are still outnumbered by a qualitatively superior army.
The WAllies weren't even outnumbered OTL. How are they going to be outnumbered after another two years of ramped up armaments production and cadre formation while Germany's armament program crashes from a lack of raw materials?
In the event of a default the Germans could have still nationalized various war industries and embarked on a policy of total war esque mobilization.
Which does nothing to prevent implosion as their vital sources of raw materials dry up with the default. The Germans pre-Fall of France were hostage to imports from foreign entities, while the Anglo-French could make do by importing from their overseas empires.
I think his point would be that during a 3-4 year gap of 'peacetime' any lessons or pruning of Soviet military leadership are not likely to happen. Their recovery might still come in a 1943 shooting war, as IOTL, but that early period of bad leadership, encirclements, lack of combined arms, lack of any armor coordination tactics, would still exist. One could argue that the Soviet economy might put a lot more tanks on the battlefield for the Germans to encounter, but one could point out that those only fall into the hands of the Germans.
Except it was already happening. The purges were already winding down by 1939 (while arrests and executions continued in the latter part of '41, the trend was distinctly downward) and officers were already starting to be rehabilitated, on top of all of those being trained. By 1943 new Soviet officer corps would very much have gotten a handle on the worst of their problems. On average, most Soviet officers junior and mid-level officers in 1941 needed an additional two years for their given positions before they could be regarded as adequately experienced. By ITTL 1943, they'll have those two years. Additionally, many of the enlisted personnel by '43 would be from those generations born after the Russian Civil War who would enjoy the benefits of the greatly improved educational standards. The effect was felt even OTL and with the training regime more intact, ya know without a massive invasion to ruin it, it would be even more massive. Many of the encirclements simply won't happen and of those which do they would be smaller, take longer, and see the Germans take grossly heavier losses. The improved logistical situation would likewise mean many of those tanks, which would be of modern models superior to their German counterparts, would actually see combat and do damage to the Germans rather then simply being captured for lack of fuel or spare parts. On the whole, the the Red Army would very much be in a position to halt the Germans
far short of the D'niepr river line, which would totally negate the worst military and industrial losses and make the Soviet mobilization that much more massive.
Hitler got the keys to the Reich Bank when he sacked Schacht and everything from that point on was run on government credit notes that were backed up by the bank. The debit from these credit notes were recycled and covered by more note upon maturing and the whole fiasco would continue for as long as Hitler wanted it. I gather Hitler made it clear he had no intention of paying this debit when the war ended. He would spread as much of this debit around the occupied territories and abolish the rest.
Which results in economic implosion as the foreign countries to which this debt are beholden are under no obligation to adhere to German delusions and without the German victories of 1939-1940, there is no occupied territory with which to offset it by looting or spread around that debt. If Hitler simply tries to "abolish" the debt without any of that, then imports of raw materials cease and German rearmament collapses.
As far as Soviets recovering so quickly after losing so many millions, I would suggest the very act of losing the millions would be sufficient motivation enough. However with Stalin I would suggest when the population got a measure of how much worse things might be under the Gestapo, the decided....'better the devil you know'.
Had the Soviet Union been such a rotten mess that it couldn't recover in peacetime, then it
certainly wouldn't have been able to recover after taking such a massive blow. On the whole, the German invasion probably set back Soviet military development by six months. And the Soviets enjoyed widespread popular support among all of it's pre-1939 pretty much even before the war began, only in the recently annexed border regions were anti-Soviet sentiments manifested on a widespread scale.
I should also bloody well hope these "tropes" had better continue because they are "schools of thought" and that is critical part of the study of history over time.
The "France as just waiting to surrender" trope has never been a part of historical schools of thought even in 1946, when WW2 was barely even considered part of history.
I should also bloody well hope these "tropes" had better continue because they are "schools of thought" and that is critical part of the study of history over time.
NONE OF YOU WERE THERE AT THAT TIME , SO YOU KNOW NOTHING OTHER THAN WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO READ IN WHAT EVER BOOK YOU CHOOSE TO READ .
The very act of choosing this book or that book betrays a bias. Any one who thinks they don't have bias is fooling themselves.
"I don't like what modern history has to say about the Third Reich's situation in the late-30's/early-40's and what it means so I'm going to say it has a bias" is not a argument that is going to be taken seriously around here. The fact that none of us were there at that time, in addition to being a stupid argument (I mean, like you were?) is also a considerable advantage as it gifts us with a wider view of what was happening then was available at the time. Hindsight is twenty-twenty for a reason. Then again, what more can be expected from someone who posts evidence that contradicts his own assertions? I mean, look here at this post:
PSL said:
You claim that the Soviet Union won't be prepared because it was running away from war like everyone else only for us to click on the link and see the following:
"Soviet thinking was also based on the idea of total war and Soviet society was bombarded with patriotic and militaristic propaganda to prepare the population for mass mobilization. The heavy industry at the core of the Five-Year Plans of the 1930s was designed to be converted to a war-footing in the event of a sudden attack. Stalin played a key part in driving along the pace of Soviet rearmament. He did not seek war but he could see the deteriorating climate in the 1930s that the only communist state in the world needed to be able to defend itself effectively."
Indeed, it says the same thing about Britain and France: that while by 1939 they were (still) not seeking war, they were actively preparing for it.