Nazi Germany VS The Soviet Union

Read my post AJ, I already explained why.

M36, the chain of command does not shield you from personal and moral responsibility. Whether you choose to quietly go along with it and hope to survive whatever it is to come or if you decide to desert and refuse to follow orders that would undoubdetly be considered war crimes is up to you.

State indoctrinated hatred of Jews, Gypsies, and dissidents was well known in Nazi Germany, I have yet seen the same type of behavior here in the U.S.

@Yahoshua:

State indoctrinated hatred of Jews, Gypsies, and dissidents was well known in Nazi Germany, I have yet seen the same type of behavior here in the U.S.

where? if you have there probably the family of Nazi’s who fled to America to become spies.

You misread my post.  :-D

i find it unlikely that ss units didn’t know what was going on.

Well, it is the truth. The SS was simple an elite organization of the Whermacht, kind of like MFR is to us, or the Rangers are to the Army.

Hitler had different ideas, however, and employed the SS in his extermination campaign.

Hitler created the SS.  As a matter of fact he started with two “special forces” units.  The SA andd SS.  He had the SS arrest and kill the leaders of the of the SA.  The SS was then indoctrinated with Nazi ideology.  How many examples of SS atrocities would it take to convince you that the SS was a special forces unit which in large part carried out the fuhrer’s orders?

How many accounts of SS soldiers who committed no atrocities, but simply did their job as soldiers will it take to convince you that the SS was not an evil organization?

Perhaps its because of the reason for their existance.  Their purpose.  I feel that if those Germans wanted to defend their nation, then the wehrmacht was the way to go, not hitlers personal guard.  in my mind, join hitlers personal guard and you ascribe to his political agenda.

Only if Japan had attacked in the Far East (and perhaps had not expanded into the Paciific) would Germany have had a chance at totally taking out the Soviet Union…also if Hitler had let the Generals totally run the operation!

ah, the classic axis and allies solution.

@General:

Only if Japan had attacked in the Far East (and perhaps had not expanded into the Paciific) would Germany have had a chance at totally taking out the Soviet Union…also if Hitler had let the Generals totally run the operation!

Japan had a few battles with the Soviet Union before it decided to go against the US … it was either war with USSR or the Pacific and after losing terribly against the Soviets they decided to go for the Pacific resources rather than the Siberian ones it needed.

It would have went differently for Japan the next time around if they had decided to go the Siberian route because the Germans were on Moscow’s door.

I Personally think Japan was stronger in the Pacifici then on Land.
Japan was trained and suited for Jungle fighting & Navy
I don’t recall them having any great equipement on land (there tanks wern’t that great?)

But yes if Japan had helped relieved Germany a bit it would have made a huge difference, I mean especially at the crucial points in the war…them extra million Japaneese soldiers with 1,000+ zeros would have gotten some attention from the Soviet Union.

I have no doubt the Japanese would have made significant inroads into Russia, but I do not think that they would have been able to maintain supply roads far into the interior of the Soviet Union.  My only question is one concerning the personality of Stalin….how much if at all would he direct to oppose a japanese invasion?  Or would he put up minimal resistence and let the supply lines strech till gurrillas could cut harrass them so much the japanese could not move any farther?

HUH???

This is not true at all. Japan had no answer for the greater mechanization and adept training of the Army facing the Kwangtung Army. The country is totally inhospitable and useless for any economic value in the short term This idea of Japan having some great capability to push deep into the vast interior of Soviet eastern territories is total bunk. The Kwangtung Army could barely feed itself and make any progress in China after 1941. The only strategic value to anybody was Vladivostok which was at least sometimes a warm water port. Their could never be any Japanese push into the Urals unless Japan could find its way into a modern army. The only thing they had going for them was that navy and half of that was old British battle cruisers and old converted carriers. The best thing was those pilots and the lance torpedo and decent night action training… but once our pilots started training at a huge advantage in quantity over Japan it was only a matter of time before we got better at aerial combat.

Thats why Japan went for USA. They considered what they needed to win the war and Russia didn’t offer any prospect for the Japanese point of view. Japan needed oil and the Soviet far east offered none. The American fleets were what stood in the way of that oil ( and the embargo) so… the enemy became easy… to defeat America was all that was needed to establish her Empire as they saw it.

IL is exactly right there would have been no advantage or purpose for the Japanese to invade Russia outside of maybe bragging rights at most.  If the Germans would have commited to a complete invasion of Russia they would have been successful.  The Russian people  origonally welcomed the German forces with open arms until the SS came along and started murdering and destroying everyone and everything in there way.  The reality of it is if as many of ya’ll have said Hitler had left it to his commanders and if the SS hadn’t ticked everyone off the Russian people would have been much happier under German rule and the Germans would have conquered Russia easily.  Back to the SS issue mentioned earlier by some of ya’ll, the SS was not an eliete part ot the Wermacht.  It was a unit filled with guys who in most cases were nothing short of maniacs.  They were murders while the Wermacht was only doing what its nation called it to do.  The SS was just a group of guys so deathly loyal to hitler that they could be asked to do anything that Hitler claimed was for the benifit of Germany (or him) and they would do it no questions asked.  Which is why we had the Holocaust and is why an entire part of my family disapeared.  Saying the SS was an eliete branch of the wermacht is completly inaccurate.

I bielive otherwise, yes the SS were maniacs, but I would definitaly call them an elite part of the whermatch (spelling) they were the equivilant if not more than the US Rngers  and british SAS troops at the time. Out of all the units in the germany military, the SS was the most difficult to defeat cause they were so dedicated to nothing but victory, no surrender, no prisoners, and the fuhur himself. But unltimatly, that was there demise, whole SS units and divsions were wipped out because they refused to except defeat and surrender. That and they pissed everyone off no matter were they went. In the Battle of Berlin, the last of the SS killed so many diserters and traiters, the “whermatch” (hitler juden by now) seirously wanted to trade sides.

The Waffen SS were the best troops in the war bar none. Their ranks were made of only the best skilled soldiers who have won decorations in other fields. They were the brightest and fearless and they suffered hard in battle because they usually met their objectives.  However, during the late war period the best had already fallen so their was some loss of elan because all the skilled troops were already dead. If the 1943 SS panzer divisions were intact in 1944 for Bulge they would have gotten to Antwerp.

@Imperious:

The Waffen SS were the best troops in the war bar none. Their ranks were made of only the best skilled soldiers who have won decorations in other fields. They were the brightest and fearless and they suffered hard in battle because they usually met their objectives.  However, during the late war period the best had already fallen so their was some loss of elan because all the skilled troops were already dead. If the 1943 SS panzer divisions were intact in 1944 for Bulge they would have gotten to Antwerp.

And how!!...I mean that as in I agree strongly…

The Japanese could have been successful against the Soviets in 1941 and 1942, because Stalin had transfered all his armor and most of his troops out of the far east to combat the Germans, but once the Soviets gained the upper hand, they could have shifted troops east, including armor. Russian T 34s against Japanese light tanks? The Japanese thought they could beat us in one battle, where as they knew the Russians would be more difficult, having fought them before.

And as for the SS, I have been trying to drill through the thick skulls of people here who have been indoctrinated with left wing propaganda that simply being a member of the SS did not make a man a genocidal maniac like Hitler. Hitler had his own intentions for the SS, true, but what the SS actually was was an elite organization of the Whermacht, made up of the finest soldiers that Germany could muster. Kind of like the U.S. Marine Corp.  :mrgreen:

great…now no matter what we say m36 you attribute it to left wing propaganda.  no 36 i do not contend that all SS were bad, however, when hitler needed his dirty deeds done he turned to his SS.