WWII Deaths

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

All he had to do was one thing: enlist the help of the revolutionaries in the Baltics and the Slavs in the South (Ukraine & the Caucusus). Both were ripe for the cause and overt sympathizers when they arrived, hating Stalin and the Communist regime. Had he done that, he'd have taken over Leningrand - probably - and the Caucuses with their oil fields - certainly.


Without having to divert Army Group Centre down to Ukraine, he could've pushed through the last 20 miles to Moscow and knocked out their command apparatus. And would've avoided the loss at Stalingrad down South, and commandeered all the oil in the Caucuses.

The first aspect is one Hitler would have never tolerated. Nor his apparatus.

The Minsk encirclement doomed Barbarossa but eliminated 1 million Russian soldiers. If Moscow is taken it cuts almost all the rail lines the government is forced to fail back to the Urals and at best Stalin can stalemate the Germans going forward. The Minsk encirclement was backed by Hitler and his generals that feared a million Russians on their flank. Had the weather not changed it would have been a moot point. Both would have collapsed.