Originally posted by Pongo:
I prefer not to paste quotes from your long messages to show you where you are saying basically that hitler saved the German Armies honor. Never the less I take that meaning from chapter one of your posts.
Please, do it, because I look back to my posts and I dont understand where do you read that...
Whether or not Hitler was an extreme risk taker is something you apperently have trouble deciding. That the whole war was a huge and unaccepable risk only supports my point not refutes it. You are the first well read person I have conversed with or read that didnt accept that as a fundimantal facet of Hitlers personality and history.
I've already said it. HItler was daring and very self-confident on the strategic level. On the planning stage. Looking at the map, before the things started going, he was very prone to take very high stakes. The war was a very risky bet (wich he lost). the attack on NOrway also, the attack of France too. The attack on Russia was a high bet...but not that risky if we remember that everybody was overconfident on the Wehrmacht capabilities after the Battle of France. And indeed Moscow would've fallen in october'41 had the Balkans not happened or had Hitler let his generals alone to do their duty.
So, in the strategic level, HItler was a risk taker. I agree on that.
But then when we fall into the operative level, the field orders he gave to his commanders when the fight was actually going on were those of an over-conservative (in fact nearing the cowardice) man.
in other words, he vas very daring before the action started but got really nervous as the fight was going on. He was not a risk taker OR a coward. He was both, depending on which situation are we talking about.
You state that sea lion was impossible. I maintain the same is true for Barborossa
Lets put the facts straight: Seelowe was impossible because Germany had not enough sea assets to lauch a succesfull seaborne invasion, and the Royal Navy had the assets to destroy the little ones wich Germany had.
In contrast, Barbarossa objectives WERE attainable. Barbarossa main objectives were to seize the two major cities in Russia: Leningrad and Moscow, to then advance all the ground possible towards the Urals.
Moscow could've been taken with no major problem in the early october of 1941,Had Hitler not diverted the panzer advance on MOscow, and had the attack started on the first scheduled date (without the 6 weeks delay imposed because the Balcans campaign).
Leningrad was under siege since October 1941, and could not be relieved. WIth Moscow taken and Leningrad sieged by early october 1941, reaching the Urals was not that impossible task.
Barbarossa,as planned, WAS attainable. The Balkan campaign was the biggest factor in making it much difficult to work, but was still workable. Barely, and with almost no ground for failure but workable. And indeed it was working OK.
Then came hitler on one of his famous operative directives and sent Guderian tanks to the south, to Kiev, where he won a massive battle, but he lost the war.
Regarding logistics, nope, Pongo. Logistics were not a problem during Barbarossa. The logistical side of the plan had been carefully planned, and the only moment where the German army ran out of supplies was when they did the assault on moscow...and that was in early December 1941. In December 1941, had the things have been done as planned in the initial plan, German forces should've been already well East from Moscow, nearing the Urals.
IF you tell me that the USSR wont have surrendered, that's another thing fully debatable. But I have to disagree. MOscow was too important for the Soviet Union,both as industral and as communications center. In 1942 Case Blue would've been launched as was in reality, and the Soviet ability to answer would've severely limited. If germany had achieved to take MOscow and cut the Volga supply line, the USSR would've have lost the war for sure.
[This message has been edited by R4M (edited 04-04-2001).]
