You might know that Operation Barbarossa started in 1941. And you might know that Hitler had
intended to go East way before then - he talked about going East in the 1920s. So you might
be wondering, did Hitler intend to start his invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941? Or was
this just how it turned out due to circumstances?
Well, Diego has asked two questions relating to this. First, he said -
“Hi TIK, Thanks for the great work and research. Is
there any information suggesting that Adolf Hitler and the German High Command established
a strategic plan for the Invasion of the Soviet Union prior to the Invasion of Poland?”
Yes. Or, at least, sort of. There wasn’t an operational plan - you know, the 9th Army
goes here, and these divisions go there - but there were talks going on about an invasion
of the Soviet Union prior to the invasion of Poland, and they’re important in a lot
of ways, as you’ll see. The issue, of course, was that Poland was in the way. So I need
to give you a bit of context and backstory first before I outline some of the ideas that
were formulated.
I’m going to refer you to this book - “Enemy in the East” by Müller - which is such
a great book. Someone suggested it to me in the comments of one of my videos, so I just
want to say “thank you” to them, because this was a brilliant recommendation. But Müller
basically outlines that the German Army had an overall strategic vision to invade the
Soviet Union, really right back to the Bismarck days.
“Officers of the Austrian General Staff, who sometimes also had the ear of Crown Prince
Wilhelm, the future kaiser, argued for a pre-emptive war to counter the supposedly mounting Russian
menace.”
Sounds similar to the Suvorov thesis, doesn’t it? If Polish provinces fell and the tsar
mobilized the forces of his empire then the Germans would aim to conquer the Baltic States
and the Ukraine, to destroy Russia’s production base. Again, a very similar concept to what
happened in 1941. Müller notes though that -
“Although some of the conceptual roots of Hitler’s war in the East can undoubtedly
be found here, it would be excessive to imply there was any continuity of thought.”
It’s interesting though how some of the ideas were formed way before Hitler came along,
which begs the question - did Hitler come up with these ideas on his own? Was it just
a coincidence? Or was he influenced by talk within the German Army which he served? I
don’t know the answer to that, but it’s something to ponder.
What was a big influence though was the Russian collapse towards the end of World War 1. The
German Army had struggled for three years to gain the Polish territories, and, even
though they hadn’t actually won in the East in terms of a military victory, the Germans
chose to ignore that fact and only remembered how victorious they were in the last year
of the war in the East when the Russian Empire imploded politically.
They also forgot how, even though they had conquered the East, Germany collapsed anyway,
which suggested that taking the Eastern territories may not have provided enough resources to
sustain Germany… but shush!
After the First World War, Poland became an independent state, which annoyed both the
Germans and the Soviets very very much. This was why the Germans and the Soviets formed
a secret alliance in 1922, allowing the Reichswehr to test weapons that were banned under the
Treaty of Versailles on Soviet soil. Throughout the 1920s, and up until Hitler got elected,
the Germans and the Soviets were in cooperation, and there were talks about invading Poland
together.
This wasn’t a super-friendly alliance though. Both sides believed the other would fall in
a second Revolution. The Germans believed Communism would fall, and the Soviets believed
‘Capitalism’ would fall as well. So that’s definitely worth bearing in mind. But they
were cooperating together, and Poland was beset on both sides by enemies, which led
to economic and political warfare throughout the 1920s. Plans were being drawn up by the
German military to deal with this immediate issue.
“At the start of 1926, the Troop Office [the German General Staff in disguise] formulated
the aims of a long-term revisionist policy to be underpinned by military means: restoration
of German sovereignty, liberation of the Rhineland and the Saarland, Anschluss of German Austria,
removal of the Corridor and recovery of Polish Upper Silesia.”
But for about a decade, with the German Army restricted in size, there was no talk about
invading the Soviet Union. It was only after Hitler got elected that things started to
change, and an invasion of the Soviet Union was now being considered. Hitler told the
defence minister on the 2nd of February 1933 that they were going to conquer Lebensraum
in the East. No definite plan was put in place yet though, since Hitler was still consolidating
his position and had only just begun rearming the military.
But proof of Hitler’s intention was soon apparent. Hitler forced the German military
to stop cooperating with the Soviet Union, and began building a relationship with Poland
instead. A trade agreement was made, and then later a non-aggression pact with the Poles
was signed on the 26th of January 1934.
It wasn’t until 1935 though that discussions started to be had between the Poles and the
Germans about a possible invasion against the Soviet Union. There’s a debate about
who suggested it first, with some saying that the Poles actually suggested it before the
Germans did, but either way these discussions continued right up until early 1939.
It was equally possible though that the Poles would just remain neutral if Germany became
embroiled in any conflict with the Soviet Union. So early plans for the invasion of
Czechoslovakia assumed that this would be the case. In the war games of 1935, the Germans
believed that a neutral Poland would prevent the Soviet Union from moving in from the east.
Any thrust into the Balkans could then be stopped by the Germans, allowing them to concentrate
on the south and the west, before they moved east. But it seems that the Germans were still
thinking of defending themselves at this point, rather than attacking, which makes sense since
they were still rearming.
The German Army had also already come to the conclusion that they needed to win a war quickly,
with battles up to 150 miles into enemy territory. Any further than that, and they’d be in
trouble logistically, because they simply didn’t have the resources to wage a war
miles away from their borders, especially if they ended up in a war on two fronts. Thus,
an invasion of the Soviet Union at this time was probably viewed as extremely unlikely
to succeed.
However, from about 1935 onwards discussions between the Poles and the Germans advanced
to a point where they were debating the carve up Soviet territory. They faced a big problem
though. If you look at the map, and assume that the Poles and the Germans would advance
East together, it would make sense for the Germans to take the Baltic States, since that’s
where East Prussia was. And in fact, this is what the Poles suggested. They said that
the Germans could have the northern parts of the Soviet Union, and they’d have the
south. But of course, the Germans (and Hitler especially) wanted the Ukraine and the Caucasus
because of the resources there, so they rejected this idea. Instead, they suggested that the
Poles take the northern parts of the Soviet Union, and the Germans would take the south.
I mean, if this had happened, the map would have looked very strange. I don’t even know
how it would have looked, I’m sort of guessing with the map right now. But I guess it would
have looked something like this. Maybe Germany would have reestablished a land connection
with East Prussia, but either way, Poland is awkwardly in the way, and East Prussia
looks kinda silly.
More importantly, it’s unclear if there would have been a connection between Germany
and the Ukraine and Caucasus provinces. So, would there have been two Germanys? Müller
suggests that the Germans would have advanced south of Poland, which was why they were trying
to prevent the Hungarians and Romanians from joining a ‘passive’ power-bloc with the
Poles during the late 1930s. If that bloc had formed, and then remained neutral, Germany
couldn’t have gone south of Poland, and Germany’s expansion East would have been
limited to East Prussia. That would have made it super-awkward to advance eastwards because
they would have had to march the German Army through Polish territory, which the Poles
may not have been happy with.
But if they had taken, let’s say, Czechoslovakia, and advanced to the south, again the map would
have looked ridiculous. Poland would have been almost completely surrounded by German
territory. It literally makes no sense to do this, which is probably the reason why
the talks fell through.
It is known that the Poles didn’t really want (what they deemed to be) the barren north,
and they really wanted the south, which, at least, would have made more sense from a map
point-of-view. If the Germans had advanced from East Prussia, and taken roughly the territory
you see now, then the map would have looked much more reasonable, especially if the Danzig
corridor was in German hands. But, since the Germans wanted the south, and Poles didn’t
want the ‘barren’ north, the Poles ultimately rejected the German proposal.
Either way, it should become clear why Hitler was intent on reconnecting East Prussia with
the Reich. Without the Danzig corridor, German expansion to the East would be severely limited,
even if a southern route was possible. Imagine trying to supply three Army Groups through
East Prussia, but without a solid land connection. I mean, it’s just unthinkable. That’s
why the Germans became willing to extend their non-aggression pact with Poland and also offered
to officially recognise their shared border. But they would only do this if Poland gave
them the city of Danzig and an extraterritorial connection by motorway and railway to the
city. They needed a solid land connection with East Prussia at the very least.
And this is also why Hitler objected to the idea of Poland taking over Lithuania in March
1938, which they were agitating for. Had Poland taken Lithuania, this would have blocked German
expansion to the East (or, at least, into the Baltic States and the northern Soviet
Union, since they may still have been able to go south). It’s clear then why Hitler
objected to Poland’s expansion into Lithuania - because he had already decided he was going
into the Soviet Union. So those people saying that Hitler wasn’t aggressively trying to
expand Eastwards, and that he was just reacting to events, have missed another vital clue
that says he was trying to go East.
In late 1938 and early 1939 especially, Hitler put pressure on Poland to join the Anti-Comintern
Pact. Poland though didn’t want to, and there were several reasons why. One big one
was that it would have pushed Poland into war with the Soviet Union, or had made them
a buffer state of the Germans versus the Soviets. Also, the Poles knew that, in the event that
the Germans did knock out the USSR and took the lands in the East, the Germans would have
basically surrounded Poland, placing Poland in a far worse position than she already was.
Therefore, so long as Germany and the USSR remained at loggerheads, it made sense for
Poland not to fight the Soviet Union, which explains why she started resisting German
efforts to forge an alliance. It also explains why she ultimately ended up in alliance with
Britain and France. So note - it was Hitler’s aggressive policy of trying to go East which
caused Poland to side with the West - it wasn’t a Polish aggressive policy towards Germany.
Hitler was also aiming East at this point, not West, as some have chosen to believe.
“The received interpretation of Hitler’s intentions at the start of 1939 is that he
wanted to control Poland as a forward base in the east so as to first undertake an offensive
in the west and then subsequently wage war against the USSR. But there were no especial
military measures or plans in place for an imminent war against the western powers. The
Wehrmacht’s activities continued to be directed eastward and aimed at preparing the ground
for an expansion into the USSR.”
Now, the turning point was March 1939, when Czechoslovakia was dissolved completely. The
Danzig Corridor became the central issue, which Poland was now worried about. She therefore
started looking for help from Britain, as German diplomatic pressure mounted. Hitler
now thought Poland’s chance was gone.
“Now he had to mentally adjust to postponing the clash with the USSR until after the ‘Polish
question’ had been resolved.”
And it’s important to note that -
“A proximate invasion of the Soviet Union, a ‘Barbarossa 1939’, did not yet have
any clear contours. But there is no doubt that the idea was in circulation among the
military’s planners…”
So, there were no operational plans for an invasion of the Soviet Union. But that doesn’t
mean that there hadn’t been any strategic talk of a possibility. Müller offers us some
speculation about what could have happened in early to mid-1939, had the Poles and Germans
decided to go East together. The Germans would have had at least 50 divisions in the east,
with Poles having 50 divisions, and the other Axis allies providing more too. The Soviet
Red Army would have been able to gather at most 100 divisions, but possibly less, meaning
that the Axis would have been on an equal footing with the Soviets. (This is actually
worse than in reality, where the Axis outnumbered the Soviets on day one of Operation Barbarossa
1941.) Had the Baltic States joined in too, it could have been better, especially when
we consider that the Axis would have started much further East in 1939 than they did in
1941. The Red Army wasn’t prepared in 1941, and would have been less-so in 1939, since
they had started recovering from the Purges in 1941, and had had time to arm themselves.
The weather would have been better in 1939 than in 1941, and I believe (although I could
be wrong) that the Poles were using the western railway gauge, not the Russian one. There
would have also been little or no Polish resistance to speak off (maybe some Ukrainian resistance
in Poland, but there’s no way to tell), so this means that, logistically, they wouldn’t
have been as strained as they had been in the actual Barbarossa.
Now obviously, this is all speculation, and there’s no way to know what would have happened.
You could argue that the German Army would have been less-experienced in 1939 than in
1941, and they did get into some trouble in Poland and France, which allowed them to learn
from their mistakes. Such mistakes wouldn’t have been learnt had they gone East in 1939.
And there’s other things to consider - like the fact they’d have had fewer medium tanks,
and planes, and so on. But one thing that is clear, as Müller points out, is that there
was considerable evidence that Hitler had no plans for war in the Summer of 1939, meaning
that a Barbarossa Campaign would probably not have been mounted before 1940 anyway.
This is important to consider because the Hossbach Memorandum (explained in detail in
a recent video) says that 1943 was the latest that Barbarossa could have taken place. So
this places the years of a potential Barbarossa between 1940 and 1943, which answers Diego’s
second question -
“Thanks to your work, we have a better understanding of the fact that Hitler never intended to
go to war in the West. That said, how soon did Hitler want to attack the Soviet Union
under geopolitical circumstances where France and Great Britain remained neutral as planned:
summer 1940 or summer 1941 as it was historically? Cheers!”
I would say summer 1940 was a distinct possibility, had the west remained neutral. But then again,
for the west to remain neutral in 1941, they couldn’t have guaranteed Poland’s independence. Which
means that Poland would have had to decide whether to side with Hitler or Stalin, or
face destruction. It’s more likely that they would have sided with Hitler over Stalin,
which could have seen the Polish on the side of the Germans as they marched East. Again,
no way to know if this is the case or not, but it’s definitely something to ponder.
Thanks for watching, bye for now.