Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin - Essay Example

1 CRITICAL ISSUE PAPER ONE IntroductionAdolf Hitler and Josef Stalin were ardent believers of totalitarianism. Both were strict adherents of dictatorship who believed that the individual's needs must be subordinated to the State's welfare. However, historically they were strange bedfellows. They distrust and loathe each other. So when both inked a non-agression pact on August 28, 1939, not a few eyebrows were raised. It was no secret that Hitler considered "Bolshevism as the most extreme form of international Jewry".1 Hitler had always considered Russia as Germany's greatest enemy, regarded Russians as inferior Slavs and abhorred its self-imposed title as bulwark of communism. Thus, Operation Barbarossa was conceived to put Russia and Stalin on their knees. Hitler's resolve to decimate Russia in three months time was on the verge of being manic. Behind his back however, Stalin was also cooking a diabolical concoction for Hitler i.e. he was "preparing a preventive strike at Germany".2 Hitler left no stone unturned in this offensive. He paraded 3.5 million Wehrmacht troops reinforced with Panzer tanks and hovered protectively by the famed Luftwaffe aircrafts. He then positioned these on a 2,000 mile frontier border from the Black Sea in the Crimea to the White Sea in the Arctic region. Because the Red Army troops were mostly inexperienced, the Germans easily captured most of the western Russian cities. But Hitler's 3-month time frame was stretched. What Hitler failed to foresee was the Red Army's seemingly inexhaustible reserve of manpower, the fortitude of Russian guerillas, the vast distances the Wehrmacht had to advance in 2 order to reach the heart of Russia, Moscow and its soul, Leningrad; the resultant supply problems; and the tactical Stalinist 'scorched earth policy', by which everything useful such as food and shelter at the path of the German enemies were razed and decimated. As a result of this and because of the onset of the harsh Russian winter and especially because Marshal Georgi Zhukov's valiant troops provided a stiff resistance, Hitler's forces failed to capture both Moscow and Leningrad.3 When all the haze and smoke settled in, three million Russians were slain while 770,000 AXIS men were butchered. The issue then among historians is who won and was victorious and who was vanquished and defeated. A minor issue is are these historians biased. In this paper we discuss their arguments and we critique the rightness or wrongness of their contentions. CRITICAL ANALYSIS- COMPARISON AND CONTRAST OF ARGUMENT Of all the books written about World War II, I consider that of Gerhard Weinberg's "A World At Arms" as the most comprehensive, masterful, authoritative, scholarly, balanced and best researched using extensive sources culled from German, British and American sources. It looks like it's a labor of love as it is most thorough covering all battles of World War II ranging from Europe to Asia to North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific.4 He tries to stay neutral and unbiased and refuses to prejudge and when the events happen, he refuses to directly comment as to who won this or that battle Therefore, he leaves it up to the reader to make his own conclusion after he presents all the facts and all the sides involved in the war. It is more than 900 pages, but each page is worth poring over because it is chronologicall and clearly 3 written with lots of valid and legitimate observations. He particularly flaunts his expertise in history when he touched on the Nazi assault on Russia codenamed Operation Barbarossa after a German emperor, because he seems to have an instinctive psychological insight into Hitler's and Stalin's frames of mind and takes into consideration the diplomacy, espionage, the actual combat and the strategies used in each battle. As to the issue of who won the war in the Russian front, Weinberg simply hints that 90% of the damage to Nazi manpower was inflicted by the Russians and that Hitler's aim in besieging Russia was threefold i.e. the wresting of Russian natural resources particularly Baku and Grozny's oil and of course territorial expansion and annexation of Russia's vast lands. The third angle is Hitler's genocide design on Jews, Slavs and other inferior races and as he often says, Russians are the lowest form of Slavic race. The fact that he failed to annex Russia and control its natural resources albeit he decimated 4.5 million Russians in the process, imply that his Operation Barbarossa was an abject failure. But he emphasized that World War II had been marked by unprecedented deaths, suffering, economic dislocation, devastation and ruin. Thus he insinuates again that when all sides are thrown into such throes of despair, there is no winner and everybody is the loser. In sharp contrast to that of Weinberg is the work of John Keegan in "The Battle For History". Although characterized by profound intelligence and incisive, lucid and engaging writing style, Keegan can be faulted with unmistakable bias to the Allies side, specifically the British side. No wonder he was decorated with distinction by the British Empire for his body of works. Unlike, Weinberg, whose research was exhaustive, Keegan limited his research only to English books with nary German document researched on. He is also markedly opinionated as when he remarked that despite wreaking havoc on the Luftwaffe, still the incessant bombings against Germany was a dismal failure. He limits also his sphere of battles with the European 4 side of the war, practically neglecting to report on the Southeast Asian or the Pacific realm of the war. The war on the Russian front involving Operation Barbarossa was hardly touched.5 There was no mention of Stalin's 'scorched earth policy' or the different generals involved in the conflict such as Marshal Zhukov although I later learned that he wrote another book entitled "Operation Barbarossa". Because the book is more of literature review and because he hardly dwelt on the Russian stage of the war circa 1941, we have no way of knowing his sentiments on the outcome of the war although in other subjects he takes definite and passionate positions on several controversies. He also can be acerbic as he showed disdain in reviewing David Irving's book entitled "Hitler's War"6 . Irving, who is an all-out Hitler fanatic and was panned by several historians including Deborah Lipstadt7 for being a Hitler partisan and apologist, was treated by Keegan with discernible contempt especially when Irving remarked that Hitler was a brilliant military strategist and a "rational war leader of a great power".8 We just can't help to notice the 'smirk' behind those lines. Still another author had different opinions about the war. Williamson Murray collaborating with Allan Milett, call the Operation Barbarossa episode as a victory for the Russians saying, "Germany misjudged the Soviet ability to absorb defeats. The result was a catastrophic stalemate in front of Moscow". He added, "This failure was followed by Hitlers decision to declare war on the United States".9 Murray is clearly an American mouthpiece concentrating his opinions on the Allies side and neglecting to consider the AXIS side. He 5 gave America a special sobriquet i.e. the "Arsenal of Democracy". But he also displayed a streak of independence by claiming that the capture of Leningrad and Moscow is of no consequence to Hitler because to him what matters is that the Red Army be pulverized along Russia's frontier borders. Accordingly, what was important is the control of the Baltic Sea region as "protection of the iron ore trade with Sweden is key to winning the war"10. In my opinion, this is a flawed reasoning because inherent in Hitler's character is an overweening pride and such capture of two of the most important cities in the world would be tantamount to winning the war already. Another historical work that departs from most historians' work is Richard Overy's "Why The Allies Won". Overy claimed that the Nazis were technically ill-equipped when they attacked the Russian borders.11 This is contrary to the claims of other historians that Hitler prepared for it diligently as part of his own Final Solution, readying more than 250 divisions of armed forces that include Panzer tanks and Luftwaffe aircraft.12 Overy also asserted that when Germany attacked, Russia was taken in by complete surprise. This is contrary to reports that USA and Britain had relayed intelligence reports to Stalin that Germany is preparing to attack Russia and that Russia also conscripted millions of Russian youths for military service to defend the Russian border but the problem was that these soldiers were greenhorns and not battle-tested at all. However, Overy's book stands out because he is able to satisfyingly explain why the Russians were able to withstand the German onslaught and reversed the tide of war. According 6 to Overy, " The Soviet Union was able to relocate its industrial base to the east, intensify its industrial production and defeat the German forces at Stalingrad and Kursk".13 C.L. Sulzberger, on the other hand, displays an innovative, diary-type writing style where events are reported in chronological manner. He contributes snippets of information as to why Hitler failed to capture Moscow and Leningrad. He said that Hitler's ally Mussolini was in dire straits in Greece and Yugoslavia and thus he was constrained to divert troops from the Russian assault to these 2 countries thereby delaying Operation Barbarossa to the point that the inclement Russian winter intervened in the war operations.14 In effect, Sulzberger joined the others in declaring Russia as the winner of that war. In my opinion, Weinberger states his case the best because he thoroughly provides us with all the pertinent facts and delves into the causes and reasons and investigated both sides. As to deciding who won the war, he left it to the readers but the implication is that nobody wins and all are losers. John Keegan to me cannot make a case because he lacks the facts of the case and such is elementary to having a case. This is because his book is more of a critique and literature review text. Again, to me Weinberg is the most objective because he writes in a stoic, matter-of-fact style and reports on what really occurred and didn't allow his prejudices and personal feelings to come in the way of his reporting. Murray is the most biased because he reserves all the glowing and most positive adjectives to the Allies side revealing his prejudices. He even coins adjectives that reveal such bias. He wrote as an American and not as a historian who properly belongs to the whole world. 7 I personally shudder at all the heinous activities of the Second World War, that is, all the mindless killings, the destruction , the bitter antagonism that resulted from it. It is to me one big exercise in futility. Future civilizations must avoid war at all costs 8 BIBLIOGRAPHY Keegan, John. The Battle For History: Re-Fighting World War II, New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Kirchubel, Robert and Gerrard, Howard and Dennis, Peter. Operation Barbarossa, 1941: Army Group South, United Kingdom: Osprey Publishing, 2003. Lipstadt, Deborah. Denying The Holocaust: The Growing Assault of Truth and Memory, New York: Plume, 1994. Murray, Williamson and Milett, Allan Reed, A War To Be Won: Fighting the Second World War, Boston: Harvard University Press, 2000. Overy, Richard. Why The Allies Won, New York: WW Norton and Company, 1997. Sulzberger, C. L. World War II , New York: Houghton Mifflin Books, 2005. Weeks, Albert. Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939-1941, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003. Weinberg, Gerhard. A World At Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Read More