This video is a rather rare occasion when western speakers describe the Soviet side in better light than it had actually been. Before Operation Uranus the Soviets tried many times to get to Stalingrad on the land to relieve its 62nd Army there. To no avail: they were each time repelled by mighty German artillery. One Red Army commander described the situation so in his memoirs: we had only a few hundred meters left to get to the outskirts of the city. We saw its streets! But we couldn't overcome these few hundred meters. And that was exactly because of German long range heavy artillery. So the situation threatened an impasse. The legend says that at one (among many) meetings at Soviet Stavka (High Command) right before the official duscussions started Stalin's two key figures in Stavka - Marshals Zhukov and Vasilevskiy stand aside and discussed the situation in low voice among themselves. And one of the two softly said "We need a different solution". Stalin had a very keen hearing and immediately asked them: What different solution? And so started the planning of the Operation Uranus. As to "ended bullets" for the Germans: actually they hadn't any problems with bullets exactly: there were plenty of munitions for small arms and even machine guns. That wasn't a problem. The problem was they had no heavy artillery shells. Here the speaker said about Operation Mars. Why Model could keep the Rzhev salient? Because it was no problem for him to fire up to 2000 tons of heavy artillery shells every day. The statistics were that for each Soviet heavy shell came back two or three German shells often of a heavier caliber. And airlifting such huge volumes of artillery munitions for Paulus was pure fantasy.
I always felt that Germany's best bet would have been to leave Russia alone and invade North Africa in a big way. They could have likely taken Egypt and the Suez and on to the Middle East.
Having virtually eliminated the Italian navy the British RN almost had freedom of the Mediterranean could the Germans have got enough supplies through? Even if they had then if the RN built up a submarine fleet and had the equivalent of the Battle of the Altantic and just sent all the German oil tankers to the bottom of the Med? Still got to get the oil up into Germany some how.
@@kevinrayner5812 Libyan oil hadn't been discovered at that time, you need to go to Iraq/Iran, which are huge distances away, & as you say, still get it back. The British hadn't eliminated the Italian navy, the Italian navy lacked fuel, which is why it stayed in port a lot. Yes, the British could have built up their submarines in the Mediterranean further. The Axis could have taken Egypt up to the Suez canal, but what then? it's good for the Italians, but not the Germans. Every step further East is a logistical nightmare for them, & delays the critical attack on the Soviet Union, which DID have the oil Hitler was desperate for.
@@eric-wb7gj My thinking was to get to the Middle East via the Suez Canal and the Red Sea or overland and link up with a southern push from Russia. But as you say logistically it was a non starter as there there would still have been the overland bit to get the oil over but I suppose they could at least get it into Southern Germany via the Black Sea and the Danube. The whole of the North Africa campaigne was really just face saving the Italians.
@@eric-wb7gj Yep, each side was frequently accusing the other of tainting water sources with fuel. No one made the leap of logic that it was happening quite a lot, so may have other causes.
Most of the middle east oil was still untapped and no infrastructure. Germany needed oil now and the Caucuses were not too far away. As it was Germany and the USSR were eventually going to fight, it was just a matter of when.
The Professor is misleading about oil. Middle Eastern oil fueled the British in Egypt and Egypt. But the oil for Britain itself came primarily from America.
Developed post WW2. Indonesia did produce some since Japan wanted it. Remember the demand for oil was a lot less since most of the world had not been mechanized, and also that almost all oil was transported by ship. In 1940 the only fully mechanized army was the British one, and they had done it because they realized a third of the supplies shipped to the army in WW1 was fodder for the animals, and running tanker trucks or tanker ships, was easier. That is why for D-Day they ran a pipeline under the English channel.
22:50, the Germans could not have simply bypassed the city and starved it out. They would have had to cross the Volga which was a huge river and also allocated a lot more forces to such a venture. Remember sixth army arrived at Stalingrad in an already weakened state having to fight a series of battles to get there. Secondly Soviet armies were constantly counter-attacking on the flanks meaning most of the sixth armies formations were actually on the flanks as opposed to the city itself. Thirdly German logistics were already on a shoe-string with barely enough supplies arriving along the Kalach railroad pre-encirclement, crossing a river would have broken them.
Totally agree. Have you followed "TIK's" series on Stalingrad? It's massive, but if I remember right he makes similar claims about the decimation of the sixth army before it reaches the city.
The HEER started having rail traffic snags into the depths of the Ukraine. They did not realize siding stations were further away than normal Reichsbahn scale. Lack of sidings slowed everything down with traffic going to the front and trains trying to depart the frontline sector at the same time.
@@ericscottstevens also: I've always heard about the gauge problem with the Soviet railways but I've never really known how the Germans dealt with it. Did they try to build new track, or transfer goods at the border, use horses/trucks or some combination of all. If you know of a good podcast or book on the subject I'd be interested.
But the 20 or so German divisions fighting in Stalingrad wouldn't have been there. Maybe only three Hungarian divisions holding the river at the city. So there would be all those German divisions available for other duties, like resisting Uranus.
The Stalingrad "what if?" that fascinates me is: what if the Germans had surrounded the city, pressed on to the East bank of the Volga, cut off its supply and left Chuikov to rot? The city itself was of little strategic value; the real prizes lay south east on the Caspian coast. Seems to me it was a political prize that ground down the 6th Army for no good reason.
Stalingrad held a strategic position on the Volga through which supplies moved further north up the river. Crossing the Volga to encircle Stalingrad would've left the Germans even more strung out than they were in OTL. They also couldn't have just left a city, a massive staging area for the Soviet to utilize in striking Army Group A's flank (which Army Group B was supposed to prevent), totally untouched. The real interesting question is if the 4th Panzer Army drove on Stalingrad immediately instead of being shuffled further south and then back. General von Kleist complained that this just caused a traffic jam and gave 2 extra weeks for the Soviets to dig in and muster forces.
If the Germans had won the Battle of Stalingrad, it probably would have only delayed the inevitable. Of course, that's the thing about "what ifs" and alternate histories -- you cannot fully predict, let alone comprehend the follow-on ripple effects from the hypothesized changes in history as it actually happened.
I disagree, once taken Stalingrad it would have been open all the way to Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea, keeping on the left the wide and open Volga as natural barrier from any possible counterattack from the soviets. The Soviet army in the Caucasus would have been cut from food and ammo, without resupply, while the Soviet army north of the Volga and the Don would have been cut out from the fuel. Stalingrad is on the narrowest gap, only 50km, between the Don river and The Volga. Both very wide rovers, basically without bridges at the time, and surrounded by soft marshes impassable for heavy vehicles. If you control that gap, you control any possible movement of supplies between the Caucasus in the land and also on the rivers. That was the jugular of Russia.
Not mentioned is Operation Torch (November 8). Hitler used the Luftwaffe to move and supply a substantial German Army into Tunisia and supply it. This restricted the air transport capability available to supply Stalingrad and the Germans did not have a substantial air transport capability to begin with.
In the discussion as well as in some comments there is always coming up Hitler's "obsession with Stalingrad". I just want to mention that there is no materials whatsoever to support this. Of course once heavily engaged in Stalingrad, the city and surrounding was of strategic significance but there seems to be no first source material available to show that in Hitler's mind the name of the city was something to think about.
Volga river was the target. It was a supply line for fuel to Soviet forces in the North. Problem was army group south got split in half and divided between the Volga and Maikop. [ Oil fields].
Almost all scenarios that delay the landings of Allied forces in Southern and Western Europe would have resulted in Berlin getting nuked in 1945, and Stalin taking a bigger chunk of Europe than what happened historically.
I don't think the allies would have nuked Berlin even if the had got the bomb earlier. They nuked the Japanese because at the time they were seen as Asian and more foreign and less civilized then Europeans. Dropping nukes in the middle of Europe would be whole different matter. Not saying its right, but thats the way people thought at the time.
@@kjm2199 Actually only Truman mattered. Not people. He wrote at the time he just considered it a much bigger bomb. And its doubtful that we would have needed the bomb by then in Europe. Only if Germany could have denied the oil production there to Russia for at least six months could they have won.
Trying to take the city was the big mistake that summer. The Soviets needed that oil almost as much as Germany. Even if Germany doesn't take the fields in tact, denying them to the Soviets is almost as big a deal.
What I would like toknow is how much of the Caucasian oil went up the Volga or through Stalingrad. Could the Soviets have transported the oil if Stakingrad had fallen?
@dennisweidner288 The USSR did have a 40% reduction in production during WWII. The Germans still wouldn't need to take Stalingrad to disrupt oil shipments up the Volga river. Just need to take the shoreline somewhere along it.
@@LeePrice-r9u How much of the oil was shipped up the Volga as opposed to rail shipment. And then as rail shipments were cut off through Stalingrad. Was it possible to move the oil around Stalingrad by rail routes to the East?
I think it matters when they take Stalingrad, and if they defeat the Soviets or Zhykov was laying a trap as they did with Napoleon. Let's not forget you can always set the oil fields on fire, houthis stopped 50% of Saudi supply output just two years ago. Soviet ability to move heavy machinery in the Uruals was amazing. I think Stalingrad as important as it was, was second to Ribentop not getting Japan to attack the Soviets in the East in exchange for joining against the US.
Wasn't sending 4th Panzer to Stalingrad in July/August the best bet of winning Stalingrad? Various Generals said Stalingrad could and should have been captured without much of a fight in August. If that happens, then Stalingrad becomes "Stalingrad" for the Red Army instead of the Germans. A second Rzhev. And the situation for the Soviets in 1943 is even worse being cut off from their oil and another 5% of their food source.
It would've taken a minimum of 8 months to make the caucasus oil fields capable of producing again, after they were sabotaged by USSR troops, so even "winning" Stalingrad it would've been hairy for months.
Stalingrad had nothing to do with german oil at all. The Volga was used to transport some of it north to various industrial centers though. That's why the germans just had to stop the river traffic on the Volga, not conquer the city.
Its more like at least a couple years to restore oil production. Perhaps even more to create a system for refining and transporting the oil in a useful way.
To quote Hitler became fixated on Stalingrad to the exclution of concentrating on the oil fields. Makes you wonder if the city had been named anything other than Stalingrad would he have just ignored it and gone roud it.
What oil fields... Maykop was captured (totally destroyed though) and everything else was behind Caucasus. What oil fields were they supposed to concentrate on. Also, lets say they capture the fields in better shape and magically transport crude oil to Germany without a pipeline, Germans did not have the rafinery capacity to handle it anyways...
The Germans would likely not even have been able to use the oil wells until well into mid / late 43… That being said - the Germans in the end surprisingly were not that impacted by oil shortages until 1944 and the bombing and capture of the Romanian oil fields…
@@bingobongo1615 Luftwaffe would like a word about that... Also Wacht am Rhein was made not very interesting given the fact, that Germans did not have fuel to reach the Meuse in sufficient numbers, never mind breach it.
Fun fact… before operation Barbarossa and after the signing of The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union under Stalin sought to become the fourth member of the axis. They proposed that the axis should be made up of Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union. If Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo had agreed then the Soviet Union would be a member of the axis and not an enemy. The question then becomes could the British commonwealth and the USA have defeated the axis?
The role of Turkey in all this is VASTLY underrated by historians in my opinion. If Turkey had joined the Axis in 1942, Germany would have had a second line of advance to the oil fields of the Caucuses and the Middle East.
I don’t see how winning Stalingrad could have kept the Russians from launching the same pincer move that enabled them to surround the 6th Army. Either way, Stalingrad would still have been cut off.
If the Germans had taken Stalingrad, would that have blocked Soviet oil shipments from Caucasus oil fields?. Another issue is that Stain would have destroyed the oil fields as they did at Maikop, how long would it have taken to get the Germans to get them going again and how would the Germans have transported the oil back to the Reich?
The German operations in 1942 - Both being able to block Volga traffic and entering the Caucasus region - deeply disrupted soviet oil transportation from the Caucasus and other economic activity in the Soviet Union. In reaching Stalingrad and the Volga, the Germans had already accomplished the maximum economic damage to the Soviet Union. Taking the city would not have increased that economic damage.
The Caucasus, was a non starter. By the time the Germans made it a priority they could neither supply thenecessary forces and logistics, but more critically they could not guarantee air superiority in any single area, while the run for the caucasus was in effect.
Russia was almost starving in 1942/1943. Shutting off lend lease would have been much worse than you mention. True professionals discuss logistics. Russia was starving.
Would have secured the caucasus oil fields preventing demechanization of the German army and preventing its paralysis, and prevented the severe fuel shortages of the Luftwaffe.
The British had more oil shipped from the USA than IRAN. Back then the US was the largest oil producer ,the Middle East was not a Oil superpower back then. They never discovered oil in Libya until 1958! Britain did not need the Middle east for oil , the atlantic convoys took care of that like everything else .
THIS!!! see trees of green Red roses too I see them bloom For me and you And I think to myself What a wonderful world I see skies of blue And clouds of white The bright blessed day The dark sacred night And I think to myself What a wonderful world The colors of the rainbow So pretty in the sky Are also on the faces Of people going by I see friends shaking hands Saying, "How do you do?" They're really saying I love you I hear babies cry I watch them grow They'll learn much more Than I'll ever know And I think to myself What a wonderful world Yes, I think to myself What a wonderful world Ooh, yes
Some argue that even if the Germans did capture the Kavkaz oilfields, there was not sufficient railroad capacity to transfer it back to Germany to refine it into fuels and to again send it out by rail
Loving the series. PS on the Eastern Front, should consider having on Dr. David Stahel, University of New South Wales; one of the preeminent scholars on that subject
Consider American fighter escorts for the bombers. Their job was to protect the bombers, not shoot down planes. Screening not individual dogfights. Does that make sense?
@@stripeytawney822 The problem for Japanese carriers was often that their CAP fighters had a nasty tendency to go chasing glory & left their own ships with their highly vulnerable and inflammable arses hanging out.
Splitting the German army midway through the advance and suddenly coming up with two very different objectives (each new army group now only at half strength), was the catastrophic mistake. Neither army was strong enough to reach their objectives and cover their flanks at the same time. Keeping the army intact, perhaps the best objective would have been to surround Stalingrad and seize strong, well-defended bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the Volga both north and south of the city, protect their long flanks with quality mobile divisions, then hunker down for the inevitable Soviet counterattacks that they knew from experience (the year before), would be coming throughout the fall and winter. The vitally important supply route of the Volga would be cut off. Stalingrad would still be there, but struggling to exist. The German army would still be largely intact for whatever the Soviets threw at them in the winter. Assuming they could hold them, the Germans would have bridgeheads across the Volga to use as a springboard the following spring when they were finally resupplied. Go after the oil fields the following year, in 1943.
For the Soviet Union it'd be a catastrophe. The Volga River was a major transportation way for oil and oil products. Stalingrad was a major transportation knot in the south of Russia. Even in our reality there was a real oil crisis in the Soviet Union in late 1942 - early 1943 which was very detrimental to the industry - even though the oil wells in Baku region were intact. Simply because worsened transportation. Second: in our reality the Germans had to withdraw Army Group B because of the threat of cutting it off after Stalingrad debacle. If Paulus won the Stalingrad battle he could go on on the offensive along the Don River and there would be no need for withdrawing Army Group B. In the end the threat if taking Baku wells would be very real - and surprise! - the Germans could start planning capturing the Middle East, first of all Iraqi oil wells.
“The the Soviets counterattack and overextended German army that couldn’t get (intact) oil fields anyway”. Maybe you don’t lose the entire 6th army. At the same time Rommel is losing in Africa operation torch kicks off. And last as far as Japan coming in they were busy in China and south East asia and obviously the pacific.
Also oil transported far distance in large amount can only be done by Ships or pipeline. Trains at those distances could never supply Germany's needs .
If they had won the HEER would have shored up the defense line all along the Volga northeast towards Saratov by early summer. Pushing to cut off the north-south Volzhskaya Rokada military rail road, as well as Povorino railway area of resupplies that had to be stopped via a Luftwaffe bombing campaign. The rail lines at Stalingrad had to be restored as the road network east of the Volga basically disappeared from the landscape. It was reported Germans that had looked across the Volga river remarked the country was endless and turning into a vast wilderness. They were defeating themselves by going on an endless offensive that reached far beyond their imagination.
Stalingrad fiasco was entirely Hitler's fault. 6th Army didn't even supposed to capture Stalingrad. His obsession with the city caused him to dispatch Panzer divisions back and forth from Army Group A, which also caused the slowing down of Caucasus advance and caused massive traffic jams amongst the Divisions. Panzer Group commanders were actually furious about the ever changing orders and they complained a lot about this. And there is also the thing that when the Stalingrad got cut off, Manstein immediately wanted the Panzers to attack from South but he insisted on keeping going for Oil Fields and left the Panzers in the South. Crucial time was lost there and it only doomed the 6th Army even further.
He's an easy target. The whole of Case Blue was a cluster Fk. It was a lot more than just ole Hitler though, there were major traffic problems in the area and a few different reassignments of the 4th Pz Army that delayed the taking of Stalingrad and actually prevented it from being taken "off the march" like Voronezh was. Half of the plan wasn't necessary either. Moving around the 2 Pz Armies, 1st and 4th in the Don bend was a large delay also that cost the germans a lot of time.
Fake news actually. The generals tricked Hitler, he ordered reinforcements and to encircle the city, but they changed the orders to send reinforcements to the center and north and to take the city. Which Hitler disagreed and never knew how badly the reinforcements had been diverted. Which is why there were only weakly armed Romanians on the flanks.
The historians here misunderstand the situation. Stalingrad was always a major objective. The main folly was Germany splitting its forces south before capturing the city instead of driving on the city with everything and then swinging south. The Germans didn't go after the city because of its name, they went after it because it was actually in a very strategic position. It was both a major railway hub and river transport hub. They needed if they were to have any hope of getting the oil from the Caucasus to their forces.
"Could the German have won at Stalingrad?" "Yes they could have if they had won quicker" Well thanks, Paulus must roll in his grave that he didnt think about it.
It depends how emphatic and swiftly they concluded proceedings at Stalingrad. Otherwise, chances are they would still have bled critical casualties and equipnent, which would have fatally weakened their invasion plans, anyway. It may have been a bit of a costly Phyrric Victory for them...
If the Germans would become so strong in the West that an invasion of France by the Anglo-American forces would become unviable? Then America in reality would have to draw its conclusions and leave the British to their own devices in Europe and North Africa and concentrate all their forces on the Pacific. However in this case a massive American military build up of forces within the Soviet Union instead of in Britain could be an option. The British would just have to hold own to what they got in the West and the Americans would keep supplying them instead of the Soviet Union. Soviet and American forces could then attack and destroy the Germans in an all out offensive on the eastern front.
Lend lease had very little effect on Soviet Union. Americans have created a myth of Russia being dependent on lend-lease. US didn't give any bombs or missiles to Russia. Only food and trucks. ALL THE BOMBs that killed Germans (80% German deaths were by Russian fire) were *Made In Russia* . Russia has great engineers and scientists. And Russia has all the raw materials. Current pounding of Ukraine by Russia is further proof.
All those "What-If-Scenarios" are kinda cringe. All everybody has to do is remember that the Atomic Bomb wasn't build to attack Japan in the first place. Albert Einstein and his infamous letter to Roosevelt started the World we all live in today. It is called "The Atomic Age".
they would have had to have won against the USSR in the first year. wasn't going to happen after that except in a Harry Turtlehead novel with some time travel involved.
Germany was short on fuel and needed to get it from the wells in the southern USSR. Stalingrad was a diversion caused by Hitler's ego in wanting to destroy the namesake of Stalin. The Germans needed fuel.
Even if the Germans "won" Stalingrad and the Caucasus, they didn't have the forces to hold them. Even if they got oil form the Caucasus, the Soviet partisans would have sabotaged the railways. The Soviet Army would eventually smash through their over-extended lines with massive forces. The Soviets were producting like 20K T-34's a year, compared to the Germans1-2K Mark IV's annually.
Excellent video from your group as usual. There is one thing you failed to discuss. Or maybe you did and I missed it. If so, I apologize. But if the Germans won at Stalingrad, and the end of Germany was delayed by a few months, or even a year, would Germany have been the place where the first atomic bomb was used, instead of Japan?
Germany actually wanted to preserve the British empire. One of his peace offers was to even provide troops if the British ever needed to keep there empire. It was Churchill that cost the end of the British empire..
Depends on how you define "preserve." The only peace Hitler would have accepted amounted to surrender and collaboration. Sure Hitler "wanted" the English to keep their Empire-- he had no problem with the French keeping theirs. Look how that ended up for them.
Hess flew to Britain to try for peace, which Churchill ignored and put him in solitary. And look what happened to Britain.... lost its standing in the world and became America's lap dog
i would not have made any difference. They would not have been able to push across the river or any further into the caucuses and they had supply issues even before they got to stalingrad. They also would have no way of stopping the massive soviet build up. They only way germany would have had a chance is if they were NOT fighting in africa & eventually western europe.
No, Hitler's motivation for attacking the UDSSR was NOT ideological, since Nazism and Soviet communism were in fact very similar; Hitler was a socialist, something he stresses again and again in his speeches, and he admired Stalin's planned economy. His motivation for attacking the UDSSR was his old dream of colonising Russia with settlers mainly from Germany, Holland and Scandinavia. In fact Hitler had been a communist himself in 1919, something which most historians tend to ignore because they are leftists themselves.
I always thought the Middle East strategy was the way to go. The Germans didn’t have the logistics to sustain a Stalingrad line even if they had taken it how could they get to the Gulf?
They might have asked Stalin. Keep in mind that exactly one or two weeks before Operation Barbarossa started the British were in their last planning stage to bomb Baku, drain the Germans from the oil that Stalin gave them. Had they done that before the start of Barbarossa, Hitler could have exploited that by „offering“ Stalin some help to throw the Brits out between the Sinai peninsula and the British Raj on the other side.
The logistics to the middle east through North Africa by land was logistically impossible. And even if you get there, how do transport oil back to Europe without a high-seas navy?
This video is a rather rare occasion when western speakers describe the Soviet side in better light than it had actually been. Before Operation Uranus the Soviets tried many times to get to Stalingrad on the land to relieve its 62nd Army there. To no avail: they were each time repelled by mighty German artillery. One Red Army commander described the situation so in his memoirs: we had only a few hundred meters left to get to the outskirts of the city. We saw its streets! But we couldn't overcome these few hundred meters. And that was exactly because of German long range heavy artillery. So the situation threatened an impasse. The legend says that at one (among many) meetings at Soviet Stavka (High Command) right before the official duscussions started Stalin's two key figures in Stavka - Marshals Zhukov and Vasilevskiy stand aside and discussed the situation in low voice among themselves. And one of the two softly said "We need a different solution". Stalin had a very keen hearing and immediately asked them: What different solution? And so started the planning of the Operation Uranus. As to "ended bullets" for the Germans: actually they hadn't any problems with bullets exactly: there were plenty of munitions for small arms and even machine guns. That wasn't a problem. The problem was they had no heavy artillery shells. Here the speaker said about Operation Mars. Why Model could keep the Rzhev salient? Because it was no problem for him to fire up to 2000 tons of heavy artillery shells every day. The statistics were that for each Soviet heavy shell came back two or three German shells often of a heavier caliber. And airlifting such huge volumes of artillery munitions for Paulus was pure fantasy.
I always felt that Germany's best bet would have been to leave Russia alone and invade North Africa in a big way. They could have likely taken Egypt and the Suez and on to the Middle East.
Having virtually eliminated the Italian navy the British RN almost had freedom of the Mediterranean could the Germans have got enough supplies through? Even if they had then if the RN built up a submarine fleet and had the equivalent of the Battle of the Altantic and just sent all the German oil tankers to the bottom of the Med? Still got to get the oil up into Germany some how.
@@kevinrayner5812 Libyan oil hadn't been discovered at that time, you need to go to Iraq/Iran, which are huge distances away, & as you say, still get it back. The British hadn't eliminated the Italian navy, the Italian navy lacked fuel, which is why it stayed in port a lot.
Yes, the British could have built up their submarines in the Mediterranean further.
The Axis could have taken Egypt up to the Suez canal, but what then? it's good for the Italians, but not the Germans. Every step further East is a logistical nightmare for them, & delays the critical attack on the Soviet Union, which DID have the oil Hitler was desperate for.
@@eric-wb7gj My thinking was to get to the Middle East via the Suez Canal and the Red Sea or overland and link up with a southern push from Russia. But as you say logistically it was a non starter as there there would still have been the overland bit to get the oil over but I suppose they could at least get it into Southern Germany via the Black Sea and the Danube. The whole of the North Africa campaigne was really just face saving the Italians.
@@eric-wb7gj Yep, each side was frequently accusing the other of tainting water sources with fuel. No one made the leap of logic that it was happening quite a lot, so may have other causes.
Most of the middle east oil was still untapped and no infrastructure. Germany needed oil now and the Caucuses were not too far away. As it was Germany and the USSR were eventually going to fight, it was just a matter of when.
The Professor is misleading about oil. Middle Eastern oil fueled the British in Egypt and Egypt. But the oil for Britain itself came primarily from America.
Including Venezuela
In 1940, 70% of the global oil production was in the USA. 5% was in Venezuela, 20% Iraq.
@@odysseus2656 what about kuwait and saudi?
Developed post WW2. Indonesia did produce some since Japan wanted it. Remember the demand for oil was a lot less since most of the world had not been mechanized, and also that almost all oil was transported by ship. In 1940 the only fully mechanized army was the British one, and they had done it because they realized a third of the supplies shipped to the army in WW1 was fodder for the animals, and running tanker trucks or tanker ships, was easier. That is why for D-Day they ran a pipeline under the English channel.
@@odysseus2656
So only 5% in the USSR?
That seems kind of small.
My degree is 1932-45 Europe - I LOVE what if discussions - Thank you!!!
The split armies was a mistake. The decision was made on final hour.
@@tomassmolen9443 it would not have mattered. Either way germany loses the campaign
Sounds like a fascinating degree course. Where are you studying? My A Level History course was Europe 1900 - 1945.
That can't be a real degree lol
It makes me wonder as to what would have happened if the city of Tsaritsyn hadn't had its name changed?
The exact same thing
The idea that Hitler somehow was fixated on the name is a common trope that has been debunked hundreds of times.
22:50, the Germans could not have simply bypassed the city and starved it out. They would have had to cross the Volga which was a huge river and also allocated a lot more forces to such a venture. Remember sixth army arrived at Stalingrad in an already weakened state having to fight a series of battles to get there. Secondly Soviet armies were constantly counter-attacking on the flanks meaning most of the sixth armies formations were actually on the flanks as opposed to the city itself. Thirdly German logistics were already on a shoe-string with barely enough supplies arriving along the Kalach railroad pre-encirclement, crossing a river would have broken them.
Totally agree. Have you followed "TIK's" series on Stalingrad? It's massive, but if I remember right he makes similar claims about the decimation of the sixth army before it reaches the city.
@@bobcougar77 Sure have!
The HEER started having rail traffic snags into the depths of the Ukraine. They did not realize siding stations were further away than normal Reichsbahn scale. Lack of sidings slowed everything down with traffic going to the front and trains trying to depart the frontline sector at the same time.
@@ericscottstevens Are you saying it was single rail track and the Germans got caught having to backtrack trains to solve head on situations?
@@ericscottstevens also: I've always heard about the gauge problem with the Soviet railways but I've never really known how the Germans dealt with it. Did they try to build new track, or transfer goods at the border, use horses/trucks or some combination of all. If you know of a good podcast or book on the subject I'd be interested.
If Germany ended up capturing the entire city, the Soviets would still launch Operation Uranus and encircle and destroy the 6th Army.
Bruh no Germans would conquered soviet union
But the 20 or so German divisions fighting in Stalingrad wouldn't have been there. Maybe only three Hungarian divisions holding the river at the city. So there would be all those German divisions available for other duties, like resisting Uranus.
Resisting Uranus he he
@@CharlieVetter-wk9hf exactly most could be moved to flank holding. Its still up in the air but its by now means a sure thing they soviets win.
Literally what I came here to say and I don't see how it would matter in the end.
The Germans lost at Stalingrad and Britain's global empire still crumbled. Choose your friends wisely.
If Hitler and his General listened to their own logisticians they’d have known how over ambitious conquering all of european Russia was
he knew better.
Ukraine and Caucasus...those were the Objectives.
great channel. It deserves a lot more subscribers. Keep it up
The Stalingrad "what if?" that fascinates me is: what if the Germans had surrounded the city, pressed on to the East bank of the Volga, cut off its supply and left Chuikov to rot? The city itself was of little strategic value; the real prizes lay south east on the Caspian coast. Seems to me it was a political prize that ground down the 6th Army for no good reason.
Stalingrad held a strategic position on the Volga through which supplies moved further north up the river. Crossing the Volga to encircle Stalingrad would've left the Germans even more strung out than they were in OTL. They also couldn't have just left a city, a massive staging area for the Soviet to utilize in striking Army Group A's flank (which Army Group B was supposed to prevent), totally untouched. The real interesting question is if the 4th Panzer Army drove on Stalingrad immediately instead of being shuffled further south and then back. General von Kleist complained that this just caused a traffic jam and gave 2 extra weeks for the Soviets to dig in and muster forces.
If the Germans had won the Battle of Stalingrad, it probably would have only delayed the inevitable. Of course, that's the thing about "what ifs" and alternate histories -- you cannot fully predict, let alone comprehend the follow-on ripple effects from the hypothesized changes in history as it actually happened.
I disagree, once taken Stalingrad it would have been open all the way to Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea, keeping on the left the wide and open Volga as natural barrier from any possible counterattack from the soviets. The Soviet army in the Caucasus would have been cut from food and ammo, without resupply, while the Soviet army north of the Volga and the Don would have been cut out from the fuel.
Stalingrad is on the narrowest gap, only 50km, between the Don river and The Volga. Both very wide rovers, basically without bridges at the time, and surrounded by soft marshes impassable for heavy vehicles. If you control that gap, you control any possible movement of supplies between the Caucasus in the land and also on the rivers. That was the jugular of Russia.
And what if Jabba the Hutt would of been successful in killing Luke Skywalker?
No Ewoks on screen then? I am cool with that 😉
@@fett333 😀
@@stevetorres76 basically. These wehraboos are pathetic
Than disney would not have been facking us in the face with woke star wars
@@xmaniac99 yeah... there wouldn't be a bunch of clam lickers pretenting to be jedis lol ..
Not mentioned is Operation Torch (November 8). Hitler used the Luftwaffe to move and supply a substantial German Army into Tunisia and supply it. This restricted the air transport capability available to supply Stalingrad and the Germans did not have a substantial air transport capability to begin with.
They are overlooking that 6th army was already worn down and leaving units along the river to secure its flank before engaging stalingrad.
Soviets held out at Serafimovich and Kremenskaya.
Yep, no chance the Germans win.
Really love these. Well done. Chapeau
In the discussion as well as in some comments there is always coming up Hitler's "obsession with Stalingrad". I just want to mention that there is no materials whatsoever to support this. Of course once heavily engaged in Stalingrad, the city and surrounding was of strategic significance but there seems to be no first source material available to show that in Hitler's mind the name of the city was something to think about.
Volga river was the target. It was a supply line for fuel to Soviet forces in the North. Problem was army group south got split in half and divided between the Volga and Maikop. [ Oil fields].
Love these "what-ifs"
Almost all scenarios that delay the landings of Allied forces in Southern and Western Europe would have resulted in Berlin getting nuked in 1945, and Stalin taking a bigger chunk of Europe than what happened historically.
I don't think the allies would have nuked Berlin even if the had got the bomb earlier. They nuked the Japanese because at the time they were seen as Asian and more foreign and less civilized then Europeans. Dropping nukes in the middle of Europe would be whole different matter. Not saying its right, but thats the way people thought at the time.
@@kjm2199 Actually only Truman mattered. Not people. He wrote at the time he just considered it a much bigger bomb. And its doubtful that we would have needed the bomb by then in Europe. Only if Germany could have denied the oil production there to Russia for at least six months could they have won.
Trying to take the city was the big mistake that summer.
The Soviets needed that oil almost as much as Germany. Even if Germany doesn't take the fields in tact, denying them to the Soviets is almost as big a deal.
What I would like toknow is how much of the Caucasian oil went up the Volga or through Stalingrad. Could the Soviets have transported the oil if Stakingrad had fallen?
@dennisweidner288
The USSR did have a 40% reduction in production during WWII.
The Germans still wouldn't need to take Stalingrad to disrupt oil shipments up the Volga river. Just need to take the shoreline somewhere along it.
@@LeePrice-r9u How much of the oil was shipped up the Volga as opposed to rail shipment. And then as rail shipments were cut off through Stalingrad. Was it possible to move the oil around Stalingrad by rail routes to the East?
Great channel , I would cut in half the historical setting prior the what if part
Very interesting, well done lads
I think it matters when they take Stalingrad, and if they defeat the Soviets or Zhykov was laying a trap as they did with Napoleon. Let's not forget you can always set the oil fields on fire, houthis stopped 50% of Saudi supply output just two years ago. Soviet ability to move heavy machinery in the Uruals was amazing. I think Stalingrad as important as it was, was second to Ribentop not getting Japan to attack the Soviets in the East in exchange for joining against the US.
they moved the machinery to empty fields without a power grid or any kind of ability to make use of that machinery for over a year.
Wasn't sending 4th Panzer to Stalingrad in July/August the best bet of winning Stalingrad? Various Generals said Stalingrad could and should have been captured without much of a fight in August. If that happens, then Stalingrad becomes "Stalingrad" for the Red Army instead of the Germans. A second Rzhev. And the situation for the Soviets in 1943 is even worse being cut off from their oil and another 5% of their food source.
It would've taken a minimum of 8 months to make the caucasus oil fields capable of producing again, after they were sabotaged by USSR troops, so even "winning" Stalingrad it would've been hairy for months.
Stalingrad had nothing to do with german oil at all. The Volga was used to transport some of it north to various industrial centers though. That's why the germans just had to stop the river traffic on the Volga, not conquer the city.
Its more like at least a couple years to restore oil production. Perhaps even more to create a system for refining and transporting the oil in a useful way.
@@Jim-Tuner One year was the german estimate for the Maikop oilfields.
@@karlheinzvonkroemann2217 That, too.
To quote Hitler became fixated on Stalingrad to the exclution of concentrating on the oil fields. Makes you wonder if the city had been named anything other than Stalingrad would he have just ignored it and gone roud it.
What oil fields... Maykop was captured (totally destroyed though) and everything else was behind Caucasus.
What oil fields were they supposed to concentrate on.
Also, lets say they capture the fields in better shape and magically transport crude oil to Germany without a pipeline, Germans did not have the rafinery capacity to handle it anyways...
The Germans would likely not even have been able to use the oil wells until well into mid / late 43…
That being said - the Germans in the end surprisingly were not that impacted by oil shortages until 1944 and the bombing and capture of the Romanian oil fields…
@@Spectification Yes thats definetly the case. The German Quest for oil in the caucasus could never ever succeed.
@@bingobongo1615 Luftwaffe would like a word about that...
Also Wacht am Rhein was made not very interesting given the fact, that Germans did not have fuel to reach the Meuse in sufficient numbers, never mind breach it.
@@Spectification all correct but also both issues of late 44 and early 45 after the loss of Ploesti…
The empire fell anyway thank to Churchill.
Fun fact… before operation Barbarossa and after the signing of The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union under Stalin sought to become the fourth member of the axis. They proposed that the axis should be made up of Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union. If Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo had agreed then the Soviet Union would be a member of the axis and not an enemy.
The question then becomes could the British commonwealth and the USA have defeated the axis?
The Germans needed Winchester rifles. They won the west so they should work in the east too
brilliant as always
Interesting format for this vid, almost like sports punditry
WOW i live this show , well done .
The role of Turkey in all this is VASTLY underrated by historians in my opinion.
If Turkey had joined the Axis in 1942, Germany would have had a second line of advance to the oil fields of the Caucuses and the Middle East.
The problem is that the Turks would have to fight the British and Soviets at the same time, and their army was fairly weak at that time.
I don’t see how winning Stalingrad could have kept the Russians from launching the same pincer move that enabled them to surround the 6th Army. Either way, Stalingrad would still have been cut off.
I am curious how a German “victory” at Stalingrad (or its consequences) will be interpreted here.
The biggest mistake was for the Germans to initiate WWII. They did not have the resources to win or overwhelm their adversaries.
eh, debatable. it went well enough for them at the start. The problem was the horrendous mistakes that were made along the way.
Very very interesting !!!
If the Germans had taken Stalingrad, would that have blocked Soviet oil shipments from Caucasus oil fields?. Another issue is that Stain would have destroyed the oil fields as they did at Maikop, how long would it have taken to get the Germans to get them going again and how would the Germans have transported the oil back to the Reich?
The German operations in 1942 - Both being able to block Volga traffic and entering the Caucasus region - deeply disrupted soviet oil transportation from the Caucasus and other economic activity in the Soviet Union.
In reaching Stalingrad and the Volga, the Germans had already accomplished the maximum economic damage to the Soviet Union. Taking the city would not have increased that economic damage.
24 months
Nothing happens. Hitler still lose.
your brain loses
The Caucasus, was a non starter. By the time the Germans made it a priority they could neither supply thenecessary forces and logistics, but more critically they could not guarantee air superiority in any single area, while the run for the caucasus was in effect.
Japan attacking the Communist USSR would have put the Cat in with the Canarys!
The Germans were just plain outnumbered.
Yes and out-manufactured and under-oiled.
And a lot more after the Romanian and Italian armies together with the German's largest army - the 6th - were all lost.
Good show with experts.
Hitler's Hubris always played a decisive role in his defeat.
Halder's.
Russia was almost starving in 1942/1943. Shutting off lend lease would have been much worse than you mention. True professionals discuss logistics. Russia was starving.
They had archangel and Vladivostok still. Though only the latter in the winter?
@@FacloFormerFavorite Iran ?
so was Germany. Starving from Oil and raw materials.
@@FacloFormerFavorite Most of the lend lease from the US went to the USSR via Japan and the Trans Siberian Railroad.
Without lend lease Germany wins
It was the Axis at Stalingrad.
Romania, Italian and Hungarian forces were there aswell.
And quite a significant number of Soviet citizens fighting against Stalin as well.
Would have secured the caucasus oil fields preventing demechanization of the German army and preventing its paralysis, and prevented the severe fuel shortages of the Luftwaffe.
The British had more oil shipped from the USA than IRAN.
Back then the US was the largest oil producer ,the Middle East was not a Oil superpower back then. They never discovered oil in Libya until 1958!
Britain did not need the Middle east for oil , the atlantic convoys took care of that like everything else .
THIS!!!
see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Saying, "How do you do?"
They're really saying
I love you
I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They'll learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Ooh, yes
Some argue that even if the Germans did capture the Kavkaz oilfields, there was not sufficient railroad capacity to transfer it back to Germany to refine it into fuels and to again send it out by rail
Logistics! Logistics!
Great channel ¡¡¿ Try to discuss the Battle of Moskow (1941).
Loving the series. PS on the Eastern Front, should consider having on Dr. David Stahel, University of New South Wales; one of the preeminent scholars on that subject
(Not to take anything away from Trigg, of course, who was excellent in this episode.)
The Germans did put an end to the Brits
Haha, funny.
well, political correctness did that actually
@@Ash-Ketchum-and-Pikachu Stupidity did
The role of a submarine is not to sink enemy ships and for fighters not to destroy enemy planes?
Consider American fighter escorts for the bombers. Their job was to protect the bombers, not shoot down planes.
Screening not individual dogfights.
Does that make sense?
@@stripeytawney822 The problem for Japanese carriers was often that their CAP fighters had a nasty tendency to go chasing glory & left their own ships with their highly vulnerable and inflammable arses hanging out.
Submarines destroy convoys with goods
Splitting the German army midway through the advance and suddenly coming up with two very different objectives (each new army group now only at half strength), was the catastrophic mistake. Neither army was strong enough to reach their objectives and cover their flanks at the same time. Keeping the army intact, perhaps the best objective would have been to surround Stalingrad and seize strong, well-defended bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the Volga both north and south of the city, protect their long flanks with quality mobile divisions, then hunker down for the inevitable Soviet counterattacks that they knew from experience (the year before), would be coming throughout the fall and winter. The vitally important supply route of the Volga would be cut off. Stalingrad would still be there, but struggling to exist. The German army would still be largely intact for whatever the Soviets threw at them in the winter. Assuming they could hold them, the Germans would have bridgeheads across the Volga to use as a springboard the following spring when they were finally resupplied. Go after the oil fields the following year, in 1943.
Question, why did the Wehrmacht not move on Murmansk from Northern Norway; or ask/tell Finland to do it?
Most forces in the north were tied up at Leningrad.
@@Xino6804 Exactly. The Germans wanted direct control of the landway. So Leningrad was the best obstacle the Soviets could have wished for.
They did try and it failed. They also tried to cut the rail line from there with the Finns and that also failed.
Due to earlier blunders.
2:44 "Lay-bans-room"??? Oh, you must mean Lebensraum.
Germany's problem was that they focussed on Stalingrad but still once Pearl Harbour happened it was downhill.
They should encircle Staingrad first. The 6th army was victim of Fuhrer
@carisi2k1 Not exactly. Most of 1942 was a disaster for the Sovierts and Allies.
For the Soviet Union it'd be a catastrophe. The Volga River was a major transportation way for oil and oil products. Stalingrad was a major transportation knot in the south of Russia. Even in our reality there was a real oil crisis in the Soviet Union in late 1942 - early 1943 which was very detrimental to the industry - even though the oil wells in Baku region were intact. Simply because worsened transportation. Second: in our reality the Germans had to withdraw Army Group B because of the threat of cutting it off after Stalingrad debacle. If Paulus won the Stalingrad battle he could go on on the offensive along the Don River and there would be no need for withdrawing Army Group B. In the end the threat if taking Baku wells would be very real - and surprise! - the Germans could start planning capturing the Middle East, first of all Iraqi oil wells.
Paulus just takes his battered over extended army and keeps going?
Correction: Army Group A (from the Caucasus)
“The the Soviets counterattack and overextended German army that couldn’t get (intact) oil fields anyway”. Maybe you don’t lose the entire 6th army. At the same time Rommel is losing in Africa operation torch kicks off. And last as far as Japan coming in they were busy in China and south East asia and obviously the pacific.
Also oil transported far distance in large amount can only be done by Ships or pipeline. Trains at those distances could never supply Germany's needs .
You want the Ilfracombe & Bartable section.
They need to work on the maps Come on, they couldn't find larger scale maps of the immediate region!
Tik history does a great series on the battle of Stalingrad
I was ready to move on if he mentioned that Stalingrad was an objective for the name Stalin. He didn’t , I learnt something new and have subscribed.
If they had won the HEER would have shored up the defense line all along the Volga northeast towards Saratov by early summer.
Pushing to cut off the north-south Volzhskaya Rokada military rail road, as well as Povorino railway area of resupplies that had to be stopped via a Luftwaffe bombing campaign.
The rail lines at Stalingrad had to be restored as the road network east of the Volga basically disappeared from the landscape. It was reported Germans that had looked across the Volga river remarked the country was endless and turning into a vast wilderness. They were defeating themselves by going on an endless offensive that reached far beyond their imagination.
Miles to feet and inches. The blackadder sketch of, the total amount of land retaken is? *gets tape measure out* 17 sq ft sir!
Bought its very detailed, there's a worm.
How would they win? Logistics and supply lines overstretched, outmanned against an enemy growing in strength and experience.
Stalingrad fiasco was entirely Hitler's fault. 6th Army didn't even supposed to capture Stalingrad. His obsession with the city caused him to dispatch Panzer divisions back and forth from Army Group A, which also caused the slowing down of Caucasus advance and caused massive traffic jams amongst the Divisions. Panzer Group commanders were actually furious about the ever changing orders and they complained a lot about this.
And there is also the thing that when the Stalingrad got cut off, Manstein immediately wanted the Panzers to attack from South but he insisted on keeping going for Oil Fields and left the Panzers in the South. Crucial time was lost there and it only doomed the 6th Army even further.
Correct!
He's an easy target. The whole of Case Blue was a cluster Fk. It was a lot more than just ole Hitler though, there were major traffic problems in the area and a few different reassignments of the 4th Pz Army that delayed the taking of Stalingrad and actually prevented it from being taken "off the march" like Voronezh was. Half of the plan wasn't necessary either. Moving around the 2 Pz Armies, 1st and 4th in the Don bend was a large delay also that cost the germans a lot of time.
Fake news actually. The generals tricked Hitler, he ordered reinforcements and to encircle the city, but they changed the orders to send reinforcements to the center and north and to take the city. Which Hitler disagreed and never knew how badly the reinforcements had been diverted. Which is why there were only weakly armed Romanians on the flanks.
I suspect 2022 would not be an issue .
Everyone knows that on a map. Soviets are red, Germans are grey, italians are green, Romanians are pale yellow, and Hungarians are pale green
Chris Parry, last Navy man to sink (cripple) a submarine.
Well comrade , how went the experiment ?
Excellent comrade. The Peoples Rodent unit was able to sabotage the Germanski's panzers.
AFAIK, throughout the ww2 most of the oil used by british was venezuellan oil. So abadan must not be that important.
The historians here misunderstand the situation. Stalingrad was always a major objective. The main folly was Germany splitting its forces south before capturing the city instead of driving on the city with everything and then swinging south. The Germans didn't go after the city because of its name, they went after it because it was actually in a very strategic position. It was both a major railway hub and river transport hub. They needed if they were to have any hope of getting the oil from the Caucasus to their forces.
Oil wasn't in OKW mind, and Hadler sent replacements and supplies to center and thats what doomed the whole operation
"Could the German have won at Stalingrad?" "Yes they could have if they had won quicker"
Well thanks, Paulus must roll in his grave that he didnt think about it.
Haha.
It depends how emphatic and swiftly they concluded proceedings at Stalingrad. Otherwise, chances are they would still have bled critical casualties and equipnent, which would have fatally weakened their invasion plans, anyway. It may have been a bit of a costly Phyrric Victory for them...
Title is stupid because the empire DID crumble. Probably the only way to avert that was allying the Germans.
Useless graphics and maps. Unimpressed
If the Germans would become so strong in the West that an invasion of France by the Anglo-American forces would become unviable? Then America in reality would have to draw its conclusions and leave the British to their own devices in Europe and North Africa and concentrate all their forces on the Pacific. However in this case a massive American military build up of forces within the Soviet Union instead of in Britain could be an option. The British would just have to hold own to what they got in the West and the Americans would keep supplying them instead of the Soviet Union. Soviet and American forces could then attack and destroy the Germans in an all out offensive on the eastern front.
What if lend lease was never implemented? Likely both England and the Soviet Union go down
Lend lease had very little effect on Soviet Union. Americans have created a myth of Russia being dependent on lend-lease. US didn't give any bombs or missiles to Russia. Only food and trucks. ALL THE BOMBs that killed Germans (80% German deaths were by Russian fire) were *Made In Russia* . Russia has great engineers and scientists. And Russia has all the raw materials. Current pounding of Ukraine by Russia is further proof.
That’s a fair stretch.
All those "What-If-Scenarios" are kinda cringe. All everybody has to do is remember that the Atomic Bomb wasn't build to attack Japan in the first place. Albert Einstein and his infamous letter to Roosevelt started the World we all live in today. It is called "The Atomic Age".
From the Soviet Secret Archives: Special Mice Operations Executive.
Just as was said about Napoleon: " Too big for France but too small for Europe."
A very excellent series about Stalingrad on UA-cam. TIK, Battlestorm Stalingrad.
they would have had to have won against the USSR in the first year. wasn't going to happen after that except in a Harry Turtlehead novel with some time travel involved.
Germany was short on fuel and needed to get it from the wells in the southern USSR. Stalingrad was a diversion caused by Hitler's ego in wanting to destroy the namesake of Stalin. The Germans needed fuel.
Even if the Germans "won" Stalingrad and the Caucasus, they didn't have the forces to hold them. Even if they got oil form the Caucasus, the Soviet partisans would have sabotaged the railways. The Soviet Army would eventually smash through their over-extended lines with massive forces. The Soviets were producting like 20K T-34's a year, compared to the Germans1-2K Mark IV's annually.
Excellent video from your group as usual. There is one thing you failed to discuss. Or maybe you did and I missed it. If so, I apologize. But if the Germans won at Stalingrad, and the end of Germany was delayed by a few months, or even a year, would Germany have been the place where the first atomic bomb was used, instead of Japan?
Essentially the Germans won Stalingrad, and then lost the rest.
Battle of the Bulge please
All Hitler had to do was go to Stalin and say, I'll let you have such and such if you will give me oil.
This was an essential battle to cover the withdrawal from the east.
Germany actually wanted to preserve the British empire. One of his peace offers was to even provide troops if the British ever needed to keep there empire. It was Churchill that cost the end of the British empire..
Depends on how you define "preserve." The only peace Hitler would have accepted amounted to surrender and collaboration. Sure Hitler "wanted" the English to keep their Empire-- he had no problem with the French keeping theirs. Look how that ended up for them.
Hess flew to Britain to try for peace, which Churchill ignored and put him in solitary. And look what happened to Britain.... lost its standing in the world and became America's lap dog
i would not have made any difference. They would not have been able to push across the river or any further into the caucuses and they had supply issues even before they got to stalingrad. They also would have no way of stopping the massive soviet build up. They only way germany would have had a chance is if they were NOT fighting in africa & eventually western europe.
No, Hitler's motivation for attacking the UDSSR was NOT ideological, since Nazism and Soviet communism were in fact very similar; Hitler was a socialist, something he stresses again and again in his speeches, and he admired Stalin's planned economy. His motivation for attacking the UDSSR was his old dream of colonising Russia with settlers mainly from Germany, Holland and Scandinavia. In fact Hitler had been a communist himself in 1919, something which most historians tend to ignore because they are leftists themselves.
The empire crumbled anyways...
Why is there time limit and we need to abruptly stop the conversation like it's TV program?
Oh, the answer ist quite clear and easy. "What if Germany won at Stalingrad"? "Nothing"!
Agree. It is nearly the same "What if Germany won at Moskow"
I always thought the Middle East strategy was the way to go. The Germans didn’t have the logistics to sustain a Stalingrad line even if they had taken it how could they get to the Gulf?
They might have asked Stalin. Keep in mind that exactly one or two weeks before Operation Barbarossa started the British were in their last planning stage to bomb Baku, drain the Germans from the oil that Stalin gave them. Had they done that before the start of Barbarossa, Hitler could have exploited that by „offering“ Stalin some help to throw the Brits out between the Sinai peninsula and the British Raj on the other side.
The logistics to the middle east through North Africa by land was logistically impossible. And even if you get there, how do transport oil back to Europe without a high-seas navy?
@@arddel You ask the Soviets and the Turks ;)
@@dr.paulwilliam7447 Hitler could have done that. But his ideological fight against the USSR was far more important to him. So, he wouldnt have.
@@dr.paulwilliam7447 They don't have the needed roads, railways, and pipelines to the middle east either ;)