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Examining Germany's (Hitler’s) decision to invade the Soviet Union can easily be critiqued by the flaws that resulted in his defeat, but is this an accurate way of looking at Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. Wars are won and lost by the decisions made and the decision to proceed with the attack named 'Operation Barbarossa' in the early summer of 1941 was not based on sound strategic judgment. Beginning early on in his life and exemplified in his book Mein Kampf, Hitler had a hatred of Russia and her people. We terminate the endless German drive to the south and the west of Europe, and direct our gaze towards the lands in the east…If we talk about new soil and territory in Europe today, we can think primarily only of Russia and its vassal border states. With his mind already set on exterminating the Slavs and Jews long before becoming the fuehrer of Germany, his rise to power gave him a reason to carry out his plan. Hitler foresaw Barbarossa as the key to accomplish many of his vital strategic objectives. Due to bad strategic decisions, limited resources, no intelligence and clouded vision, Germany should not have invaded Russia (Operation Barbarossa). The invasion on the Soviet Union was not a good strategic decision. While Hitler had secured quick and decisive victories against France, Czechoslovakia, Holland and Belgium, he did not take into account the importance of the British and never believed the United States would play a role in the war. These two serious underestimations lead to Hitler’s defeat in the Soviet Union and eventually the WWII. The initial mistake during Operation Barbarossa was the delaying the invasion of Moscow by five weeks. Hitler’s strategy called for three legs (armies) to attack different targets. The North Army would secure the Baltic, the south would acquire the much-needed coal and oil lands of the Ukraine and the center would head towards Moscow. Prior to his invasion of Moscow, the North Army attacked the Balkans. The battle was taking more effort than planned and caused the diversion of the south army to assist. Another diversion was the indication of British bombers and troops (who he thought he had crippled) were attempting to attack German supply lines and trying to take Yugoslavia. Hitler wasn’t going to let this happen so he took several troops and conquered both Yugoslavia and Greece further expanding his ideal that he was unstoppable. This was key due to each diversion of troops weakened the Barbarossa force and delayed the attack on Moscow. After his conquest, he needed to build up his forces to be able to fulfill the attack on Moscow. The delay caused the war to continue into the winter for which the German troops were not equipped or trained causing the eventual defeat of the German army. Insisting that Britain was defeated, Hitler desired to finish off the Soviet Union as soon as possible. His generals warned him of the danger of fighting a war on two fronts, which Hitler would not be able to support. Hitler was stretching his forces too thin. This coupled with Hitler’s arrogance that the Russians would be defeated in a short time caused him to be overconfident and overlook crucial details of the battle. His blitzkrieg military tactics could only fight quick, decisive battles. If involved in long, engulfed fighting, Hitler’s army was sure to fail. Due to lack of war materials and new personnel, a long battle would spell disaster for Hitler’s forces, which was demonstrated in the German attack on the Soviet Union. Hitler was afraid, and unable to launch an attack on Russia prior to Barbarossa. After the invasion of Czechoslovakia and other countries without resistance he invaded Poland mid 1939. Hitler did not expect this action to start a war with France and Britain. He expected them to stay out of the conflict. The same opinion was applied to the United States after Hitler defeated France and crippled Britain. The involvement of the United States was another factor Hitler failed to plan for. Anticipating the U.S. to continue its history of isolationism, Hitler didn’t expect any involvement in Europe once he had conquered Russia. What Hitler wasn’t prepared for was the impact his growing army and power would have on the American public opinion. Germany was too powerful and the rumors of the atrocities being performed were too much. This and the declaration of war on the United States by Hitler would force the United States into the war following the ‘Germany First’ campaign. In 1939 Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact. While Hitler never intended on abiding by the pact, he saw it as a way to gain much needed time to prepare for war against the Soviet Union. While he was busy preparing to break the pact, Stalin was doing the same thing. Stalin knew Hitler wasn’t to be trusted and was moving troops westward during the time Hitler was at war with France and Britain. While not showing signs of aggression, the Russian army was building for its own attack on Europe. Unfortunately Hitler’s attack came sooner than Stalin expected and caused the defeats of the Russian army during the early stages of Operation Barbarossa. With Russia and Germany now at war, Hitler needed supplies and natural resources to continue the war effort. Prior to Operation Barbarossa, Germany relied on Russia. As the war waged on, Hitler hoped to gain these resources in battle but the Soviet Union had other ideas. Using the concept of Scorched Earth, the Russians left nothing behind that could be used by the Germans against them further complicating the German war and contributing to the demise of the German offensive. Stalin announced a scorched earth policy to deny the Germans a single engine, or a single railway truck, and not a pound of bread nor a pint of oil. By the beginning of 1941, Hitler found himself not only fighting the enemy but also fighting to find key resources needed to keep both the people and the army going. The ongoing war with France, Britain and the expansion into Poland and Czechoslovakia required large amounts of resources, which Germany didn't possess. An assessment by the Chief of the General Staff highlighted Germany's problems regarding the now critical shortages. The report given to Hitler showed that "fuel reserves will be exhausted in autumn, aviation fuel will be down to one half, regular fuel to one quarter, and fuel oil to one half the requirements." If Germany did not obtain the much-needed resources, they could not continue to fight the war against Britain and the ever growing presence of the United States. While Hitler and Stalin had come to a non-aggression pact in 1939 that the Soviet Union would supply the resources Germany needed, Hitler knew that tensions and communistic ideals would cause a divide and eventually a break in the agreement. Logistically the German army was in poor shape on other fronts besides supplies and resources. In the summer of 1941, the Ukraine summer saw a large amount of rainfall and heat. The German tank tracks caused dust which clogged machinery, eyes and mouths and made it hard for troops to function. When it rained, the roads turned to mud which forced the Germans to leave thousands of vehicles where they stood. Additionally Hitler was depending on the Russian railroad system to carry the heavy artillery and troops further into Russia, but did not take into account that the Russian tracks were different size than the German. With the five week delay in Barbarossa brought the winter in Russia, which Hitler did not plan for. Germany pressed on towards Moscow; the cold weather really took its toll. All too often the Germans didn’t have enough supplies to survive let alone fight. Some units only had about 1/4 of their ammunition while shipments of coats used to combat the cold only provided 1 coat per crew. The food supplied was frozen… Machine guns froze, oil turned thick, batteries died and vehicle engines had to be kept running which wasted precious fuel supplies. One German officer wrote home to his wife: “We have seriously underestimated the Russians, the extent of the country and the treachery of the climate. This is the revenge of reality.” The lack of planning due to the delay in the attack on Moscow and poor supplies caused operation Barbarossa to fail. One of the biggest factors leading to the failure of Operation Barbarossa was Hitler’s lack of intelligence. This came in two forms. The first was his arrogance, which led him to do what he wanted not what was needed. He had been advised by several of his staff on key strategic issues, which he chose to ignore. On the other hand, Hitler also did not have professional spies or invest time in collecting information about a country before attacking it. Russia, Britain and U.S. all had an intricate spy network. Germany had initiated the war with Russia expecting only 200 Russian divisions. Once the war had begun it became apparent that the German army was fighting over 400 Russian divisions. The lack of research caused the German Army to fight a larger force than expected and further weaken the overall mission. Along with equipment and personnel numbers, intelligence would have told Hitler that the Russian people would not give up easily. Their tenacity and stubbornness was equal to that of Hitler himself and helped create the extended battle. The Russian people, who were more afraid of Stalin than Hitler, fought till the end fearing retribution by Stalin if they didn’t. This factor was also left out, while hard to plan for, of Hitler’s strategy. Had Hitler employed spies to gain intelligence, he could have avoided several of the pitfalls of battle he faced. Hitler has been deemed by history to be a lunatic looking for world domination and this desire is what led to the invasion of the Soviet Union. From Hitler's position in 1941, he had no other options. Germany was hurt by both WWI and the restrictions imposed on the country which led to several difficulties. Hitler realized in order to support his people as well as his army, that he needed more land for agriculture and natural resources. Being isolated, Germany was not allowed to industrialize and trade was limited by treaties, which led to Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union and gain the much-needed resources. The need for natural resources, the power the German army possessed in 1941 and the a preemptive strike to prevent soviet attacks compelled the invasion codenamed "Operation Barbarossa." Hitler’s army was well seasoned and trained. The German army had taken Poland, France and several other countries in Europe with out much struggle. The advanced technology base and numbers of his army gave him good reason to believe his army was able to defeat the Russians. Hitler, with the invasion of Russia was trying to eliminate the chance of a war on two fronts. He knew that England would rebound and the Japanese had a possibility of a threat somewhere down the line, so Hitler wanted to cripple Russia to prevent them from attacking at a later date. The Soviet Union was amassing troops and supplies and moving them west. While no action against Germany was taken, it was better in Hitler’s mind to make an offensive attack than to wait and be on the defensive. This also provided a chance to strike Britain later without worrying about the Soviet Union coming to their defense. A final expectation of the invasion was Hitler’s belief the United States would stay out of Europe once they saw the Soviet Union defeated. Additionally with the Japanese in the Pacific, Hitler saw the that the United States would have to make a decision as to which battles to fight, splitting their resources to try and defend American territories there. No one circumstance caused the failure in Russia. Hitler’s strategy to invade the Soviet Union could have been successful had he taken the war one step at a time. Instead he spread his troops too thin and did not reevaluate the strategy once problems started to arise. Had he continually updated his strategy and listened to his advisers, Operation Barbarossa could have had an alternate outcome. Bibliography: BIBLIOGRAPHY Gonalski, Robert and Freeburg, Russell W., Oil and War. William Morrow and Co. Inc, New York, New York. 1987 http://www.johmann.net/commentary/barbarossa.html http//cobweb.washcoll.edu/student.pages/Karen.sieger/war.htm http://www.history.com/history-WWII/133.htm Lecture and discussion NW 3023, Professor Hal Blanton Mein Kampf, Hitler. 1924 Weinberg, A World At Arms, Cambridge University Press. New York, New York. 1994 Word Count: 2097
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