Current Events > did the soviets only defeat germany because of stalin's refusal to surrender?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The germans were out-maneuvering them, even with far less men than the soviet union. But if you keep pouring men into the meat grinder, eventually you're going to overpower them, no matter how bad of a military it is.

Had anyone else been in office, I think the soviets would have surrendered, but Stalin didn't give a shit. He just kept replacing them. They didn't win because of superior military, they won strictly because of quantity.

Am I right on the mark on that one?

Chunky posted...

But if you keep pouring men into the meat grinder

I came to say this.
So there ya' go.

The Battle of Stalingrad is insane.
~The numbers alone are staggering.

And there is a reason Paton warned us about him.
Probably the same reason he was 'accidentally' killed by a runaway jeep or w/e.

It's staggering to me how we still parrot German propaganda portraying the Soviets as incompetent barbarians.

In a way... yes
Germany thought Russia would be a cakewalk so they pretty much used the same tactics they used when they conquered France.
Hitler and his brass greatly underestimated how vast Russia was. They were able to move their munitions factories further east while also scorching their own lands and cause all sorts of supply line issues for the Germans.

Did the Soviets only defeat Germany because of Stalin? Absolutely fucking not. Stalin is half the reason the Soviet situation was as dire as it was. He literally purged nearly every competent military officer in his country and was actively hostile towards lots of extremely critical military concepts for modern war fighting. If not for his intransigency throughout the 30s and most of 1940/41 then the Soviets would have fought a far more competent war (Or not been invaded in the first place, if we're to be honest.)

Adolf Hitler declared war on too many nations. Stalin believed that Hitler had made a strategic mistake by simultaneously fighting the United Kingdom, the USA, and the Soviet Union. Germany did not have enough resources to defeat all three

the Soviets did not have superior soldiers or technology, but they better understood how to fight on Russian territory. The Soviets had winter gear to keep their soldiers warm during cold Russian winters

The German Nazis did not have winter gear, but standard cloth uniforms. The Nazi soldiers suffered terribly from winters

The United Kingdom and USA had better intelligence-gathering than Germany, as they had cracked the German cyphers and codes... as well as the Japanese ones. None of the Soviet leaders would have surrendered to Adolf Hitler. Even the German intelligence chief kept telling Hitler that he was outnumbered, and he was going to lose the war

Pogo_Marimo posted...

Did the Soviets only defeat Germany because of Stalin? Absolutely fucking not. Stalin is half the reason the Soviet situation was as dire as it was. He literally purged nearly every competent military officer in his country and was actively hostile towards lots of extremely critical military concepts for modern war fighting. If not for his intransigency throughout the 30s and most of 1940/41 then the Soviets would have fought a far more competent war (Or not been invaded in the first place, if we're to be honest.)

had stalin not been in office, whoever was might have surrendered (like most people did) because the odds of winning were unlikely. those who did surrender saw the writing on the wall, but stalin threw everything he possibly could, no matter how much it would cripple the country.

The Soviets were not going to surrender. Germany was fighting a war of extermination against them.

Chunky posted...

had stalin not been in office, whoever was might have surrendered (like most people did) because the odds of winning were unlikely. those who did surrender saw the writing on the wall, but stalin threw everything he possibly could, no matter how much it would cripple the country.

Yeah no, Stalin was an active detriment to the Soviet war effort and it was only after Zhukov went off on him and Stalin started butting out of military affairs more that the war turned decisively in their favor. Zhukov paid dearly for that post-war, of course.

But even so, the Nazis were also poorly-directed and switched objectives with the seasons, failing even to finish off so horribly stricken a city (and so vital a strategic objective) as Leningrad. Only a much more focused strategy and a much more thoroughly prepared force would have had any chance of success, but fascists are definitionally bad at all of those things. Nazi Germany never had much of shot at beating Soviet Russia, and it was mostly a product of Stalins (baseless) stubborn belief that Hitler would honor Molotov-Ribbentrop and the utter mess he made of the Red Army that the Nazis had any shot at all.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

It's staggering to me how we still parrot German propaganda portraying the Soviets as incompetent barbarians.

hey now

whenever I parrot anti-Soviet propaganda, it's Cold War-era propaganda from the US

Stalingrad was pure Zapp Brannigan strategy.
T-34s were rolling directly from the assembly line to the front, and soldiers weren't much different.

FL81 posted...

hey now

whenever I parrot anti-Soviet propaganda, it's Cold War-era propaganda from the US

I got it from Enemy at the gates lol

haloiscoolisbak posted...

I got it from Enemy at the gates lol

good movie

what? the germans kept making mistakes and going too far without proper strategy and supplies

if they had hunkered down and prolonged the war, who knows. but they wanted to keep going and dominating and they couldn't sustain it. of course they were going to start getting weakened.

the soviets were able to fight back because of their numbers, but they were also facing annihilation, the entire country was fighting back with purpose.

Whomever mentioned Stalin being the cause for a lot of the deaths, I agree too. His paranoid purges and urges deprived the USSR of competent leadership. It also would deny them a competent medical staff which would end up being a factor in Stalin s demise

deanshow posted...

His paranoid purges and urges deprived the USSR of competent leadership.

Sergei Korolev had to be (nigh-literally) dug out of a gulag, to get the Soviet space program going.

the russian military was so bad early mainly because of stalin. his purges of the top officers and refusal to believe overwhelming evidence that the nazis were invading put the soviets on the back foot immediately. the soviet state was largely incompetent and the military was grossly unprepared for ww2 but much of that is directly the fault of stalin.

despite all that the soviets did have a couple brilliant military commanders. zhukov was masterful and his tactical genius is a huge part or the reason the nazis stalled out and had to fight a war of attrition they had no chance of winning.

ultimately invading russia is a fools errand that has never worked for anyone and will never work. despite how incompetent the soviets and stalin were the country was just far too vast and they had far too many people to throw into the meat grinder of war.

GuerrillaSoldier posted...

if they had hunkered down and prolonged the war, who knows.

Then they also would have lost, because the longer the war takes, the more men and materiel the Soviets get to the front. There was no winning strategy for Germany.

andel posted...

ultimately invading russia is a fools errand that has never worked for anyone and will never work. despite how incompetent the soviets and stalin were the country was just far too vast and they had far too many people to throw into the meat grinder of war.

The Russian strategy against Napoleon was hilarious.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

I got it from Enemy at the gates lol

I dislike Enemy at the Gates because of how much damage it's done to popular understanding of the Eastern Front. The "one man gets the rifle, one man gets the bullets" nonsense that just gets accepted as fact by a lot of people.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

Then they also would have lost, because the longer the war takes, the more men and materiel the Soviets get to the front. There was no winning strategy for Germany.

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.

Soviet Russia was on verge of being conquered by the Nazi's at one point during WW2. They reached as far as Stalingrad...
But because of weather and depleting supplies... The Nazi's were forced to retreat and the Russians took advantage of the situation.

Had the weather not been bad, the Germans would of had the advantage over the Russians

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.

Hitler pretty much had to move in on the USSR, after the allies gutted the African supply chain.

I believe the main reason why USSR defeated Germany, was because of USA contributions.
Land lease and constant bombing of Germany can not be overlooked.

Chunky posted...

Am I right on the mark on that one?

No. You are about as far as could be possible.

Go back to HoI.

Homeless_Waifu posted...

Soviet Russia was on verge of being conquered by the Nazi's at one point during WW2. They reached as far as Stalingrad...

Stalingrad was irrelevant. It was a point on the map. The only real strategic value it had was as a point of crossing on the Volga that the Germans needed to check as they drove south toward Baku. Which wouldn't have helped them anyway, really, because this was far past the point that Germany had effectively lost the invasion and the war.

Big_Nabendu posted...

I believe the main reason why USSR defeated Germany, was because of USA contributions.
Land lease and constant bombing of Germany can not be overlooked.

The whole point of the Africa campaign was to starve Germany of resources, before starting the land invasion.

Big_Nabendu posted...

I believe the main reason why USSR defeated Germany, was because of USA contributions.
Land lease and constant bombing of Germany can not be overlooked.

the united states helping the soviets was hugely impactful but it wasn't the main reason the nazis lost in russia. the main reason the nazis lost was mounting an invasion they never had a real shot of succeeding with in the first place. the ussr was far too vast and the germans had too few resources to ever have any real chance of success. they united the soviet people in a way no leader ever could through the brutality of the nazi tactics and the fact that every soviet citizen was facing annihilation. the most impressive thing the soviets pulled off was moving entire factories east in a moments notice. the nazis were never able to curb soviet production which ramped up exponentially while nazi production continued to fall throughout the war.

ElatedVenusaur posted...

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.

yeah, the ideological purity the lunatic german high command showed really screwed them in many ways. they could have taken large swaths of soviet territory if they had truly collaborated with some of the people in the western ussr. if they had taken territory in the initial surge and sued for peace without seeking the destruction of the entire soviet state they could have momentarily ended the war in the east. of course that would never have worked for them long term and didn't solve their primary problem of having no oil and not enough munitions and other supplies, but it could have prolonged their war effort somewhat and prevented the immediate collapse that was coming.

the nazis were always doomed to fail in reality. they were never taking britain as they didn't have an adequate navy and they were never taking the ussr because they didn't have the manpower or resources. the only way hitler could have truly become the master of europe is if the european allies all surrendered quickly. of course that will never happen when you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by surrendering. they could never win in the east when the people there were all being murdered as soon as they claimed the territory.

The vast majority of the fighting in WW2 was between totalitarian states Germany vs the USSR. Imperial Japan vs Nationalist China. Tens of millions of soldiers.

The western democracies with the exception of the British were flattened during the war and the British only hung on because they were an island with a strong Navy.

also japan was doomed to fail in much the same way the nazis were. they had the same problem of not having access to nearly enough oil to fight a prolonged conflict. attacking america was really, really stupid and damned them to failure but in reality they were screwed regardless as they never had access to enough oil to continue fighting.

Atralis posted...

The western democracies with the exception of the British were flattened during the war and the British only hung on because they were an island with a strong Navy.

They got their asses beat in Europe early on, and Fortress Britannia was pretty much all they had until Normandy.

Or, as explained by the Dad's Army theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4nLJ0o_ISM&t=3s

Big_Nabendu posted...

I believe the main reason why USSR defeated Germany, was because of USA contributions.
Land lease and constant bombing of Germany can not be overlooked.

No. The main reason the USSR defeated Germany was because they mobilized the entire state in an unprecedented effort to defeat the Germans. The lend lease from U.S. was just a step above insignificant compared to the massive native industrial output of the Soviets. Would the war have lasted longer if not for lend-lease? Possibly. Would the USSR still have won? Probably.

ElatedVenusaur posted...

Yeah no, Stalin was an active detriment to the Soviet war effort and it was only after Zhukov went off on him and Stalin started butting out of military affairs more that the war turned decisively in their favor. Zhukov paid dearly for that post-war, of course.

But even so, the Nazis were also poorly-directed and switched objectives with the seasons, failing even to finish off so horribly stricken a city (and so vital a strategic objective) as Leningrad. Only a much more focused strategy and a much more thoroughly prepared force would have had any chance of success, but fascists are definitionally bad at all of those things. Nazi Germany never had much of shot at beating Soviet Russia, and it was mostly a product of Stalins (baseless) stubborn belief that Hitler would honor Molotov-Ribbentrop and the utter mess he made of the Red Army that the Nazis had any shot at all.

I agree. Stalin was a horrible military leader. But there's one important thing people are missing: his refusal to surrender even when they were getting crushed bad. I feel like any other person in that same leadership position would have surrendered after so many encirclements and defeats. To compare, France surrendered shortly after Paris was taken. Someone can correct me if I'm way off on this.

Chunky posted...

I agree. Stalin was a horrible military leader. But there's one important thing people are missing: his refusal to surrender even when they were getting crushed bad. I feel like any other person in that same leadership position would have surrendered after so many encirclements and defeats. To compare, France surrendered shortly after Paris was taken.

"Not surrendering" in an existential conflict of total war is really not that special. In fact, in terms of one's actual capacity to wage war, both the Japanese and Germans suffered far more losses than the Russians did before surrendering, and the Chinese suffered similar losses to the Russians without surrendering.

Chunky posted...

I agree. Stalin was a horrible military leader. But there's one important thing people are missing: his refusal to surrender even when they were getting crushed bad. I feel like any other person in that same leadership position would have surrendered after so many encirclements and defeats. To compare, France surrendered shortly after Paris was taken. Someone can correct me if I'm way off on this.

the french people were offered terms that didn't include the total annihilation of the population to make room for germans to settle. hitler and the nazis hated the french because of the role the french played in ww1 and the terms of the versaille treaty but they didn't view the french as subhumans who must be exterminated. the russians had nothing to gain by surrendering, they were being annihilated through death marches and laboring to death or just outright mass murder.

if the germans had handled the early stages of barbarossa differently and not just annihilated the people of everywhere they conquered there may have been more russian appetite for surrender.

andel posted...

the french people were offered terms that didn't include the total annihilation of the population to make room for germans to settle. hitler and the nazis hated the french because of the role the french played in ww1 and the terms of the versaille treaty but they didn't view the french as subhumans who must be exterminated. the russians had nothing to gain by surrendering, they were being annihilated through death marches and laboring to death or just outright mass murder.

if the germans had handled the early stages of barbarossa differently and not just annihilated the people of everywhere they conquered there may have been more russian appetite for surrender.

The only way practical way, in hindsight, that there would be a Soviet surrender is if the central political structure of the country collapsed due to, for instance, a coup. Something which came fairly close to happening specifically because Stalin was a wretched leader.

andel posted...

ultimately invading russia is a fools errand that has never worked for anyone and will never work.

Poland invaded the Soviet union successfully, and got them to sign for peace. This is actually part of the reason I mentioned Stalin, because he wasn't in power during the Polish-Soviet War, and they surrended much more quickly than Stalin would have. At least that is my understanding

No but Germany attacking Russia during the winter did.

Chunky posted...

Poland invaded the Soviet union successfully, and got them to sign for peace. This is actually part of the reason I mentioned Stalin, because he wasn't in power during the Polish-Soviet War, and they surrended much more quickly than Stalin would have. At least that is my understanding

Btw not saying I'm right (I'm most likely not lol), just trying to learn and get a better understanding

when the polish invaded it wasn't even formally the soviet union yet and that was a minor squabble over disputed territory, hardly the same as a proper invasion meant to topple the rulers of the country and take over the entire nation. that was also happening in the middle of the russian civil war. not at all like napolean invading russia or the nazis invading the soviet union.

Pogo_Marimo posted...

The only way practical way, in hindsight, that there would be a Soviet surrender is if the central political structure of the country collapsed due to, for instance, a coup. Something which came fairly close to happening specifically because Stalin was a wretched leader.

yeah, if barbarossa had been handled competently the nazis probably could have secured many more collaborators that were willing to install a puppet regime or something instead of solidifying stalin's power and uniting the entire machine against them. marching in and murdering everyone turns out to be an awful strategy when you don't have the overwhelming power to subjugate the population quickly. the nazis had the huge advantage at the time of stalin's utter incompetence as well as having much better technology and better commanders and forces in general, but the plan they came in with was just never going to work.

divot1338 posted...

No but Germany attacking Russia during the winter did.

Germany began operation barabarosa in June.

ShineboxPhil posted...

Germany began operation barabarosa in June.

Isn't that peak Ukraine mud season?

Questionmarktarius posted...

Isn't that peak Ukraine mud season?

The mud season is the spring and the autumn. Mud didn't start becoming a real issue for the Germans until the battle for Moscow started in October.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Hitler pretty much had to move in on the USSR, after the allies gutted the African supply chain.

Hitler was always going after the Soviet Union right from the moment he became Fuhrer. The Judeo-Bolsheviks were a natural threat and had to be exterminated and living space created. He didn't invade them because of the North African campaign (which didn't really have much of an impact until the end of 1942).

The Nazis saw the Russians as sub-human and were always going to eliminate them - the plan was to raise Moscow to the ground and use the remaining Russians in the west as slave labour. The British would surrender as soon as Moscow fell as the Germans thought that they would have no more resolve to keep going after that point.

Trelve posted...

The Nazis saw the Russians as sub-human and were always going to eliminate them - the plan was to raise Moscow to the ground and use the remaining Russians in the west as slave labour.

Wasn't that also Napoleon's thing?

Questionmarktarius posted...

Wasn't that also Napoleon's thing?

I've not really studied Napoleon's campaigns so I couldn't say, but from what I'm aware of he wasn't waging a war of extermination like the Germans were was he?

Trelve posted...

but from what I'm aware of he wasn't waging a war of extermination

Why the fuck did Napoleon go into Russia?

Hitler's "extermination" was mostly the Baltics, which were forcibly "Judenfrei" before the Nazi's long retreat. Stalin had (also forcibly) hidden the Soviet Jews way the hell in the east, and Hitler was never going to get there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast

If Stalin wasn't the leader of the USSR, it would probably be Trotsky instead, and Trotsky would have almost definitely attacked the Nazis first.

Garioshi posted...

and Trotsky would have almost definitely attacked the Nazis first.

I'm curious about your reasoning here.