This series was at least as good as any professionally done Discovery channel production. The maps were very well done and looked to be quite accurate. Your narration was also very good. If you ever wish to continue, you have my best wishes and support.
Thanks for making this series! I really enjoyed it. Wish you'd make more videos, but I can totally understand the real life obligations making that difficult to justify
Really enjoyed it! Especially your unbiased view. Seemed very professional. Other series about the various theatres would be very nice to see n the future. kind regards form germany
I thought this was very well done and if you do get back to making more documentaries at any time I absolutely will be onboard. Good luck in whatever you do!
You are an amazing creator would who goes into detail very well while still keeping the presentation interesting and intriguing. Please continue making wonderful content.
Great series, my gratitude to you good sir. When you do have some more time on hand... Please consider making any videos on Fall Blau. You are really talented at making these kind of videos.
Congratulations, exitings videos to understand very well the development of one of biggest and important operation in WWII. The maps and explanations are clear and easy to leran about it
Well interesting series, would be interesting to see further videos like this covering the whole eastern front war. I know that's a big task but have you thought about doing videos just at a much slower pace? You could make it a multi-year project rather than a 2 month project for the 12 videos you've released so far. Even 1 video a month would be a decent pace.
Holy shit, when they say it was a war of extermination it really was. It was a brutal war like no other in all of Human history. The losses on both sides were appalling.
This is a very nice series of videos. Which highly details the first six months of battles between the Soviets and Germans. The statistical detail of these engagements using information from newer history books produced give a much different version from the books of old. and a much more accurate one. The one huge everlasting question will always be did the German army ever have any chance of total victory with this initial offensive. I believe that there was one chance and you mentioned it in your last video. As strange as that sounds, regime change including Stalin.s early removal was Germany's only true chance. He held them together through the difficult early phase of this war. just as Hitler held Germany together until the end.
Thankyou... You have done a great job... Hope so I'll find some new videos on your channel so I'm subscribing it. As ur effort was wonderful. Thanx a lot man
The Soviets realized that Japan was not going to invade Siberia, and so the 1,000,000 in reserve there could move toward the front lines against Germany. It was a humongous boost.
You make an interesting comment, paraphrasing 'Operation Barbarossa was doomed to failure. Even if Moscow was taken, the Russians could retreat to the east and the Soviets would keep fighting as long as Stalin was in charge'. The thing is, Stalin had decided to stay in Moscow against the counsel of his advisors, so the taking of Moscow would have resulted in his death or capture. I note that he did evacuate much of the government in mid-October to Kyubishev.
What the maker of this video seems to forget or to ignore, when he says that the Red Army survived thanks to Stalin (and would have lost if he would have been killed and replaced by someone willing to surrender) is the fact that Nazi-Germany was fighting a war of total annihilation, their goal being the enslavement of the whole Soviet population (they considered the Soviet people as "Untermenschen" ('subhumans')) and to conquer all Soviet resources (oil, grain, raw supplies etc.). The Soviet people and Red Army were well aware of this and they had no other choice than to fight or to get killed. So they would never surrender, regardless of Stalin or whoever. They would keep on fighting to the bitter end or win the war. We all know what finally happened.
The historic Russian love of their native land runs very deep. The Russian people look upon her as a Mother, calling her Mother Russia. Whereas the Germans looked upon their native land as the Fatherland. A classic fight of ying and yang.
I suggest that Soviet Union might continue fighting not only after the fall of Moscow, but even if Stalin was not anymore in power. Previous events were of such nature that to stop fighting by Soviet Union was not possible.
When Hitler sacked Guderian, father of Armored Warfare, that was the sign that the war was over, the idiot just didn't know it yet! Manstein may have been able to save the day if given command of the eastern front ... not likely by any stretch of the imagination. Great video!
Wish ya’d come out with some new stuff. I always find myself coming back to these videos over the years. I agree that Barbarossa was doomed from the start. Stalin would have only moved his government further and further to the East had the Germans made it to Moscow and beyond. Not a very well planned offensive in my opinion.
Thanks for great and very hardwork on these videos, esp Barbarossa series, but you're unactive for about 1 year, where did you go , please make a series about Fall Blau, or did you just make another channel ? if anyone knows answer to where the Jack of War went or is he still active, please answer me, his videos were awesome and i wanna find out if he's still active and where, thanks
Moscow was a much greater prize in 1941 than 1812. Crucially it was the centre of the rail network. Heinz Guderian went ballistic when Hitler refused to advance in July & announced the war is lost. The genius knew.
They were brought from the Siberian front once Stalin realized they wouldn't have to fight Japan. Conclusion, not even the Soviets would have survived a 2 front war.
I was told it would've taken every truck in the German Army to get them into Moscow; that Hitler never had the logistical reach, so he lost the war the day he started it.
Why do u think there was no way Germany to win only because of population? Germany had just twice (2.5?) less population, so only twice less manpower. This isn't so crucial after so dramatical losses from soviet side at the beginning. I mean, I also think Germany had no chances at all, but not only because of manpower. It was much more complicated.
So Funny Obviously there were many other factors at play making a German victory next to impossible, but I think you're underestimating the importance of such a huge manpower advantage. Having 2.5 times as many people in the Soviet Union has far reaching impacts beyond the ability to absorb huge numbers of casualties and continue fighting. It means 2.5 times as many people available to work in the factories and on the farms as well. The products of this massive labor machine had to travel relatively short distances to make their way to the front. Whereas the numerically outclassed Germans had to stretch their supply lines and materiel repair/manufacturing capacity over thousands of miles to reach into the USSR. All the while their military resources and manpower were spread thin occupying and defending virtually the whole European continent. This means, in reality, the manpower disparity at the front and in materiel management was far greater than the overall difference between their populations.
So Funny are you serious? german nazi forces were of a total of 3.5 million in all, while the "soviet union has "6 million soldiers " that includes their reserve. thats like twice the number of soldiers of german forces!
Not only that but Germany had a front in Africa (later Italy) to supply also, and they had to station troops in Norway, Denmark, Holland/Belgium and France incase an allied landing was to take place, add to that allied bombing Germany proper and the partisans all over europe making life difficult for the Germans (there was an uprising in Yugoslavia in 1941 that was never put down). If you take all of that into account there were no chance for Germany to win once their advance halted in Soviet. If you take the allies out of the equation Germany very likely would have crushed Soviet.
Correct if I'm not right. In most occupated states in europe Germans had collaboration forces, who helped to take control over those states. So it wasn't necessary to increase number of occupation forces from state to state.
So Funny There were collaborationist regimes/factions in some of the occupied areas, but certainly nowhere near enough to render significant numbers of occupying German forces unnecessary. What people (Keiser) are ignoring are the critical factors of organizational and personnel morale. German allies (especially Italians, Romanians, etc. - see Russian flanking/encirclement at Stalingrad) and volunteers from occupied countries proved to be very fickle and often extremely weak fighters. They couldn't just call up more people into service from occupied countries and expect that to effectively reinforce the Heer. The Russians were fighting for their homes and families; German allies were fighting for some dubiously competent dictator from another country.
I disagree. Taking Moscow would have disrupted the entire Russian defense of the entire front as all rail lines must pass through Moscow. Cutting the rail lines would have meant an end to supply of Leningrad and that of Stalingrad as well.
Grenadier loyal to the king. Bullshit. Patriotism only takes you so far. (Why did 3.3 million Soviets surrender in 1941?). Fear takes you the rest of the way.
My grandmothers brother died in first months of war, in a german pocket. They refused to surrender and fought being totally surrounded. My grandfather fought in battle for Moscow and made it all the way to Berlin. You know i asked many veterans about the motivation. And i found one common thing. They hated nazis and were angry at the point they cound care about death no more. People ramming aircraft and throwing themselves on machine gun points were common for Red Army.
Stalin refused to leave Moscow, brushing aside advice to leave the city. Had the Germans encircled the city and captured Stalin it might have been the end. Hitler from new documentation and analysis never favoured taking Moscow, his objective was always South through Ukraine and the Caucuses, If they cut off a large part of Russian food supply and oil, their ability to fight a mechanised war was over. Strong evidence that Russian in 1942 was on the brink of starvation and fuel shortages....
Moscow was a Rail Hub.. Napoleon didn't Conquer anything but a Glorified Village.. Moscow in 41 connected Several Fronts.. including Oil from the Caucasus to The Plants in the Urals..no comparison really..
And yet - after stalin's death, Beria was the best chance for true liberalisation in Soviet Union. If he wasn't murdered by zhukov, Khrushchev et consortes, the Cold War could have been finished thirty years sooner.