Barbarossa: why did it happen?

Because most of the Nazi and Wehrmacht officers weren't deeply concerned at the time. Their biggest two concerns were opening another front with the British still unchecked and the delays that had occured in the Balkans campaign that had pushed back the schedule to late June.
If anything, the OKW planned out the opening portion of the campaign rather well with the exception of engineering and logistics. Militarily their plan was sound.
Saying that the OKW opposed going into Russia would be much like their continiously increasing support to North Africa due to Rommel's tactical successes. Rather than keep their operations there to just supporting and maintaining Italy in Libya, the Germans turned North Africa into a full front. It was an unnecessary distraction.
This is just one more case of the apparently myopic grand strategic thinking of the OKW.

 

but that's the point!! the plan was made according to the hitler's ideological visions. if i well remember it sounded like "we just need to crash the door and the whole rotten building will collapse". many in wermacht knew that victory in 8 weeks was just ridiculous, impossible, only bla bla. Nevertheless, they did not concern at all about what could have happened after 8 weeks expired. logistic? resupplying? winter equipements? fuel? nothing of that was seriuosly planned.

 

Actually believe it or not, Hitler was one of the few who was not as optimistic about Russia's collapse as some other German commanders were such as Jodl, who gave the Soviet Union 4-5 weeks ( Hitler thought more on the lines of 3-4 months ).

Also lets not forget that the whole operation was based on the Soviet Union only being able to mount no more then 300 divisions ( in reality 596 ). Based on this information given, the Wehrmacht was very close to achieving its goal. Too bad it was faulty info.

 

And Hitler blamed the Jews for his failure.

 

A little more complicated aint it!

 

Forgot the Morgenthau plan?

Morgenthau Plan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"...Hull argued that nothing would be left to Germany but land and only 60% of the Germans could live off the land, meaning 40% of the population would die. "



If the Western Allied had done their part of the accepted plan all the Germans would have shared the same destiny. Now things went differently. And when did the Soviets started being friends with the Germans of East Germany, really? perhaps for political reasons when the West turned against Stalin.

 

This is not what I meant by poor logistical and engineering planning. The OKW did plan for winter equipment in accordance with their normal requirements for such. They knew they would have to provide some bridging and repair the rail system. That sort of thing.
Where they failed was in the details. They apparently were unaware that the Soviet rail system not only was a different gauge (known) but that watering and coaling stations were further apart than European standards meaning more of these were needed (unknown). They knew the rail requirements per corps, army, etc., but provided only about a third of the railway engineering troops necessary to restore lines. Instead of training more the ones available were put to work upgrading the Polish rail system to unnecessary levels.
They were aware of the many large rivers needing crossing but failed to provide bridging beyond standard equipment already available. There was no planning for riverine forces.
The state of roads was largely unknown and ignored. Little was done to improve these as they advanced.
In winter equipment no planning was made for the low temperatures that could be expected and equipment was not tested to these temperatures. The result was unnecessary failures of many types of weapons and equipment until improvised methods could be worked out.
The provision of winter equipment is typical of the logistic problems the Germans had. They had the equipment and clothing in storage in Germany and Poland. They problem was that there was insufficent rail capacity to bring it forward (due to lack of railway repair engineers that led to a bottleneck in rail capacity). To compound this, the Germans when faced with the Soviet winter counter offensive in 1941 hastily threw a number of unprepared units from France and Germany into the lines piecemeal to stop the Soviets. These jammed the rail system up even more.
The Germans knew what their supply requirements were. They failed to figure out how to meet those requirements. This has nothing to do with Hitler. It has everything to do with a lack of appreciation of the art of engineering and supply.

 

This was the plan to prevent Germany from ever waging another war. Something like the Russian version of the Versailles treaty, but far more brutal as the previous treaty had no effect.

I for one was under the impression that the extermination of 40% of Gemany's poplutaion was only in theory?

 

Dah! That word again!

But Seriously Hitler pushed for it to happen in 41 and so it did.

 

thanks for all the "details" you provided, very interesting. in fact, there were many others...
Operation Barbarossa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

imho, if ALL the logistic "details" went wrong it means that the whole logistic strategy was wrong.

i just report here the chapter (from the link above) about WEATHER

A paper published by the U.S. Army's Combat Studies Institute in 1981 concluded that Hitler's plans miscarried before the onset of severe winter weather. He was so confident of quick victory that he did not prepare for even the possibility of winter warfare in the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, his eastern army suffered more than 734,000 casualties (about 23 percent of its average strength of 3,200,000 troops) during the first five months of the invasion, and on 27 November 1941, General Eduard Wagner, the Quartermaster General of the German Army, reported that "We are at the end of our resources in both personnel and material. We are about to be confronted with the dangers of deep winter."[32]
The German forces were not prepared to deal with harsh weather and the poor road network of the USSR. In autumn, the terrain slowed the Wehrmacht’s progress. Few roads were paved. The ground in the USSR was very loose sand in the summer, sticky muck in the autumn, and heavy snow during the winter. The German tanks had narrow treads with little traction and poor flotation in mud. In contrast, the new generation of Soviet tanks such as the T-34 and KV had wider tracks and were far more mobile in these conditions. The 600,000 large western European horses the Germans used for supply and artillery movement did not cope well with this weather. The small ponies used by the Red Army were much better adapted to this climate and could even scrape the icy ground with their hooves to dig up the weeds beneath.
German troops were mostly unprepared for the harsh weather changes in the autumn and winter of 1941. Equipment had been prepared for such winter conditions, but the ability to move it up front over the severely overstrained transport network did not exist. Consequently, the troops were not equipped with adequate cold-weather gear, and some soldiers had to pack newspapers into their jackets to stay warm while temperatures dropped to record levels of at least -30 °C (-22 °F). To operate furnaces and heaters, the Germans also burned precious fuel that was difficult to re-supply. Soviet soldiers often had warm, quilted uniforms, felt-lined boots, and fur hats.
Some German weapons malfunctioned in the cold. Lubricating oils were unsuitable for extreme cold, resulting in engine malfunction and misfiring weapons. To load shells into a tank’s main gun, frozen grease had to be chipped off with a knife. Soviet units faced less severe problems due to their experience with cold weather. Aircraft were supplied with insulating blankets to keep their engines warm while parked. Lighter-weight oil was used.
A common myth is that the combination of deep mud, followed by snow, stopped all military movement in the harsh Russian winter. In fact, military operations were slowed by these factors, but much more so on the German side than on the Soviet side. The Soviet December 1941 counteroffensive advanced up to 100 miles (160 km) in some sectors, demonstrating that mobile warfare was still possible under winter conditions.

 

Just read the article and other sites you can find in the net.

40% was not the target, more likely 100% was the target. Both sides agreed to this deal and we know Göbbels used this in his propaganda.

 

The plan was always to invade to the east, but Britain and France messed that up by getting all excited over the fate of Poland. Germany was then forced to look towards the west, in an attempt to knock Britain out of the war. He didn't factor in Churchill, and his capacity to rally the population. He never really seriously planned to invade England. Would have been happy with Russia, given that the French were no threat. Then from Russia, India, Turkey, Iran. Oil, land and resources.

 

Not to mention the nightmare of Japan getting the USA involved......might have been a totally different outcome had Germany been able to convince the Japanese to not attack. Would Great Britain have ever been able to open the second front without the US?

 

Tamerlane's curse.
http://factslegend.org/15-facts-tamerlanes-curse/

Excerpt:

Facts About Tamerlane’s Curse
1 .The Latinized version of Timur’s name is Tamerlane. In 1405, Timur’s tomb was placed in Gūr-e Amīr, a mausoleum. Gūr-e Amīr in Persian means “Tomb of the King". Gūr-e Amīr is located at Samarkand in Uzbekistan, which was Timur’s place of birth.
2. According to legends, the tombstone of Timur has an inscriptions which says: “When I Rise From the Dead, The World Shall Tremble".
3. In year 1941, Joseph Stalin ordered the opening of the tomb of Timur.
4. Russian anthropologist by the name Mikhail Gerasimov was given the task of exhumation.
5. Mikhail Gerasimov was at that time one of the most popular anthropologists who was known for reconstructing a face from a skull. Gerasimov did that too with Timur’s skull.
6. Tamerlane’s tomb was actually opened on June 20, 1942 which immediately filled the mausoleum with a choking odor of frankincense, rose, camphor and resin. Initially it was thought that it was the smell of different curses but later it was found that the smell was actually from oils used for embalming.
7. It is being said that there was another inscription inside the tomb which said, ‘Whosoever Disturbs My Tomb Will Unleash an Invader More Terrible than I’.
8. It is being said that three elderly people and Muslim clergy warned Mikhail Gerasimov and Tashmuhammed Kari-Niyazov (who was actually the leader of the exhumation expedition) about the wrath of the cruse but it was completely ignored.
9. The 3 old men also warned them that curse will take effect within 3 days from the date when the tomb will be opened and that wrath will befall the land of those who open the tomb.
10. Nazi Germany under the command of Adolf Hitler invaded Soviet Union (now Russia) on June 22, 1941. This was exactly two days after Tamerlane’s tomb was opened and the remains of Timur were sent to Moscow. This invasion came without any formal declaration of war and Hitler named it as Operation Barbarossa.
11. After numerous defeats at the hands of Germans, Stalin eventually ordered that the remains of Timur be returned to his tomb with full Islamic burial rights.
12. This is exactly what was done on December 20, 1942 and Tamerlane’s remains were returned to his tomb at Samarkand.
13. Shortly after Timur’s remains were put back in his tomb with full Islamic burial, German forces surrendered and the Soviets won the Battle of Stalingrad which till this date, remains one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWr_mzRPVEI

 

It's good to realise that since dasreich started this thread all those years ago ( I still miss him on the forum ) there has been some truly excellent and accessible research produced by authors such as Stahel, Megargee, Luther etc etc which has made the events of Barbarossa much more understandable. Back in 2002, my own knowledge stemmed from Paul Carell, Alan Clark, The World At War and not much else....... :eh:

 

Hitler felt this his push eastward and the clearing out of the inhabitants of those lands was in comparison to the Americans push westward on the continent, dishing whatever fate to the Native Americans and fulfilling manifest destiny.

 

This was still an era in which it was taken for granted that Europeans had a God-given right to rule vast empires of 'inferior' people. Even little Portugal and Belgium had colonies.

 

Your correct. Not only rally the populace, but his inate stubborness. Although Hitler did not feel the need to go to war with Britain (whose people he admired and felt a common bond) , he doubted their ability to militarize and figured he would lay down and keep repeating his predecessor's concessions.