World War II is the grandest war in human history, the justice of the war aside, the operation of the fascist state may be confusing, in 1941, when it was already in a situation of confrontation in many places, why did Germany and Japan still have to provoke the two neutral powers of the United States and the Soviet Union to join the battlefield? This undoubtedly set the conclusion for the defeat of fascism.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is understandable, after all, they need oil from Southeast Asia, although the Soviet Caucasus oil fields are not a small temptation for the German army, but they are not eager to break out the pace of war, and what is even more confusing is that between May and August 1939, in order to be able to make himself feel at ease to attack Britain and France and ensure that the rear is worry-free, Hitler repeatedly told the Soviet Union through Foreign Minister Ribbentrop that Nazi Germany had no intention of invading the Soviet Union and hoped to improve their relations. As a result, the two sides finally signed the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact in 1939. Why did Hitler take the initiative to provoke war in 1941?
At this time, shortly after the end of the Battle of Britain, although the German army was defeated, losing more than 2,000 valuable pilots and 1,900 aircraft, but the British also won not easily, reducing the number of 1542 people and 1700 aircraft, although the German army temporarily lost the ability to attack Britain, but as long as time passed, it will certainly be able to launch a large-scale operation, at that time the British can not resist is another thing. So what if Hitler did not invade the Soviet Union later, but continued to England? To study this question, one had to look at what the Soviet Union was doing at the time.
Frankly speaking, the Soviet Union in the early stages of World War II did not play the role of a defender, but more like a vulture with tiger skin. After the establishment of the Soviet Union, in a short period of time to restore the national economy to the level of pre-World War I, after the implementation of the two five-year plans, they have become Europe's first industrial power in the world after the United States in 1936, by the end of 1940, the Soviet Union's annual power generation reached 48.6 billion tons, coal mines 166 million tons and 30 million tons of oil, this data, far more than Germany at that time. That is to say, they have extremely strong war potential.
In addition, the Soviet Union's desire for external expansion during the Second World War was also very obvious, and when Germany occupied Warsaw, the Soviet Union took the opportunity to mobilize a large number of troops to occupy the remaining territories of Poland, and they also launched the Winter War and launched an invasion of Finland. What were the Russians doing when Hitler invaded Britain and France?
Before the outbreak of war in 1941, the total strength of the Soviet Union was more than 4.2 million, of which 125 were newly built divisions, which were distributed in the western part of the Soviet Union in the first half of the year, that is, the area where the Soviet Union and Germany actually controlled the border. The total strength of 170 divisions was 2.9 million men, 1540 aircraft, and 1800 tanks.
This data is very suspicious, because the Nazi military center of gravity at that time was to attack Britain, so it was mainly distributed in France, the rear was empty, the Soviet Union deployed so many troops on the front line, certainly not for defense, the Soviet Union did not build defensive bunkers and fortresses on a large scale, their airfields, all deployed according to the offensive, placed in the border area of the front line, after all, the world at that time believed that Hitler would concentrate its firepower to attack Britain, and after the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, the Soviet high command appeared panicked and unprepared, which showed that The Soviets had other plans.
That is to say, if Hitler continues to mobilize a large number of strength to continue to attack Britain, their encounter is likely to be attacked by the Soviet army in the rear, falling into a situation of two-front combat and being trapped.
Unlike some French scholars wrote a biography of Hitler, Hitler is certainly not a fool, he has always been very jealous and grumpy about the soviet military background, in the case of attacking Britain without success, decisively chose to turn the gun to attack the Soviet army, as for the Soviet Union, although the paper strength is very strong, but Stalin in the Great Purge, has eliminated many middle and lower-level officers and excellent commanders and fighters of the Soviet army, from the Finnish war their heavy casualties can be seen, the Soviet army's combat effectiveness is very fragile, It was even more certain that Hitler had started the war, and it was not difficult to understand that the Germans were in the beginning on the battlefield of the Soviet Union