Could Germany have won World War II if they had not attacked the Soviet Union?
In this post I’ll explain, using primary sources, how there’s absolutely no way that once World War II was joined by Germany, that they get out of war with the Soviet Union.
By Carl Brutananadilewski
Quora
December 16, 2022
Adolf Hitler, center, studies a Russian war map
with General Field Marshal Walter Von Brauchitsch, left, German
commander in chief, and Chief of Staff Col. General Franz Halder, on
August 7, 1941 .
German mechanized troops rest at Stariza, Russia on November 21, 1941
German soldiers on the attack near Stalingrad. Hitler's mistake was not allowing his 6th Army to break out when they were surrounded by the Russians at Stalingrad.
There now exists incontrovertible evidence that had the Axis not launched Operation Barbarossa when they did, the Soviet Union would have attacked Germany anyways. It’s likely that this would have occurred not very long after Barbarossa’s original start date of June 22nd, 1941.
The first and most compelling evidence for this is two secret speeches Stalin gave on May 5, 1941 to one thousand graduating Army officers from Moscow’s Staff Colleges. Molotov, Mikoyan, Voroshilov, Kalinin, and Lavrenti Beria were in attendance. Two generals and one major who later fell into German hands were present; upon interrogation all three described the speeches with a high degree of conformity. Mention of these speeches is also found in the Russian language edition of Marshal Zhukov’s memoirs, but was omitted from the English and German editions. The speeches recordings have since been confirmed by historians working in the Soviet archives. Here they are:
First, Stalin launched into a sober account of the Soviet preparations for war with Germany,
“New tank models, the Mark 1 and 3, are on their way; these are excellent tanks, whose armor can withstand 76-millimeter shells. In the near future there will also be a new tank graced with my own name … Our war plan is ready, we have built the airfields and landing grounds, and the front-line aircraft are already there. Everything has been done by way of clearing out the rear areas: all the foreign elements have been removed. It follows that over the next two months we can begin the fight with Germany … We have to take our revenge for Bulgaria and Finland.”
If this isn’t enough evidence, during a banquet that same night, Stalin rose and this drunken speech was recorded,
“During the years of the capitalist encirclement of the Soviet Union we were able to make good use of the ‘peaceloving’ slogan while we expanded the Soviet Union’s frontiers to the north and west. But now we must discard this slogan for the reactionary and narrowminded slogan that it is, as it will not serve to win us one more square inch of territory. It is time to stop chewing that particular cud, Comrade Chosin: stop being a simpleton! The era of forcible expansion has begun for the Soviet Union.”
Then, one can combine the above knowledge with these facts: the Axis invaders found the barbed wire on the Soviet frontier cut. Soviet forces were arranged in an attack position and thus were relatively easily destroyed on the border as opposed to being arrayed in a defensive posture. Finally, Stalin’s son was captured by Axis forces; a letter was found on his person dated before Barbarossa addressed to his girlfriend, stating that soon he’d be writing her from Berlin!
One can see from the above information, that once World War II began in Europe, that there wasn’t any way that Germany was going to get out of fighting the Soviet Union. In fact, a strong argument can be made that Barbarossa was an excellent move, and indeed a very lucky one. The Axis was able to destroy massive Soviet formations caught unprepared in forward positions, rather than fighting on Soviet terms with most of their own forces deployed elsewhere. It is without a doubt a myth that one of Hitler’s mistakes was attacking the Soviet Union.
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