Germany lacked the strength to win in 1941 and made mistakes in preparing for war.
The root cause of the German army's defeat in late 1941 was its own inadequacy, and while the Wehrmacht appeared to be an invincible war machine, it was not strong enough to destroy a behemoth like the Soviet Union in a rapid, powerful offensive. The premise of strategy to play a role is always absolute strength guarantee, without the strength of the strategic plan, its effect will be greatly reduced.
The deployment of the "Barbarossa" plan (especially the deployment of armored groups) has the advantages of flexibility and mobility, but the premise is that the assault direction of the armored group is adjusted at any time according to the development of the war situation and the main force of the Soviet army is captured, and the main force of the army headquarters is not conducive to the development of this flexibility. The fragile military superiority of the German army, especially the lack of strength of the armored forces, further limited the flexibility of the plan.
The shortcomings of the strength of the German army seriously affected the error tolerance rate of the strategy, in fact, the strategic actions of the German army throughout 1941 were more like a taut leather band, and any crack in the leather band would lead to the rupture of the leather band. In mid-July, there was growing evidence that Operation Barbarossa had failed, and the Germans had failed to achieve the first phase of the plan - the elimination of the main Soviet forces west of the Dvina and Dnieper rivers.
The Germans allowed a large number of Soviet troops to escape from the encirclement in the Minsk-Bialystok Siege and the Smolensk Siege, and the limited strength of the armored forces and the lack of mobility of the infantry divisions were the main reasons, which was a strong proof of the limited strength of the German army.
Germany's own lack of resources and industrial capacity was one of the root causes of the failure of the war of aggression against the Soviet Union, which has been the consensus of the academic community. This power defect was not entirely due to Germany's lack of resources and industrial capacity, but was the result of Germany's strategic mistakes. Weaknesses in strength due to German strategic mistakes led to the failure of German strategy and offset the strategic advantages brought about by the Battle of Kiev.
The lack of German war resources and industrial capacity is one of the important reasons limiting the growth of the German army's armament level and strength, and the lack of German mechanization level is largely subject to the lack of resources. As some scholars have pointed out: "The defeat of the German army under Moscow, whether its strategy is correct or not, the German army does not have the resources to conquer Moscow." Although the German army became almost synonymous with mechanized units during World War II, in fact, only the United States achieved a more complete motorization at that time.
By mid-June, the total size of German troops massed on the Soviet-German border reached more than 3.3 million, armed with 3,350 tanks and 600,000 vehicles. Although this figure was already unprecedented, the degree of mechanization of the German army could have been further strengthened. As mentioned earlier, throughout June, July and August, the attrition of German armored divisions was already very serious, but Hitler did not replenish the armored forces as necessary.
Only before Operation Typhoon did Hitler replenish the engines and new tanks of various armored groups on the front line for the first time. But the replenishment of 300 tanks was only a drop in the bucket, and the combat effectiveness of all armored divisions on the front line was seriously lacking, especially Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group.
Hitler did this in the hope of stockpiling as many new tanks as possible to equip more armored divisions. Hitler's stinginess was of course limited by the production capacity of German tanks, and in July 1940, the Supreme High Command envisaged that 380 tanks could be produced per month, a figure that was insignificant compared to the Soviet Union's tank production capacity, but the capacity of the German tank industry seemed to be unable to reach this figure, and by September, the monthly production of tanks was only 121 units.
The serious shortage of mechanized equipment such as tanks and trucks affected the combat efficiency of armored groups and caused serious damage to the strategy of the German army. This problem was not entirely caused by the shortcomings of German industry, but was caused by Germany's blind underestimation of Soviet power and erroneous measures of war preparation.
Had Hitler not underestimated the Soviet Union and entered the war with a stronger German army and greater preparation, he would have probably won. German victory was possible, but German combat readiness was not carried out to the maximum, and the Wehrmacht was not large enough to carry out the tasks assigned to them by Hitler. ”
First, Germany did not recognize the difficulty and scale of the ensuing war against the Soviet Union, and although Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union as early as July 31, 1940, the relevant war preparations and mobilization were not fully carried out. On October 23, Hitler made a bombastful statement in his meeting with Franco, claiming that Britain would understand that pinning its hopes on the Soviet Union was completely wrong. "In March 1941, the Germans would assault the Soviet Union with 186 divisions, including 20 armored and 12 mechanized infantry divisions," he boasted. ”
However, after the end of the Western Front, there was no larger economic mobilization in Germany, the entire German industry remained at the level of "peacetime", and full-scale war preparations did not begin with the decision to attack the Soviet Union in full-scale terms. After the 1990s, German scholars paid more and more attention to the study of German armaments policy, and they concluded: "If measured by such a huge goal as the destruction of the Soviet Union, Germany's armaments policy is a complete failure."
