Right, and Germany's strategic disadvantage post-1941 shouldn't be confused with their on-the-ground operational capabilities, which were superior to all of Allies until at least 1943 (I'm thinking of Kursk). That said, it's hard to see how the Germans, even had they held Stalingrad, would have been able to maintain in the long term a Caucasian campaign that had their supply/logistical capacities stretched past their absolute limit, and in extraordinarily unfriendly geographical conditions.
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> It's hard for people today to realize how much real gloom there was in the
> U.S. in 1942 -- and it was more or less realistic gloom. Had the Germans
> broken through at Stalingrad and at El Alamein -- both real possibilities --
> the last 60 years would have been quite different. I still remember quite
> vividly Gabriel Heater's news broadcast on the eve of El Alamein.
>
> Carrol
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On
>> Behalf Of andie_nachgeborenen
>> Sent: Monday, October 08, 2012 10:24 AM
>> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The effect of drones
>>
>> Both versions of the Soviet victory are correct. Once Hitler lost his
> chance for a
>> quick win at both or either Leningrad and Moscow, material factors vastly
> favor
>> the USSR in the long run. But as with the Union in the the US Civil War,
> the long
>> run can be long, bloody, and tricky. Stalingrad was really the hinge of
> fate
>> (Churchill), the destruction of a whole German Army that also closed off
> Nazi
>> access to the oil in the the Caucasians and ultimately sealed the doom of
> the
>> Nazis. The battle back to Berlin was still incredibly bloody and chancy.
> Kharkov
>> might have turned things around again, for example. But both Soviet
> material
>> superiority, backed by Lend-Lease, and the brilliant victory at Stalingrad
> were key.
>>
>> There is simply no question that Stalin made a very hard and concerted
> effort to
>> create a Soviet-Western anti-Nazi alliance in the 30s before, rebuffed, he
> made
>> the Soviet-nazi Pact to buy time and steal territory. He thought he would
> have
>> longer before the Nazis attacked than he did, and ignored solid and
> indisputable
>> very specific evidence of the details of Barbarossa, as well as issuing
> destructive
>> orders like No Step Back that came close to losing the war in the early
> days. But
>> the attempted pacts with France and Britain were real and their failure,
> not Stalin's
>> direct fault, a very great tragedy. They might have stopped the war
> altogether.
>> We will never know.
>>
>> I have seen reliable figures if up to 50 million Soviet dead, although
> 20-25 is
>> probably more accurate and we will never really know. There is no question
> that
>> either way the destruction visited on the FSU was Biblical in proportion
> and on a
>> scale not suffered by any nation since the Mongols invaded Russia eight
> hundred
>> years before, worse with modern warfare,
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On Oct 8, 2012, at 9:54 AM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > Thank you all for the responses to my question(s) on the below thread.
>> >
>> > -ravi
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sep 28, 2012, at 2:46 PM, Mark DeLucas <mkdelucas at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I don't know very well the history of the lead-up to the Hitler-Stalin
> pact
>> >> (if that's what you're referring to), but as to the significance of the
>> >> USSR's involvement in defeating Nazi -- uncontroversially, it was
> decisive.
>> >> Western material aid to the USSR was important, but the latter's
> success in
>> >> transporting the bulk of its industry east of the Urals, and therefore
>> >> beyond the reach of the German army, was more or less sufficient to
> meeting
>> >> the long-term armament needs of the Red Army -- the sheer size of which
> the
>> >> German's had little long-term chance of overcoming. Indeed, the true
>> >> turning point of the war, I've always thought, was the failure of the
>> >> Wehrmacht's final push on Moscow in late 1941; having failed in what
> has to
>> >> be considered their only good chance of effecting the collapse of the
>> >> Soviet regime, the Germans were thereafter (from '42 to '45) fated to
> be
>> >> ground down by the overwhelming manpower and material might of the USSR
>> >> (and, of course, tipping the scales further, the United States).
>> >>
>> >> Mark
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 2:25 PM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> On Sep 28, 2012, at 2:13 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>> >>>> The U.S. didn't defeat the Nazis. The Soviets did.
>> >>>
>> >>> I was just going to ask about this. At least the version of history I
> was
>> >>> taught put the Battle of Stalingrad at the centre of the
> turnaround/victory
>> >>> and attributed the bulk of the credit to the Soviets (of course we in
> India
>> >>> had our special relationship with the SU and reasons not to buy too
> much
>> >>> into the Churchill worship). Which version is truer? It seems beyond
>> >>> question that the Soviets took the brunt of the battle with ~ 20
> million
>> >>> dead (9 million or so of that being military).
>> >>>
>> >>> The other Western meme that I learnt after I left the old country was
> the
>> >>> story that Stalin struck a deal with Hitler, going against the West -
> newer
>> >>> investigation seems to show that if at all he did so, that was after
> his
>> >>> overtures to the West had been rejected. What's the modern consensus
> on
>> >>> that?
>> >>>
>> >>> Apologies for the thread fork,
>> >>>
>> >>> -ravi
>> >
>> >
>> > ___________________________________
>> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
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