Who predicted Soviet victory over Nazi Germany before Moscow & Stalingrad?

Fenestella

Banned
In the wake of the German onslaught, who predicted on record a Soviet victory over Nazi Germany before the Battle of Moscow? How far could the Red Army reach according to the prediction? East Prussia? Berlin?

Who predicted on record a Soviet victory over Nazi Germany before the Battle of Stalingrad ? How far could the Red Army reach according to the prediction?
 

Deleted member 97083

Stalin in a radio broadcast on July 3, 1941. Propagandized, but nonetheless a prediction of Soviet victory.

"...How could it have happened that our glorious Red Army surrendered a number of our cities and districts to the fascist armies? Is it really true that the German-fascist troops are invincible, as the braggart fascist propagandists are ceaselessly blaring forth?

Of course not! History shows that there are no invincible armies and never have been. Napoleon’s army was considered invincible, but it was beaten successively by the armies of Russia, England and Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm’s German army in the period of the First Imperialist War was also considered invincible, but it was beaten several times by Russian and Anglo-French troops, and was finally smashed by the Anglo-French forces. The same must be said of Hitler’s German-fascist army of to-day. This army had not yet met with serious resistance on the continent of Europe. Only on our territory has it met with serious resistance. And if as a result of this resistance the finest divisions of Hitler’s German-fascist army have been defeated by our Red Army, this means that it too can be smashed and will be smashed, as were the armies of Napoleon and Wilhelm..."
 
In the wake of the German onslaught, who predicted on record a Soviet victory over Nazi Germany before the Battle of Moscow? How far could the Red Army reach according to the prediction? East Prussia? Berlin?

Who predicted on record a Soviet victory over Nazi Germany before the Battle of Stalingrad ? How far could the Red Army reach according to the prediction?

Roosevelt said:
In spite of any setbacks Russia will hold out, and with the help of her allies will ultimately drive every Nazi from her soil.
(September 7, 1942)
 
After the first phase of Typhoon bogged down, Gunther Von Kluge established tentative contact with the anti-Hitler groups in the Wehrmacht, asking what sort of peace might be achieved if Hitler were to be removed. This led him to be derided as "Clever Hans" because whilst he now saw Soviet victory as a realistic outcome he wasn't quite convinced and was thus playing both sides.
 
Mannerheim, the leader of Finnish military forces, more or less came to this conclusion by fall 1941 after the German advance against the USSR became clearly slower than originally planned. Other members of Finnish leadership were much slower in picking this up.
 
Pál Teleki, one of the prime ministers of Horthy-era Hungary, who had studied geography and politics before serving two stints as Horthy's prime minister, predicted the Germans would lose the war even before the start of Barbarossa. As a consequence, he did everything he could do during his second term to persuade Horthy not to join the war, and also urged caution during the downfall of Yugoslavia - he insisted that Hungary should not break the "treaty of eternal friendship" with Yugoslavia, at least until Yugoslavia is formally dissolved. He eventually committed suicide after Horthy promised to heed this advice but went back on his word and aided the German takeover of Yugoslavia anyway.

(Teleki was an interesting figure. Among others, his government introduced one of the first 'Jewish laws' of 20th century Europe, the 1920 Numerus Clausus law that restricted Jewish students' percentage rates in universities. He also helped settle the Mosul Question, the border dispute between Turkey and Iraq, in the mid-1920s.)
 
Mannerheim, the leader of Finnish military forces, more or less came to this conclusion by fall 1941 after the German advance against the USSR became clearly slower than originally planned. Other members of Finnish leadership were much slower in picking this up.

As it happens, I am just reading the memoirs of a former long-time Eduskunta official who says that many if not most members of the Finnish parliament were quite oblivious about the progress of the war. When Colonel Aladar Paasonen, briefing them about the war on behalf of the military leadership, in early 1944 started presenting them with suggestions about the need to make a peace with the Soviets, a number of them stormed out of the room in protest. Then of course we need to remember that the Eduskunta was pretty much kept out of the loop by the government's "inner ring" and its members had surprisingly limited means to stay well-informed.

Oh, and one Finnish politician (and government minister) who predicted Germany's defeat already in the fall of 1941 was K-A. Fagerholm. He was also a vocal, long-time critic of Hitler and Nazism anyway.
 
Last edited:
The young Isaac Asimov. Not in print as far as I know but he was old enough to debate the question with his father and wrote it all down later in his autobiography In Memory Yet Green. Of course it has been something like a generation since I read this, and I may be misremembering. But he was confident, or at least hopeful, that the sheer size of the USSR would make Hitler's dream impossible as long as they chose to keep fighting. He was mainly just being a fanboy, but surely he looked at the map, looked up some statistics, and these reinforced his hopes.

Of course he doesn't count here because no one but his family was listening to him and his father was much more pessimistic.

It may not be known to everyone that the Asimovs came from a village in Belarus, and emigrated after Isaac was born, in the early '20s. Thus the father was someone who had grown up a Jew in Tsarist Russia, witnessed the debacle of Tsarist defeat, and may have had a more wry view of the worth of any Russian based society than his son who had perhaps an over-romanticized view of the Soviet Union's potentials. At least they never had to suffer the severity of Stalinist times, worse yet what the Germans did to the region they probably would have stayed in had they not emigrated. Isaac Asimov expressed a pretty glum estimate of the chances of his family's survival had they not gone to America.
=======
Edit--by 1941, Isaac would have been high school at least, and possibly already taking college level classes before being admitted to Columbia--he was also a published writer, and I believe even before being published hung out with groups such as "the Futurians," who included others of a pretty left wing bent, such as Fredrick Pohl. I wonder what discussions of the Soviet Union's prospects for survival were among the Futurians in general--they included young lefty street kids like Asimov and Pohl, but also much older figures of less ethnic background; it would be interesting to know what people L Sprauge DeCamp and Robert Heinlein (who was in NYC after the war started, working in a Naval lab IIRC) thought about it.

Also there are two relevant eras--before the USA joined, when despite significant resources diverted to the USSR by Britain, the Soviets were clearly going to have to win mostly on their own efforts, and after Pearl Harbor at which point all restraints on US Lend Lease aid were torn off.

All but practical ones. It is my understanding that despite Roosevelt making aid to the Soviets a very high priority, at some cost to the early US efforts, and against considerable domestic opposition, it wasn't possible for aid to flow in really massive amounts at first; the level of aid rose roughly linearly until shortly before V-E day when it was suddenly slashed back. Thus, the clear turning points such as Stalingrad were achieved before the large majority of such shipments had arrived, and the Russians did in fact largely stop Hitler entirely on their own only moderately aided power. This is why I have some confidence that even if they fought completely alone with no allies, and no other war fronts distracting Hitler, they still had a good chance of stopping the Germans and then after that point they would gain the upper hand slowly and arm wrestle them back.

But I am less dogmatic about that certainty than I used to be, and anyway it is all hindsight.

Even Churchill probably deserves some credit for betting on the hunch that the Russians would prevail despite the sober negative opinions of his staff.

Anyway note that FDR's speech is after the USA enters and the Russians have at least the moral support of knowing that they have some help on a scale that might save them even if their own efforts alone would not. Others who predicted it before the USA was drawn in should get extra credit, even if they lose points for hedging with it being a mere hope, not a certainty. (Or fear, in the case of the German generals).
 
Last edited:
There’s a line Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad about how after the initial German breakthroughs at the start of Barbarossa, Stalin was so desperate he summoned the Bulgarian ambassador and asked if his country would act as a mediator with Hitler. The ambassador refused saying “Even if you retreat to the Urals, you’ll still win!”
 
There’s a line Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad about how after the initial German breakthroughs at the start of Barbarossa, Stalin was so desperate he summoned the Bulgarian ambassador and asked if his country would act as a mediator with Hitler. The ambassador refused saying “Even if you retreat to the Urals, you’ll still win!”
There are some doubts about the authenticity of this event or if the whole thing wasn't some kind of ruse (using Bulgaria, a German ally as an intermediate, is a good indication for this theory, as is the fact that no attempt was made to make contact through another embassy).

As for the ambassador's refusal, in diplomacy it's common to accompany unpleasant actions with flattery to make them seem more appealing. So the ambassador might have just been trying to soften the Bulgarian refusal by effectively saying: "We are not going to mediate but this is because you won't need our mediation anyway!"
 
There are some doubts about the authenticity of this event or if the whole thing wasn't some kind of ruse (using Bulgaria, a German ally as an intermediate, is a good indication for this theory,

I agree with your other remarks, but as to this, I'm not convinced the reasoning works. Bulgaria was a reluctant German ally, most pointedly declared war on Britain and the USA but not on the USSR (note, in fact, that there was a Bulgarian ambassador in Moscow to summon, and this never changed throughout the war), and had a long tradition of friendly relationships with Russia. IMHO it would make for a credible go-between, should the USSR ever try to set up talks.
 
Top