First of all I would like to address the
issue regarding if invading Russia
was the correct move for the Axis power’s army. Let’s reflect a bit about the
whole situation that they faced at this point in war.
At this point the Axis power’s faced a
serious problem; they lacked a constant supply of oil. In order to solve this
problem they had two viable options, they could either invade Russia or they could try to take control Libya , Egypt and other Mediterranean
countries that could serve as an oasis to them.
Let’s go ahead and explore both options:
First we take a look at invading the Mediterranean . They would need to regroup and Rommel
would’ve received massive reinforcements in order to try to overrun Egypt , the Suez Canal and finally the Oil Rich
countries of the Middle East . This would
provide some sort of an oasis that would serve as a base for the Axis Powers.
Then we have the attack on Russia . This
represents a mayor challenge to the Axis powers, since Russia is so huge and winter is close, they
would need to overrun the Red Army and take Moscow in less than a couple months if they
wanted to succeed.
Both of these options offered a solution
to the oil problem and had potential to defeat one of Germany ’s
enemies. The difference was that Russia
represented a bigger threat to the Reich than the close-to-collapse Great Britain ; this was the main reason why
attacking Russia
made more sense.
After outlining the situation that the
Axis powers went through we can take a look at what happened during the actual
invasion of Russia .
The German army was probably the best army
in Europe at the time; meanwhile the Russian
was probably the worst. Although the Russians outnumbered the Germans by a vast
majority, the Germans were better equipped, trained and led.
Since Russia was so huge, the German army
would be divided into three groups. The first would advance through the Baltics
and towards Leningrad ; the second one would move
all the way south and take the wheat and oil fields, while the third would push
through the middle towards Moscow .
The problem relayed on the fact that there
was not enough Panzer and other resources to fulfil all the objectives. One of
them had to be prioritized, in this matter Hitler’s Generals provided great
advice. They argued that taking Moscow
was crucial to the operation since that would neutralize all Russian efforts to
regroup and reorganize.
Hitler, on the contrary, thought that
taking Ukraine and the Oil fields was more important, he spoke from a
historical perspective were Napoleon had invade Russia and took Moscow only to
fail miserably and have to retreat.
Hitler decided to take action and invade Ukraine and the Oil Fields; this proved
disastrous to their campaign in Russia
and was the biggest mistake they made.
While taking Moscow was deceive and would
have forced Russia to surrender they moved all the way through Ukraine and
ended up getting pinned down by the massive forces that Russia had gather to
the north.
The last blow to this campaign happened on
December 5th of 1942 when the Russian army launched a massive
counteroffensive and caused multiple causalities to the Nazi army and forced
them to retreat and never threaten Moscow
again.
We can then conclude that Hitler’s single
and biggest mistake was overestimating and being really optimistic regarding
their ability to take Ukraine
and then seize Moscow .
What would have happened if he would have followed his generals advice is left
up to speculation?