Why did hitler declare war on stalin?

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clayton117

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Well the name pretty much states it , im a wiz with almost all World War 2 history , but it never occured to me why hitler declared war against stalin.

And please no stupid "Becuase he was a nazi!" or anything stupid like that.

Thanks
 
Hitler made war on stalin so he can get his hands on Russia's land. He lost the fight over there cause his troops weren't used to the cold weather and well the russians are used to it. But that's just one reason. 
 
Oil

Germanys oil reserves were running extremly low and it was nearly impossible to get oil from South America due to the allies controlling the sea. Almost all oil fields at the time were located in North and south america or in caucasus in Soviet Union. The fields in the North sea and middle east were insignificant at the time and Japan needed all the oil it could get from Asia so the germans didnt get anything from their ally.

Hitler underestimated the Soviets and probably believed his own nonsense that the slavs were sub human. He also failed to tage the russian winter and huge land mass into consideration. Another proof that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.
 
Stalin spilled his pint.


Was a close run thing though, rumour was that Stalin was going to sort him out anyway for looking at his bird funny. I think it was the 'stache that did it.
 
Stalin had also placed his best troops to the far east, the Siberian Elites or whatever they were called, because he feared war with Japan more then he feared it with Germany. So if Germany sent scouts or scoutplanes over western Soviet they would find very weak resistance, I would assume that this was also one of the things that made Germany willing to declare war.

The troops Stalin had placed in eastern Siberia was by far the best equipped, best trained and best in all ways of all the Soviet troops, along with this, they were also super winterfighters, used to Siberia, so the winter down in Moscow or Stalingrad would be like summer ; )

So.. When German armies banged their heads against Soviet cities Stalin ordered the Siberian Elite to come and join the fight. This started to push back the Germans a bit. Then, when they got a breathingspace they only needed to get their T-34 ready for action, and a few million troops, and there you had it, Soviet Blitzkrieg ; )

So, the situation about where Soviet troops were positioned would also be one of the reasons why Germany attacked, they probably didn't even know that the Stalin had troops in Siberia.
 
HAbasta said:
Hitler made war on stalin so he can get his hands on Russia's land. He lost the fight over there cause his troops weren't used to the cold weather and well the russians are used to it. But that's just one reason.

Yeah, the Russians, although fighting in the same climate and terrain, had developed super heating systems in their body that gave them the edge they needed, has nothing to do with about 5 million soldiers sacrificing their lives and huge armies the size of which never seen before with what seems like an infinite supply of manpower.
 
The need for Lebensraum and resources made war desirable.
The perceived weakness of the USSR made victory seem possible -and though today we know that the chances of defeating the USSR weren't high, Hitler thought they were. He wasn't alone in that belief: the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a result of the Western powers rejecting a defence pact with the USSR, because they thought them worthless after Stalin's purges and the embarrassing draw in the Winter War against Finland.

Of course, there was also the ideological factor: communism and national socialism are ideological enemies.
Add to this that Stalin wasn't a nice man at all.
This gave Hitler incentive and, equally importantly, might have made him believe that if Germany didn't declare war the Soviets would. Striking first, while the Third Reich was strong and before the USSR was ready, seemed a good idea in that case. We can't know what the USSR would have done if Germany didn't attack, but Hitler might have been right. Especially if Germany showed weakness after the USA entered the war.

Desirable goals that seemed achievable, backed by ideology and the need to end a future threat. Pretty good reasons, considering what intelligence Adolf had at the time.
 
Building on that, Hitler had not even considered the 40 Siberian divisions, arguably Stalin's best troops. Japan and USSR cut a non-aggression pact, and the divisions are moved in the nick of time to defend Moscow.

Germany was wary of Soviets so close to areas of importance to Germany - the Ploesti oil fields, Scandinavia (where Germany got a lot of raw materials).

Relations were ruined by Molotov's visit to Berlin and the Soviet's pact with the Yugoslav uprising.
 
After dealing with the initial disaster, and successfully reorganizing the forces to grind the Wehrmacht to a halt at the turning points of the war between the winter of '42 and the summer of '43, the vision of the Red Army once sought by pioneers such as Tukhachevsky, as a highly organized military power specializing in defense-counterattack strategies, started to be realized.

The voluntarism, terror, fanatical patriotic drive, manpower, vital lend-lease supplies coming in from the western Allies all played a crucial part in the Red Army's survival, but in the end, it was the transformation of the Red Army into the world's most powerful land-army by the end of the war, which ultimately prevailed.

To tell the truth, I can imagine the defeat of the Axis powers without the direct military intervention of USA, but cannot imagine it happening without the Soviets.
 
It's all a question of the timeline, Allegro.

An4Sh said:
HAbasta said:
Hitler made war on stalin so he can get his hands on Russia's land. He lost the fight over there cause his troops weren't used to the cold weather and well the russians are used to it. But that's just one reason.

Yeah, the Russians, although fighting in the same climate and terrain, had developed super heating systems in their body that gave them the edge they needed, has nothing to do with about 5 million soldiers sacrificing their lives and huge armies the size of which never seen before with what seems like an infinite supply of manpower.

Dude, I'm tellin' you, Soviets were made in factories. Instead of a heart, each Russian soldier had a tiny furnace installed. I'm from the Leningrad Foundry myself, wanna see the serial number?

/end sarcasm

There were a lot of dead guys when it was all said and done; it's often said that Stalin squandered more lives in the conflict than did Hitler. However, there's something to be said for learning to adapt to harsh conditions; if you can do it better than the enemy, your enemy's in trouble on the right terrain, now isn't he?
 
Has Germany not declared war on Russian and focused more on the west, the war would have been very different.
I do not remember correctly, but somewhere around 80% of Germany's troops were lost in RUSSIA alone. That is where all of the main fighting took place. The west were mere scratches, only a few hundred thousand lost.

Oh well, we will never fully understand Hitler's messed up mind.
 
Perhaps it could be understood within the scope of Hitler's strategic reasoning based on the conditions of 1941, in which western Europe was dominated but the fight against Britain being an uneasy standoff. Here's a short post I've written at an another WW2 related forum, which topic didn't exactly address Barbarossa, but rather Operation Seeloewe - Hitler's plans to invade the British mainland. During research on this material, I took note of Hitler's own directive which initiated the invasion of Soviet Russia, and was interested to find out how closely the war against Brits were tied in line with the war against the Soviets inside Hitler's mind.

....

Well, he tried the starving off Britain, and was at it at full power even as soon as in the BoB.

Indeed.

The infamous "Directive No.21. Operation Barbarossa" issued by Hitler himself, clearly states;


The Air Force will have to make available for the support of the Army in the Eastern Campaign forces of adequate strength to ensure a rapid termination of land action and to give the East German territories maximum protection against enemy air raids. This making of the main effort in the east must not be carried to a point at which we can no longer adequately protect the totality of our battle and our armament zones against enemy air attacks, nor must the offensive against England, and in particular against England's supply routes, suffer in consequence.

This, coupled with Tilt's earlier comments:


Hitler thought the whole thing a distraction from his Eastern European ambitions and eventually just wanted London bombed into submission.

... brings out an interesting question as to what the real intention behind Barbarossa were.

Hitler's Directive No.21 is quiet clear, and strategically sound, in pointing out certain conditions were to be met to achieve total victory over the Soviets. Amazingly, despite the historical success of the German military 'blitz' for a whole year after Barbarossa started in June of 1941, it turns out that none of the major obectives and conditions Hitler set with Directive 21 were ever actually met.

The Northern armygroup failed to take Leningrad (Leningrad survived for the entirety of the war), and consequentially the Center armygroup failed to cooperate with the Northern group in driving to Moscow. The very warnings and dangers the Directive has cautioned about the Luftwaffe in the Eastern Front, were realized during 1942. The prime objective of Barbarossa, which was to form a Volga-Archangel line, to sever the Soviets from their important industrial provinces, were ultimately foiled, due to the Soviets' amazing evacuation of industry to Siberia.

But the most important of all, the very beginning of Directive 21 states;


The armed forces of Germany must be prepared, even before the conclusion of the war with England, to defeat Soviet Russia in one rapid campaign ('Operation Barbarossa').

This more or less implies that Hitler clearly thought the war against England would take a lot longer than even one against USSR. Hitler's ambitions in the Eastern Front was certainly big, but still, he seems to have thought that the Eastern Front campaign would as swiftly end as the offensive of Ardennes. The Eastern Front offensive, particularly the intended final destination of the Southern armygroup - the Caucasus, Grozny, and Baku, all rich in oil - seems to imply that Hitler was preparing a very-long standoff against the UK, in which oil reserves would become critically important in case 'unreliable' Stalin would become uncooperative in exporting fuel sources.

This is made clear in that the final parts of Directive 21 mentions;


It is important that all Commanders-in-Chiefs make it plain that the taking of necessary measures in connection with this directive is being done as a precaution against the possibility of the Russians adopting an attitude towards us other than what it has been up to now.

Hitler viewed Stalin as an 'unreliable', and possibly 'potentially hostile' ally.

So it would seem that Hitler decided Operation Seeloewe would never be realized without some kind of long-term preparation, and decided to claim major Soviet provinces with high industrial capacity and oil reserves, before Stalin ever got the chance to become hostile towards the Third Reich.

It was basically a "pre-emptive strike" of WW2, intended to end quickly, with rich rewards. At least, initially it seems Hitler viewed the Eastern Front as lasting shorter than the Front against England - until the Soviets refused to cave in, and things started to get out of hand.



note) The word 'pre-emptive strike' used above is not in conjunction as the same wording 'pre-emptive strike' used by, for instance, Viktor Suvorov, who views Barbarossa was a 'pre-emptive' strike against a realized Soviet threat against Germany, in which he views the mobilization of the Soviet armies in the border regions as being offensive, rather than defensive, in nature. The 'pre-emptive strike' as I have mentioned, is more of a psychological one, in which Hitler either misinterpreted the 'Soviet threat', or through paranoia, decided to attack first in case the USSR would become hostile. 

The 'pre-emptive strike against realized miliatry threat' theory, as that of Suvorov and those who share his views, are largely discredited nowadays.




... whatever the actual result was, Hitler's own words clearly indicate that he thought the war against Brits would last longer than the war against the Soviets. The official reasoning given within Directive 21 states the war against Soviets as being "a precaution against the possibility of the Russians adopting an attitude towards us other than what it has been up to now".

In short, an "insurance" move. Since he viewed Stalin as an unreliable ally, he couldn't risk the possibility of the Soviets changing positions behind his back during the crucial standoff against Great Britain, which at this point Hitler viewed the Brits as the main threat which needed to be addressed. He was preparing a long fight against the Brits, and before Operation Sealion would take place, he needed to know that the Soviets behind him were neutralized.

 
jasonxfri13th said:
Has Germany not declared war on Russian and focused more on the west, the war would have been very different.
I do not remember correctly, but somewhere around 80% of Germany's troops were lost in RUSSIA alone. That is where all of the main fighting took place. The west were mere scratches, only a few hundred thousand lost.

Oh well, we will never fully understand Hitler's messed up mind.
It could be argued that until he started rounding up Jews and declaring war on the Soviet Union, that he was actually quite sane. With the backing of the military and oratory skills such as his, he must have been doing something correctly. Until he declared war on the Soviet Union and started rounding up Jews.

 
Soviets handled the winter better then Germans.

There have been some quarrels about this in this post, so I decided to join the fight.

Take gunoil, the stuff you need to put in your gun to make all the mechanics slide smooth. Germans used normal gunoil. Soviets used normal gunoil with petrol in it. I've seen tests with it. After 2 hours in - 40 Celsius the Soviet rifle with the soviet gunoil-mix worked smooth and nice. The mechanisms of the German rifle was barley moveable. A sample of both oils were also placed there in the same test, the German oil had turned into a wax-like substance, and the Soviet one was still fluid, though a bit.. thicker.. But still, very usefull in a gun.

Take clothing. The German soldiers had more layers of clothes then the Soviet soldier, still the German clothing provided less insulation. The secret is how the clothing were made. The Soviets were used to make clothes for hard weather, the Germans were not! The Soviet clothing was really similar to the clothing people used in Siberia and Mongolia several hundred years earlier, clothes they made to survive the winter! Another thing, Germans used steel helmets, Soviets used fake furcaps. Not as good protection against bullets, but a heck of a lot better against cold.

Engine oil. I am not 100% sure of this, but I think I've heard somewhere that the Soviets used an engine oil more suited for cold weather then the Germans had, however I am not 100% sure about this.

Diseases. One Soviet bacteriologist, I cant remember her name, was said to be as valuable to Stalin as 3 field marshalls. She fought a war in Stalingrad, a war against bacteria. She made several crude and cheap vacsines that allowed many soldiers to avoid the most devastating diseases.

Sniping. First of all, the scope. The Soviets used a smaller, easier to make scope that gave you the same benefit as the German scope. The thing was, it was really easy to "zero" the rifle and scope with the Soviet scope, you needed no tool at all, you just turned some knobs and wheels, like modern scopes, whilst the German scopes required a tool and much more work to zero out. Throughout Soviet there had been a tradition of marksmanship. Herders, hunters, military, basically anyone that used guns or were in contact with guns (and also many other civilians) took great pride in marksmanship. Several hundred men and women only needed a uniform and they were top notch marksmen of the Soviet army. This helped out a lot in Stalingrad.

So no, the Soviet soldiers were not superhumans that could withstand cold, but they had supreme technology compared to the Germans to do so.

So, when one say "The Soviets were used to the winter" it don't mean that they would bathe naked in the snow and it would melt because they had a furnace burning inside them, it meant that they had lived with a harsh winter for many, many years and had already developed the equipment they needed to handle the winter better.
 
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