Comments by "" (@tekannon7803) on "Why Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union failed | John Mearsheimer and Lex Fridman" video.

  1. John Mearsheimer adds a fascinating and knowledgeable voice to world affairs and once again, Lex Fridman delivers a 5-star interview. As far as Russia's invasion of WW II, what I have gleaned from my resources is that Stalin never went against what his generals decided, he took their advice. However, he constantly created antagonism among them, but he listened to them. From what I read, Hitler would patiently listen for 2 hours for example, as his top general would explain the best strategy for a particular operation and Hitler would then disagree. He would always go against what his generals would say. When the Russians were only 30 kilometers from Moscow and easily within reach of taking over the capital, the top tank commander radioed a message to Hitler that they were ready and could take Moscow in days and win the war if we go into Moscow right now. Predicatably, Hitler refused to allow the troops to go in now and ordered them to clean up the patches of Russian units that were scattered around behind the German forces. This is where disobeying orders could have saved the day. This gave the Russians 3 months to build up counter-defenses and The Battle of Kursk was the result. The only time in the war that Hitler was actually right in his decision was when he ordered General Paulus of the 4th and 6th armies not to surrender at Stalingrad when they were surrounded, Paulus disobeyed and surrendered with 100,000 troops. After the war, only 5,000 German soldiers were left alive who returned to Germany.
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