Did Hitler & The 3rd Reich Save Western Europe?

[Sea Skimmer]

Stalin did not lose the Winter War. He was able to set the peace terms much to his liking and the Finnish government was pretty desparate for peace when the armistice came, which by traditional definition means that he won the war. That he did not get the overwhelming victory he had hoped for is certainly true, however.

Stalin’s peace terms were nearly identical to the terms demanded from the Finns prior to the outbreak of war. He got exactly what he wanted. While the military victory was not totally overwhelming, it would have rapidly become so had the war lasted any longer. The Finns were out of ammo and out of manpower, and the Soviets knew it. So the failure to take more was simply because Stalin didn’t want more.

[Iosef Cross]

The only way one can avert is by making either sure Germany wins WWI, there is no Versailles or that there is no great depression. Of course, the chance of the first two happening is slim unless Wilson also happens to stumble and break his neck.

The great depression pretty much caused WW2. Without it war would be very unlikely and the great depression was caused by the bad policies of Herbert Hoover (second to this: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15258.pdf), something that could easily been different.

Remilitarization does not proceed (much), and Germany is effectively a noncontributor to the war effort in an Allies vs. Soviets war, except possibly as a source of manpower if someone else can turn out the equipment they lack the factories to produce.

This of course presumes that the Weimar Republic survives. Which is quite unlikely.

Without the great depression it survives. With it, you are right, it is unlikely.

[Iosef Cross]

1) Can we take for granted that barring an aggressive Germany or other power in Western/Central Europe, Stalin would have unleashed his wrath upon all of Europe in a war of conquest at some point in the 1940's?

Not for granted, since nothing can be taken for granted. But it was a very aggressive militaristic power that could have tried to conquer Europe. And they could have conquered it.

2) If we take the above for granted, could an alliance of Central and Western European powers have stopped such a conquest (barring US involvement)?

Yep. Things are very complex, but in terms of industrial power, second to Bairoch's estimates (see: # "International industrialization levels from 1750 to 1980", in: Journal of European Economic History, Vol. 11, no's 1 & 2, Fall 1982.) Western Europe in 1938 had 37% of the world's industrial production, while the USSR had 9%.

3) Can we thank Nazi Germany for preventing such a conquest due to their aggressive war mobilizing the enemies of Germany into an uneasy alliance?

Maybe. If the USSR descended upon Europe in 1940 with the strength that they managed to reach in 1943-44, they would have probably conquered it.

4) If on VE day Stalin had simply attacked the Western allies (yes, I know how ridiculous the question is from a practical standpoint when you consider the massive casualties the Russians took in defeating the Germans) and tried to drive them off the continent, would he have had the manpower and industrial power to do so barring the US use of an atomic weapon or even with one?

Yes. They outnumbered the allies 3 to 1 in VE day. And they could sustain many millions more casualties.

They would probably drive the allies to the ocean in a few months, maybe less. With or without the atomic bombs.

[Samuel]

Without it war would be very unlikely and the great depression was caused by the bad policies of Herbert Hoover (second to this: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15258.pdf), something that could easily been different.

The Great Depression was a worldwide economic crisis. Additionally, it may have been politically impossible for Hoover to act differently- the measures the paper mentions were to counter unions and radicalism in a climate where fascists and communists were trying to gain power.

I'm also going to have to disagree with the paper's theory. For starters, the reason the agricultural sector wasn't immediately affected is because the demand for food remains steady even if income levels drops, while consumer goods are the first items to be cut in hard times.

Maybe. If the USSR descended upon Europe in 1940 with the strength that they managed to reach in 1943-44, they would have probably conquered it.

However that was after the USSR reorganized from 3 years of warfare, moved to total war footing and backed by allied supplies.

Yes. They outnumbered the allies 3 to 1 in VE day. And they could sustain many millions more casualties.

But the democracies have air superiority. We could flatten their supply lines and grind them to a halt. Plus there would be the problem of getting the military to fight in the first place.

[K. A. Pital]

But it was a very aggressive militaristic power that could have tried to conquer Europe. And they could have conquered it.

No, they couldn't. The USSR's logistics would never allow for such a feat in the year 1940. It had only so few supply automobiles, and lagged behind in output compared to major European powers (as you correctly noted). So it's army would face insurmountable difficulties in the first phases of combat. Also, how was the USSR "very agressive" when it basically only defended it's borders from foreign agression until the year 1939?

If the USSR descended upon Europe in 1940 with the strength that they managed to reach in 1943-44, they would have probably conquered it.

But that is not possible - in 1940, the USSR was not the same as in 1943. It could not reach the same level of war production in 1940. Only a nation mobilized for total war could do it. And if the USSR mobilizes totally, a likewise process would happen in Europe. Countermobilization.

Yes. They outnumbered the allies 3 to 1 in VE day. And they could sustain many millions more casualties.

They would probably drive the allies to the ocean in a few months, maybe less. With or without the atomic bombs.

Nay, Stuart is more correct here than you are. The logistics of the Red Army posed a massive problem; sheer numbers notwithstanding, the 11-million army could only march so long as it's supply train would allow. The supply lines of Europe were in ruins, as was the infrastructure. The USSR would have problems advancing against the USA and Britain; not that this couldn't have happened in principle, but it is highly unlikely if anything. Aside from the simple fact that while the USSR could continue the war, it had little reason to do it; also, the population would not look kindly on attacking former allies.

[TC Pilot]

Where exactly did this popular (and I use the term loosely) perception that Stalin was plotting his own conquest of Europe originate from, anyway? Is it just a hold-over from Cold War-era (or even earlier?) anti-communist paranoia? The generalization of "Stalin = evil = world domination"?

[Isolder74]

Where exactly did this popular (and I use the term loosely) perception that Stalin was plotting his own conquest of Europe originate from, anyway? Is it just a hold-over from Cold War-era (or even earlier?) anti-communist paranoia? The generalization of "Stalin = evil = world domination"?

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Probably Red Alert

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Where exactly did this popular (and I use the term loosely) perception that Stalin was plotting his own conquest of Europe originate from, anyway? Is it just a hold-over from Cold War-era (or even earlier?) anti-communist paranoia? The generalization of "Stalin = evil = world domination"?

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Probably Red Alert

Jokes aside, after seeing how much of Europe reacted to the Russian-Georgian war, a war that Georgia started, I think there's plenty of holdover for the Cold War era.

[Tiriol]

Where exactly did this popular (and I use the term loosely) perception that Stalin was plotting his own conquest of Europe originate from, anyway? Is it just a hold-over from Cold War-era (or even earlier?) anti-communist paranoia? The generalization of "Stalin = evil = world domination"?

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Probably Red Alert

Jokes aside, after seeing how much of Europe reacted to the Russian-Georgian war, a war that Georgia started, I think there's plenty of holdover for the Cold War era.

Some countries (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania etc.) may have bad memories from before the Cold War when Stalin DID invade them and out of the four mentioned countries occupied three. Some people in those countries may consider him to be a greater evil than Hitler was (do note, though, that I'm not making judgments here, just noting reasons for equating Stalin with attempted world conquest).

[Thanas]

The concept of a preemptive German strike and Stalinist/communist aggression has been circulated in German and European circles since the 1920s. In fact, it was used to try to legitimize the strike against Stalin in 1941 as well. Postwar it turned into "okay, Hitler was bad, but we still had to attack Stalin. Don't blame us, we only tried to prevent a disaster. If we had not struck, he would have". There is a whole genre of revanchist literature to that effect, even among historians. In the seventies, when the volume on Operation Barbarossa of the MGFA (military history institute of Germany) was written, that was still the case. As a result, the book reads schizophrenic - half of it is written with the mindset of "preventive war" the other half is written with the mindset of "war of aggression".

[MarshalPurnell]

I'd think offhand that the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, and Stalin's subsequent naked aggression against Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, and Romania influenced the tendency to see him as a threat like Hitler. Of course we know there are important differences, in so far as Stalin was cold-bloodly rational while Hitler was ultimately driven by his ideology, but we also know a whole lot more about the Soviet Union than anyone in the West did in 1930-1950. Also of course the violence of collectivization, the Moscow Show Trials, the Great Purge, the pursuit of Trotsky, persecution of the anarchists in Spain, so on and so forth were known about and made Stalin seem, if anything, more brutal than Hitler or Mussolini. When he made the Pact with Hitler, reversing the policy of opposition to fascism, he finally managed to disillusion many of his remaining defenders on the Left. The World War and the Holocaust eclipsed Soviet internal brutality but the methods whereby the Soviets consolidated control over the Eastern European satellite states were plenty distasteful and the behavior of Soviet armies in Germany only reinforced long-standing prejudices about the barbarism of the Russians. The great expansion of Communist influence after the war, capped off by the proclamation of the PRC in 1949, helped burnish the fear that Soviet Communism had pretensions of world rule. And it is pointless to deny a significant ideological divide existed that embittered relations between the East and West, but the West did not just fear the Soviets for no reason at all.

That said, German claims they were launching a preventive war are utter nonsense. Hitler laid out his plans to conquer Russia for lebensraum two decades before Barbarossa began. The Germans knew almost nothing about the Soviet military and its dispositions, and their efforts to use aerial reconnaissance to make up for that were undertaken only after Hitler had already ordered the invasion. The behavior of the Germans in the Soviet Union makes it absolutely clear that they came as brutal imperial conquerors, intending to destroy the existing population and colonize it, rather than acting reluctantly in self-defense.

[Isolder74]

The Reason i bring up Red Alert was that the entire premise of the game is that Einstein travels back in time and removes Hitler from time. So in the game WWII was now between the Allies and the Soviet Union.

[Samuel]

Didn't Stas threaten commisarial style execution to the next person who mentioned Red Alert?

Of course we know there are important differences, in so far as Stalin was cold-bloodly rational while Hitler was ultimately driven by his ideology, but we also know a whole lot more about the Soviet Union than anyone in the West did in 1930-1950.

That and they were former provinces of the Russian Empire he was reclaiming.

[MarshalPurnell]

Had been twenty years ago, after which the Soviets recognized their independence and even joined the League of Nations with them as members. Danzig had been German for just as long as Lithuania had been Russian, and had been not-German for just as long as as Lithuania had been not-Russian, and no one accepted that as an excuse for the invasion of Poland.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Word on the street is that there's some kind of website out there whose name has something to do with being at the front of a storm, where this thesis is accepted and agreed upon as being an indisputable account of what Hitler's motivations were for invading the USSR. It's all but a naked ad hominem, I know, and not nearly as material as the arguments Stuart and Stas et al have made, but it gives you some idea of the caliber of the minds that this thesis has been keeping company with.

[K. A. Pital]

Didn't Stas threaten commisarial style execution to the next person who mentioned Red Alert?

At least here's it done in context. Moreover, the thread is in a pretty good shape so far.

[Omeganian]

I believe the name of the main supporter of the opinion that Stalin intended to attack is Viktor Suvorov. He wrote several books on that. The problem with determining the truth is that his style is not very academic - and with quite a few exaggerations, too - while his main opponents cannot be accused of excess honesty either (and for some reason often resort to plain out lying).

[Isolder74]

From what I've read about him he was an anti-soviet propagandist and so almost everything he had to say should be taken with a Polish salt mine while reading it.

While the plot of the game, Red Alert might be a bit of fun records of what Stalin was telling his army sound more like careful observations about what was obviously a very good chance that Hitler's Germany had the capability and design to at one point attack the Soviet Union. Then to claim that Stalin was planning a massive attack to counter that really doesn't play into a hand of saying that he intended to attempt a massive conquest of Europe.

[Omeganian]

From what I've read about him he was an anti-soviet propagandist and so almost everything he had to say should be taken with a Polish salt mine while reading it.

First of all, he is, not was. As for the salt - no doubt, but he does have a few good points. The maps do show some Soviet divisions rather close to the border.

http://evofh1l.devhub.com/img/upload/trbgumuio.jpg

While the plot of the game, Red Alert might be a bit of fun records of what Stalin was telling his army sound more like careful observations about what was obviously a very good chance that Hitler's Germany had the capability and design to at one point attack the Soviet Union. Then to claim that Stalin was planning a massive attack to counter that really doesn't play into a hand of saying that he intended to attempt a massive conquest of Europe.

What about saying he could use a convenient opportunity to expand his empire?

[Isolder74]

A Military build up on a border with a potentially hostile enemy isn't necessarily proof of aggression of his own. Most of the setups leading to a massive Soviet attempt at the conquest of europe usually include a Naziless Germany. The ones that don't include a Europe that are basically Enemies of Hitler who would tolerate an aggressive Stalin just as they did in normal history.

The only thing I see a Preemptive Soviet Union leading to is perhaps a larger Soviet zone in post WWII Germany.

[Thanas]

From what I've read about him he was an anti-soviet propagandist and so almost everything he had to say should be taken with a Polish salt mine while reading it.

First of all, he is, not was. As for the salt - no doubt, but he does have a few good points. The maps do show some Soviet divisions rather close to the border.

Yeah, if you somehow manage to miss the fact that the river Bug is actually a pretty good defensive line.

[Omeganian]

From what I've read about him he was an anti-soviet propagandist and so almost everything he had to say should be taken with a Polish salt mine while reading it.

First of all, he is, not was. As for the salt - no doubt, but he does have a few good points. The maps do show some Soviet divisions rather close to the border.

Yeah, if you somehow manage to miss the fact that the river Bug is actually a pretty good defensive line.

On the Romanian border?

[Isolder74]

On the Romanian border?

Which was at the time a German Ally. Where there were German army units being stationed. Makes a lot of sense.

[Omeganian]

On the Romanian border?

Which was at the time a German Ally. Where there were German army units being stationed. Makes a lot of sense.

I mean; was Bug a good defensive line there?

[PeZook]

I mean; was Bug a good defensive line there?

You don't cut your front short when you run out of river ; If anything, you concentrate more troops there to prevent a strategic encirclement.