Above three points from you clearly suggests what I am dealing with. You seem to believe all those Russian generals who support your point, but at the same time refute facts even supported by neutral sources (like NARA and as Vassnti posted).
Well, didn't you dismiss my sources as "outright propaganda, and masking of incompetence"?
Then you claim propaganda by Hitler and co. as fact while the same from Russian archives (bolded part) are not accurate. Great.
I posted that quote from Hitler's speech only because you yourself posted a quote ascribed to Hitler. Secondly, in the quote i posted from Hitler's speech, Hitler mentions "more than 20,000 tanks", which even today those historians who say there was no Soviet plan to invade Europe at all, now agree that the Soviet number of tanks was between 21,000-25,000.
Which again supports my point that Stalin and his generals were taken aback and had no choice but to act accordingly. What they did is common sense. When you have a hostile country who has defeated anything in its path since 1939 with close to 2 million soldiers on your borders (Hitler claimed they are in E.Prussia/ Poland to save them from British bombing), what do you do? Yes. Simple. You concentrate your forces too at the border. But far from a coherent strategy of defence, Soviet leadership was in two minds wheteher to provoke Hitler or not. Hardly a thought process when you are going to attack as claimed by you.
1). If it were the case that Stalin and his generals feared a invasion from Hitler then why did they not take any defensive measures? You mentioned "What they (Stalin and his Generals) did is common sense", but how so if common sense would be to prepare defensive measures like mine fields, anti tank mines, and decoy targets when faced with "2 million" enemy troops, rather than dismantle any defensive positions.
2). "A hostile country"?? As in Germany a "threat" to Soviet Russia, how?? If i'm correct, Soviet Russia betrayed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by supporting coups (Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria) and invading/annexing other European countries that were either friendly to Germany or just neutral, that too when most of German armed forces were still concentrated in the West.
3). As i stated in my point 2, Soviet leadership was already doing a great job in "provoking" Hitler by supporting coups in German friendly countries and recognizing governments that openly displayed hostility towards Germany.
Seems you have not heard of
Timoshenko-Zhukov pre-emptive strike plan of May 1941 It was an Offensive plan. Could cost Soviet Union dearly if failed......Still no executions.
So what prevents them from thinking of alternative plans individually for future scope of actions? During STAVKA meetings, almost all plans were forwarded by Budenny, Temeshenko, Zhukov (among others. to Stalin). Which were then edited or changed accordingly by Stalin. FYI these generals were not killed. You know why? Because when they came up with the pans, they were not fools to reveal it to Stalin immediately. They waited for the right time.
A very good example is "Operation Little Saturn" after the success of operation Uranus. Soviet generals had the plans ready by 1942 October and then forwarded them to Stalin for his approval and changes during December. Bingo! They were not killed.
Well, these circumstances as you described above are not the same as in planning a preemptive strike and then assembling formations and concentrations of troops in preparation for an offensive, that too without the knowledge of Stalin, because such massive movements of troops are hardly concealable, and despite the Red Army suffering such massive losses in men and material and yet no General was executed, therefore it only makes sense that these generals were following Stalin's orders.
Which again supports the idea that Stalin never thought Hitler would have attacked him in 1941, unlike his generals, many of whom had asked his permission to retreat to fight another day during June-July 1941. Another point I would like to mention here is that german offensive would never have succeeded if the Russians had a flexible defence (like Stalingrad 1942) and not 'fight till the end' strategy.
But that still doesn't explain the massive concentration of troops, armored vehicles, and aircraft on the Soviet-European frontier.
If not for defensive purpose because as you said "Stalin never thought Hitler would have attacked him in 1941", then the only other reason for stationing such massive numbers of men and material is for the purpose of an offensive attack, or maybe they were just sitting there to be taken as POW's by the Germans once the Germans launched their own offensive.
Now the most IMPORTANT fact. Unlike USSR, Hitler always wanted to attack Russia for his Lebensraum )living spaces for German people in the East.) He even wrote in his book (Mein Kampf) in the 1920s about it. Was there any WW2 then? No. Infact, Hitler invaded Poland just for this. Danzig was a mask t reveal his actual intention. He needed common border with Soviet Union to attack it. And he thought that Russia would collapse easily. That is why he said : "All we have to do is kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come falling down".
There are memoirs from Nehring in his "Geschichte der deutschen Panzerwaffe" about armour planning and exercises as far back as 1935 in this effect.
1). The "Lebensraum" myth is nothing but that, a myth. The word "Lebensraum" has been used by other high ranking Nazi officials as well like Goebbels in the 25 points of the NSDAP (i believe), but it has been blown proportionally out of context by the victorious allies and others who have vested interests in inflating this WW2 propaganda. The "Lebensraum" the NSDAP referred to, when taken into context with their speeches and statements, was a political, economic, as well as geographic living space. In the form of geography, it was meant to unify all Germanic territories including those which were separated from Germany post WW1. In the form of economic and social reforms it was to revive the German economy and give back the German people their livelihood which too was taken from them post WW1, and finally the political and economic freedom of Germany from all international banks. The NSDAP fulfilled their promise to the German people of Political and socioeconomic freedom and independence, however they still had yet to reunify all Germanic lands and Hitler was in the process of doing so, that is until the British incited the already tense situation between Germany and Poland following the Danzing Massacre in which thousands of Ethnic Germans were murdered in cold blood which then caused Hitler to invade Poland, though only after his foreign minister Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin in Moscow.
2). Coming to your other point that it was Hitler who always had the intention of war with the Soviet Union, well here is where you're forgetting something. During and after WW1, years before Hitler came into the political scene, in fact when he was just a corporal returning to Germany with no certainty of his future, the Bolsheviks in Russia tried their utmost best to expand communist revolutions Westwards, in particularly into Germany. Today this communist takeover of Germany after WW1 is downplayed, dismissed, and purposely overlooked that not many people even know about it, but 96 years ago there was fear of a Communist takeover of Germany, in fact Communist revolutionaries, backed by "Red guards" (mostly Russian and Eastern European, even Chinese volunteers) did overthrow the German government of Bavaria for a few months and formed the "Bavarian Soviet Republic", which received plenty of material and moral support from Lenin's Soviet Russia, a similar attempt was made to takeover Berlin and other German provinces/cities though these were not that successful since Freikorps and the German army crushed them and finally made their way to the Bavarian capital Munich where the short lived "Bavarian Soviet Republic" and its communist government met its demise. Also, after the demise of the "Bavarian Soviet Republic", Lenin's Red Army made an attempt to invade Poland in 1920 in order to actively support a "Red revolution" in Germany, this time with the direct intervention of the Russian Red Army under the command of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, but the Polish Nationalist put up a stiff resistance though they did lose large swathes of territory.
3). Now, i can post statements by Stalin and even Lenin of their plans to expand into Europe, Hitler wasn't even in the picture yet, but this post will become too long, not sure if you'd be able to read all of this.
4). Your comment about Hitler wanting a "common border" with the Soviet Union, again here you're forgetting some very important facts; A). The pact for the invasion of Poland was not signed in Berlin, rather in Moscow, B). Stalin had the British and French delegation dismissed and only arranged meetings with the German delegation, had Stalin backed Britains and Frances stance on Poland Hitler would have never invaded Poland and thus the war could have been prevented or delayed at best.
Here is the explanation....... Out of the 10 million troops(lets take this number as you said), hardly 50% was on the front. As I have already posted the troop concentrations in the last post (You can refer NARA archives, Glantz' book on Soviet leadership as well as other internet sources).
German equipments (yes including inferior tanks as you calim) were far better than non-operational Soviet equipments and non-existant Soviet doctrines. German anti-tank guns (PAKs, 88mm used as AT) and Howitzers were more capable than Soviet counterparts.
Red Army Studies, Books
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On paper,the Western military district had the following tanks:
1) 97 KV
2) 228 T 34
3) 410 BT-7
4) 183 BT-5
5) 68 BT-2
6) 1321 T-26 (with 8 prime movers)
To simplify the discussion, this was the ACTUAL GROUND STATE of the tanks:
Type 1) Very new machines. No doctrine available to commanders whatsoever. Lack of training courses. Only centre nearest to the front is in Orel/ Tula. (3500 kms away from the actual fighting)
Type 2) Comparitively new. Lack of trained tankmen and commanders. Lacks radio sets (common to most German Panzers)
Type 3) Backbone of Soviet armour along with T26. Needs major overhaul
Type 4 and 5) Outdated by any standard. Unlike German Blitzkrieg tactics, Soviet don't have Panzer mk III and IV to shield them.
Type 6) Most were used piecemeal and easily obliterated by Panzer divisions. Many were inoperational owing to lack of maintenance.
Well, for one, by 1941, the whole World had witnessed Germany's Blitzkrieg tactics for 3 years, that every army began to copy it as quickly as possible, and the Red Army, being the largest Army in the world at that time, which also had an almost unlimited supply of resources, minerals, and man power needed to arm, maintain, and sustain a war machine (which is exactly what it did considering how rapidly every Russian factory was churning out Tanks in days), it just doesn't make sense that they were lagging or they had a certain deficiency in tactics due to which they failed miserably. Red army had a reputation for putting up a more than formidable defense, camouflage, and decoys to absorb an enemies offense, they are masters at it.
To say that the red army just wasn't "prepared" for war is simply laughable, because the whole point of Stalin's 5 years plan wasn't to industrialize the Soviet economy not for the sake of the benefit of the Russian people, but rather to build a massive war machine unprecedented in its time in order to expand the Soviet Union through wars and conflicts, is that not what the Red Army did when it invaded Japanese Manchuria despite the non-aggression Pact between Japan and Soviet Union?
Japan never declared war on the Soviet Union, yet Stalin did to Japan what Hitler feared he'd do to Germany and Europe had he not launched Operation Barbarossa, that too launch a massive offensive while he himself busy trying to subdue Britain. More than 40% of the Soviet GNP was directed towards its arms buildup and military industrial complex, and if all of this spending wasn't for a offensive army then why was there no defense in 1941, where did all of this money disappear to? Yet the Soviet Union wasn't "prepared for war" aye?
In the March 26, 1992 issue of
Izvestia, Russian presidential adviser Anatoly Rakitov stated:
"Over the last six decades, 80 to 90 percent of our national resources - raw material, technical, financial, and intellectual - have been used to create the military-industrial complex. Essentially, the military-industrial complex has absorbed everything that is good and dynamic that Russia has to offer, including its basic economic capacity and its best technology, materials, and specialists. Consequently, the military-industrial complex is virtually synonymous with our economy."
PS: OFFTOPIC. It seems that you are a fan of Erwin Rommel.
Personally he is my favourite WW2 General. Many western military men used to admire his skills in the desert as well as his heroics with the Ghost division (7 Panzer division in France, 1940). As much as I love him, I also agree with many people and their conclusions that at times, he endangered his troops by being too close to the front and not at the HQ. Heroism and bravery aside, a Field marshall is ought to be at his HQ and not the front. You see, there are two sides of a coin. What I want to point out is that every part of WW2 is debatable. There is no direct proof that Hitler was an anti-semite apart from his speeches. No evidence whatsoever to tell that had he allowed his generals to proceed to Moscow and not Uman in 1941 oct., Germany would have won. No proof whatsoever that All German Wehrmacht soldiers were nazis or anti-semite.
Standards in those days were the complete opposite of what they are today, but the Germans had a chivalrous, or better yet, comradery sort of relations between the infantrymen, officers, and generals. High ranking Generals no longer participate in battles along with their troops, let alone ride amongst them with open top jeeps from where enemy aircraft can easily strafe them.
You see, things are not black and white. There is a shade of grey in-between. All the WW2 discussions somewhere or the other use deductions and conclusions which are highly subjective.I respect your views but that doesn't mean the opposite might not be true. Same applies to me. The truth is somewhere in between.
Regarding the rest of your post about every part of WW2 being debatable, i agree.
BTW, i've hadn't had the time to reply in the past 2 days since i was busy, thus the delay.
In fact, sweden was neutral from start to end, though they had granted military access to Finland and Germany (after 1941).
