World War II causes and consequences

World War II

Russian campaign was the culminating event of World War II. German aggression against Soviet Union was an extremely fierce battle ever took place in human history. German troops met new kind of enemy in vast fields of Ukraine and swamp Byelorussian woods: Soviet armed forces were much stronger and experienced than any European army of that time, as German, and Nazi soldiers and their allies (Italians, Romanians, Hungarians, Slovaks) noticed that during the first days of the new war. When reading Hitler's plan -- Barbarossa -- everyone would notice that this operation was the main Hitler's strategic aim and any activity of Wehrmacht in Northern and Western Africa was simply a wish to threaten British interests in that region but not to win a war. It can be easily proved by figures of German troops fought in Africa and in Russia and sizes of these military theaters.

Let us try to find out the main particularities of Russian campaign and African battles and the main reasons of Russian and Allies' and also German success and failures there.

Russia was the main Hitler's aim. He wanted to capture the main strategic regions and inhabit them by Germans; Slavs had to be slaves there and work for the Nordic race. Hitler considered vast lands of Soviet Union to be a perfect space for developing own country, creating new super-race of knights who had to rule the world. His attitude to Slavic nations formed in his early years when he lived in Vienna. He was sure that Slavs are not people at all and they had to live only under German reign as they -- were not able to rule in their own country -- . His attitude to other nations was much friendlier: Britons were relative race, the majority of German-speaking or bordering Germany nations were considered relative as well. But nations of Soviet Union were found Asian and uncivilized and that meant historical mission of Germany in the east of Europe, as Adolf Hitler thought. He explained his views on the political situation in Russia in the middle of 1920s in -- Nazi Bible -- Mein Kampf -- . He wrote there that Russian nation was no longer able to rule in own country because Germans who were present in Russian power for centuries were forced to leave Russia. Jew sued this situation and organized revolution and as a result -- captured power in this huge country ad decided to spread Communistic ideas over the whole Europe and the world. Sure, this was only half of the truth but Hitler convinced Germans in these facts and proclaimed eastern campaign to gain space for Germans to live.

Origins of the African conflict were different from those we could see in Russia. Hitler didn't consider African War Theater as the main or even important as German historian Kurt von Tippelskirch noticed in his book The History of World War II. The reason of German involvement in that conflict was Italian failure in Northern and Eastern Africa. British troops defeated 7 Italian divisions and had taken 130.000 POWs. Italians lost colonies and could no longer dream of capturing British ones. Sure, Hitler decided to help an ally and sent Luftwaffe units to Sicily at first. He wanted to drop mines in Suez channel and block British navy there. These actions were successful but they could not gain victory and Hitler was forced to send Wehrmacht units to Northern Africa. The aim of this help was not to improve the situation in that region and not to capture more colonies but to preserve Italian troops from the great catastrophe. Luftwaffe blocked British ships in their naval bases with mines and attacked supply convoys in the Mediterranean, which were left without air support. One of the reasons of Italian failure was Benito Mussolini's wish to gain success in that region alone using only Italian army. He didn't wish Germans to be present in Africa because as he said: "In that case we won't be able to get rid of them." Future success were Rommel's merits: he managed to reorganize demoralized Italian troops and convince them that Germans would help them in that fight. His talent influenced the war for two years. But even under the condition of success of African campaign Hitler was disappointed. Africa bothered Hitler to prepare for the war against Russia. He had to send troops to Greece and Yugoslavia as well and it is very important that even there the reason was Italian defeat in Greece. Hitler was very disappointed in Mussolini and had to help his weak ally, which was not able to capture such small country as Greece was. Hitler considered African victories as political but not military success. He needed Rommel's divisions in the east but not far away in Africa. He was sure that those troops he had sent to Africa could preserve Italians from defeat and would help defeating British troops in the whole Mediterranean region because he planned to capture Greece and Yugoslavia where British positions were rather strong.

When preparing troops to invade Russia Hitler thought he would capture main regions of Soviet Union for several weeks and Soviet system would collapse as soon as Wehrmacht would step on Soviet land.

Sure, Baltic republics and parts of Ukraine (which were Polish territory before 1939) were inhabited by people who suffered a lot from Bolsheviks' regime and its politics of industrialization and Collectivization. Hitler was sure that those nations would help him and he had a plan to form army units so that they would be able to fight for "their future against cruel Stalin" as it was written in German posters. During the war national minorities of Soviet Union (Chechens, Tatars, Polish and Ukrainians) decided to join the Nazi, as they wanted to fight against Soviets for a long period of time. This was a very important factor of Hitler's moral success, but it didn't influence the war because those rebels were not trained to fight and in reality, could not resist Red Army. Besides it, they saw and realized the horror of Hitler's "new order" and gave up fighting for no reason. "They burned down Russian villages and looted Russian homes. This was more than simple anti-Bolshevism, and it was harder to forgive"(Overy, Richard Russia's War p. 148)

This was one of the reasons of the fact that anti-Communist movement organized by Germans was not popular. The situation in Africa was different: both German and Allies' troops fought not for own territory but for a colony inhabited by the nations who didn't care of that war and didn't influence the outcomes of any battle there. Neither Germans nor Allies didn't have real, sincere support from the natives of African territories as native population lived their own life while they fought.

First months showed Germans that though Soviets are badly equipped and trained they are really serious enemies and German commanders hoped to defeat Red Army before it could move back and construct strong defense. But Russian tactics was outdated, for example during one cavalry attack in the beginning of the war "By October 18 German armored forces had taken the cities of Kalinin to the ... down by machine-gun fire; 2,000 of the horsemen were killed, not a single German."(Overy, Richard Russia's War p. 114)