I just feel like it might be the latter, because the idea that Germany only achieved limited success due to surprise, amphetamines, and Allied incompetence kind of takes away from the fact that the Soviets spent so much effort and so many lives in beating them back halfway to Berlin before the Allies even invaded on the Western front. With the idea that the German army was somehow more competent, professional, whatever, over the French/British/Etc, that adds to the achievement of the Soviets in blunting and then turning back their advance. But the criticisms of the Nazi army, idk, it seems to take away from all of that? Like "lol whatever they were all hopped up on adderall and would have been stopped anyway." idk y'all it just seems weird. I don't know how to take it.

edit: like say it's boxing and you got The Best Boxer and they're beaten by someone else, well, that'd make the latter the Boxer who beat The Best Boxer, but then people come out saying actually they weren't that great etc etc, it detracts from both of them, not just one, idk

  • Presents [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    And their greatest mistake? Vastly underestimating the Soviet Union

    The Soviets hid their strength. Why? Nobody knows. If the Germans had known their true strength they would have had second thoughts, and might have continued the alliance instead of sneak attacking their only friend in the world. In the only recording we have of Hitler using his normal speaking voice, he talks about the real size of the Red Army being double what the Abwehr estimated.

    They send their factory workers to the frontline as soldiers, and had to constantly rotate them back to the homefront for industrial production.

    Soviets used women but the Germans refused to do so. In fact, Germany ran on a peacetime economy until after Stalingrad. Theaters were open, the bourgeois employed domestic servants, it wasn't a 100% push for victory. Afterwards they did, but it was too little too late. The Soviet strategy of using women as workers and soldiers paid great dividends.

    if Stalin had not been purging people left and right in the late 1930s, Germany would not have stood a chance at all

    If Stalin had not purged them all, they would have overthrown him.

    if Stalin had invaded Germany in 1937, the whole of WWII could have been prevented.

    This is true. However all of Western capitalism would have united to ally with Germany and start a different WWII.

    saved the Soviet Union, and the world from fascism.

    A common misconception, fanned by the Allies, was that goal was to conquer the entire world. In fact the German plan was to conquer the food and oil producing regions of the Soviet Union and then stop. But it's no surprise why the Allies wanted to overstate the threat, it was useful to motivate their populations. Who today even remembers that they wanted to ally with Britain, and considered the war against them a great mistake?