WI: Rommel vs. Zhukov, who would win?

Kongzilla

Banned
Yes, the same Ukrainian people who made their way through the German lines to join the units being formed in the east and ended up joining the partisans in the tens of thousands. Those ones.

I think I read somewhere like 90 percent of the people enlisted to become Partisans stayed home in the beggining. You are both talking about different periods in the war. When the Germans just invaded people cheered them on, 6 months later however Partisan units of civilians started forming. But even by the end of the War there were Some Soviet people willing to turn. Just look at the ROA.
 
The question is how much power is Rommel given here to dictate strategy? Rommel's overall strategy for the Soviet Union given his nature would be to knock the Red Army back as far as he can as quickly as he can in 1941 (at least grab Leningrad) while meeting with leaders and ordinary people across Eastern Europe attempting to mobilize the oppressed peoples of Europe angry at Stalin onto the side of his forces in the war. He would also try to sell it to the Russian people as this isn't an existential war for your survival and that things will be good for you with Stalin gone.

What evidence is there that he would do any of those things?

Anyway, people often forget that many of the German allies were from Galicia and the Baltic, territories which had just been occupied by the USSR.
 
I think I read somewhere like 90 percent of the people enlisted to become Partisans stayed home in the beggining. You are both talking about different periods in the war. When the Germans just invaded people cheered them on, 6 months later however Partisan units of civilians started forming. But even by the end of the War there were Some Soviet people willing to turn. Just look at the ROA.

No, I am talking about the early AND the late periods of the war (which is why I used two examples), just to illustrate that the sweeping generalisations that were offered earlier are not really indicative of anything.

In any case, with very few exceptions most collaborators were completely unreliable and probably motivated by the fact that enrolling in the hiwis would take them out of German POW camps for Soviets (which in practice differed very minimally from outright extermination camps).

And to put things in perspective: somewhat under 100,000 joined the fight on the German side, another 100,000 went to the woods to fight everyone.

And over 4 MILLION fought in the Red Army.
 
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Rommel's overall strategy for the Soviet Union given his nature would be to knock the Red Army back as far as he can as quickly as he can in 1941 (at least grab Leningrad) while meeting with leaders and ordinary people across Eastern Europe attempting to mobilize the oppressed peoples of Europe angry at Stalin onto the side of his forces in the war. He would also try to sell it to the Russian people as this isn't an existential war for your survival and that things will be good for you with Stalin gone.

The problem with this is that the whole scheme for Barbarossa involved seizing the harvest from the Soviets to feed the Wehrmacht and Western Europe, allowing people in the cities to starve en masse to deindustrialize Russia and gain agricultural self-sufficiency for the Nazi empire. To win over the Russian people, you need an army that doesn't feed itself by "la maraude" meaning you need to set up better supply schemes, etc., well before the invasion starts.
 
I think I read somewhere like 90 percent of the people enlisted to become Partisans stayed home in the beggining. You are both talking about different periods in the war. When the Germans just invaded people cheered them on, 6 months later however Partisan units of civilians started forming. But even by the end of the War there were Some Soviet people willing to turn. Just look at the ROA.

This was a heavily exaggerated phenomenon; while there was certainly some popular support, it mainly manifested from groups who were already anti-Soviet, mainly nationalists. Ironically, as soon as it became clear (Within weeks) that Nazi Germany had no plans to establish independent states in the Baltics or Ukraine, those same nationalist groups formed the nucleus of armed resistance, along with Soviet forces trapped behind German lines. People mainly joined the Russian Liberation Army as an alternative to starvation.

The problem with this is that the whole scheme for Barbarossa involved seizing the harvest from the Soviets to feed the Wehrmacht and Western Europe, allowing people in the cities to starve en masse to deindustrialize Russia and gain agricultural self-sufficiency for the Nazi empire. To win over the Russian people, you need an army that doesn't feed itself by "la maraude" meaning you need to set up better supply schemes, etc., well before the invasion starts.

And even then Nazi Germany simply didn't have the capacity to supply it's army with food. There was only a limited amount of track they could use, and providing more food sacrifices the transport of ammunition and fuel at a vital moment in the war.
 
The problem with this is that the whole scheme for Barbarossa involved seizing the harvest from the Soviets to feed the Wehrmacht and Western Europe, allowing people in the cities to starve en masse to deindustrialize Russia and gain agricultural self-sufficiency for the Nazi empire. To win over the Russian people, you need an army that doesn't feed itself by "la maraude" meaning you need to set up better supply schemes, etc., well before the invasion starts.

It depends on the war aims for Germany under these conditions. If we are talking about going for a Brest-Litovsk 2.0 or are we talking about sometime quite extreme like annexing everything to the Urals.
 
It depends on the war aims for Germany under these conditions. If we are talking about going for a Brest-Litovsk 2.0 or are we talking about sometime quite extreme like annexing everything to the Urals.

Brest-Litovsk 2.0 is ASB. The Soviet wont sign any treaty with Nazi Germany after Barbarossa. As Hitler had a track-record of using them as toilet paper.

The war was on to the death. Germany annexing everything to the Urals ASB. The Wehrmacht ruined itself getting to Leningrad & Moscow, they were screwed from day one. Germany's early succses shouldnt blind people to that fact.
 
Brest-Litovsk 2.0 is ASB. The Soviet wont sign any treaty with Nazi Germany after Barbarossa. As Hitler had a track-record of using them as toilet paper.

The war was on to the death. Germany annexing everything to the Urals ASB. The Wehrmacht ruined itself getting to Leningrad & Moscow, they were screwed from day one. Germany's early succses shouldnt blind people to that fact.

That fact is highly disputable. Barbarossa was a close-run thing, or at least so claim such a classic author as Alan Clarke. I agree that the Germans were really just not strong enough in any number areas that mattered - logistics, production capacity, transport capacity etc, but nonetheless they came very, very close to breaking the USSR. Only slight changes are necessary for a capture of Leningrad and Moscow before the onset of winter. While this would not have ended the war, the damage to the USSR, especially from the fall of Moscow, would be monumental.

Under such circumstances I do not find a Brest-Litovsk 2.0 at all implausible (although I'd agree it's not the most likely outcome). Already in the summer of 1941 Stalin contemplated something like BLII. At that time, Hitler would never have accepted, but if offered after a costly winter campaign with no real end in sight to the war in the east, while the USA had just entered the war, who knows if Hitler had not changed his mind?
 
Under such circumstances I do not find a Brest-Litovsk 2.0 at all implausible (although I'd agree it's not the most likely outcome). Already in the summer of 1941 Stalin contemplated something like BLII. At that time, Hitler would never have accepted, but if offered after a costly winter campaign with no real end in sight to the war in the east, while the USA had just entered the war, who knows if Hitler had not changed his mind?

This is a myth, Stalin never seriously considered a peace; his overtures, passed to Romania but never passed onwards to the German embassy, were entirely delaying measures.
 
A speculative thread here, say Rommel commanded Operation Barbarossa; how would he stack up against Zhukov in battle?


Well Zhukov looks like he can throw a good punch but Rommel seems like the kind of guy who's good a dodging until he can get in a few good jabs.
 
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