WI: Stalin Strikes Germany First in WWII

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

Hitler didn't trust the USSR and invaded it to get rid of a potential enemy. What if Stalin decided to invade the Nazi Empire to get it off his list of worries? How would that go out?

POD needs to be after the invasion of Poland and before Operation Barbarossa.

 

[Imladrik]

Hitler didn't trust the USSR and invaded it to get rid of a potential enemy.

No. hitler attacked the USSR because it was completely opposed to it ideologically and the same ideology told him to exterminate all slave. The USSR was always THE enemy for Hitler. Even a fascist Russia would have been attacked.

What if Stalin decided to invade the Nazi Empire to get it off his list of worries? How would that go out?

Not going to happen until at least 43-44 when Stalin knows that his army is more efficient. and even then, i'm pretty sure that he wouldn't unless the American are involved in the war.

 

[Tom Colton]

You need to make their economic agreements less favorable to the Soviets, as the USSR could continue supplying raw materials but Germany was getting increasingly tardy with its contributions towards the end.

 

[Kevin C. Smith]

It depends on what else is happening at the time. A lot happened in Europe between Poland/Barbarossa. During/immediately before the Battle of France, the Germans are going to have to put together a real defense (not just a show of force) out of garrison troops, in a recently captured territory where they have had little time to develop any extensive fortifications. This will not go well. If Germany is pushing through the Balkans and across North Africa as OTL, that, too, ties up a lot of German resources-but at least not on the opposite side of Europe. Still, they will have to shift from the offensive in Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, etc. to a new axis of attack-with freshly threatened (and pissed off) countries watching the bulk of the German troops leave before everyone is "pacified". This will probably go even worse.

Of course, if the OKH was already reading this thread https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=351420
they wouldn't be able to form a coherent sentence, let alone a defense, and I'd put the Soviets in Paris in time for an Allied Victory Parade in no more than four weeks...zero casualties.

 

[stafford1069]

Material help

Hitler didn't trust the USSR and invaded it to get rid of a potential enemy. What if Stalin decided to invade the Nazi Empire to get it off his list of worries? How would that go out?

POD needs to be after the invasion of Poland and before Operation Barbarossa.

You could use: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?: Amazon ...
www.amazon.co.uk › ... › History › Europe › Germany
Amazon.com, Inc.

It is by Viktor Suvorov (ex-GRU), still has an Article-55 on his head, you get to play with 22,000 tanks, circa 3,000 - 8,000, combat aircraft, 1,000,000 paras and tons and tons of NKVD Joy Divisions These are all batting for Red not Black.

 

[Nocrazy]

Well, if this did play out, Stalin would be marching into a bloodbath. While Russia, and the Soviet Union, has often had a massive military, a small problem is that it wasn't very well trained in WW2. You would literally just see Soviets find grunts, give them a gun, and point them at the Germans. The Soviets in WW2 weren't even that supportive of Stalin. However, when Hitler issued his infamous Commissar Order, once the Soviets found out, every single Soviet formation stopped running, and started fighting, no matter what. Soviet Nationalism united them. We aren't gonna see that if Stalin strikes first.

 

[MattII]

Wasn't Stalin planning to attack some time in 1942? Or was it 1943?

 

[Redbeard]

Seen from Hitler the attack on USSR was utilizing an apparently favorable moment for achieving the ultimate goal of Lebensraum in the east. Judging from the purges and the war against Finland he actually thought the USSR was on the brink of collapse and it was just a matter of kicking in the door. And not at least he thought the Blitzkrieg doctrine which had evolved during the campaign in France was an invincible instrument with which you could conquer the world.

That however doesn’t exclude USSR actually being a threat to Germany and that USSR would have attacked Germany first if Germany didn’t. From David Glanz’s very comprehensive and well researched work (Stumbling Colossus) it appears clear that Stalin had no plans for an attack in 1941. Zhukov suggested a preemptive attack on Germany but this was refused and Glanz is not in doubt that the Red Army wasn’t ready at all for major offensive action in 1941, not really ready for any major action.

The Red Army by 1941 was in a huge transition program. After the German success in France a number of armored corps had been erected and not only tanks but also most of the motor vehicles had been concentrated here or were underway. This meant that most of the artillery in the infantry Divisions couldn’t be moved and thousands of guns were captured.

On top of this a huge expansion program was underway (500 Div. by mid-1942!) and units already suffering from the purges had to transfer officers for cadres of new units. If it would have been possible to have 500 Div. ready my mid-1942 is difficult to say, but the expansion program came in handy when the Red army had to be rebuilt almost from scratch after the defeats of 1941, and worked very effectively.

Next the question comes if Stalin would have attacked if he had 500 Divisions backed by tens of thousands tanks and planes. We will never know but my trust in the peace loving parts of Stalin’s mind can be confined to a very small spot. And then, if he had attacked, what would he have achieved?

Against an intact Wehrmacht not engaged in a major action elsewhere (Balkans, N.Africa are far from major actions) I doubt he could be ultimately successful. He would lose too many troops and ultimately legitimacy before he can break the enemy (no Great Fatherland’s War mythos). The biggest concern could be that without Barbarossa the Wallies and Stalin might agree on a grand plan having the Wallies invade France in 1942 while Stalin attacks from the east. The invasion will be Dieppe added with Kasserine Pass and multiplied by a factor 10+. Stalins attack might reach the Oder but likely not more. I fear this will end up consolidating German control over the European continent.

After all Barbarossa perhaps was good for something…

 

[merlin]

Yet the Soviet dispositions prior to the German attack weren't defensive. There were just too many near the border.
I agree that 1942 would have been the best time for a Soviet attack, but maybe they couldn't wait that long - and there was a 'race' i.e. there were almost under 'starter's orders'. It's just that the Germans - went for a 'false start'!

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Wasn't Stalin planning to attack some time in 1942? Or was it 1943?

AFAIK there were no formal plans to attack; Zhukov proposed a general attack plan in May 1941, but it was rejected and no planning beyond a few sketches was done. Stalin talked about the inevitability of war and thought they would be able to defend in 1942 and maybe attack in 1943-44; given all the obstacles that the Soviets had to overcome internally if they wanted to be sure of victory they'd wait until 1945 to ensure overwhelming force, but even then it would be a hard fight and Stalin was skittish of starting a war that might unite Europe against him.

Yet the Soviet dispositions prior to the German attack weren't defensive. There were just too many near the border.
I agree that 1942 would have been the best time for a Soviet attack, but maybe they couldn't wait that long - and there was a 'race' i.e. there were almost under 'starter's orders'. It's just that the Germans - went for a 'false start'!

How do you figure? The Soviet military would only be ready for a defensive battle and would not do all that well on the attack, even with proper mobilization (unlike 1941) and their masses of numbers because of the lack of experience of the men and officers, plus of course the numbers of Axis forces that would be deployed against them. The lack of experience/training is crippling for offensive action in 1942 because organizing/coordinating for an attack on the scale necessary requires a lot of work to make work, which is hard enough when the world's best military isn't shooting at you. The Soviets lacked the training/experience for such a large scale attack as would be necessary and 1943 would be the earliest conceivable moment that they would have trained enough to be able to get the moves right; of course that is ignoring the flaws in doctrine that were learned in combat in 1941 (like lacking enough trucks for their far oversized Mechanized Corps). Plus the 1941-42 purge was grinding on during this and there wouldn't be a rehabilitation of the accused that the war forced if they waited for a 1943 attack. 1944 is really the earliest with a chance of making the initial attack work and stick (i.e. not ending up back on Soviet soil), but really 1945 is the best chance to win at the lowest risk unless they want to push it back even further than that. I'm assuming that the war in the West ends some time in 1942 without Barbarossa and no indications of the USSR getting into the war anytime soon and the Germans not getting ready to attack them either.

 

[kclcmdr]

As anybody here created an alternate storythread in which Stalin ;

whatever reason, hubris, paranoia, wanting to hit first;

had listen to Zhukov and prepared his Military frontier forces that was in the transition of moving the fortifications and their garrisons from their pre-1939 positions to the newly occupied Baltic States and half of Poland plus a large chunk from Romania and re-vamping their Armed Forces for an attack in early 1941??

That would be interesting to see how well Stalin's Frontier Armies and Air force would have done against the Wehrmacht in April or May of 1941 in their semi-prepared positions in East Prussia with Army Group North and Army Group South in Romania & Hungary while Army Group Center is readying their units in Occupied Poland & Eastern Germany ......

Especially with the German Luftwaffe constantly sending Air Recon from Jan 1941 onward and seeing all that maneuvering and re-positioning of the Soviet Armed Forces from a Garrison Status to a Combat Status....

 

[CthulhuFhtagn]

Yet the Soviet dispositions prior to the German attack weren't defensive. There were just too many near the border.
I agree that 1942 would have been the best time for a Soviet attack, but maybe they couldn't wait that long - and there was a 'race' i.e. there were almost under 'starter's orders'. It's just that the Germans - went for a 'false start'!

The Soviets weren't in an offensive position in 1941, though. And Soviet forces were short on equipment of all kinds when Barbarossa started in 1941, which is kind of the last thing you'd expect from an army preparing to invade. One of Stalin's generals brought up the idea of a preemptive strike, but Stalin was never on board with it.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

As anybody here created an alternate storythread in which Stalin ;

whatever reason, hubris, paranoia, wanting to hit first;

had listen to Zhukov and prepared his Military frontier forces that was in the transition of moving the fortifications and their garrisons from their pre-1939 positions to the newly occupied Baltic States and half of Poland plus a large chunk from Romania and re-vamping their Armed Forces for an attack in early 1941??

That would be interesting to see how well Stalin's Frontier Armies and Air force would have done against the Wehrmacht in April or May of 1941 in their semi-prepared positions in East Prussia with Army Group North and Army Group South in Romania & Hungary while Army Group Center is readying their units in Occupied Poland & Eastern Germany ......

Especially with the German Luftwaffe constantly sending Air Recon from Jan 1941 onward and seeing all that maneuvering and re-positioning of the Soviet Armed Forces from a Garrison Status to a Combat Status....

If we go by Stumbling Colossus, they lacked the staff planning to make that work; they'd need to forgo the 1940 expansion and focus just on reorganization, not even modernization. Also no purges in 1941-42. Plus with planning to include the move forward and total preparation for the attack, which would probably include not cutting trade with Germany to maintain surprise. They might have a shot of doing alright in that case, but it would be pretty ugly given all the issues Glantz talks about in Colossus, especially with equipment and shortages.

Here are the maps I found about a potential Soviet plan in 1941:

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Or these:
https://books.google.com/books?id=o...v=onepage&q=zhukov may 1941 offensive&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=E...v=onepage&q=zhukov may 1941 offensive&f=false

 

[kclcmdr]

If we go by Stumbling Colossus, they lacked the staff planning to make that work; they'd need to forgo the 1940 expansion and focus just on reorganization, not even modernization. Also no purges in 1941-42. Plus with planning to include the move forward and total preparation for the attack, which would probably include not cutting trade with Germany to maintain surprise. They might have a shot of doing alright in that case, but it would be pretty ugly given all the issues Glantz talks about in Colossus, especially with equipment and shortages.

Here are the maps I found about a potential Soviet plan in 1941:

I like that map! I didn't even know that even existed anywhere...

Tho the military purges ; if I had read it right ; was going on even up to Nov 1941 by the NKVD under orders from Beria and Stalin and it took the threat of Moscow being nearly reached by the German Armies for Herr Stalin to rescind that order and allow those Soviet Officers that had survived their time in the Gulags to be released to command the surviving Soviet Armies being pushed back further eastward....

I suspect that Stalin was still in a state of paranoia to purge any military threat upon his person....

 

[David T]

You could use: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?: Amazon ...
www.amazon.co.uk › ... › History › Europe › Germany
Amazon.com, Inc.

It is by Viktor Suvorov (ex-GRU), still has an Article-55 on his head, you get to play with 22,000 tanks, circa 3,000 - 8,000, combat aircraft, 1,000,000 paras and tons and tons of NKVD Joy Divisions These are all batting for Red not Black.

Sigh.

I knew when I saw the topic that someone would bring Rezun up.

You do know the views of most historians about him?

 

[Napoleon IV]

Sigh.

I knew when I saw the topic that someone would bring Rezun up.

You do know the views of most historians about him?

Exactly. The Icebreaker Hypothesis has been rejected by most historians and is not considered credible.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Those maps & the planning behind them are a nice exercise. Between the Purges, the overdone expansion/mobilization, the rearmaments program, & other factors it had ver low odds of sucess. In war game terms the Red army pieces still have combat values of '2' & '3' while the German pieces are still '5' & '6'. The only hope for sucess is if the Red Army attempts to attack in may 1940 when the German garrison in Poland & Prussia is a bare 20 - 24 infantry divisions.

Even then severe logistics problems will restrict the advance of the mass of the Red Army. Its effective forward strength may well be under fifty divsions because any extra are effectively unsupplied.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

A 1941 attack would, at its absolute best, delay the Germans for a few weeks and inflict some casualties before getting smashed back. At worse, it could cost the Soviets the entire war. The most probable scenario is that it only costs the Germans a few days as they annihilate the attacking forces and then things proceed largely as per IOTL.

A 1942 Soviet attack would probably end in a grinding stalemate for that year, but at least that favors the Soviets in the longer term even more decisively then IOTL.

A 1943 attack would make some headway before stalling on German defenses at which point we're back to the above.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

A 1942 Soviet attack would probably end in a grinding stalemate for that year, but at least that favors the Soviets in the longer term even more decisively then IOTL.

A 1943 attack would make some headway before stalling on German defenses at which point we're back to the above.

Depending on whether the US and Britain are still in the war. If not that changes the war dynamic dramatically, though it does give the Soviets major advantages they lacked IOTL.