General Category > Military History

Hitler and Stalin: the tyrants and the Second World War

(1/1)

Timber Rattler:
Apparently this is the book that Zelensky is reading to inform himself about Russia, Hitler and Stalin, and what worked and didn't work in World War II.

https://the-past.com/review/books/hitler-and-stalin-the-tyrants-and-the-second-world-war/


--- Quote ---In the autumn of 1939, after they signed a pact agreeing to carve up Poland, Hitler and Stalin were depicted in a cartoon as a newly wed couple walking down the aisle. Hand in hand, with Stalin the bride and Hitler the groom, the caption underneath read: ‘Wonder how long the honeymoon will last.’

As Laurence Rees demonstrates in his latest book, now out in paperback, it was in many ways a match made in heaven. The pair had so much in common. For instance, as the pact had shown, both men could put aside their ideological differences in order to advance their war aims.

The congruences do not end there. Once at war, the pair were extremely capable of spates of mass killing, forced starvation, and suicidal offensives. Both terrorised their subordinates into obeying their commands and adopted ‘not one step back’ initiatives at different times. And, of course, they were both cowards, strenuously avoiding personal visits to the chaos of the front line.

But the most-significant similarity was a fundamental mistake Rees claims Hitler and Stalin both made. ‘They fooled themselves into believing that they could think into existence what they wanted to happen,’ he says.

(snip)

The key period in the war, Rees claims, was in October that year, when Stalin went against his own instincts and decided to stay in Moscow despite the imminent threat of invasion. From then on, he played to his strengths as a consummate committee man, organising the bureaucracy involved in moving Soviet industry east of the Urals. Meanwhile, he took a step back of his own and began to trust General Zhukov to win his battles for him.

At the same time, Hitler’s weaknesses came to the fore. He seized personal control of the German army and declared war on the United States, two disastrous decisions, both taken in the same month.

--- End quote ---

Navigation

[0] Message Index