Patton leads German troops against USSR?

[jamespowers]

I think Churchill gets off the hook too easily for some of his more outrageous acts and comments over the course of his career. He was more often than not an enemy of the working class, whose belief in democracy was severely limited -- his idea of "democracy" was one in which the elite ran the show and the lower orders knew their place and were kept in it. Among other points, he favored the elimination of universal suffrage in the UK and the reinstatement of property suffrage, a point of view straight out of the eighteenth century. And as far as his concern for the rights of oppressed peoples to free determination, he'd have been much more convincing had he begun with India.

That said, he was right about Munich in 1938, and was very much The Man for The Hour in 1940 -- but if he hadn't been a wartime leader, I submit that he'd be remembered more as an unapologetic imperialist with a long history of bad decisions.

Churchill is far too complex a character to sum up so easily. You have to get into his head to understand his reasoning. His six volume history allows you to understand him better and why he did what he did through his life. It is all there.
I will submit that if it weren't for Churchill; Britain would have been much worse off----even to the extent of lsing Britain to Germany before we could have stepped in to help. There would have been no worries about suffrage, the working class or "opressed peoples." They ALL would have been equally opressed.:doh:

 

[jamespowers]

Then there's the economic argument, in that the Allies had pretty much expended their entire economies by the start of 1945. The 7th war loan saved the US government from total collapse of the economy, given how much the war was costing.
Not a chance would any politician have even thought of starting a whole new war up after that unholy mess was finally done.

That would have not been another war, it would have been an occupation just as we did for far more years in Japan.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Churchill is far too complex a character to sum up so easily. You have to get into his head to understand his reasoning. His six volume history allows you to understand him better and why he did what he did through his life. It is all there.
I will submit that if it weren't for Churchill; Britain would have been much worse off----even to the extent of lsing Britain to Germany before we could have stepped in to help. There would have been no worries about suffrage, the working class or "opressed peoples." They ALL would have been equally opressed.:doh:

Oh, no disagreement with that point -- Churchill was as much the necessary wartime leader for Britain as FDR was for the United States. Had the Chamberlain government taken the USSR's offer of a strategic alliance in the spring of 1939 the world would have taken a very different course. Churchill, as much of an imperialist reactionary as he was, had the clarity to understand the value of such an alliance -- but Chamberlain and his advisors did not. That's very much to Churchill's credit -- and very much another black mark on Chamberlain's record.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I think Churchill gets off the hook too easily for some of his more outrageous acts and comments over the course of his career.

That he was ever taken capable of being taken seriously after the Dardanelles disaster is really a tribute to his greatness, methinks. He clearly was capable not only monumental failure and great accomplishment, but of conveying his ability of achieving the latter to others, even when the former was all too well known. In that respect, I wouldn't hesitate to compare him to Lincoln.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What I think is most unfortunate is that, like Lincoln, Churchill has become less an actual man than a stone idol -- his many flaws and faults burnished off in the interest of what he represents to his country. As I say, Churchill was a great wartime leader -- but he's also the man who thumbed his nose at India during the Great Bengal Famine, who suggested gassing Iraq, who turned the Black and Tans loose on Ireland, who disdained the rights of labor during the General Strike, and who would have been perfectly happy to see who knows how many more people die in a Third World War in the name of his own idea of Empire. In the modern-day Churchill cult of personality, where "Old Winnie" was a jolly smiling rascal flashing the V sign and fighting Daleks alongside Doctor Who, it's important not to lose sight of the fact that, like all "Great Men," he had his feet of clay.

 

[ChiTownScion]

So, steering this back to Germans under Patton: why would the majority of German soldiers having survived years of unrelenting hardship on the Eastern front be willing to turn around and do the same under Patton? I've spoken to a couple of men who had served under Patton in the Third Army as company level officers, and that phrase, "our blood, his guts" kept being brought up. From all I have read, that was quite a common attitude within the Third Army, and I doubt that any German officer serving under Patton would not share in that conclusion.

I don't see the argument of "joining forces in defeating Bolshevism" as being a strong one to the men of an army that was just bled white trying to accomplish that very end. Wolkenkuckucksheim, indeed.

 

[Fastuni]

Motivation within the German army to fight off the "Bolshevik hordes" was high up to the very end.
When the ground war came fully to Germany proper, the Germans fought tooth and nails against the Soviets, while the Western armies (after the last major battles in the West of Germany) rumbled through relatively lightly opposed. In the last weeks of the war, German units desperately tried to ward of the Soviets long enough to reach the Western armies and surrender there.

As mentioned before it was a widespread hope that the "deus ex machina" (apart from the Wunderwaffen) would be a separate peace with the Western powers and a joining of forces against the Soviets.

The death of FDR was seen by many (not only Hitler) as a potential turning point leading to a break of the Alliance. Spring 1945 when the Western and Soviet armies were getting ever closer, it was hoped by many German soldiers that the "natural animosity" between Western capitalism and Soviet communism would inevitably break out and save Germany from the Soviets. This hope hightened again for a short time in the week after Hitler's death until the surrender.
It was unfathomable to many (not only Germans... ) that the West would be willing to let Stalin get all of Central Europe.

According to several German rank and file veterans' memoirs they didn't expect to fight side by side with the Americans (about whom they had often a rather poor opinion as soldiers), but rather that the US would furnish the German army with material to throw back the Red Army. They would have fought under their own Generals (who had plenty of experience in the war against the Red Army)... there wasn't a need for a Patton to direct the continued German war against the Soviets.
A German army fully engaged at the Eastern front, supplied with plentiful American food, trucks, rubber and oil (and the Soviets cut from American supplies), could well have at least led to major parts of Germany's East being salvaged. The German effort would have of course been aided by the fact that there was no second front against the Western Allies, no more bombing of German towns and industries and maybe the possibility of German military designs being produced on a large scale by the Anglo-American industries. Throwing back the Soviets entirely from the other countries would have been of much lesser importance to the Germans at least.

Whether all of that was politically imaginable to Western leaders at that time is another matter... as history shows, total surrender and occupation of Germany was the course they were determined to take.

 

[Two Types]

I imagine that in 1945 the people of Eastern Europe (having just had the GErman and Russians fight their way across their territory) really wouldn't have wanted any more battles on their land. There might not have been anything or anybody worth liberating.

 

[Fastuni]

I'd think that this hypothetical German "continuation war" would have been mainly to keep the German populated Eastern parts of the Reich.
It certainly would have had the backing of the German population there, considering the expulsion and mass murder they faced there in the shadow of surrender.

 

[jamespowers]

Motivation within the German army to fight off the "Bolshevik hordes" was high up to the very end.
When the ground war came fully to Germany proper, the Germans fought tooth and nails against the Soviets, while the Western armies (after the last major battles in the West of Germany) rumbled through relatively lightly opposed. In the last weeks of the war, German units desperately tried to ward of the Soviets long enough to reach the Western armies and surrender there.

As mentioned before it was a widespread hope that the "deus ex machina" (apart from the Wunderwaffen) would be a separate peace with the Western powers and a joining of forces against the Soviets.

The death of FDR was seen by many (not only Hitler) as a potential turning point leading to a break of the Alliance. Spring 1945 when the Western and Soviet armies were getting ever closer, it was hoped by many German soldiers that the "natural animosity" between Western capitalism and Soviet communism would inevitably break out and save Germany from the Soviets. This hope hightened again for a short time in the week after Hitler's death until the surrender.
It was unfathomable to many (not only Germans... ) that the West would be willing to let Stalin get all of Central Europe.

According to several German rank and file veterans' memoirs they didn't expect to fight side by side with the Americans (about whom they had often a rather poor opinion as soldiers), but rather that the US would furnish the German army with material to throw back the Red Army. They would have fought under their own Generals (who had plenty of experience in the war against the Red Army)... there wasn't a need for a Patton to direct the continued German war against the Soviets.
A German army fully engaged at the Eastern front, supplied with plentiful American food, trucks, rubber and oil (and the Soviets cut from American supplies), could well have at least led to major parts of Germany's East being salvaged. The German effort would have of course been aided by the fact that there was no second front against the Western Allies, no more bombing of German towns and industries and maybe the possibility of German military designs being produced on a large scale by the Anglo-American industries. Throwing back the Soviets entirely from the other countries would have been of much lesser importance to the Germans at least.

Whether all of that was politically imaginable to Western leaders at that time is another matter... as history shows, total surrender and occupation of Germany was the course they were determined to take.

All good points and the US would not be helping the Russians with 100,000 more Studebaker 6s this time. We could have at least saved East Germany fifty years of grinding opppresswion and poverty. As Churchill said, FDR was not all there at Yalta. They gave over too much and stood back---total surrender.

 

[p51]

So, steering this back to Germans under Patton: why would the majority of German soldiers having survived years of unrelenting hardship on the Eastern front be willing to turn around and do the same under Patton? I've spoken to a couple of men who had served under Patton in the Third Army as company level officers, and that phrase, "our blood, his guts" kept being brought up. From all I have read, that was quite a common attitude within the Third Army, and I doubt that any German officer serving under Patton would not share in that conclusion.

As opposed to the way German generals led their troops?
Were it just a matter of finding German soldiers to follow Patton in a post-surrender world, I think many Germans would have followed Satan himself into a renewed fight against the Russians as they were hated that much by many.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I imagine that in 1945 the people of Eastern Europe (having just had the GErman and Russians fight their way across their territory) really wouldn't have wanted any more battles on their land. There might not have been anything or anybody worth liberating.

I doubt that, in 1945, you'd ever find any Czechs or Poles willing to fight alongside Germans in any way, shape or form. Iron Guard fascist Rumanians or Ukrainian Banderaite fascists, however, most definitely.

 

[Fastuni]

Not every staunch anti-Soviet/anti-Stalinist in Europe was a fascist. Far from it.
Also those Eastern Europeans fighting the Soviets in collaboration with the Germans, not always did so because of pro-Nazi or pro-German feelings.
Case in point the Russian "Wlassow-Army".

And one has to differ... in Poland there was deep anti-Soviet/Russian hostility, the Polish Home Army was more than willing to fight the Soviets and their local Communist pawns.
The West abandoned Poland to the Stalinists. Also the pre-war Polish politics was generally anti-Soviet.

Czechoslovakia was a different matter altogether. The Red Army was usually enthusiastically welcomed by the Czechs in general.
Also the pre-war Czech politics was overall more oriented towards cooperation with Stalin.
There was great sympathy for the Soviets/Russians, both from rightwing factions (under Benes) and of course the Communists.
The latter is obvious, while in the case of the Czech right wingers, such as the Czech "National Socialists" under Benes it was pan-Slavic feelings, Neo-Hussite chauvinism and virulent anti-Germanism (dating back way before Hitler came to power or occupied the Czech state). There was of course some political calculations at play as well... after all Benes was allowed by Stalin to be part of a "National unity government" until 1948, when the Communists got rid of their useful tool (who gave the USSR the territory of Carpatho-Ukraine).

From May 1945 through 1946, but particularly in the first months after the German surrender, Czech mobs (incited by the exile leaders in London and Moscow) and gangs of ultra-nationalists and communists, murdered German civilians and POWs, with the ultimate aim of removing the entire German population in Czechoslovakia. Starting with the "Prague Uprising" 5-9 May 1945 a most brutal massacre of aproximately 200,000 Germans was committed by Czech mobs, sometimes organized into the so called "Revolutionary" or "Red Guards". Unimaginably sadistic cruelties were perpetrated against ten thousands of German and Hungarian civilians.
Among the victims were also former inmates of Nazi camps and citizens of neutral states.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's the thing Western observers need to keep in mind about Eastern Europe, and seldom do -- it's never been a simple matter of ideological allegience. Ethnic and nationalistic allegiences run much deeper than political ideology, and are always a wild card in predicting how any scenario will play out. It's never been a just a matter of Western capitalism vs. Soviet communism vs. Naziism in those states -- there are usually territorial and ethnic differences that run far deeper and far bloodier than any simple question of ideology. Both the West and the East ought to have learned that lesson by now.

 

[jamespowers]

The West abandoned Poland to the Stalinists.

And that I am very sad to see as a part of history. By abandoning them and other countries in Eastern Europe, we set up all that was to follow thinking that we avoided some conflict or strife when we really just drew it out over time---especailly for those abandoned people. :doh: The globe would look quite different today if we had done what was right instead of what was expedient......

 

[pawineguy]

That's the thing Western observers need to keep in mind about Eastern Europe, and seldom do -- it's never been a simple matter of ideological allegience. Ethnic and nationalistic allegiences run much deeper than political ideology, and are always a wild card in predicting how any scenario will play out. It's never been a just a matter of Western capitalism vs. Soviet communism vs. Naziism in those states -- there are usually territorial and ethnic differences that run far deeper and far bloodier than any simple question of ideology. Both the West and the East ought to have learned that lesson by now.

It's similar to trying to decipher the Middle East after the war. It was vastly more complicated than it appeared on the surface. Add to that the issues in the Far East, an occupation in Japan and Germany, and a thoroughly confusing Eastern Europe, and you can understand, if not necessarily agree with, the decisions that were perhaps more expedient than righteous. In most cases the "powers" found proxies and puppets, backed with more the threat of strength than much actual remaining power. Of course, in Eastern Europe, you didn't need much as their countries lay in waste.

We were so busy drawing people down in Germany, as were our allies, there were those who were very concerned that the Germans would wake up one day and decide not to sign the treaty, as they saw the vast majority of our soldiers heading home and the much smaller occupation force remaining. We did have an awful lot of their men still held as POWs, or hostages to the peace treaties, depending upon your perspective. The Soviets kept theirs (the survivors at least) a very, very long time.

 

[Two Types]

There is also the point that in 1945, had the British Army been ordered to support an attack on the Red Army, in conjunction with the re-armed Wehrmacht, there would most likely have been widespread mutinies.

The average British soldier would have been happier fighting a Yank in a Brussels brothel than fighting the Red Army for control of East Germany.

 

[Edward]

That's the thing Western observers need to keep in mind about Eastern Europe, and seldom do -- it's never been a simple matter of ideological allegience. Ethnic and nationalistic allegiences run much deeper than political ideology, and are always a wild card in predicting how any scenario will play out. It's never been a just a matter of Western capitalism vs. Soviet communism vs. Naziism in those states -- there are usually territorial and ethnic differences that run far deeper and far bloodier than any simple question of ideology. Both the West and the East ought to have learned that lesson by now.

The impression I've long had is that, in Europe at least, those who volunteered (as opposed to the many more who, as previously discussed, fought only because conscripted) were far more commonly motivated by simple nationalism than idealism. An awful lot of our modern notion of the clasj of ideologies is WW" is, as you say, over-simplified. Not to mention, imo, all too often based on knowledge of horros of the Nazi regime that simply weren't known in the West (at least, not outside certain limited circles) until much later on.

 

[hatguy1]

I think he also imagined the average German soldier was as keen on war as he was. ... I think the German Army just wanted to go home and get on with their lives....

Except, if I'm not mistaken, Patton only wanted to unleash the captured SS - who were fanatical and anti-Russian/communist - on the Russians. That might've played out very differently than if he'd unleashed the average war-weary regular Wermacht soldier.

 

[jamespowers]

Except, if I'm not mistaken, Patton only wanted to unleash the captured SS - who were fanatical and anti-Russian/communist - on the Russians. That might've played out very differently than if he'd unleashed the average war-weary regular Wermacht soldier.

The SS would have rolled over the Russians if well supplied.