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No purges of the Red Army in 1937-1939?

Discussion in 'What If - European Theater - Eastern Front & Balka' started by little_katyusha, Sep 11, 2010.

  1. belasar

    belasar Court Jester

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    Volga I am not sure I can totally agree that the Purges was the major factor in the decision, or that without the purges Hitler would have stayed in western Poland. They certainly played a part in the decision, but not the primary one in my opinion.

    Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in the 20's where he put forth the idea that Germany needed and had the right to land in the east. In 1933 when he spoke to high ranking German officers about rearming he stated that he wished a military able to act in the east.

    Both of these occured before the purges.
     
  2. Volga Boatman

    Volga Boatman Dishonorably Discharged

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    Granted Belasar....but Hitler's ideas crystallized around the Purge and the Winter War.

    "Barbarossa" made OKW more than a little nervous. They knew quite well that they weren't dealing with creaky Tzarist military practice anymore, having got more than a close look at Russian military practice.

    These objections had more than a little basis in truth. For the first time, the top echelon in the German Army were facing an enemy that was more ruthless with the expenditure of their own soldiers than any other enemy before. Hitler's previous plans and utterances were so much rhetoric.....right up until the Purges made them possible.

    then, along came the Winter War, and this confirmed Hitler's opinion in his own mind. It was now or never. "Barbarossa" would roll forward despite the objections of the Generals, and in spite of intelligence estimates that gave Germany not much chance of succeeding should the war not be over quickly....
     
  3. LouisXIV

    LouisXIV Member

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    Perhaps you are missing another point here. Hitler and the upper German military command were quite convinced - and I am too - that if the Germans had not invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin would have invaded Europe in 1942. As far as many German were concerned, this was a necessary pre-emptive strike.
     
  4. belasar

    belasar Court Jester

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    Whoa Dude, no need to shout!
     
  5. T. A. Gardner

    T. A. Gardner Genuine Chief

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    The purge pales in comparison to other problems with the Red Army in 1941.

    First, maintenance of equipment was nothing short of pathetic. There was a general shortage of qualified mechanics and technicians throughout the army.
    Add to this a shortage of alot of equipment in general. Virtually every unit was short on its allotment of trucks, radios, telephones, wire, and a range of other materials. Many units had shortages of combat vehicles, guns and, even small arms.
    Then there was a general shortage of ammunition, particularly artillery shells. Part of this was due to the cumbersome logistics system the Red Army had leaving frontline units with paltry numbers of servicable rounds in their possession.
    Of course, there was the reorganization going on too. Few units had operated together as units. Even less had held any sizable exercises or other training. They yearly draft and a recent call up of nearly 100,000 reservists (May 1941) had many units filled with scantily trained troops of dubious quality.
    The purge was hardly the biggest problem the Russians had in 1941.
     
  6. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    I think it is also kinda interesting that towards the end of the war herr Hitler himself claimed he should have done the purge as well, as he started to consider officers with diehard nazi views more trustworthy in the front than the usual officers...
     
  7. LouisXIV

    LouisXIV Member

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    You mean like Ferdinand Schoerner, the man Hitler put in charge of the whole Wehrmacht in his will? Named as "Hitler's Ideal General?" Now there was a useless teat! He bled his units down while following the inevitable "hold fast" orders to the dot. He also instituted the drumhead courtmarshall system whereby any German soldier behind the lines without written permission was summarily executed. No wonder Hitler loved him.

    Rommel wasn't a member of the Nazi party, nor - I think - was Manstein. Many of the top German generals were not. I think if Hitler had purged and gone with die-hard Nazis, the war would have been over a lot sooner.

    As far as Stalin's purge is concerned, I don't think that influenced Hitler's decision at all. I think it was the poor showing of the Soviets in the Winter War, which would have happened - IMHO - purge or no purge.
     
  8. LJAd

    LJAd Well-Known Member

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    some (of topic) points on Schoerner:I have read some positive things on him,and also that a lot of soldiers were present at his funeral .
     
  9. Black6

    Black6 Member

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    Some points to consider:
    The officers purged were not only from the combat arms, many were from functions that helped to exacerbate the pre-existing problems. Leadership in fielding new equipment and experience in maintenance as it pertains to the service life and readiness of a weapons system or mechanization should not be ignored when analyzing the effect of Stalin's purges. A prostrate officer corps is a problem in and of itself, once you add inexperience to that atmosphere its difficult to get anything done. Hypothetical cases in point;
    Take the basic staff functions that you find at Army, Corps, Division, Regiment, Battalion-(G or S shops)
    S-1 Personnel
    S-2 Intelligence
    S-3 Operations
    S-4 Logistics

    If any or all of these shops are run by inexperienced leadership they will negatively impact the other shops and in turn negatively effect echelons above and below. Imagine the impact if most shops have inexperienced personnel and ALL are effected by the pervasive fear of the purges.

    This WILL effect training, logistics (new fieldings, maintenance, etc), personnel acquisition (getting people trained in a timely manner and properly placed by MTOE), morale and ultimately the all important combat effectiveness.
    Its the epitome of Clauswitz' "Friction".
     
  10. Sloniksp

    Sloniksp Ставка

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    Agreed TA.

    To make matters worse, approximately half of the troops were not at their posts when the invasion began....

    And yet still managed to come out on top :D
     
  11. LouisXIV

    LouisXIV Member

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    Don't forget the effect the purge had on the officer corps for years afterward. The officers would follow orders no matter what, for fear of being shot, no matter how ridiculous or out-of-date the orders were. In June of 1941 the Tenth Army was cut off and surrounded with no supplies, so what does Stalin order them to do? Counterattack! Did they do it? Yes.

    Pavlov and staff were executed for following orders, which resulted in their army getting destroyed. Even toward the end of the Great Patriotic War, most officers were still laying out detailed attack plans and following them to the letter, no matter what the enemy did.
     
  12. green slime

    green slime Member

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    Without the purges in Soviet Society, another leader may well have taken Stalins place. Let's not pretend that the Soviet Union was free from internal power struggles at this point in time. Given that this new leader would come from someone opposing the mad schemes of the previous dictator, then perhaps we can assume that without the purges, Soviet Union collapses even faster, as the pre-war industrialisation of vast areas beyond the Urals (out of reach of long range bombers) by force-marching large amounts of people into the designated new areas simply was unlikely to have happened. Without the steel industrial city of Magnitogorsk ("the steel heart of the soviet Union"), there really wouldn't be many T34's...
     
  13. LJAd

    LJAd Well-Known Member

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    the prewar industrialisation of vast areas beyond the Urals was already happening BEFORE the purges of the army .
    about the T 34 :I hope you don't believe that the T 34 was winning the war for the SU.
    About Magnitogorsk :how many % of the Russian steel was produced at Magnitogorsk ?And,with only steel,you will have no tanks .
    The Russian tanks were produced in more than a dozen factories (not all reast of the Urals!):
    Gorki,Stalingrad,Leningrad,Sverdlovsk,Omsk,Chelyabinsk,Kirov,Nishnij-Tagil.
     
  14. green slime

    green slime Member

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    Yes, but the only real reason for the purges not to happen, was if Stalin wasn't in power in 1937: If he was removed from power, then what is to say that the forced industrialization of backward areas would continue? Even so, without Stalin, the pace of the industrialisation would definitely have fallen off.

    The Steel mill at Magnitogorsk produced 50% of the soviet steel used in tank production... And say what you will of the qualities of T-34, if you half their number, lend lease isn't going to make up the numbers.... so yes, if only counted by sheer numbers alone, the T-34 was a very important piece of equipment for the Red Army.

    The Soviet Union produced approx 54000 T34s... but lost 44900... reducing their number by even 25% would have a very real impact.
     
  15. LJAd

    LJAd Well-Known Member

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    Hm,if Magnitogorsk did not exist,does not mean that the Russian steel production would fall by 50 %.
    Hm,if the Russian steel production was falling by 50 %,that would not result in a diminishing by 50 % of the T 34 production .We don't know :it could be that the T 34 production would remain stable ,the losses being with the other tanks .
    Hm,a true tank lover :you are overestimating the influence of the tank in WWII,IMHO,lower than the influence of the artillery .
     
  16. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    It is true that the biggest blast-furnace installations in the world (at the time) were built at Magnitogorsk, a job undertaken and completed entirely by the American company Mackee. And I believe it alone produced about 50% of ALL the steel used by the USSR during the war. I have no idea how one would break it down to which percentage of steel in the T-34 however.

    At Magnitogorsk, eight blast-furnaces were built, each over sixty feet high, with a capacity of 1,500 cubic yards and generating 1,000 tons of iron per day. It was larger than the then largest in the world, located at Gary Indiana. Since it was built (1929-31) under the first Five-Year Plan, it would have been online and producing before the "purges" would alter anything it would seem to me.
     
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  17. belasar

    belasar Court Jester

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    I can not speak to steel production, but the T-34 had a tremendous importance to the conduct of the war. Yes Artillery and Infantry are essential to fight a ground war, but to execute a mobile aggressive war they are not a substitutes for Tanks. Germany could not win quick victories in the West or reach the gates of Moscow without them.

    The value of the T-34 lay less in it self but rather its effect on German tank theory. Prior to the invasion of Russia, Germany relied on relatively light armor with good mobility to win its battles. They were used to defeat the enemy Army, not the enemy tanks. After 1941 Germany pursued two paths of armor development, stopgaps like the Marder's, Nashorn and Elephant, and tanks with the most armor and largest gun possible. What both paths had in common was that Germany no loger built tanks to win battles but to kill other tanks. This is important because Gemany had limited reasorces, and the tanks they now deployed were too slow, too heavy, too limited in mobility and numbers to effectively employ their panzer doctrine.
     
  18. green slime

    green slime Member

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    brndrt1: yes, it was founded then, but it hadn't achieved the full capacity it later had: furthermore, that also assumes that Stalin was removed after that fact; whereas, in all likelihood, for the purges not to take place, Stalin would probably have to be removed from power well before 1937.
     
  19. belasar

    belasar Court Jester

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    I can not see how it can be said with certainty that Stalin would fall to a plot had there been no purge.
     
  20. green slime

    green slime Member

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    Horse before Cart, not Cart before Horse:

    What I was stating, was that in order for there to be no Red Army purges, there would have to be no Stalin in power. For this, you would need Stalin to be outmanuevered from power during the late 1920's, or early 1930's, possibly by Trotsky, Bukharin or Zinoviev. There was alot of political infighting during this period, which culminated in the purges, not just of the Red Army, but of the entire society as a whole.

    Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.
     

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