I was sooooo tired last night after three days in the cold wind of construction and roofing at Mike Delaney’s, but it is over now. It was fun though!
Pix from the previous blog (yours truly and Jamie Anderson – right edge of photo)
Mike Delaney and Jamie — hey, these old Model-T ladders, built for guys under 200 pounds, are really outdated! 😉
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I went to bed early last night, a bit exhausted at 61 from so much manual labor for three days, but I got up and read from 11 pm to midnight, finishing the book The Chief Culprit by Victor Suvorov, the Soviet Jewish military historian who authored earlier the book Icebreaker on how Stalin was about to attack Hitler when AH beat him to the punch on 6/22/41.
An Australian comrade had given me this book and other items.
I never read Icebreaker, just articles about it, but I just read The Chief Culprit cover-to-cover and it was totally persuasive.
Hitler had to attack when he did but it was a desperate move. Germany had no sheepskin coats, below-freezing rifle oil, motor oil or fuel for Wehrmacht tanks and trucks. It was totally unready for the Russian winter, whether they won a blitzkrieg victory or just got stuck before Moscow, as happened.
One gets the clearest impression that Stalin would have taken all of Europe had Hitler not attacked first. He had oceans of men and equipment, much of it extremely good. The first rows of the Red Army collapsed because totally designed for attacking Germany, not for defense, and instead IT was attacked.
For example, an army built for defense lays minefields, and has airbases, arsenals and troops way behind the front lines, giving them time to mobilize.
A huge army built to attack obviously has no minefields (it needs to move toward the border and cross it) and, if it plans a surprise attack, has its troops, tanks, planes and ammo bunched up, stacked up, right on the border TO HIT THE ENEMY HARD AND FAST.
Stalin’s Red Army was right on the point of pouncing when Hitler attacked first, encircling Stalin’s forces stationed at the border easily.
In August 1945, in contrast, the Soviets did a blitzkrieg against 600,000 experienced Japanese troops and annihilated them, seizing China, North Korea and North Vietnam.
Every European and American should thank Hitler on bended knee for attacking the USSR when he did.
German-controlled Europe in 1942
Had Stalin seized Europe and the UK, he would have conquered the world, because Europe’s empires controlled most of the world. Stalin would have put all 500 million Europeans to work as soldiers or factory slaves as in the USSR in order to create a military so gigantic it would have defeated even America (pop. just 130 mio).
The other message I got from this book was that with a strong leader like Stalin (mega-evil, yes, but very smart and organized), the Russian people are awesome warriors with great technology, especially if the curse of vodka and alcoholism is brought under control, as the absolute dictator Stalin did.
I was very educated by the chapter on the Soviet attack on Finland in the 1939-40 “Winter War.” We hear actually too much about the brave Finns. Yes, they were brave — very valiant and also very intelligent.
But the fact is that the Soviets smashed through the brilliant Mannerheim Line of fortifications the Finns had built northwest of Leningrad. They fired in one case a thousand artillery rounds to take out one Finnish pillbox — but they did bust it up and the Finns fled.
The Finns had to surrender the entire Mannerheim Line area and were stripped of their key defensive fortifications when the war resumed in 1941. Field Marshal Mannerheim never committed totally to the war on the German side, fearing the Soviets would win in the end — as they did.
Let BARACK GAYBAMA and SATANYAHU PONDER THIS LESSON WELL. Do not underestimate Russian size, technology and bravery!
…..How Hitler could have won the war
By entering Russia to liberate the suffering Russian people from communism, not conquering their land and becoming the new master!
https://johndenugent.com/hitler-germany/hitlers-great-mistake-in-russia/
What I learned from that life:
https://johndenugent.com/key-video-hitler-now/
…..Donations
https://johndenugent.com/donations-log/
Part of my always-carried knife collection. My father, who killed many men in the Korean War with the bayonet, first taught me knife-fighting.
I’ve read Suvorov’s “Chief Culprit†and Icebreaker and agree completely with your review. It should be noted that most of the book is concerned with logistics. A large war like Stalin planned requires vast amounts of materials pre-positioned and the study of how and what is positioned where gives an accurate picture of what was intended. Hitler captured these supplies and completely cut off Stalin’s plans.
I think the reason that the Germans didn’t win were,
1. Not enough troops and supplies. Stalingrad was the big mistake. David Irving says that Hitler asked Goring if his air force could supply a certain amount of tons of supplies. Goring told him yes even though he know he could not. Only because he was afraid Hitler would replace him. The Germans ran out of supplies and it doomed them. Goring had a huge, pivotal role in the loss of the Eastern front.
2.I’ve read David Irvings books on WWII and it seems that when the army followed Hitler’s ideas they won but when they followed the general staff they became bogged down and eventually lost through attrition. They didn’t make enough effort to quickly take the oil fields.
3. I think if the Germans would have had some compassion for the Ukrainians and Western Russians they could have used them as a force multiplier. They did to some extent but their slash and burn through these areas and disdain for them locked them out from a lot of man power they could have had.
4. Back to Goring again. Their earlier aircraft were good but Goring screwed up future aircraft. He kept changing things and just never got production where it should have been. All the while proclaiming that he had everything under control.
5. They should have gone to a total war production. All production for war with every person making a much as they could from a very early time in the war. They did so but too little too late.
It’s amazing all in all that Hitler did as well as he did with all of Germany’s constraints. If Stalin would have won it could have been very likely that the Jews would control the World now. It seems they think they’re going to do so again using the U.S. but I don’t see it. Most Americans are fairly sick of the World policeman role and the stupidity that pretends to be American international strategy is so foolish that it will eventually gather great resistance.