I have been sick and was watching the Apocalypse: The Second World War series (excellent series with unique archival footage). The one episode covers Hitler’s betrayal of Stalin and his surprise invasion of Russia. It implies the traditional thinking that this was Hitler’s biggest mistake and ultimately cost him the war as they didn’t have the resources to fight Russia and the Western powers.
I got to thinking about it: History sort of just suggests the rationale behind the invasion was that Hitler was insane and bit off more than he could chew because he hated the Russians so much and wanted to rule them. A brief google search brought up alternative rationale such as the idea the German army badly needed the oil from Russia to keep the war going more than a few months or the idea Stalin was always going to eventually declare war on Hitler and Hitler knew this, hence wanting the element of surprise and the war fought on his terms.
I find the debate over whether or not his war with Russia was inevitable or not. I always just thought the traditional line of thinking that it was a very fortunate colossal mistake, but have enjoyed reading the alternate theories about why it happened.
What do the buffs of the lair think?
I got to thinking about it: History sort of just suggests the rationale behind the invasion was that Hitler was insane and bit off more than he could chew because he hated the Russians so much and wanted to rule them. A brief google search brought up alternative rationale such as the idea the German army badly needed the oil from Russia to keep the war going more than a few months or the idea Stalin was always going to eventually declare war on Hitler and Hitler knew this, hence wanting the element of surprise and the war fought on his terms.
I find the debate over whether or not his war with Russia was inevitable or not. I always just thought the traditional line of thinking that it was a very fortunate colossal mistake, but have enjoyed reading the alternate theories about why it happened.
What do the buffs of the lair think?
