to the central powers in the wiki site.