Hitler vs. Stalin

They were astonishingly similar. Both were paranoid, authoritarian narcissists, consumed by self-loathing and addicted to violence.

Both had brutal fathers and adoring mothers.

Both had phenomenal memories and an astonishing grasp of detail.

Both believed themselves military geniuses.

Both were prone to micromanagement of their military.

They squared off against each other on June 22, 1941, when Hitler launched an invasion of the Soviet Union with between 3 and 4 million men.

Hitler expected to overwhelm the Soviets in about six weeks.

Germany could not sustain a protracted war. It did not have the manpower reserves.

The Treaty of Versailles had confined the Germany Army to 100,000 men, conscripted for no less than twelve years. The framers of the treaty had purposely designed the system to preclude the accumulation of trained reservists. They succeeded.

By the time Hitler started to re-arm in violation of the treaty, it was too late to bank reservists. When the war started, Germany had only a few hundred thousand.

By contrast, the Soviets had some 14 to 15 million.

Still, in the early stages of the war, it seemed that Hitler had outwitted Stalin.

He had lulled Stalin into complacency with the Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact of 1939.

Stalin believed Hitler would eventually strike, but not in 1941.

Stalin knew he wouldn't be prepared for war for at least another year.

So he tried to bribe Hitler by meticulously adhering to the terms of the 1939 agreement, by which the Soviets agreed to provide Germany with raw materials, especially the oil of which it was so terribly short.

Stalin's capacity for self-deception was so large that he ignored warnings from Churchill and his own very capable spies that Germany was poised to strike.

He even allowed himself to believe German protestations that its military buildup on the Polish border was a feint designed to confuse Churchill into accepting the notion that it (Germany) had abandoned plans for the invasion of Britain (which of course it had).

It is one of the ironies of history that the first draft of Germany's plan to invade the Soviet Union was authored by Gen. Erich Marcks--that is, a man called Marcks (Marx) helped draft the plan to invade the only professedly Marxist country in the world. 

The plan called for a three-pronged assault, with one army going north toward Leningrad, another going directly toward Moscow, and a third going south toward Kiev.

Stalin thought Hitler would concentrate the bulk of his forces in the south because that was the route to the Caucasus oil he so desperately coveted. Such a drive, if successful, would also put Romanian oil, about Hitler's only existing large-scale source, out of range of Soviet bombers.

Hitler certainly would have done so but, at least in this one instance, he allowed himself to be persuaded by his generals to concentrate most of his armor and air force in the spearhead aimed directly at Moscow.

Stalin reinforced the south, while Hitler gravitated to the center.

Stalin got a bloody nose.

But despite the advantages of surprise and better strategic deployment, the Germans could not defeat the Soviets as quickly as they had planned.

By early August, Hitler came to the conclusion that the war was going to last much longer than was originally thought. So the need to secure oil and other resources again preoccupied him.

Accordingly, and much to the fury of his tank commanders, Hitler reversed course, weakening the central thrust toward Moscow in order to reinforce both the north and south fronts.

By strengthening the north front, he hoped to quickly invest Leningrad while simultaneously denying the Red Navy the Baltic ports from which it could prey on shipments of vitally needed iron ore from Sweden.

By strengthening the south front, he of course hoped to make a dash for that all-important oil.

Soviet generals, especially Zhukov, told Stalin they could not defend Kiev.  He had to evacuate it or risk a massive envelopment.

Stalin sacked them and told his southern front commanders to stand fast.

Stalin got another bloody nose. The Germans reduced the Kiev pocket, in the process taking about 650,000 Soviet prisoners.

Kiev had strange repercussions. An ostensible military triumph, it strengthened Hitler's belief that he could ignore his generals when they disagreed with him.

While bolstering Hitler's confidence, Kiev weakened Stalin's.

Thus, one leader was confirmed in his belief that he couldn't trust his generals, while the other was persuaded that he had to trust them more. 

Hitler's generals, in postwar memoirs, claimed they could have taken Moscow in 1941 if it were not for Hitler's interference.

But recent research suggests that this is probably not the case. By August, when Hitler opted for the southern redirection, his army, while it could still win Kiev, was already incapable of taking Moscow.

Hitler's southern demarche was a reflection of this fact, not its cause.

Stalin came off second best to Hitler in the first year of the war.

Yet while Hitler won most of battles, Stalin survived long enough to begin the most important battle of all--that of mobilization and production.