I recognize that German tanks were expensive and included too many features to be reliable; but this can’t be the only reason.
I recognize that German tanks were expensive and included too many features to be reliable; but this can’t be the only reason.
Because the Soviet Union was stronger, economically, ideologically, militarily.
Nazi economics is borrowing loans and looting countries in hopes of paying them back. Nazi ideology is toddler level of intelligence bullshit with no basis. Nazi military might is when you build 80 tonne tanks when you have no fuel, so you end up relying on horses for everything.
Soviet Union meanwhile was a system that functioned rationally.
Yep.
Why didn’t Nazis just think of drafting Jewish people to fight against the Soviets instead of killing them?
They seriously did this?!
Man Hitler really is an idiot…
Jup, the image of the Wehrmacht as this fully mechanized army is a complete fabrication born from the fact that its speartip were indeed fully mechanized, but the overwhelming part of the army was made up of non-motorized infantry and the logistics did not have remotely enough vehicles, so they had to relly of horses. The reason they could advance as such breakneck speeds was a suprising one: Meth. Part of every soldiers rations was methamphetamine in various forms, such as chokolade (Panzerschokolade). This enabled the soldiers to literally march for days (and nights), thus covering distances that seemed insane to their enemies. It also emotionally damped them, thus they could cope better with the horrors of war and genocide. Of course, addiction and withdrawal were serious problems by the late war and post-war period. But fascist govenrments treat their soldiers like bullets and don’t give a shit of course.
Additional fun fact: Post-WW2 all western armies(and I think also warsaw treaty ones) stocked up on meth for their soldiers in case of WW3.
Hitler’s anti-Soviet propaganda relied on people believing that Bolshevikism was a Jewish ideology, it’s the basis of a lot of today’s conspiracist “Jewish World Order” bullshit.
If the Nazis handed Jews rifles, they’d simply turn them against the Nazis and join the Red Army.
But, also, the Nazis saw the Jews as so “sub-human” that they were below cannon fodder. The only use the Nazis saw for the Jews was forced labour, and the only goal for the Jews was annihilation.