That differs from most of what I've read, I frequently seen Glantz referenced and must try a book or two of his although I have seen him on the "War factories" series and several of the quotes there seem to disagree with some of the comments I've seen here and elsewhere. Currently finishing off "Wages of Destruction" because it was frequently being referred by another poster on another site and in that case his points seem to have been rather selective as the gist of Tooze's argument is often contary to what was being argued. Please note, I'm not accusing you of the same but given what I'm read elsewhere and the TV series I have reasons to be cautious.
Be careful with Glantz, he is very good on the documentary evidence on the Soviet side of the hill, but is often blatantly wrong on the German side. His interpretation of the facts is flawed quite often too, even on Soviet stuff.
Tooze is also hardly perfect and you should also read Overy on the German economy and the Germany and the Second World War series, which is the best resource on any issue on the German war effort since they had the best access to German records of anyone and a mandate from the Bundeswehr to write the history of the entire German war effort. Just a warning though it's over 13,000 pages.
My point, and Tooze makes this clear, was that Stalin's stupidity made the OTL German successes possible as it allowed many of the large encirclement's or other losses due to attacks being ordered when the forces were in no position to do so. Avoid a few of those and the Red Army has a lot more trained forces to stop the Germans a lot earlier.
Tooze is out of his depth when talking about the fighting or equipment and even some production issues; I've caught him in blatant falsehoods when cross referencing some things with more specialist sources on certain sectors of the German economy. He's not bad when talking about Hitler's overall grand strategy and general economics or even the impact of bomb damage from the RAF, but he is quite flawed in myriad of other areas and isn't the near gospel source some people online like to pretend.
Stalin's stupidity was a factor, but so was the material problems the Soviets faced. I'd trust Glantz's Stumbling Colossus on the reality of how jacked up the Soviets were in 1941 and virtually unable to fight effectively; trying to evacuate in a timely fashion was virtually impossible in any number of instances and standing and fighting actually was the better option compared to getting destroyed when retreating given the greater German mobility and efficacy of the Luftwaffe. It was really much more Hitler's strategic errors and misconceptions that robbed the German army of its chance of victory in 1941. Arguably in 1942 as well.
Soviet training left a ton to be desired even pre-war, again see Glantz's Stumbling Colossus. Even after the Soviets got things sorted in 1942 and 1943 they were still horribly butchered in open combat despite having crushing numerical superiority in those engagements, like 2nd and 3rd Kharkov.
Long before OTL Typhoon a lot of the mobile units especially were fragments of what they were in terms of manpower and equipment. This was also a problem after the 1st round of offensives and why a pause for some units to regroup and try and rebuild some of their equipment structure was necessary. Remember that those units too disproportionate losses because they were engaged the most and often forced to stand against counter attacks to hold lines until the foot infantry could catch up.
That's actually false. See Askey, he proves that is largely bullshit in his books. Not just him but also "Enduring the Whirlwind" by Liedtke, which is probably a cheaper, more accessible source. Basically by October the average division was only about 15% understrength because replacements had largely kept up with losses.
Guys like Stahel are trash because they're just trying to sell books not write accurate histories. He specifically cherrypicks data and takes it out of context all the time and outright get some facts badly wrong.
Again, when was this operational pause you speak of? There was basically constant fighting with only very short rests from June to November. And actually armor units weren't the worst worn down and were prioritized for replacements, so were better off than infantry divisions, which did the heaviest fighting; the mobile units generally exploited infantry success in battle and hit weaker units on the march rather than getting stuck in in attrition slugging matches; that is what the infantry divisions were for. Certainly there were instances that that did happen, but mobile divisions generally used their mobility to run rings around Soviet units in battle and suffered surprisingly few losses especially on the offensive.
I didn't say it would replace Moscow but it, the equipment already evacuated and lack of any alternative would keep the Russians fighting. Not as large a force as OTL but enough to tie down a hell of a lot of German forces and continue the attrition of their manpower.
They could want to fight, but without equipment or supplies they cannot. Will means nothing as just about everyone who's defeated in combat finds out. I'm sorry but your statements above are just meaningless rhetoric not backed up by facts.
I was talking about in 41-43 especially. Both equipment and most of all probably manpower and food, especially from the start of 1941. This was what enabled the government to increase the rations to the German population in 1942 after cuts that caused serious disatisfaction the previous year. Also the railway engines and wagons from western Europe were very important in patching up the German railway system, which due to neglect in the previous years was in a very rocky condition by 1939-40. This was a primary reason why that winter was very bad for Germany as the country couldn't distribute the materials it needed, especially coal to fuel industry and homes.
Ok. I assume you're using Tooze for your comments on the German domestic situation...that is somewhat cherrypicked data that the Germany and Second World War series somewhat belies.
The rail situation was a bit rocky in 1939-40 due to unexpected mobilization, but by 1942 was largely resolved when wartime production finally got sorted. I'm not talking about Speer's efforts specifically, but the administration being centralized finally, industrial expansion finally being finished (originally slated to be completed in 1942 anyway), and priorities being worked out once the nature of the conflict was understood.
Tooze really doesn't seem to understand how badly the administration was unprepared for war in 1939 because Hitler had told them it was only coming in 1942, so they didn't have a mobilization plan, which is what caused so much of the transport, production, and administrative issues in 1939-40. That's all covered by the Germany the Second World War series in depth.
That I'm not aware of in detail but will add Askey to my reading list.
Please do and Liedtke's "enduring the whirlwind".
Interesting as the War Factories series - which I admit I take some points with a pinch of salt - takes the opposite viewpoint. The almost unorganised looting of French factories, especially for motor production greatly restricted their production but the Germans didn't have the experience of widespread motor production to make efficient use of the equipment.
I'm going to guess that is a pop history series, which are usually trash. There are better histories about the economic situation in occupied France; it depends on what period you're talking about too; the characterization you speak of was certainly true of 1940, but much less so from 1941 on when administrative responsibilities were sorted. That doesn't mean there weren't still issues, but once it was clear that the war was going to take a while things in France got a lot more reasonable though it was realized that trying to produce in France was a poor choice given the sabotage rates from French factories. So the Germans didn't bother to try and produce much in France because it would be wasted resources and instead maxed out production in Germany by taking from France.
Germany's issues with production are complicated and depends on each sector. Tooze is a flawed source in that regard. Especially around the truck issue, but that would take an entire essay to explain; the 'just so' explanation of 'not having experience with mass production' is just false though.
Mind you from 1942 onwards when the extraction of food especially from France and other areas caused serious problems France and other developed areas would have had problems increasing their production anyway.
Ultimately irrelevant given the choice to maximize output in Germany. Even then France was representing a net drain by 1944.
Given how much of the USSR had been occupied by then I'm doubtful of this.
I'm talking about the stuff in Moscow and Ukraine; the evacuations prior prioritized movement of factories closer to the border first since they were the most threatened; the rapid German advance caught the Soviets badly off guard. There is a reason after all Stalin thought the war was lost after the Minsk pocket and only later got his starch back when mobilizations of speed bump units worked out better than anticipated.
It might suprise you what 30-50 million people can do when they have to fight to survive.
Not when they don't have enough food to sustain them in combat units. If you read about the actual reality of most partisan fighting in the East most of their efforts were expending threatening civilians for food or trying to grow it in hidden areas to sustain themselves and they did very little actual fighting. After all if it were so easy then the Ukrainians would have overthrown the Soviets in the 1930s during the Holdomor.
Possibly although that might depend on the source. I've come across some right wing sources that seek to suggest that FDR's period of power was an utter disaster for the US and ignores what actually happened, both during the depression period and the war. This is one of the problems with war Factories as one of their quotes mentions the collapse of industry in the US but the period they mention was overwhelmingly before he became President. He made a lot of bad decisions and from some sources I've read was devious but he wasn't anything like the chaotic failure that Hitler and the Nazis were with their delusions, arbitrary changes of policy and bitter infighting.
Steve
Sure, I seen those too and think their critiques of the New Deal are generally vapid, but they do have some points about the war effort and the complete ignoring of Soviet penetration of all levels of government (Morgenthau's right hand man was a Soviet spy as was one of FDR's closest advisors and they materially sabotaged US efforts globally and in negotiations to help the Soviets).
I'm talking about biographies that tended to be more nuanced if not favorable to FDR; the still lamented the way the war effort was run and just how badly his mental decline was from 1941 on due to war stress, his drinking and smoking, and the realities of his physical ailments and limitations had on him. Before 1941 he was a different man and his wartime work is a black mark on his record. FDR was more constrained by his advisors on military matters, so couldn't be necessarily as destructive as Hitler, but you still have instances like the Admiral King affair in 1942 that saw the Atlantic stripped of escorts to send to the Pacific and then the greatest losses of the war to Uboats shortly thereafter, which arguably set the Wallied war effort back 6-12 months.