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The Third Reich came staggeringly close to knocking the Soviet Union out of the war. Had they started their assault when they wanted to, instead of on June 22 (midsummer) they very well might have done it; Stalin put the Soviets in a state of near-total unpreparedness, through a combination of officer purges and sheer blindness to what his intelligence told him, and the Nazi war machine was tuned to a high pitch of effectiveness -- for war in summer, not the muddy fall or freezing winter.

We can thank Mussolini for the delay. He attacked Greece and was bogged down, even humiliated by their defense, and Hitler felt he could not allow an ally to fail so miserably (and maybe leave his right flank exposed). So he delayed the attack on Russia for a few precious weeks to capture Greece and drive British forces out.

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Hi Adam,

my recent book Forging Global Fordism: Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and the Contest over the Industrial Order speaks to comparative strategies of military-industrial buildup in the two regimes. I also argue that we should move on from our fixation on Speer! Would be interested to hear your thoughts eventually.

Stefan

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I agree that the economic cards were always stacked against the Third Reich. But sometimes a few lucky punches can win the match. Another dimension that illustrates "why the allies won": Intelligence. Richard Sorge informed Stalin just in time in August of 1941 that Japan had no intention of helping Hitler (believing Germany would finish off the USSR easily). That allowed the USSR to transfer hundreds of thousands of battle-tested troops to the defense of Moscow. Maybe they would have won anyways, but the way it played out, these kinds of specific actions did make a difference.

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"The fact that investment is smaller when measured in 1937 prices, when industrial goods were far more abundant, is indicative of how huge the transformation was."

I'm having trouble following. Do you mind clarifying?

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The truth of history, so much in request, to which every body eagerly appeals, is too often but a word. At the time of the events, during the heat of conflicting passions, it cannot exist; and if, at a later period, all parties are agreed respecting it, it is because those persons who were interested in the events, those who might be able to contradict what is asserted, are no more. What then is, generally speaking, the truth of history? A fable agreed upon. As it has been very ingeniously remarked, there are, in these matters, two essential points, very distinct from each other: the positive facts, and the moral intentions.

......Bonaparte

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