No Axis diversions in early 1941

Towelie

Banned
It has been stated that the invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia in 1941 were meant to clear any threats to the Axis assault on the Soviet Union. However, Germany could still invade over the whole front without those two countries being taken, and Bulgaria and Romania, as well as Hungary, were still in their orbit.

A British aligned Yugoslavia (which is what would have happened if the Germans did not invade to put their guys back in charge) does not mean that the Yugoslav Army would be marching on Vienna or fucking with the Italians. The Germans had a conception of long term vs short term goals, as seen from their decision not to attack Switzerland who they saw as being part of the German Reich naturally. The Yugoslavs were not going to declare war on Germany or its allies.

If Germany went ahead with the attack in May of 1941 or even April, would it have gone better for them? I know that weather was a concern, and that muddy roads would hurt them, but if the Germans are able to get to Smolensk with an open path east in July of 1941 rather than September, they might have been able to take Moscow. Perhaps even Leningrad could have fallen had they convinced the Finns to help out a bit more.

I simply don't see the urgency regarding neutralizing Yugoslavia. Greece was a hard front for the Italians, but in the greater struggle against Judeo-Bolshevism, and considering Germany was already helping against Britain in Libya, I don't think Italy was in much position to protest for not helping.
 
A British aligned Yugoslavia (which is what would have happened if the Germans did not invade to put their guys back in charge) does not mean that the Yugoslav Army would be marching on Vienna or fucking with the Italians.

It does mean that the British do have the capacity to fuck with the Italians and launch air raids on Germany's only major oil source, which obviously the Germans would like to avoid.

If Germany went ahead with the attack in May of 1941 or even April, would it have gone better for them? I know that weather was a concern, and that muddy roads would hurt them

This is what the mud in the Spring Raputitsa tends to look like:

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Note, that is a Russia tank. It is designed and built specifically for traversing Russian terrain. Yet it is bogging down nearly up to it's turret in the Russian spring raputitsa.

One of the consistent things about the Eastern Front is how when the Spring Raputitsa rolled around, operations were always killed stone dead. Unlike with the fall Raputitsa, it didn't matter what the respective sides strengths were when it happened... when the snows melted and the rains started, the front stalled. Every time. If the Germans attack in the spring of 1941, they throw away the element of the surprise... full stop.

but if the Germans are able to get to Smolensk with an open path east in July of 1941 rather than September, they might have been able to take Moscow. Perhaps even Leningrad could have fallen had they convinced the Finns to help out a bit more.

Barbarossa was more successful than the Germans had any right to expect, given that their original estimates were predicated on a vast underestimation of Soviet capabilities. Given the already amazing scale and scope of German battlefield success during Barbarossa, alternate scenarios where Germany takes Moscow in 1941 or does even more damage to the Red Army aren't particularly realistic and often enter the realm of fantasy. A German victory over the Soviet Union was certainly possible, but it would be best to achieve it by setting more realistic goals rather than more extreme ones. This is a trap that many strategic amateurs (not to mention the Germans themselves) frequently fall into: trying to play out 'better' plans to end the war in a stroke rather then acknowledge that the vast distances of Russia and the logistical limitations of the Wehrmacht meant that in reality fighting the Soviets was always going to be a multi-year campaign.

Those aforementioned logistical limitations in particular mean that taking Moscow in a single year is firmly on the side of fantasy and any attempt for it post-Kiev was always going to aim more-or-less the same way it did OTL. Taking Leningrad would have been feasible if not for Germany's lazy strategic planning with their cursory staff work, intelligence that was basically a mass of unfounded assumption, and a final plan that was a cobbled mess with no clear goals.
 
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