Any way for the Germans to win the Eastern front?

[Valmy]

And start the attack in early may as original planned. Il Duce just have to learn how deal with the Greeks the hard way...

Just another example of Germany screwing things up with its allies.  Seriously both Italy in WWII and Austria-Hungary in WWI were almost allied sleeper agents in the way they both managed to screw up German plans at key moments.

Did Germany never bother to monitor their allies or at least get them on board with their plans?  I mean there never was a supreme war council or anything by the European Axis countries to coordinate everything I am even aware of.  And there certainly never was between Germany and Austria-Hungary in WWI like the British and the French were meeting constantly to make sure they were on the same page.

[Ideologue]

I mean, thing is, as long as Germany was at war with Britain, Germany was going to wind up at war with the United States.  The United States gets the bomb in 1945.

[Valmy]

I mean, thing is, as long as Germany was at war with Britain, Germany was going to wind up at war with the United States.  The United States gets the bomb in 1945.

Well Britain was not going to make peace without Germany leaving everything it had occupied in Europe, Germany was going to have to defeat the British.  But the question here is if Germany could have won on the Eastern Front, not win the war.

[dps]

I think that it depends on how you define a win.  The Germans could probably have gotten a negotiated peace of some sort from Stalin that would have given them considerable territorial gains if they'd pushed for one in September of 41, or in the summer of 42.  The problem was that they were looking for a total victory over the Soviet Union, which I don't think that they could have gotten that under the conditions that existed in 1941, but they weren't going to settle for anything less at any time it looked like they might be winning, and Stalin wasn't going to offer them anything once it was obvious that the Germans would eventually be defeated (i.e., after Stalingrad).

[Ideologue]

I mean, thing is, as long as Germany was at war with Britain, Germany was going to wind up at war with the United States.  The United States gets the bomb in 1945.

Well Britain was not going to make peace without Germany leaving everything it had occupied in Europe, Germany was going to have to defeat the British.  But the question here is if Germany could have won on the Eastern Front, not win the war.

They don't win on the Eastern Front if they don't win the war.  It's not like we're gonna nuke Hamburg, Dresden, and Cologne and say "Give us back France.  What, Russia?  Poland?  Oh, that's cool.  You guys earned it.  A for effort."

[Valmy]

They don't win on the Eastern Front if they don't win the war.  It's not like we're gonna nuke Hamburg, Dresden, and Cologne and say "Give us back France.  What, Russia?  Poland?  Oh, that's cool.  You guys earned it.  A for effort."

Um they won on the Eastern Front in WWI and lost the war.  Remember that?

[Valmy]

The problem was that they were looking for a total victory over the Soviet Union, which I don't think that they could have gotten that under the conditions that existed in 1941.

Yeah Hitler and Stalin were never go to negotiate.  It was a fight to the death.

[Ideologue]

They don't win on the Eastern Front if they don't win the war.  It's not like we're gonna nuke Hamburg, Dresden, and Cologne and say "Give us back France.  What, Russia?  Poland?  Oh, that's cool.  You guys earned it.  A for effort."

Um they won on the Eastern Front in WWI and lost the war.  Remember that?

WWI wasn't fought with weapons of national annihilation.

[Valmy]

WWI wasn't fought with weapons of national annihilation.

I  am just saying they could have "won" (well presuming it was possible) on the Eastern Front in WWII and still have eventually been made to give it all up once they were beaten elsewhere...just like they had to in WWI.

[dps]

They don't win on the Eastern Front if they don't win the war.  It's not like we're gonna nuke Hamburg, Dresden, and Cologne and say "Give us back France.  What, Russia?  Poland?  Oh, that's cool.  You guys earned it.  A for effort."

Um they won on the Eastern Front in WWI and lost the war.  Remember that?

WWI wasn't fought with weapons of national annihilation.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire would disagree.  Arguably, so would the Ottoman and Russian Empires (and if you really think about it, in the long run WWI is the reason the British and French lost their overseas empires, too).

Though I'm not really sure what you mean by "weapons of national annihilation" anyway.

[Kleves]

Yeah Hitler and Stalin were never go to negotiate.  It was a fight to the death.

Didn't Stalin send out peace feelers sometime in '41 or '42?

[Kleves]

Though I'm not really sure what you mean by "weapons of national annihilation" anyway.

[Ideologue]

WWI wasn't fought with weapons of national annihilation.

I  am just saying they could have "won" on the Eastern Front in WWII and still have eventually been made to give it all up once they were beaten elsewhere...just like they had to in WWI.

That doesn't really count as a victory, imo.  I feel that winning on the Eastern Front would have to entail recognition from the Western Allies of a new status quo.  And since the Western Allies were going to get and use the bomb, and nothing Germany could do could stop that (short of developing their own atomic weapons, I suppose), any occupation of the Soviet Union was never going to last more than a few years.

Now, the USSR would not likely have been reborn from the ashes of Reichskommissariat Moskau, so maybe a Nazi "victory" would actually have been the best of all possible worlds.

[Valmy]

That doesn't really count as a victory, imo.

Well not a geo-political one.  I thought we were just talking militarily here.

[Ideologue]

Ok, fair enough.

Anyway, even to a lesser extent, I think that to win in the East, even temporarily, the Germans needed to have made peace with Britain.  The distractions of air war, submarine war, overseas war, and eventually land war significantly impacted their ability to fight the Soviets, and the existence of co-belligerents meant material support.  And I don't know how much, but surely their allies contributed to their will to continue fighting.