No, no underestimate as the casualties for Barbarossa/both sides have been posted here. Its difficult to find something more looking like a shooting range for Germany than Barbarossa, well maybe Citadell... 
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Why did Operation Barbarossa fail?
- Thread starter Magnus Imperator Rex
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It makes sense because the missing piece of intelligence is when you mistaken your own assumptions as proof the enemy will fail when reality is different since the evidence is not so cut and dry. So, the prevailing assumption within the ranks of chain of command was obviously mistaken as clearly the intelligence was not nearly good enough on the Axis side and was one of the chief negatives of the whole conflict.
Agreed that the intelligence work by Germany wasnt good enough especially with the underestiment of the size of the russian army.
To be fair to the Axis though, even to this day people "forget" about the Red Army when discussing Barbarossa. Just look at this thread as overwhelming proof that people don't (and didn't at the time) factor in the opposition nearly enough when discussing military matters, the Red Army during WW2 in particular. It is an absolutely unforgivable flaw in military planning and military intelligence to underestimate or fail to factor in your opponents ability and agency, yet it was what the Wehrmacht did during Barbarossa.
I mean, reading through this thread and not knowing a thing about WW2 one might be forgiven for assuming that Germany didn't actually face an opposing army but simply faltered due to poor planning, not ferocious military opposition on a scale and intensity that they had not expected even in their worst case scenarios.
The russian army during Barbarossa was not really "creme de la creme" ... Now i am being very tactful...
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The russian army during Barbarossa was not really "creme de la creme" ... Now i am being very tactful...
Yet they managed to stop Germany from achieving almost all of their planned end goals, they caused the Wehrmacht far more casualties then the Wehrmacht had predicted and managed to remain a functional fighting force through some absolutely horrendous casualty figures and defeats. No, the Red Army wasn't an elite formation and during Barbarossa most of its' soldiers were woefully under-equipped and untrained for the challenges they faced. But, and this is the big thing, the Red Army got through Barbarossa intact and was arguably stronger at its' end then at its' start. That on its' own is an amazing achievement but the Red Army also denied Germany the victory it sought and caused massive losses to the Wehrmacht that it could never fully replace due to the nature of those casualties (experienced soldiers, NCOs and officers).
Whatever or not the Red Army was "creme de la creme" is woefully beside the point. The point is that it put up a fight far beyond what anyone had predicted and fought so well, despite its' obvious shortcomings, that it put a dent in the previously undefeated Wehrmacht and stopped Germany from achieving its' war goals.
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Saying that the red army go through Barbarossa intact, is also quite a remarkable statement considering the losses.
The Russian losses of over;
4 000 000 soldiers, 21 200 aircraft and 20 500 tanks vs the German/Axis losses of
800 000 soldiers, 2 827 aircraft and 2 400 tanks.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa)
The Russian losses of over;
4 000 000 soldiers, 21 200 aircraft and 20 500 tanks vs the German/Axis losses of
800 000 soldiers, 2 827 aircraft and 2 400 tanks.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa)
This is my main problem with all "Why did Barbarossa fail" questions. It reeks of generals (coughMansteincough) trying to rewrite history and move the blame onto things like supplies, weather, etc etc. Of course these played significant roles in the final outcome but to act like the final result was not the result of ferocious resistance and the enemy actually fighting back - a ridiculous notion, surely? is totally undervaluing the Red Army.
The Soviets were incompetent especially in 1941, but they fought hard. I remember a quote from a German, something like: "The Russians are ill disciplined, little more than a mob at times. They don't have proper training. They don't have proper equipment. But they are there."
In the end that last quote sums up the reason for Barbarossa's failure. They were able to raise large armies in the blink of an eye, place them in harms way and have their men largely fighting hard and bitterly. Whatever else, this eventually would have let the Soviets win.
I think it would be a mistake to say that the Germans could have won the war if it weren't for the Russian mud and winter. Even if the conditions of June 22nd continued up until January 1942 I doubt the Germans would have even taken Moscow. They might have been able to capture half of it, perhaps, but not all.
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It also raised somewhere in the vicinity of 800 rifle divisions, that's some odd 8-9 million men called up just for rifle divisions in the latter half of 1941 alone. That means that the Red Army ended 1941 with more men under arms then the it had at the start of Barbarossa. That's just some of the numbers and the really important part is that the Red Army was never broken, it was never put in a position where it stopped functioning as a fighting force able to resist the invasion of the USSR (unlike the French Army in 1940 which lost its' fighting cohesion and morale in less then a month) and never faced a complete breakdown of its chain of command or a situation in which the enemy could roll through the USSR unopposed.
So in both numerical terms and in terms of functionality the Red Army survived Barbarossa and was arguably stronger at the end of it the during the its' start. Losing 4 million men is a lot, but it is far less then conscripting almost 10 million men in the same time frame. That was the difference between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht, in that the Red Army could absorb those losses since most of those 4 million were untrained conscripts, whereas the Wehrmacht lost 800,000 veterans from previous campaigns that got replaced by fresh conscripts.
I have always wondered what the so called "Soviets won due to more men" argument was actually coming from. I mean, Grossdeutschland in 1941 would have had roughly the same amount of people under its control, if not more than 1941 Soviet Union? Why couldn't Germany likewise match the Soviets in terms of raw recruitment numbers.
Many of the people living under the German Reich and it's puppet states (Vichy France, Slovakia, etc.) were not only disloyal to Germany, but also did not know German (as in, the language). While most everyone living in the Soviet Union were loyal to the USSR and were united by the patriotic war, many people under Germany hated The National Socialist Party and passively or actively rebelled. And while the USSR went into crazy-mode of sending it's workers into the battlefield or war-industry, the Germans only full moblized their economy in 1943.
It would be better to say the Soviet's had more 'usable' manpower than Germany did.
Well it's pretty simple if you put dates and times into perspective and not rely on fanciful seasons "reasoning's" that generally take advantage of the fact people don't normally put these types of stuff together and have 95% of their time devoted to other pursuits. With saying that, we can say once Hitler was "master of Europe" (as the fanciful folks like to say which is really a misnomer) can only reasonably make sense when peace was made with France with the formal date of the 25th of June 1940. Barbarossa didn't occur until 22nd of June 1941. So the "master of Europe" had to somehow put a coalition together in under a year, get them to agree (which isn't an easy thing to accomplish), and be as little disruptive as possible while trying to expand on the amount of mechanized forces at his disposal in order to conduct a successful campaign. You will begin to realize time was not on the side of the now present Axis belligerents since they were going to tango a large Union which had decades (if not centuries if we look beyond mere political government bodies) to work together than compared to working with the "master of Europe" in under a year with glue, rivets, and duct tape.
At the end of 1941, Moscow had ~110 million people living in the territory it controlled. Germany had 80+ million Germans, plus Romania (12 million), plus Hungary (9 million), plus Finland (3.5 million), plus Italy (43 million), plus Slovakia (4 million), plus industrial support of France (40 million), Boghemia (5 million), Low countries (17 million). All in all, Axis had more manpower reserves, than USSR did, at the time. Their industry was larger (32 million tons of steel of 3rd Reich in 42 vs 8.5 million of USSR, 350 million tons of coal vs 75 million, etc).
This is basically what I'm talking about. And while it's true that the Third Reich couldn't rely on some of its conquered peoples for support, they could still get some "bang for their buck" so to speak. I think you need to add the populations of occupied USSR to the list as they used a lot of "hiwis" that is Soviet auxiliary troops, I know most were recruited from prisoners but I suppose some were former civilians.
At any rate 80 million Germans vs 110 million Soviets doesn't seem like such a huge gap. Yet Moscow was able to far outproduce their enemies in terms of recruitment.
To be fair, a lot went into Kreigsmarine, plus Germans outproduced USSR in some areas, like ammunition. That's one reason Soviet losses were higher.
And the troop disparity can also be explained by the fact that the Germans had to occupy, by 1943, areas in the Balkans and Greece, Italy, Norway, Germany itself, France and Belenux and the rear areas of the USSR's occupied lands as well as having combat troops to face the Soviets.
W. Victor Madeja in his The Russo-German War. 25 January to 8 May 1945 (1987) on p.73
gives following manpower figures on Eastern Front
At the end of June 41
Red Army at the European Front 4.7 million
German Army at the Eastern Front (troops of Germany’s allies and co-combatants are not incl., that true through this table) 3.3 million
Dec 41
Red Army at the European Front 2.3 million
German Army at the Eastern Front, number not given
July 42
Red Army at the European Front 3.3 million
German Army at the Eastern Front 2.7 million
Nov 42
Red Army at the European Front 4.5 million
German Army at the Eastern Front 2.9 million
July 43
Red Army at the European Front 5.1 million
German Army at the Eastern Front 3.2 million
Oct 43
Red Army at the European Front 5.5 million
German Army at the Eastern Front 2.6 million
So according to Madeja Red Army not got 2:1 manpower superiority over German Army in forces fighting on Eastern Front first time until Autumn 43 and even then only if we leave out troops of Germany’s allies and co-combatants (this term incl at least Finland)
gives following manpower figures on Eastern Front
At the end of June 41
Red Army at the European Front 4.7 million
German Army at the Eastern Front (troops of Germany’s allies and co-combatants are not incl., that true through this table) 3.3 million
Dec 41
Red Army at the European Front 2.3 million
German Army at the Eastern Front, number not given
July 42
Red Army at the European Front 3.3 million
German Army at the Eastern Front 2.7 million
Nov 42
Red Army at the European Front 4.5 million
German Army at the Eastern Front 2.9 million
July 43
Red Army at the European Front 5.1 million
German Army at the Eastern Front 3.2 million
Oct 43
Red Army at the European Front 5.5 million
German Army at the Eastern Front 2.6 million
So according to Madeja Red Army not got 2:1 manpower superiority over German Army in forces fighting on Eastern Front first time until Autumn 43 and even then only if we leave out troops of Germany’s allies and co-combatants (this term incl at least Finland)
Stalin decided to stay in Moscow when the city was in danger of fall to the germans, it would be interesting the reaction of Stalin if Moscow falled, stay in the city and be captured? or scape to somewhere? The germans having Stalin as a prisioner changes anything?
In fairness to folks in the west, there were German general diaries and books published, but soviet archives were closed to the west until the 90s.
There's a lot of folks like me that grew up and studied history before soviet archives were opened. So, the narrative we were fed for two decades was the "soviet hordes plus lend-lease plus Overlord overwhelmed high quality German forces with brute force."
2 factors are dominant here.
1. Many of the people in Grossdeutchsland were a part of a different bureaucracy (government) which was not as easily coerced. This made tracking and using the human resources difficult. in fact this was a major failing of the German occupation. One example was coal. After the fall of France Germany should have had enough coal within its boarders to run its steel industry however it was never able to sort out the logistics of moving that coal from France to Germany. That and France needed the coal for heating not that the Nazis cared.
We aren't discussing war crimes, genocide, or policies that resulted in war crimes or genocide. The Hunger Plan is off limits for discussion in this forum. References deleted - Secret Master
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