In fact, his personality was Hitler's key to rising to power, but it was also his undoing!
Hitler, as we know, pressed to Britain but was stymied at the Battle of Britain. His generals urged him to make another invasion plan and push on, and many historians agree that Hitler might have well won the war if he had focused his efforts on the west and pushed towards Britain. This might have very well denied the Allies their attack on Normandy.
Hitler originally planned to push into Britain again, but more than anyone else, he hated communism and Russia's leader, Stalin. He imagined his empire as starting with the crushing defeat of Russia and him taking over. Thusly, he pushed into the east. Here, he made a few mistakes!
1) He started a war on two fronts. Hitler's forces were pretty formidable on both fronts, but if he had focused purely on the western front, he could have probably held off the Allies.
2) Russia had no means or intention of invading Germany or violating the non-aggression pact. In fact, he hoped to capitalize once Hitler had won the war and push into eastern Europe to spread communism.
3) Hitler's primary goal was Stalingrad, as opposed to Moscow. He made his plans around this, against the advice of his generals, and passed up several good opportunities to crush the capital and crumble the Russian forces. He wanted to crush Leningrad and Stalingrad for the symbolism of destroying the cities named after the heroes of communism.
4) Russian winter! Arg!
So there you have it! I wanted to share that today!
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Mr. Parcelan thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
I hear a lot of people routinely grudgingly admit that Hitler, though he was a bad guy, was a charismatic leader.
This is the way I always heard it. If you want a brilliant leader look at Genghis Kahn.
It's not something people hear about.
-H
Also, Hitler wasn't expecting the Soviets to put up a fight, so he did not prepare his troops for the Russian winter.
Russian winter. Hello? Didn't he learn anything from Napoleon?
But yeah...The Nazis were going to fail in Russia either way. They didn't have much of a contingency plan if they were delayed. None of their vehicles were designed to deal with the freezing mud and so forth you encounter in Russia. So even if they hadn't bailed out Mussolini, the Russians just had to fight delaying tactics until winter and the shit STILL would have hit the fan as it did.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
How.... Hellbender.... uughhhhhh:
History of World War II, for the l33+. God bless the TA players of the world.-H
ROFL
Lyinar Ka`Bael, Piney Fresh Druidess - Luclin
quote:
Sean spewed forth this undeniable truth:
He never played Risk as a kid.
Entirely too true! 
quote:
Hellbender had this to say about John Romero:
History of World War II, for the l33+. God bless the TA players of the world.-H
Awesome.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
Crossing a channel into fortified hostile territory and maintaining supplies across a channel is a problematic scenario for most militaries today, let alone for the Germany of the 40s, which had no navy that was even in the ballpark of what the British had. It is doubtful weather, even under ideal conditions, the Luftwaffe could have secured a section of the English channel long enough for German transports to cross without suffering extreme losses to RAF and Navy attacks. Keep in mind that since Germany didn't have near the amount of transport capacity they would have needed to invade Britain, their plan called for troops to be ferried, among other things, in private yachts which weren't exactly built to survive being shot at.
Weather or not Hitler held off the allied land-based invasion in the west was not a deciding factor in the later years of the war, after operation Citadel the Russians were pushing westward with superior numbers in both tanks and infantry against what were basically the shattered remnants of the German army commanded by Hitler himself after he had dismissed most of his competent generals. Without most quality Axis forces fighting or dead at the eastern front however an invasion of Normandy would not have been possible.
It is also not a given that the Soviet military would have collapsed after the fall of Moscow. There was still enough room for the Soviet leadership to retreat to and large amounts of industrial infrastructure had been moved away from the front and to the easy already. Even if the Germans had taken Moscow, they still would have had to supply it and hold on to it against Soviet regulars fighting from the east and south as well as Soviet partisans attacking their supply lines throughout the occupied territories.
quote:
Mr. Parcelan had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
I guess the overall moral of the story, then, is it's a bad idea to try and form a land invasion of Russia.
Despite that, Russia has been invaded more than any other country in history. Between the Golden Horde, Nordic Vikings, and others, they've had a few centuries to dig in.
Edit: Antoher problem the German cavalry ran into in Russia was that the mix of petrol they used in their tanks and trucks wasn't suitable for the temperatures, and often turned into a kind of mushy sludge that would make combustion impossible. This not only shut down their vehicles but any gas powered generators they set up, which only made the winter that much worse. Demos fucked around with this message on 09-05-2005 at 02:05 PM.
quote:
Demos was listening to Cher while typing:
Despite that, Russia has been invaded more than any other country in history. Between the Golden Horde, Nordic Vikings, and others, they've had a few centuries to dig in.
Well, there's a certain romance about conquering the unconquered. It's the same reason that Tamerlane marched to China after he took over Genghis Khan's work. Genghis died on the march to China to finish the work of his predecessor; he had more than enough manpower and a fairly disciplined army, as hordes go.
It sort of put a damper on things when Tamerlane died on the march to China, too.
quote:
Mod impressed everyone with:
The possibility of a successful invasion of Britain would have required many key points in the war to have gone differently. At the very least, Germany would have had to not allow Dunkirk to happen and to somehow destroy the British fleet, which was at that point unrivaled in the world, as well as the RAF.Crossing a channel into fortified hostile territory and maintaining supplies across a channel is a problematic scenario for most militaries today, let alone for the Germany of the 40s, which had no navy that was even in the ballpark of what the British had. It is doubtful weather, even under ideal conditions, the Luftwaffe could have secured a section of the English channel long enough for German transports to cross without suffering extreme losses to RAF and Navy attacks. Keep in mind that since Germany didn't have near the amount of transport capacity they would have needed to invade Britain, their plan called for troops to be ferried, among other things, in private yachts which weren't exactly built to survive being shot at.
Weather or not Hitler held off the allied land-based invasion in the west was not a deciding factor in the later years of the war, after operation Citadel the Russians were pushing westward with superior numbers in both tanks and infantry against what were basically the shattered remnants of the German army commanded by Hitler himself after he had dismissed most of his competent generals. Without most quality Axis forces fighting or dead at the eastern front however an invasion of Normandy would not have been possible.
It is also not a given that the Soviet military would have collapsed after the fall of Moscow. There was still enough room for the Soviet leadership to retreat to and large amounts of industrial infrastructure had been moved away from the front and to the easy already. Even if the Germans had taken Moscow, they still would have had to supply it and hold on to it against Soviet regulars fighting from the east and south as well as Soviet partisans attacking their supply lines throughout the occupied territories.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, THE HOMOPHONE YOU SEEK IS "WHETHER" NOT "WEATHER" YARRRRRRGH!
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael was listening to Cher while typing:
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, THE HOMOPHONE YOU SEEK IS "WHETHER" NOT "WEATHER" YARRRRRRGH!
Gah, that happens when you misuse a cheap spellchecker plugin.
