LogFAQs > #968401469

andel posted...

yes, the only hope they had was to decapitate the leadership early on which was impossible for a couple of reasons. some of the russians in occupied territory at the beginning of barbarossa could have potentially been sympathetic to the germans and switched sides had the germans not been intent on going full genocide on all slavic people. many of the people in the western soviet union hated the soviet leadership but weren't offered any alternative to stand and fight when they realized the germans were committing wholesale genocide. also hitlers fascination with stalingrad was dumb and he isolated entire armies that were trying to capture oil fields the germans desperately needed.

hitler taking personal command while being an awful military commander doomed the nazis even further but realistically germany never had a chance due to the way they chose the fight the war and the fact america was supplying the soviets with huge amounts of armaments and supplies.

Yeah, the first paragraph is an often overlooked aspect of the Nazi invasion: there was, initially, a lot of good will towards Nazi Germany, especially in areas that had suffered terribly due to Stalin's policies, such as Ukraine, but the Nazis couldn't help but, well....be Nazis and genocide their sympathizers at least as hard as Stalin had. A more sensible force would have harnessed anti-Soviet sentiment in Ukraine and the Baltic to supplement the Wehrmacht (or at least secure vital supply lines), but, well, again...fascists simply aren't capable of being sensible in most instances.