Comments by "James the Other One" (@jamestheotherone742) on "Did Stalin seek a Separate Peace with Hitler in WW2? | TIK Q&A 21" video.

Negotiations (that did not happen) would not have likely have resulted in a battlefield cease-fire that would have effected the tactical situation. re: Finland and the Winter War. The Soviets pushed just as hard while they were negotiating a treaty, in fact they used it as pressure to get the Finns to give in. All the "negotiations" were was a message to the Western Allies to get off their asses and open a Western front.
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Pedro Kantor Ah... no. There was absolutely no illusions in the US, UK, or anywhere in Western Europe that the USSR was anything but another version of the same totalitarianism that had just been defeated in Germany. The "honeymoon" of the Allies victory ended mere months after the war as the West watched the Soviets install puppet communist governments and the Red Army rape and pillage the former Axis territory.
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Pedro Kantor that not even revisionism, thats like... delusional.
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If Stalin had lost his nerve while the Germans were at the gates of Moscow and feared losing everything and/or thought "peacing out" of the war was the only way to save the rest of the USSR, he might have. This is what the West feared would happen, because then Hitler could devote more resources to starving out England and the Mediterranean theater.
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@xmeda The USAAF and RAF in 1945 were not the Luftwaffe either. B-29s (then B-36s) and P-51s and Meteors (the P-80s). The Soviets would have had a large airforce and fuel for about a week.
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@orclover2353 Yep. The Germans only chance was for Barbarossa to be a "knock out sucker punch" that defeated the Red Army and destroyed to Soviet government before it could react and adapt to bring its vastly superior resources to bear. This failed in mid '42 and it was all down hill for them from there. This was recognized by the German generals in '43 and why they plotted to kill Hitler and sue (coup?) for peace.
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@zidan1hao917 Armor and other heavy equipment is often more a liability than an asset when you are an insurgency conducting an asymmetric warfare campaign.
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Pretty much. Especially after its success and break thru that put the Germans on the retreat. When they realized that they could just keep pushing them back, the goal became Berlin.
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@clicheguevara9917 The Soviets probably had a good idea of the tactical and strategic situation going into it. They probably didn't expect for Army Group Center to fall apart the way it did. They had planned for an attrition grind all the way to Berlin, but they had learned at this point to exploit opportunity and they ran with it... all the way to Berlin. As I've said elsewhere, a real peace was not possible, it had become quite clear to them that this was a war of annihilation, that Hitler quite literally intended to erase Russia from existence. The only way they would think of a cease-fire is if then needed it. The Soviets didn't need it, they had the Germans on the back foot after Kursk, and Stalin interned to keep them there. Negotiations would have been a waste of time.
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yes, it was completely fabricated to make the German public wonder if there was a "resistance" and to stress the Gestapo that maybe they had missed someone.
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@ 8:47 At the level of "statesmanship" there is no ideology. Its all Real Politiks. Just as in real life, "capitalits","communists", or whatever all of them got into bed with each other when they thought it was in their interests/advantage. @14:38 etc. This is just propaganda, ie: what we call today "Information Warfare". Soviet attempts to undermine German war efforts by sowing doubt in what they identified as vulnerable populations. They didn't target German "workers" because they were Hitler's base supporters, but intellectuals etc. were targeted because they already had leverage on a lot of them being that they were not Nazis by and large. But it was completely decoupled from what was going on at the diplomatic level. @23:10 After the betrayal of Barbarossa, Stalin would never have tolerated Nazi Germany, much less accept the loss of territory. Just as Hitler had no intention of allowing the USSR to continue to exist. Any negotiations would have been a cease-fire pause, not an end to the war. In '42 the Russians would have negotiated to get a halt to the German advance to buy themselves some time to reorganize their army. Likewise the Germans might have wanted a pause to consolidated and replenish the armies. But it might as well have been written on toilet paper for however permanent it would have been. After Kursk? Not a chance when Stalin gained the advantage. Food shortages? Starvation? He didn't care as long as it didn't hinder the offensive. Any Russian negotiations, or leaked planted rumors of negotiations, were purely to gain leverage with the Western Allies and to pressure them to provide support and to open a Western front, least they try to just let the Germans and Russians bleed each other white for a bit more.
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