I recognize that German tanks were expensive and included too many features to be reliable; but this can’t be the only reason.
other great comments, i just wanted to add a few things:
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stalin tried to get france and the UK to join the war (and warned them of upcoming war) as early as possible, multiple times. when they refused to join an alliance, the molotov-ribbontrop pact between the USSR and nazi germany was basically signed in order to force france and the UK’s hand so that nazi germany would begin war on the western front. this gave the USSR the time to move heavy industry from it’s european west to a more protected location eastward, farther away from the front. it also gave them the time to heavily industrialize in general, to prepare for war
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ofc a lot can be said about how nazi ideology is not only incredibly horrible, but also led to horrible tactics and strategy. but, the opposite can be said about the soviet tactics, strategy, and especially economic policy. it turns out you can be a lot more efficient and productive with socialist policies, and this was a gigantic factor in determining the outcome of the war.
regarding how the actual war and battles played out, and specific battlefield tactics and strategies, highly recommend this 18-part documentary series on ww2 in europe.
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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.
Nazi ideologically is toddler level of intelligence bullshit with no basis.
Yep.
Why didn’t Nazis just think of drafting Jewish people to fight against the Soviets instead of killing them?
when you have no fuel, so you end up relying on horses for everything.
They seriously did this?!
Man Hitler really is an idiot…
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.
Why didn’t Nazis just think of drafting Jewish people to fight against the Soviets instead of killing them?
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.
Lots of things you could point to but if had to choose the single biggest reason, it would be supply/logistics. The German doctrine of blitzkrieg relied on them beelining and quickly capturing major objectives like Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad etc., they didn’t have the fuel, trucks or infrastructure to sustain a massive frontline. All the Soviet Union had to do was successfully defend their major cities during the early stage of the war and from there on out Germany was doomed.
To expand of the logistics a bit: German arms and other equipment was produced by multiple private companies, thus their was no overall standardization. In addition they also used a lot of captured equipment (Austrian, Czeckslovakian etc.) and made use of captured industries. This resulted in german logistics having to deal with multiple different infantry small arms calibres, heavy arms calibres, vehicles replacement parts of multiple producers that were not interexchangeable ontop of long supply lines, not having remotely enough vehicles for said supply lines and not enough fuel for either the number of vehicles needed or the ones they actually had.
It was a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
That, plus German companies kept designing new vehicles, so vehicle production was always slow and constantly wasted resources on retooling. whereas the Soviets, for the most part, just refit designs that worked to do a different job. Which had a minimal impact on their production efficiency, and required less retooling.
War material produced in occupied territories was also often tampered with; I’m not sure of the specifics but I know the resistance would try to send faulty material out of the factory. Apparently you could get ammunition that would explode in your face if you were in the Wehrmacht.
Lots of things you could point to but if had to choose the single biggest reason, it would be supply/logistics. The German doctrine of blitzkrieg relied on them beelining and quickly capturing major objectives like Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad etc., they didn’t have the fuel, trucks or infrastructure to sustain a massive frontline.
Did they ever think that maybe their plan could go wrong?!
The more I learn about the war; the more I realize how fucking stupid the Nazis were.
Did they ever think that maybe their plan could go wrong?!
Probably. At the very end of the war, right around the time Hitler killed himself and organisation broke down, SS leaders started fleeing occupied countries but told their troops to remain there. For maximum fascist fuckery, they even ordered them to carry on with the executions in the camps. Generals knew too, but they didn’t abandon their posts that I know of.
But the way fascism worked in Germany (and in most instances of fascism) was that they required war to keep money coming in. It’s not unlike slave economies of the past in this regard. Germany especially inherited an absolutely destroyed economy and the plans they had like the MEFO bills were gonna collapse eventually. They turned their whole industry to war production before even invading Poland as this was a solution they found to “fix” the economy. Of course it also made lots of money for the German bourgeoisie.
Fascism is a death cult because down the line it will always lead to war.
Maybe the objective never was to win the war, but simply to murder as many soviet people as they could. Maybe to deal such a devastating blow to the Communist block, so that it could never compete with the Capitalist block?
Blitzkrieg wasn’t a new idea. It was based on Prussian tactics that worked well against Napoleon, then refined and worked well in WW1 on a local level, and then refined further for combined arms warfare. And again they worked really well against what was seen as the strongest and most advanced military of mainland Europe, France.
They acted stupid (thankfully) because they overestimated their supply capabilities and readiness. They did not take into account what the Red Army was capable of, how it fought, or even how it was equipped (to the point where T34s were a complete surprise). And from their perspective things didn’t start going bad until after Stalingrad.
Will of the people, the people wanted to fight back, look at how fast France went down despite the technological advantage compared to Soviet, but they went down in a week.
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**Edit; I forgot to say, take this in addition to what everyone else said.
Before we talk about the great patriotic war, let’s mention the Soviet-Finnish War (Winter War). The TLDR version of the war is, essentially, the Soviets had a bunch of military leaders who obtained their ranks during the civil war (also known as the revolutionary war) essentially by switching sides. And as it turns out, some of them were incompetent and couldn’t design a simple battle plan to fight Finland. After an investigation, it was found that the military leadership was also filled with opportunists who may not have believed in Marxism, and thus the purge happened.
The Red Army’s remaining leadership ranged from good enough but untested to flat-out incompetent. Not a lot of the Red Army’s leadership had been given a baptism by fire, simply because much of the portion of it that had been needed to be removed from power. Hitler had a good position laid in front of him, all he had to do was reach Moscow before the Soviets could raise better leaders. Thankfully the winters halted the front, which bought the Soviets time and they were able to find solid leadership to push the Germans back.
The reason Hitler made it so deep into Soviet territory was twofold.
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Lacking military leadership, the Soviets were too weak to hold against the Germans; and
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Until the Americans got involved in the war, Germany could focus its efforts on the eastern front. But once the Americans took Rome Germany’s forces spread thinner, and once the Americans landed in Normandy Germany spread itself too thin.
To that point, a part of what tore Hitler down (and is something that’s worth looking at to better understand the psychology of fascism) was his ambition and his inability to estimate the strength of his forces. If Hitler didn’t antagonize the US he may have done better in the war. But there’s no reality where Hitler wins, mind you. The war was all around unwinnable. Even if the Americans didn’t get involved in the war, the Soviets were still eventually going to take Berlin. And if they had to, they would’ve kept pushing to Italy and France to end the Fascist scourge.
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Russia woulda been hard to beat in war before they upgraded to Soviet Union, but nazis were idealists so they were gonna win cus how could aryans lose, they’re superior and everyone else isn’t
