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Hitler’s WarLeading up to Operation Barbarossa

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Hitler, Adolf

+Political Objective for Hitler

“Destruction” of Jewish Bolshevism

Bolshevism

Defeat of USSR would cause London to surrender

+Resources, resources, resourcesGermany wanted

direct access to the food and mineral resources of Russia

In FWW, Germany’s lack of resources led to defeat

+Invading Russia “was not fatal”

It can be argued that:

Invading Russia was not the fatal mistake of Germany

Rather, the mistake was the invasion of Poland that ultimately led to war

+Attack was not preemptive

Goebbels:

“Stalin and his people remain completely inactive. Like a rabbit confronted by a snake.”

+War of annihilation

“Vernichtungsschlacht”

Annihilation of the enemy’s forces

Halder and General Marcks

+Marcks and Halder

+Looked similar to France and Poland – but…

Hitler intensions

extinction

+Barbarossa was Imperialistic

Russia would provide food and raw resources for the Germans

The Reich expected mass starvation

+Political extinction

Soviet System could not be allowed to survive

+Generalplan Ost

General Plan for the East

Subjugation of the Slavs

Annihilation of the Jews and all officials of the State and the Soviet Party

+German versus Soviet Officers

German officers were better trained and more experienced

The purges did there job

+Germans Officers

German army stressed education and initiative

+Soviet Officers

Much less freedom on the battlefield

The purges depleted the officers Corps

Very few experienced officers left

+Idiots

The People’s Commissar of Defence from 1925 up until May 1940 was an incompetent crony of Stalin’s

Voroshilov