An Axis-Soviet War hypothetical, Nazis capture/raze/wipe out Leningrad, then what?:

Sigh, in all-caps and bold so the point will sink in instead of going in circles: HITLER MADE NO ORDERS TO EXTERMINATE THOSE CITIES, HE DID MAKE THEM BEFORE BARBAROSSA FOR MOSCOW AND LENINGRAD AND ALSO BEFORE BLAU FOR STALINGRAD.

He did cut off the food supply to all the major urban centres the Germans overran. So in the end, the effect is much the same. The fact that the local Soviet population was at times able to forage/grow their own food just enough to prevent a total starvation notwithstanding.


However much BW wants to spin away the degree of Hitlereian irrationally and the degree to which the Wehrmacht was compliant and complicit with the worst crimes of Nazism. Hitler will wipe out whole populations & races no matter the cost in resources or military undesirably, when he wants to. And the organs of the Nazi state from Party, SS to Wehrmacht would do as they were told, when such orders are given.

Von Leeb and the rest had happily whored themselves to Hitler, there was no moral or professional integrity left in the Wehrmacht by 1941. However much it’s officers puffed out their chests & boasted of their honour or snickered at Goebbels’s club-foot, Goering’s obesity and Hitler being just a Bohemian corporal. (in fact given it malignant role during the Freikorps uprising and other events during the Weimar era, the Reichswehr was hardly an honourable institution even before 1933)
 
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So it's a Nazi War goal. So what? How does that in any way prevent them from doing so later instead of right off the bat. The Nazis felt that if they won the war, they would have all the time in the world to do whatever they wanted to the Soviet Union.

I'd also appreciate it if you stop your condescending tone. I'm well aware of what the Nazis goals in Europe were, thank you very much. I'm well aware of how disgusting Hitler and his cronies were, which doesn't change my position at all.

We all know that you won't budge. Guess what? Neither will I. But I see no reason to keep saying the same things again and again and again. I don't need people accepting my views for me to gain validation. I've said what there is to say, and that's all I will say.

Why doesn't it prevent it? Because historically the Wehrmacht was doing this on Hitler's express orders beginning in Poland in 1939, spreading into the Balkans in 1941, then into the USSR itself. There was no moral integrity whatsoever in the Wehrmacht, and to Hitler this is a normal, ordinary military operation. However much German fanboys like you want to pretend Hitler was lying when he said he was going to do this not during peacetime but during the war you provide no evidence, simply the same yammering about how the Germans will not do this with no evidence to prove it, where mine derives from the real Wehrmacht and SS both.

You must not be aware of it given the extent to which you're going to claim the same people who killed a fourth of the population of contemporary Belarus in four years and 3 million Soviet POWs in one will blush at doing this. It's whitewashing Hitler, and whitewashing the German war machine in WWII. Call it whatever you like but claiming the only real Germans are bad Germans who weren't very bad is hardly being pro-German, it's a slap in the face at the entire rest of German history.

Hitler raised his little village in Austria, but there where documented conversations between himself Speer and Skorzeny where he claimed Linz was going to be the new capital of Europe

Provide citations or specific quotes, which I have done for my statements of the real Hitler as opposed to the whitewashed and neutered one you pretend existed.

Starving the city to death is not the same as rounding up 3 million people for shooting and gassing... He would be much more likely to chose the former in the context of rapid capture of the city because he doesn't have the manpower to liquidate a city that big given that there is a war going on

This was the same manpower tied down for 900 days IOTL, starve and raze the city and it's free for the rest of the war. I'm sure the Nazis won't do this or try to justify it this way because mumblemumble but you know you very seldom argue these discussions with the real Nazis that did this kind of thing on a regular basis.

the army didn't do mass executions; they did localized executions and TRANSFERRED people to the einsatzgruppen for execution... for as morally bankrupt as most of the generals where ritter von leeb or any other field marshal in 1941 is not going to order his divisions to shoot three million people;

Except the 3 million Soviet POWs they did kill and the instances where Wehrmacht generals authorized massive, random shootings of newly-occupied territories, including shooting Jews as per the Commisssar Order. Again, you're not describing the real Wehrmacht here, you're describing some fantasy one that never existed. The real one did enforce the orders to this regard, enforced them zealously, and was responsible for the death of millions in "counter-partisan sweeps" when that was sometimes just a pretext.

Hitler didn't eschew urban battles; he just didn't have the opportunity to get sucked into big battles to that point because the west surrendered their big cities for fear of bombardment and otherwise the germans encircled and destroyed russian field armies in front of their big cities and advanced on them against little resistance)

You've just confessed here to reading next to nothing in modern sources on Hitler or the Wehrmacht. Hitler ordered Warsaw surrounded and bombed and shelled, instead of fighting street for street and house for house. He did the same thing in Leningrad. You've also confessed in this idiotic statement to having read next to nothing on how the Hitler-orders actually worked, as his concepts were for lightning, bloodless victories and unlike his generals he knew that urban battles would never be nothing of the sort.

You seem to be confusing 1943 with 1941; the commisar order was enforced; but that enforcement was 90-95 percent transfer to the einsatzgruppen for execution, not shoot on the spot

You seem to be here believing when generals like von Manstein, Guderian, von Bock, Paulus, and others gave orders like this they had no chance of them being carried out. If they were willing to give orders like this that were not enforced then they had no business having a rank above private.

HITLER GAVE A LOT OF ORDERS THAT NOBODY PRETENDED TO OBEY SUCH AS CAPTURING THE AZORES... GUDERIAN WAS ORDERED TO CAPTURE CITIES 500 MILES EAST OF MOSCOW AS PART OF HIS OBJECTIVE IN OPERATION TYPHOON

Which did not happen because contrary to the Nazis' expectations the Soviets by the fall of 1941 were outgeneraling them to the point that Soviet infantrymen with rifles were superior to Germans with air power and panzers.

Hitler bore no particular grudge against urban combat; warsaw suffered a massive bombardment and two general assaults (1st failed) in 1939... he had no problem sending Rommel's division into Cherbourg; this was more circumstantial than objective. And the 6th army being drawn into stalingrad had zero to do with russian tactical skill to that point (as the Germans had crushed them from the start of case blue) and everything to do with Hitler fucking up every aspect of case blue's direction

So it's the "Germany lost because of Hitler and not the generals" myth, eh? Hitler did not like the idea the generals had of overunning empty territory, nor did he particularly think the generals should have scaled Mount Elbrus instead of doing something like fighting the war. People blame Hitler for Germany's defeat so as to avoid realizing the army that lost the war lost the war and it was outgeneraled, outfought, and outthought. Much easier to pretend Hitler was a dumbass when he was not one, as that way one can hate Hitler and love the Wehrmacht when in reality Nazi Germany was rotten from top to bottom and the Wehrmacht did not protest anything Hitler did, individual generals did and they STFU when it was their careers on the line. You claim blatant falsehoods about the real WWII, back them up.
 
John Toland's "the last 100 days" has the relevant passages on Hitler promising to build Linz into the new capital of europe

the manpower maintaining the siege was part of a military operation... they where dug in opposite the Red Army's Leningrad military district whom they proved unable to break through; just because AGN captures the city doesn't mean their field divisions are not needed at the front... one could assume that Stalin would try to free the city and make it a priority with assaults froming from the north and east which wouldn't permit hitler to take those divisions out of the war to go on murder sprees

the POW's didn't die in the army's hands; once the army took them, they where shipped off to camps run by the SS and SD... now was the army complicit and aware of exactly what was in store for those whom they took prisoner hell yes... but they didn't usually bloody their own hands with such things

the commisar order called for the army to round up the people it specified for transfer to the einsatzgruppen for execution; the army did take it upon themselves to enforce the order to a degree on their own, but this was far from the norm nor where they doing mass city cleansing... you seem to be under the impression that I'm advocating for the heer as a clean institution and that is not the case, they rounded the people up to be executed, and they knew they would be executed; I'm merely pointing out who would do the actual shooting and gassing (which would be the einsatzgruppen)

Hitler ordered 2 general assaults on Warsaw in 1939; the first of which failed and following a massive weeks long bombardment, the second succeeded... he didn't rebuke Rommel for going into Cherbourg or Guderian for going into Calais or Bolounge or Rundstead from going into Odessa, Kiev or Rostov... his "aversion" to assaulting Leningrad was a cop out because AGN fucked up the campaign and they couldn't physically get to or capture the city by September, and he needed something to excuse the failure of his Nazi supermen whatever

there exist orders (quoted in Alan Clark's barbarossa) from Reichenau and others rebuking certain commanders from regiment on down for being too zealous in getting themselves involved in the commisar order directly (ie going on murder sprees) and ordering them to screen their would be victims more carefully and actually transfer them to the einsatzgruppen... the generals didn't mind wanton genocide as long as it didn't have to be done by their men or reduce the amount of field divisions they could put at the front

the soviets outgeneralling the germans the fall of 1941 is a dubious claim... are you familiar with the battles of bryansk and vyzama?

I'm happy to give the Soviets their due in the battles they handled well.... but in the instance of case blue, it failed because hitler fucked with Halder/Paulus drawn campaign. Kliest and Paulus destroyed Timoshenko's forces and everything in front of them right at the outset of the battle and had the 4th panzer army proceeded as originally planned instead of hitler mindlessly sending them to rostov where they did nothing but block the roads they would have captured an undefended stalingrad by the end of July, been able to turn over security to the 6th army and been able to carry their attacks farther south to interdict the glut of supplies being shipped across the caspian for lend lease; the pressure this would have brought would have allowed army group A to make much more substantial progress and likely capture the entire oil producing region

from mid 43 on, the soviets often outgeneraled the germans, but in the instance of case blue, the germans could not get out of their own way...as you often use the phrase but here reversed ~the russians won case blue because of german mistakes~
 
the manpower maintaining the siege was part of a military operation... they where dug in opposite the Red Army's Leningrad military district whom they proved unable to break through; just because AGN captures the city doesn't mean their field divisions are not needed at the front... one could assume that Stalin would try to free the city and make it a priority with assaults froming from the north and east which wouldn't permit hitler to take those divisions out of the war to go on murder sprees

One more time: to Hitler the entire USSR, civilian and military, was the front. Attacking, slaughtering, and raping civilians were all part of the standard part and parcel of German military operations. Refusal to face up to this side of things is one flaw in a lot of Axis victory/Axis stalemate scenarios, and it certainly applies here. To Hitler, he will tell his generals that this is a way to free up troops for later operations and if they object, well, he fires them just as he did IOTL.

the POW's didn't die in the army's hands; once the army took them, they where shipped off to camps run by the SS and SD... now was the army complicit and aware of exactly what was in store for those whom they took prisoner hell yes... but they didn't usually bloody their own hands with such things

The sentence in bold contradicts the sentence in red.

the commisar order called for the army to round up the people it specified for transfer to the einsatzgruppen for execution; the army did take it upon themselves to enforce the order to a degree on their own, but this was far from the norm nor where they doing mass city cleansing... you seem to be under the impression that I'm advocating for the heer as a clean institution and that is not the case, they rounded the people up to be executed, and they knew they would be executed; I'm merely pointing out who would do the actual shooting and gassing (which would be the einsatzgruppen)

No, Blair, it was the norm. There was nothing exceptional about it, and army generals were vying with each other to earn Hitler's approval by being more flamboyant about it than each other. By all means keep on denying the bald facts that the Wehrmacht was just as murderous as the SS, which indicates a profound unwillingness to read more modern sources. Even a book in the 1980s before the fall of the USSR noted a lot of these atrocities committed by regular Wehrmacht forces so it's not like this hasn't been known since before I was born.

Hitler ordered 2 general assaults on Warsaw in 1939; the first of which failed and following a massive weeks long bombardment, the second succeeded... he didn't rebuke Rommel for going into Cherbourg or Guderian for going into Calais or Bolounge or Rundstead from going into Odessa, Kiev or Rostov... his "aversion" to assaulting Leningrad was a cop out because AGN fucked up the campaign and they couldn't physically get to or capture the city by September, and he needed something to excuse the failure of his Nazi supermen whatever

Eh, no. Hitler ordered no general assaults on Warsaw, he ordered a siege and bombed and shelled the city to surrender. The Germans at this phase avoided city battles on the order of the Fuhrer, not the generals. You require for your whitewashing Hitler to have adopted a completely different tactic than what he in fact ordered in West and East up to Stalingrad. The Nazis simply were too smart to stick their dicks into the meatgrinder of an urban battle prior to that point.

there exist orders (quoted in Alan Clark's barbarossa) from Reichenau and others rebuking certain commanders from regiment on down for being too zealous in getting themselves involved in the commisar order directly (ie going on murder sprees) and ordering them to screen their would be victims more carefully and actually transfer them to the einsatzgruppen... the generals didn't mind wanton genocide as long as it didn't have to be done by their men or reduce the amount of field divisions they could put at the front

So when you said "it wasn't the norm" you didn't really mean it, then?

the soviets outgeneralling the germans the fall of 1941 is a dubious claim... are you familiar with the battles of bryansk and vyzama?

Are you familiar with the Battle of Yelnya? Or the Battle of Rostov in October? Or with the reality that before Zhukov's counteroffensive the Soviets were already rolling the Germans back north and south of Moscow, while the Germans had failed abysmally to use heavy artillery, air, and armor on armies of half-equipped infantrymen, cavalry, and paratroopers used as conventional infantry? Of course not, the almighty German army can't ever lose a battle, it was just overwhelmed by superior numbers. :rolleyes:

I'm happy to give the Soviets their due in the battles they handled well.... but in the instance of case blue, it failed because hitler fucked with Halder/Paulus drawn campaign.

Indeed. Soviet tactical/strategic actions had nothing whatsoever to do with their victories in the Caucasus and at Stalingrad. *nod-nod*

Kliest and Paulus destroyed Timoshenko's forces and everything in front of them right at the outset of the battle and had the 4th panzer army proceeded as originally planned instead of hitler mindlessly sending them to rostov where they did nothing but block the roads they would have captured an undefended stalingrad by the end of July, been able to turn over security to the 6th army and been able to carry their attacks farther south to interdict the glut of supplies being shipped across the caspian for lend lease; the pressure this would have brought would have allowed army group A to make much more substantial progress and likely capture the entire oil producing region

Maybe in the ATL where you get this history of Operation Blue from they did. In the real Case Blue of OTL the Germans found the Soviets were withdrawing effectively and failed to make any significant hauls of prisoners, while the Soviets won a defensive victory at Voronezh and were able to transform the seemingly inevitable fall of Stalingrad successfully into an attrition battle. I'm sure, though, that as in all Soviet victories it was really a Nazi defeat, that the Soviets won was due solely to superior numbers and Hitler's fuckups. :rolleyes:

from mid 43 on, the soviets often outgeneraled the germans, but in the instance of case blue, the germans could not get out of their own way...as you often use the phrase but here reversed ~the russians won case blue because of german mistakes~

I disagree on this. The Soviets captured Sixth Army due to German mistakes, they won Case Blue because the Germans tried over-ambitious goals on a logistical shoestring and were never able to pull it off, and when the Soviets cut the shoestring it all collapsed. The counter-side to my statement about winning battles by exploiting enemy mistakes is that the winner still has to identify the mistakes and exploit them properly, failure to do so is still going to be a defeat and the mistakes are just lost tactical opportunities for the losers in recounting the victories of the winners.
 
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