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So I'm getting into a book called Secrets of Stalingrad, and I'm still at the buildup, but he's something interesting.

Eberhard Kinzel, head of Foreign Armies East, suggested the Soviet Union had large amounts of reserves before Fall Blau, before being replaced with Reinhard Gehlen that spring of 1942. Gehlen and Franz Halder seemed to agree on the matter.

Stalin had authorized the futile invasion of the Kerch Peninsula in an effort to relieve Sevastopol. He later refused to put reserves into the Second Battle of Kharkov. He approved one relief operation but not another? But not going all in at Kharkov might've caused Gehlen's idea that the Soviets were weak to be substantiated, intentional or unintentional, it was a feint.

If the Soviets fought more intensely at Kharkov, then Kinzel's theories would've been substantiated, and Fall Blau would be in jeopardy. On the other hand, the Germans still needed the oil. They'd be between a rock and a hard place, I don't know what they'd do.

How do you guys think this would play out?
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