Importance of American lend-lease to Soviet war effort in WW II?

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by David Floyd
AH,



Actually I believe I was the first to bring up the point about the US being able to take Berlin first.

Yes but you didn't know why they didn't. That's pretty basic knowledge Floyd, Jeez .

Well, as more and more documents from the era are declassified by Russia, Lend Lease keeps looking more and more significant.

More significant is a long way from decisive

[monkspider]

Originally posted by David Floyd

Even for the East Germans? I doubt it.

Not initially, since Stalin moved most of the East German factories east ward in sort of an act of spite and there was the whole tension over the Berlin blockade thing and so forth. But over time things improved considerably. Eventually East Germans had the highest standard of living for any country in the Soviet Union.

Not compared to the standard of living for the average western European

True, but the standard of living for an eastern European wasn't as high to start with.

[Alexander's Horse]

Soviet occupation was bad but much much better than German racist tyranny. Its also had a number of positive effects:

a. Stalin settled the nationalities and borders question at the point of a bayonet - he put the Poles in Poland, the Germans in East Germany and so forth.

b. Soviet occupation stabilised the whole region.

c. After a period of making good their industrial losses in the war, economic development, albeit flawed, and social reconstruction in Eastern Europe was a high priority for Russia - schools, hospitals, housing were all given high priority during the Cold War.

So while it wasn't great, it was better than what had been there before under the Germans in most of Eastern Europe.

[Ned]

David, the weather totally exhausted the German attack on Moscow leaving them ripe for a counter-attack. Agreed. However, even assuming no lend lease, the German and Soviet forces were at least equal in strenght from the Battle of Moscow forward. This means to me that the Gemans could no longer defeat the USSR after the Battle of Moscow regardless of Lend Lease.

Lend Lease undoubtedly help the Soviets build up the army groups back of Stalingrad, but Soviet production was itself massive - exceeding that of Germany.

The Germans could have won from 1942 onwards only if it had committed substantially all of its forces in the Eastern Front and had increased its war production to match that of the Soviets. Otherwise, even without Lend Lease, Germany was doomed. But this was impossible, as we know.

The failure to take Moscow in 1941 doomed Germany to eventual defeat. The Battle of Moscow was therefore the decisive battle in WWII. This battle, as you agree, was entirely won by the Soviets using their own resources.

Logically, therefore, Lend Lease was not critical to defeating Germany. However, it did hasten Germany's defeat.

[David Floyd]

AH,

Yes but you didn't know why they didn't. That's pretty basic knowledge Floyd, Jeez

Actually I thought I mentioned the reasons in my initial post. If you got to it first, I apologize, but you're right - it is fairly basic knowledge that I assure you is not new to me.

More significant is a long way from decisive

Point is, even Russian sources are beginning to refute the former Soviet official line on Lend Lease.

monk,

Not initially, since Stalin moved most of the East German factories east ward in sort of an act of spite and there was the whole tension over the Berlin blockade thing and so forth. But over time things improved considerably. Eventually East Germans had the highest standard of living for any country in the Soviet Union.

I'm not sure this is saying a whole lot compared to the West.

True, but the standard of living for an eastern European wasn't as high to start with.

Yes. It'd be interested to see which side grew more relative to it's starting position. I'd suspect Western Europe, but I really don't know.

Ned,

David, the weather totally exhausted the German attack on Moscow leaving them ripe for a counter-attack. Agreed. However, even assuming no lend lease, the German and Soviet forces were at least equal in strenght from the Battle of Moscow forward. This means to me that the Gemans could no longer defeat the USSR after the Battle of Moscow regardless of Lend Lease.

Well, how are you defining "equal in strength"? Are you using serb's formula, which basically says "the stronger side is the one with more troops and tanks", or something else?

Lend Lease undoubtedly help the Soviets build up the army groups back of Stalingrad, but Soviet production was itself massive - exceeding that of Germany.

Soviet production of tanks and aircraft was certainly massive. Soviet production of various other things such as high quality trucks, trains, rail road tracks, aviation fuel, etc., was decidedly less massive.

I think our difference lies in the fact that you're focusing more on things such as tanks and planes, and I'm focusing more on logistical considerations. Both are important, I just happen to believe that the facts I'm focusing on are more important than absolute numbers of tanks, soldiers, etc.

Otherwise, even without Lend Lease, Germany was doomed.

I can possibly buy a theory saying that Germany could never have knocked the Soviet Union totally out of the war. I can't buy a theory saying that a complete Soviet victory was inevitable no matter what. It just doesn't fit.

The failure to take Moscow in 1941 doomed Germany to eventual defeat. The Battle of Moscow was therefore the decisive battle in WWII.

I don't think you've adequately shown that the Soviet Union would have decisively won the war no matter what. You should do that before you claim that the battle of Moscow doomed Germany.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Ned
The failure to take Moscow in 1941 doomed Germany to eventual defeat. The Battle of Moscow was therefore the decisive battle in WWII.

That simply isn't true. The German thrust at Moscow was a setback but actually the Russians lost a million troops in the vaunted winter offensive and an attack on Kharkov, whilst most of the German army spent the winter re-equipping and training.

The Germans actually considered they had won the winter battle with minimal gains by the Sovs. By the summer of 42, the Germans had made good their losses and the Russians were exhausted and ripe for defeat. They quickly regained most of the ground lost in incursions on Army Group Centre's front and straightened out their line.

The real failure was in not renewing the attack on Moscow and Leningrad in 42 and instead pursuing economic objectives through a Caucasus campaign. About half the entire Soviet line, thousands of kilometres of it, quickly collapsed when the germans attacked in 42. If that had happened around Moscow and Leningrad it would have been all over red rover

[David Floyd]

That simply isn't true. The German thrust at Moscow was a setback but actually the Russians lost a million troops in the vaunted winter offensive and an attack on Kharkov, whilst most of the German army spent the winter re-equipping and training.

Speaking of Kharkov, wouldn't you consider that a German victory in 1942, Sandman (or ned, whomever said they didn't have any)?

I pretty much agree with your post, AH. It's also worth pointing out that even after Stalingrad, the German army staged a remarkable recovery, pulling off some good tactical successes in the Ukraine, and being in a fairly strong position, until they squandered their gains at Kursk.

[monkspider]

Kharkov 42 was undeniably a victory for the Germans. Especially considering it was still in the Russian winter.

[Sandman]

Fortunately I'm quoting a book with an author, not some random guy on the Internet.

It's a journal article, not a book. The journal is the 'Journal of Slavic Military Studies', volume 7.

And they could have also done without Lend Lease food, and eaten grass and mud.

I don't doubt that that is exactly what they did. In Leningrad they ate wallpaper paste. The tonnage of lend-lease food received was trivial (5m tons) compared to that need to sustain the population at even the highest point of German occupation.

And marched a thousand miles through the snow without boots, without Lend Lease boots or locomotives or rail lines.

If we conservatively assume that there were 300 million shoes or boots in the Soviet Union before the war, then the lend-lease amount of 14 million is placed in a more revealing context.
The same is true for the rail network. The way you present it is as if there was no rail system whatsoever prior to the war. This is of course nonsense, they had thousands of miles of track and thousands of locomotives before the war began.

And used wood to build their tanks and airplanes, instead of high quality aluminum and steel supplied by the US.

Wooden planes are still pretty effective in this period: cheap and easy to repair. Britain also employed wooden planes. Steel, well I'm pretty sure they had enough of that. Maybe not high quality, but it's good enough.

And used poor quality substitutes instead of the over 100,000 tons of natural rubber sent by Great Britain.

The Soviet Union invented industrial scale synthetic rubber production, using 'Lebendev's process', and had a respectable output of rubber, between 50,000 and 80,000 tons in 1940. The plants were far away from any fighting, so they were able to give the Soviet Union a constant supply. Although, America eventually produced far more synthetic rubber by the end of the war.

But I think that in any case, you are making my point for me. Germany was defeated economically and industrially, and was forced to use poor substitutes for various raw materials they couldn't get enough of. Germany also lost the war.

What's true for Germany is not necessarily true for the Soviet Union.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by David Floyd

I pretty much agree with your post, AH. It's also worth pointing out that even after Stalingrad, the German army staged a remarkable recovery, pulling off some good tactical successes in the Ukraine, and being in a fairly strong position, until they squandered their gains at Kursk.

Interestingly it was the German success in holding off the Sovs in the winter of 41 which probably was the largest contributor the Stalingrad catastrophe in 42/3.

When the Sovs launched their surprise counter attack on 4 December 41, the Germans had a few dark days but it quickly became clear that Russian mobility in winter wasn't much better than the Germans. Hitler was sensibly advised by his generals to break contact and withdraw to defensive positions for the winter but Hitler instead issued "no retreat" orders to the forward elements of Army Group centre from the outset. German units lost a lot of equipment but the bulk of Army Group Centre held their positions, circling the wagons around defensive features and building defensive positions which they called "hedgehogs". In some cases units were cut off for the whole winter and resupplied irregularly or by air - but the Sovs weren't able to dislodge them.

Hitler saw this as a major personal victory which showed his military genius, so when events seemed to be repeating themselves, as he saw it, around Stalingrad he ordered "no retreat". The rest is history.

He did this for the rest of war btw - reverting to a World War I "no retreat"defensive mentality whenever things went wrong, thus robbing the German army of its greatest asset, its superior mobility and initiative, and making it easy for the Sov to isolate and carve up German formations in meat grinder battles.

[monkspider]

Good analysis Horsie.

[The Vagabond]

Some of your posts are really nice, Horse.

As David is kept well in check by other posters , this spares me some effort.

Thus, the question of whether Lend-Lease was crucial for the Soviet victory largely reduces to what happened in 1942 and early 1943, before the battle of Kursk. Indeed, as already mentioned here, Lend-Lease played no role in the battle of Moscow, as it practically didn't start by then. On the other hand, after Kursk, the Soviet victory was already imminent even without any lend-lease, although even in that period of time lend-lease certainly helped a lot and accelerated the victory.

The question is how significant lend-lease supplies were in 1942, and how these compared to the proper Soviet production and the total amount of materiel.

[Ned]

DF, AH, et al., all you have shown is that the German Army was in a meat grinder after Moscow, able to score minor victories by concentrating their forces on one spot. Perhaps, just perhaps, if they had taken Moscow in the summer of '42 they would have prevailed. But they again exhausted themselves at Stalingrad and again opened themselves to counter-attack by fresh Soviet armies. Lend Lease certainly contributed to creating those fresh armies. But they would have been created regardless, IMHO.

I think the Germans knew they were in a meat grinder, but were hoping to inflict unacceptable losses on the Soviets in 1942. However, the losses on the Soviet side never again reached the scale of 1941, while German loses continued to increase.

After the battle of Moscow, Germany had no hope, therefore, of defeating the Soviets because they didn't have the strength to take any major objective and could not inflict unacceptable casualties on the Soviets.

[Horrocks]

Soviet German War

Good evening,... I'm new to this forum but have found the discussion quite interesting. If I may add a few points I would like to add the following:

Going for Moscow in September 1941 may have ended in a captured and rubbled Moscow or an encircled one. In my humble opinion, however, it probably would have cost Germany the majority of Army Group Centre and the war,... here is why.

Without clearing the Ukraine and bringing up Army Group South and the Rumanians, the southern flank of Army Group Centre would have been exposed from the east bank of the Dnepr all the way to the embattled city of Moscow. To the north, if Panzer Group 3 did move north to aid Army Group North, that flank would be equally exposed from, perhaps, the Valdai Hills through to Moscow. This massive salient could would be threadbare as most available German troops would be sucked into the fight for the capital. The available German strength (9th Army, Panzer Group 3, 4th Army, Panzer Group 2 and 2nd Army) just wasn't enough to hold such a huge front and drive headlong for Moscow.

As such, the Soviet counterattack from the east - northeast (Siberian troops) combining with a thrust from the southwest(!!) could have cut off and destroyed a huge portion of Army Group Centre. With no secured flanks and rear, the "no retreat" order would have meant the possible collapse of the eastern front in 1942. Picture, if you will, a super-Stalingrad pocket in the Vyazma-Rhyzev region west of Moscow, the starving and huddled remnants of Army Group Centre freezing to death, while two hundred miles to the west Russian tanks, not destroyed in the Kiev battles, role on through Smolensk, Orsha, Vitebsk,.... Minsk.

Is this a flight of fantasy or a possibility if Hitler had not turned south in September 1941??? A Russian victory or crippling of Germany long before Lend-Lease begins to have an effect.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Ned
DF, AH, et al., all you have shown is that the German Army was in a meat grinder after Moscow, able to score minor victories by concentrating their forces on one spot.

I'd hardly call the massive battlefield victories and gains in territory they made in 42 "minor".

There was no reason why the German army could not have mounted a mobile attack/defence and avoided the meat grinder from 42 onwards. It was mainly Hitler's crazy orders that put their head in a blender.

But then, if it wasn't for Hitler they wouldn't be in Russia doing terrible things at all, would they? So its a bit moot

You should never forget though that the victory really owes so much to the bravery and courage of ordinary Russian people. The Russians have never forgotten it and they have a reason to be very proud of what their grand parent's generation did - basically saved the country in its darkest hour. Just about every Russian family lost somebody in that war - think about that some time.