The German high command certainly did not think Hitler’s strategy through mid-1940 was flawless. They thought it was absolutely disastrous that he had gotten them into a war with the British and French empires simultaneously. They bailed him out, partially, by unexpectedly defeating France in six weeks.

In early 1939 the expectation was that the USSR would team up with Britain and France to contain Hitler — of course that would have been even worse for Germany. Ultimately Stalin decided to go the other way (temporarily) but I don’t see why Hitler gets credit for that.

Hitler launched a series of gambles from 1936 on. The early ones paid off. The later ones failed catastrophically. That’s not brilliant strategy. That’s a gambler’s lucky streak coming to its inevitable end.

A book you might like is _The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy_ by Adam Tooze. It explains why Hitler felt compelled to keep taking ever bigger and crazier gambles. The short answer: he was committed to achieving his goals by force, but Germany’s enemies were much stronger than Nazi Germany was.

It’s never too late to haggle about WWII.

https://wearswar.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/germanys-incredible-courage-to-defend-europe-how-hitlers-invasion-of-the-soviet-union-surprised-stalin/

http://www.wearswar.com/2018/03/03/soviet-tanks-were-to-be-the-spearhead-in-stalins-plan-to-attack-conquer-europe-he-built-mass-produced-the-best-tanks-in-the-world/

I don’t agree with this because I think that you are either not able or are misunderstanding of certain segments of humanities mentality. I say that,[humanity], very loosely and would prefer another word like “animal, reptile, etc.”. This segment of the population are psychopaths.

Psychopaths are very, very frequently involved in the most audacious and rash sort of enterprises. They are are also perfect liars and are very convincing in whatever role they have taken on.

Saying that Stalin was a psychopath can not be definitively ascribed but it would not be a stretch to do so. Waiting until the west was tied down in war then attacking would be right down a psychopaths likely plan of action.

Other psychopaths have done similar things. One most definitely a psychopath was Alcibiades.

In this case the actions of a psychopath destroyed a whole civilization. Athens.

Alcibiades was almost certainly a psychopath. Some had an intense hatred for him, some great love. It was Alcibiades that pushed the great idea of attacking Syracuse on the Athenians. The failed Syracuse attack was THE downfall of Athens. The failed attack destroyed them completely. The same Alcibiades went from city to city in the ancient world. In Sparta he was more Spartan than the Spartans. Changing his chameleon skin every time he moved somewhere else and betraying everyone he came in contact with. Alcibiades killed Athens with risky schemes to glorify himself.

What did Plutarch have to say about him.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Alcibiades*.html

“…He had, as they say, one power which transcended all others, and proved an implement of his chase for men: that of assimilating and adapting himself to the pursuits and lives of others, thereby assuming more violent changes than the chameleon. That animal, however, as it is said, is utterly unable to assume one colour, namely, white; but Alcibiades could associate with good and bad alike, and found naught that he could not imitate and practice. 5 In Sparta, he was all for bodily training, simplicity of life, and severity of countenance; in Ionia, for p65 luxurious ease and pleasure; in Thrace, for drinking deep; in Thessaly, for riding hard; and when he was thrown with Tissaphernes the satrap, he outdid even Persian magnificence in his pomp and lavishness. It was not that he could so easily pass entirely from one manner of man to another, nor that he actually underwent in every case a change in his real character; but when he saw that his natural manners were likely to be annoying to his associates, he was quick to assume any counterfeit exterior which might in each case be suitable for them…”

http://www.ancient.eu.com/Alcibiades/

One thing not widely known is King Agis of Sparta hated Alcibiades because Alcibiades had a child by the Kings wife. Can you imagine being a refuge from another city where they wanted your head and then having an affair with the Kings wife where you were taking refuge??? Total Spath behavior.

Another clear case is the Jew Trotsky and half-Jew Lenin. They took several tens of millions of dollars from another Jew in New York and a lot of Jews from New York and over threw the State of Russia. What a totally Spath thing to do.

Finland. It’s covered with trees, swamps, bogs and has very few roads to attack so when the Russians attacked the Finns moved through the woods and attacked their columns in the front and rear then massacred everyone in the middle. It’s a terrible place to attack no matter how large the army because there’s no way to transport them.

Stalingrad. I do NOT blame Hitler for the loss there. I read David Irving’s book on Goring and from first hand references he wrote that Goring when asked by Hitler directly “could you deliver so and so many tons of supplies” Goring lied and told him he could when he definitely knew he could not. By the time Hitler found out about this lie and how no supplies were getting through and if I remember correctly something like 25% or less it was too late.

Hitler’s generals, if I remember correctly, wanted to go straight to Moscow with all their forces. That would have been a mistake because Stalin had already moved a huge amount of industrial capacity far away. and when the Germans took Moscow they would have not really had much. Hitler was right and his generals were wrong.

I personally do not think Hitler was wrong about Stalingrad because it was a major hub and he was also not wrong about splitting his armies to go after the oil fields. These things had to be done for him to be successful. The Germans had NO OIL. They were running out, fast. Hitler was obsessed with supply as any good general is and made all the right moves but events and people let him down and…they lost.

What if the Italians had not gotten in trouble and Hitler didn’t have to bail them out, delaying his attack of Russia? The slightly longer period of good weather may have very well made the difference.

There’s one thing I think he may could have done and it would have helped a great deal. Attacked Gibraltar as soon as possible and defeat it at whatever cost then starve out the British while building up the oil supplies in the middle east.

Rommel if he had had supplies was doing wonders but when they would send supplies they would be sunk or shot down. If the med. was German then this would not have happened.

What part of the diplomatic history am I ignoring? That is a serious question. I want to learn.

In my personal journey through history, I have gone from accepting the “Good War” narrative to paying attention to the Hoover “warmonger FDR” and the Suvorov “warmonger Stalin” elements, which seem to be credible. I will gladly accept other elements if they make sense.

Thinking about diplomatic elements, let’s not forget that Stalin & Hitler had actively assisted opposite sides in the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War. It was very unlikely that the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact represented the former proxy enemies becoming friends for life. Betrayal was always in the air, from both sides. It seems hardly credible that USSR forces were entirely unprepared for the 1941 German attack even after they had had over 18 months to prepare.

From memory (always fallible!), the key points of Suvorov’s evaluation of Stalin’s 1939 invasion of Finland included:
(a) Finnish forces had the defender’s great advantage (as USSR forces should have had vis-à-vis Barbarossa);
(b) Stalin sent in forces from southern USSR who were not properly equipped & trained for winter warfare, resulting in very high deaths & equipment failures; and
(c) Stalin anyway got what he mainly wanted from the Winter War, namely pushing the USSR-Finland border further away from Leningrad.

The simplest explanation is that the same army that was so inept in Finland was just as inept a year later when the Germans attacked. No conspiracy is required, and you’re still ignoring the diplomatic history.

By Camille Cianfarra By Telephone To the New York Times.
Nov. 9, 1940

New York Times

Oil could be collected in Egypt and Tripoli (Lebanon) or Haifa (both oil terminal of Iraq pipeline) and sent to Romania and Italian refineries. What is the point of sending it to Germany? If Tripoli, Haifa and Egypt refineries were not destroyed a big part of it could be even processed in place.

But that is irrelevant if both USA and USSR are against Germany. Hitler could have only reach a stalemate with one of them out. That mean USSR. Which might mean accepting USSR in the Axis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks

It seems you are putting a lot of emphasis on your interpretation that Stalin was a cautious character who would not have attacked Germany. Maybe you are right, but it seems unlikely that Stalin, who was not even Russian, could have outmaneuvered genuine revolutionaries like Trotsky to climb to the top of the slippery pole if he were so cautious.

Two weeks after England & France declared war on Germany over Poland, Stalin also invaded Poland. Logically & morally, the English & French should have also declared war on him — but Stalin took that risk. Shortly after that, in Nov 1939, Stalin invaded Finland in winter — albeit without a whole lot of success; again, a risky operation. In mid-1940, Stalin invaded and occupied the Baltic countries — further risking any future hopes of cooperating with the Allies who were supposedly making the world safe for democracy.

Stalin was a risk-taker! He had to be.

But the main reason for giving credibility to Suvorov’s hypothesis is simple observation. Since the beginning of time, warfare has swung back & forth between Advantage Aggressor & Advantage Defender. World War I showed that the advantage was clearly with the defender with the technologies available in the early 1940s.

Stalin had invaded Poland in Sep 1939 and moved his forces up to the line of demarcation with German forces. By June 1941 when Germany launched Barbarossa, Stalin had had about a year & a half for his forces to dig in. Operation Barbarossa should have been very difficult for German forces attacking a well-entrenched defending USSR army — instead it was a turkey shoot. Why?

Simplest explanation is Suvorov’s. Stalin’s forces had been ordered out of their prepared positions and were on the move to launch their own attack on German positions — minefields cleared, troops on one train & equipment on another, etc. Plus it was very difficult for USSR commanders to respond by exercising their initiative when the situation on the ground departed from plan — they had to wait for orders from Stalin.

I find Suvorov’s explanation for the initial failure of the Red Army to be the most logical & consistent alternative. Of course, that does not prove Suvorov was right.