Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[Ribosome]

Berlin only went to shit because the drugs and fuel ran out by the time they reached the suburbs of Moscow.

I think people really underemphasize the two major blunders of World War II, even though we all know them we never really think about just how much they changed the result:
1. Germany attacking the Soviet Union.
2. Japan attacking the United States.

It's actually a lesson that's relevant to our anti-fascist revolutionaries. They feared the eventual conflict they convinced themselves had to happen so much that they triggered it early in hopes of winning a smashing blow over an enemy they didn't bother to understand. Rather than control Europe and Asia for decades and acquire nuclear weapons and who knows what else after years of indoctrinating the conquered nations.

The Japanese military actually understood what they were starting. Tojo was told that if they didn't win the war in a year they'd lose everything. This was optimistic too because Japan never had the capacity to attack the United States, so that first year was pushing token American forces out of places the US could take right back or more brilliantly just bypass. The German invasion was a similar misunderstanding that capturing Moscow meant something rather than the Soviets wouldn't just do what the Russians did to Napeleon again. I imagine the German military actually knew this too but they couldn't tell Hitler this, the Japanese at least could tell Tojo and he'd just overrule them. Hitler was delusional enough to think the UK would make peace with him and maybe even join up to defeat the Soviets.

If Germany never attacks the Soviet Union the United States (and British Empire) never supplies it. If the United States never supplies the Soviets and then doesn't enter the war, nobody on Earth has the capacity to defeat Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.

Gross as it is to say, if someone's ideology intrinsically requires mass slaughter and colonization of the East, attacking the USSR when they did "makes sense." The Soviets were only getting stronger while Nazi Germany would only get weaker in comparison as their economy faltered. 

In fairness to German high command, they probably didn't believe that taking Moscow would be the definitive knockout blow given that it was hundreds of miles to the west of Operation Barbarossa's planned stopping point. Which is also insane of course. 

I'm sure there were private doubts in the German military but there is a lot of revisionist history from the German Generals trying to pin everything on Hitler in their memoirs. Easy to say you disagreed after the war but back then though? Under Hitler, the German military had just accomplished everything the Kaiser never could in a few short years of back to back victories.