Hitler's strategy of attacking the soviet union?

Question

Been awhile since ive learned much about hitler and was hoping that someone could help me with this question without going too much into detail.

"Explain Hitler's strategy of attacking the Soviet union. Why did his delay in launching the attack ultimately contribute to the soviet vitory over the germans."

Answer 1

As Napoleon Bonaparte learned some 120 years earlier, one does not begin an invasion of Russia in the fall, just weeks before the onset of the terrible Russian winters. The weather hampered German troop movement, and essentially stopped the Germans in their tracks. Tanks and trucks couldnt move in the mud and snow, soldiers, equipped with only their summer uniforms, froze to death. And when the Russians recognized that the weather had already defeated 80-90% of the army, they decided to launch their counterattack.

Answer 2

The attack on the Soviet Union was Hitler's main intention in starting WW2.

Poland was just a preliminary and when France and England declared war on Germany this took him by surprise and diverted him from his main plan while he attacked westwards.

After the defeat of Western Europe in 1940 he reorganised his plans to invade the Soviet Union but then the Italians had major difficulties in the Balkans and Greece so he had to divert forces again to help them out.

This meant that the invasion of the Soviet Union did not start until June 1941 and by the time the German army reached Moscow it was already well into winter.

The German forces were not equipped for the severe cold as they still had summer uniforms, the fuel froze in the tanks and the artillery guns were impossible to fire accurately.

The Russians were used to this sort of weather and Stalin had a secret weapon which was five divisions of troops from Siberia who could operate easily in deep snow and ice.

He threw these into the Battle of Moscow and they stopped the Germans.

After that first winter the Germans found it very difficult to regain the initiative.

The second winter finished them off

Answer 3

Hitler's attack on Russia was not a strategic move rather it was his attempt to fulfill his dream of settling German people in the East.

The attack was intended to begin a few weeks earlier but was delayed because some of Hitler's forces were diverted at the last minute to save Mussolini from a humiliating route in Greece. The result was that when the winter set in, Hitler's forces still hadn't taken Moscow and their fate was sealed.

Answer 4

Much has been made of the German delay in the summer of 1941 and how it supposedly was instrumental in thefailure to take Moscow before Winter came. Utter nonsense. There was no unplanned delay due to other operations. First, the Germans had to wait for the ground to dry out along major portions of their proposed axis of advance due to the usual heavy spring rains in those areas. They knew this and planned for it. Second and third, and much more impactful, were German failures in intelligence and logistics. Germany did not have a detailed Order of Battle for the Soviet military in 1941, thus they had no idea of what the Soviet military was capable of, especially in terms of absorbing casualties. Time and time again the Soviet Army was declared kaput due to heavy losses only for the Germans to see the losses replaced and even new formations raised. The Soviet manpower pool was significantly deeper than Germany, thus they could fight a war of attrition and win (this above anything else, was why Germany lost the war in the East). Nor did the Germans have much detail as to Soviet industrial capacity. If you don't know how much your enemy can produce, you have no idea when you will, or even if you can, break him. The Germans went into Russia on June 22, 1941 with virtually no detailed maps of the proposed battlegrounds. German units very often had nothing more than tourist road maps at the point of the advance. What looked to be a major highway on a map often turned out to be a dirt track. Imagine trying to push an armored division down a highway that turned out to be a dirt road. That caused huge delays as new routes of march had to be reconnoitered and, in fact, entire Corps had to shift their routes of march. The Germans also had a very limted supply system. The German army in 1941, contrary to popular belief, contained very little motor transport. The bulk of German transport was horse-drawn (even up to the end of the war). This caused a fundamental problem: armored units often waited on horse-drawn support units to catch up violating one of the fundamentals of war-when you get an enemy on his heels do not let up lest he gets time to re-organize and dig in. During the advance in the early stages of barbarossa, German panzer divisions sat still for days waiting for infantry to catch up and provide secure flanks. Much has also been made of the attack on Greece and Balkans as a reason for the delay. Again, little truth to that. It didn't matter if those units would have been available sooner, since much of the Western regions of the USSR were a morass of mud until June.



A lot of erroneous opinions as to why the Germans failed have developed through the years, due in large part in my opinion, to shows on the History and Military channels. These 30 or 60 minute TV shows should not be considered as reliable sources since their focus is to entertain not educate. Entertainment seeks short, easy to digest blips for mass consumption to explain what are often complex or arcane circumstances. I'll give a ready example: Watch a TV show on the Batlte of Stalingrad. More likley than not a reference will be made to "Hitler's obssession with Stalingrad because it bore Stalin's name" (I've actaully seen/heard that on the History Channel). Complete and utter nonsense. Hitler, and the German General Staff for that matter, wanted to take Stalingrad to protect the flank of their adavance towards Maikop and, more importanlty to cut the Volga River and prevent the Soviets from using it to move men and supplies. 70% of all Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union came through Persia and into Russia via the Volga. Cutting the Volga would have severly hampered the Soviet Union's logistical system; possibly a fatal blow. Stalin and his Genrals knew this of course and that is why they defended Stalingrad fiercely.



Lastly, the other major reason the Soviets defeated the Germans was Hitler's constant meddling in levels of detail that should have been left up to the experts. Stalin made similar errors in 1941 but he learned from his mistakes and turned over the day-to-day affairs of the Soviet military to his Generals. They in turn, won the war for him.