WI:Better invasion of Soviet Union

[Regnum Dei]

What if Hitler when invading Soviet Union, instead of supporting anti-Russian ethnic groups, used different approach by promise to restore Russian Empire and made army from white army exiles as spearhead of his invasion?
We know Hitler wanted his lebensraum but lets say he only wanted Bolshevims out and direct his lebensraum idea to colonies in Africa.

 

[DrakonFin]

I'd say that just generally promising everyone freedom from Bolshevik rule is the best tack, as the argument can be tailored for the wishes of all the relevant ethnic groups in Eastern Europe. Bringing back the Russian Empire might appeal to (some of) the Russians, but it would not fly well with Ukrainians, Poles, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, etc.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

The problem is that lebensraum in the East is absolutely inherent to the entire project of Nazism; asking what Hitler would be like if he was prepared to treat the Slavs as people is like asking what Lincoln would be like if he was prepared to extend slavery to the entire Union to avoid a war.
The question is meaningless.

You can absolutely sketch out a timeline where a German invasion of Russia doesn't devolve into genocide, but it would require a completely different regime- possibly a more traditional Prussian militarist one. But it won't have Hitler in it.

 

[DrakonFin]

The problem is that lebensraum in the East is absolutely inherent to the entire project of Nazism; asking what Hitler would be like if he was prepared to treat the Slavs as people is like asking what Lincoln would be like if he was prepared to extend slavery to the entire Union to avoid a war.
The question is meaningless.

You can absolutely sketch out a timeline where a German invasion of Russia doesn't devolve into genocide, but it would require a completely different regime- possibly a more traditional Prussian militarist one. But it won't have Hitler in it.

I understood from the OP that this thread is about what the Nazis would lie to the their Eastern European allies/auxiliaries about what would happen after the war, not what they would actually do. You can promise all kinds of things during the war, and then start betraying those promises as soon as the Soviet Union falls.

 

[bernardz]

What if Hitler when invading Soviet Union, instead of supporting anti-Russian ethnic groups, used different approach by promise to restore Russian Empire and made army from white army exiles as spearhead of his invasion?
We know Hitler wanted his lebensraum but lets say he only wanted Bolshevims out and direct his lebensraum idea to colonies in Africa.

Where does Hitler get equipment to arm these people and more importantly the food to feed these people?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan

 

[Crowbar Six]

I think the problem is that even if the NAZI's lie, after the Heer roll through and get through the usual casual casual destruction and theft that most soldiers engage in the political types coming in behind will find it almost impossible not to treat the locals as untermensch to some degree at which point the wheels come off. They just won't be able to stop themselves persecuting the usual suspects of Jews etc and there will be a lot of slosh over onto other groups, I just don't think the NAZI's would be able to change their spots.

 

[Regnum Dei]

Nazis could always army ROVS and other white army organisations in exile. Many would take Tsar over Stalin in those years.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Monarchism is absolutely dead in Russia by this point. Most of the White armies were fighting for a republic.

 

[alexmilman]

I'd say that just generally promising everyone freedom from Bolshevik rule is the best tack, as the argument can be tailored for the wishes of all the relevant ethnic groups in Eastern Europe. Bringing back the Russian Empire might appeal to (some of) the Russians, but it not fly very well with Ukrainians, Poles, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, etc.

He did promise "freedom from Bolshevik rule" and even implemented it on the occupied territories. However, he did not substitute it it with a meaningful attractive alternative and it was soon enough found that the German occupation is not better (things were somewhat different in the Baltic region).

 

[Deleted member 1487]

What if Hitler when invading Soviet Union, instead of supporting anti-Russian ethnic groups, used different approach by promise to restore Russian Empire and made army from white army exiles as spearhead of his invasion?
We know Hitler wanted his lebensraum but lets say he only wanted Bolshevims out and direct his lebensraum idea to colonies in Africa.

Well, they were getting older and weren't particularly large in number, that is those that were willing to work with the Nazis. The other problem was that restoration of the Czardom wasn't a popular move in Russia and all the minorities looking for liberation from Stalin would be even more loath to support an invasion bent on returning another Russian dictatorship to power.

A better move would be simply not unleashing a genocide in Russia with the Einsatzgruppen and not rounding up and executing lots of Ukrainian separatists that were working with the Germans as well as setting up colonial administration by Nazi gauleiter in the East, which really drove home the point that this wasn't a liberation, rather just another brutal dictatorship.

 

[DrakonFin]

He did promise "freedom from Bolshevik rule" and even implemented it on the occupied territories. However, he did not substitute it it with a meaningful attractive alternative and it was soon enough found that the German occupation is not better (things were somewhat different in the Baltic region).

Quite so. My argument was merely that promising to recreate the Russian Empire would rub many of the potential collaborator groups the wrong way, and even among the Russians would have just limited support. While the OTL policies could have been improved upon (a lot), I am not exatly confident that making restoration of the Tsar of All the Russias the overriding official goal would be the best way to gather support for the German invasion in Eastern Europe.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

The Germans lose faster as the invasion collapses under it’s own logistical weight by the time it reaches the D’niepr. As the Germans lack the transport assets to ship their foodstuffs forward in addition to all of their other demands, their descending upon the civilian populace like a plague of locust became a necessary substitute. Remove that, and the OTL German gains become impossible.

As for resistance, the Red Army will still fight as hard as it did and the savings in partisan resistance will be small compared to the losses in logistical reach.

Quite so. My argument was merely that promising to recreate the Russian Empire would rub many of the potential collaborator groups the wrong way, and even among the Russians would have just limited support. While the OTL policies could have been improved upon (a lot), I am not exatly confident that making restoration of the Tsar of All the Russias the overriding official goal would be the best way to gather support for the German invasion in Eastern Europe.

It doesn’t matter what the Germans promise the locals. It doesn’t change the fact that the Germans don’t have the logistics to prosecute the invasion and feed their army... unless they steal all the food from the local populace, a death sentence for those people and likely to result in all the same resistance.

 

[JamesBond88]

Using the people of the Soviet Union as allies is often discussed in alt-Barbarossa scenarios. I don't know that using them as a huge manpower pool is really their best use. Instead promising freedom from Bolshevism would, ideally for the Reich, result in elements of the Red Army dissolving. I think I read one time that Soviet units were purposely kept diverse in order to prevent this, but I could be totally wrong. In addition, such promises might result in sabotage by people still in Soviet territory who want to see a change in governance. Military factories might be damaged, or stuff like that. Maybe it's unrealistic, but I think it's probably what the German military would be looking for rather than a recruiting a bunch of disaffected minorities.

As for the promises being valid, I think the Germans could make selective promises. The Baltic states are fairly small, so promising them anything is largely pointless. But the Ukrainians, Caucasian people, and maybe the Belorussians, are all good targets for convincing, whether the promises of freedom are sincere or not. Oh, one other thing. If some of these groups are friendly to the Germans it might reduce the amount of garrisoning the Germans have to do, which might help in some way.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Using the people of the Soviet Union as allies is often discussed in alt-Barbarossa scenarios. I don't know that using them as a huge manpower pool is really their best use. Instead promising freedom from Bolshevism would, ideally for the Reich, result in elements of the Red Army dissolving. I think I read one time that Soviet units were purposely kept diverse in order to prevent this, but I could be totally wrong. In addition, such promises might result in sabotage by people still in Soviet territory who want to see a change in governance. Military factories might be damaged, or stuff like that. Maybe it's unrealistic, but I think it's probably what the German military would be looking for rather than a recruiting a bunch of disaffected minorities.

During the Winter War, there were a plethora of tactical situations that occurred in which one would expect large numbers of prisoners, capture for Soviet soldiers meant warm shelter and hot food, there was little fear of being murdered or mistreated by the Finns if they gave up, and liberal and modern Finland was supposed to look very inviting indeed if a soldier were disaffected by the Stalinist state’s social policies. In spite of all of this, only 5,486 of the Soviets 534,083 casualties were the results of surrenders to the enemy. That's only 5% of casualties and 0.6% the number who fought

Looking at a related situation, the Polish government suffered a slow slide into authoritarianism from 1930 onward, including rigging elections and imprisoning or exiling its domestic political opposition. There was even a mass strike by millions of peasants in 1937 which the government put down by violently oppressing the peasants. This solved nothing and the unrest was still bubbling in the lead up to WWII. And yet those same peasants put aside their disagreements with the government and formed a united front against the Germans in 1939. For some reason, no one pretends for a moment that if the Germans had posed themselves as liberators to those peasants from the oppressive Polish government, they would have rallied to the German cause.

And frankly, we see much the same in the parts of the Soviet Union that had not been annexed in the past few years: the reaction to the German invasion was one of patriotic outpouring of support for the Soviet government and hatred of the invader. Because that's what people usually do when dealing with a unprovoked invasion by an outsider. Even if it means they're now fighting for a government that they were previously decrying as a bunch of tyrants.

Soviet resistance and popular mobilization had little to do with what the invader promised. It had everything to do with the all-encompassing influence of the nation and the overwhelming power of the state to convince and coerce. The Soviet Union had that influence and power in spades.

 

[Max Sinister]

Also, they had to fear that Stalin would murder their families if they changed sides. As long as there are witnesses...

 

[Gudestein]

During the Winter War, there were a plethora of tactical situations that occurred in which one would expect large numbers of prisoners, capture for Soviet soldiers meant warm shelter and hot food, there was little fear of being murdered or mistreated by the Finns if they gave up, and liberal and modern Finland was supposed to look very inviting indeed if a soldier were disaffected by the Stalinist state’s social policies. In spite of all of this, only 5,486 of the Soviets 534,083 casualties were the results of surrenders to the enemy. That's only 5% of casualties and 0.6% the number who fought

Looking at a related situation, the Polish government suffered a slow slide into authoritarianism from 1930 onward, including rigging elections and imprisoning or exiling its domestic political opposition. There was even a mass strike by millions of peasants in 1937 which the government put down by violently oppressing the peasants. This solved nothing and the unrest was still bubbling in the lead up to WWII. And yet those same peasants put aside their disagreements with the government and formed a united front against the Germans in 1939. For some reason, no one pretends for a moment that if the Germans had posed themselves as liberators to those peasants from the oppressive Polish government, they would have rallied to the German cause.

And frankly, we see much the same in the parts of the Soviet Union that had not been annexed in the past few years: the reaction to the German invasion was one of patriotic outpouring of support for the Soviet government and hatred of the invader. Because that's what people usually do when dealing with a unprovoked invasion by an outsider. Even if it means they're now fighting for a government that they were previously decrying as a bunch of tyrants.

Soviet resistance and popular mobilization had little to do with what the invader promised. It had everything to do with the encompassing influence of the nation and the overwhelming power of the state to convince and coerce. The Soviet Union had that influence and power in spades.

I think you are very right with regards to Russia. The rest? Makes less sense, at least if the SU appears to be losing.

 

[CalBear]

Also, they had to fear that Stalin would murder their families if they changed sides. As long as there are witnesses...

The troops who had family already behind Heer lines would be somewhat less likely to worry. Doesn't really matter, considering the vast prisoner hauls that happened IOTL thanks to Stalin's "no retreat" order and its enthusiastic enforcement by the NKVD

 

[thaddeus]

it was proposed to enlist Turkic peoples (?) and immediately the suggestion made to create Armenian Legion, Georgian Legion, etc. to offset the threat of Pan-Turkism (from the hypothetical forces!)

just an insight into their thinking

 

[Sam R.]

What are the Heer going to do with PoWs this time?

It isn’t just the “political” units with independent racial policies.

 

[FillyofDelphi]

Also, they had to fear that Stalin would murder their families if they changed sides. As long as there are witnesses...

Far bigger problem is when the war is over. POW is a temporary state especially for large units, and if your force surrenders the Soviet government will know and conveniently has you right in it's grip during the repatriation process. Unless Finland definitively won to the point they could get non-repatriation in the peace treaty and was motivated to do so, you're doomed to a much longer, miserable torment to death.