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Why does the Eastern front, or the German-Soviet conflict draw so much attention.

I my self am an Australian, I have grown up hearing stories of the Anzacs, feelings for these men have not changed since the first war. Today in Australia Anzac day is stronger than it ever was and continues to grow though we have fewer veterens as the years flow on.

But I am not drawn by as much by their struggle, I feel pride for my family lost brave sons in that first conflict, and escaped without casualty in the second. I feel pride for how Australian troops carried themselves in both conflicts.

But I feel drawn to the Eastern front. That struggle that begin in 1941 has always called me back. Recently I was reading "For whom the bell tolls" while I was half way through it I saw another damn! book on the Eastern front and my girlfriend bought it for me. Now I have stopped reading the other book though I was enjoying it very much and am getting drawn back into the Eastern front.
I cant help myself, I've read the same facts god knows how many times over but I cannot stop this desire to continue reading and playing games or watching movies (when I can find one) and TV documentries.

How do you guys feel about this, do have the same problem, an addiction to the East. Do you have that vision in your mind as you read that you can see what was printed on the pages of a book in your minds eye, a vision as to what it was like.

Maybe its because I'm drunk, But I thought it might be an interesting topic, what draws you in?.


Mighty Muzrub one whiskey too many.

Maybe it's the struggle of both. Germany really has to overextend to be able to win. Russia otoh also has to get the last out of them to win. Such an effort, such a costly war (to both sides) has never happened before and hopefully won't happen too soon again.

Ah, my favorite theater of war, too! My first war book was "Panzer Leader", bought when I was about 12 years old. I was fascinated by General Guderian (we have the same birthday--June 17), and when I started on the Barbarossa section, I was hooked. Part of the fascination, apart from the gigantic scale and numbers of men & weapons involved, has to be the air of unreality. The perception of this as a war of destruction, with no quarter offered or given, seems like a work of science fiction. This might as well have been two alien societies in another galaxy, fighting a war to the death with all of the military and industrial might they could muster. To someone who was raised on the WWII combat shows of the 60s and the original Star Trek series, it seemed like a melding of the two, except this was something that happened here on earth. I guess for some of us, all these years later, we are still trying to get a grasp on the enormity of it all, and how this war shaped the world we live in today. Well, that's the philosophical side as I see it. The Ost Front has also produced some of the best wargames ever. Avalon Hill's "Stalingrad"--my first board game, and the first of a growing collection that's taking up more and more space in my house. I could go on and on, but that's a partial attempt at explaining my personal fascination with the War in the East.

For me, its the epic struggle between the two big-kids on the block, fighting for turf.

Stalin knew if he lost, he was dead - He was fighting to hold, for power, and to live.

Hitler realized that the Sovs were the biggest European threat and he'd have to deal with that sooner or later. He picked sooner and made the wrong choice.

The mistakes by both sides are evident and don't need rehashed. It could have gone one way or the other.

It is the great question that draws us all - Could we have done better?

With hind-sight, you can correct anything. But, at the time, I guess it was the best course of action based on what they had.

Did Hitler act rashly? Yup.
Could he have done better? With what we know now, sure, but its hind-sight...

And like my grandpa always said "hind-sight is 20-20"

Im 24 years old and has been fascinated by the east front since I was 11. I was about to write this topic and ask why so many are fascinated by this conflict.

Well there are so many things that brings me back to reading Guderians panzer leader(16th time Im reading it), Manstein(26th time, Im the one in my city of 100,000 that borrow most books from the citys libraries).

- Its the epic struggle of good vs evil. The good side symbolized by the suffering made by the russian people.

- The scope of it which brings a gigantic frontline that flows back and forth.

- The margins, Moscow saved at the very gates by siberian troops, Stalingrad where Germany breaks and so on. Very dramatic years.

- The total insanity of war, nothing in world history never comes close to the horrors and scope of this conflict.

And so on....


Well am I sick that like Muzrub continues to read the same books over and over again? Maybe but Im sure are enjoying myself. And I find new interesting facts all the time.

Personally I think my interest has a lot to do with geography. Being at the moment visiting my old hometown of Lappeenranta only 30 km from the Russian border and some 250 km from St Petersburg some battles were fought only a bit over 200 km from here. Also the Finnish involvement in the war has quite a lot to do with it, obviously

My first book on the Russian Front was Guderian's Panzer Leader when I read it in high school back in the early 1970s. My focus stayed primarily German-based until I got to college when I took Russian as a language. From that point I wanted to know everything I could find on the Red Army during WWII, and always preferred playing Soviet in wargames if there was ever an option. Now that the Soviet Union is no more, and the archives are open, more or less, the newer information coming out from the Soviet side is truly fascinating to me. The more I learn about the Soviets, the more I'm impressed with their ingenuity and practical genius. By this I mean that given the sharply defined restrictions imposed by the political and doctrinal aspects of Soviet communism and Stalin's regime, the solutions that were found to facilitate Soviet victory are amazing and truly unique, developed by people who were really thinking outside the envelope.

The war in Russia was where Nazi Germany was fatally wounded. The scale of this conflict and its horrendous cost are incomparable with any other front or theater in WWII. If any man deserved the title of Most Responsible for Defeating Hitler it would not be Eisenhower, as a US news magazine once claimed, but someone from the STAVKA.

It was the single largest land campaign in the history of the world.
The ultimate test of the still new 'mechanised/combined-arms warfare'. Poland and France were the start but the Russian Campaign truly cemented the idea in the millitary head that this was the way land wars would be fought from now on. 50 years latter the land battle in the Gulf could have come from Panzer Leader.

Kuniworth.. If you read everything on a topic
and continue to look it over it dos'nt mean you are crazy, it means you are a scholar.

Nick

Heh, perhaps the explanation is as simple as gravity.

What causes gravity?

MASS.

The Eastern Front was the biggest and arguably the most savage front of the war. It's result would largely determine the outcome of the entire war. 400-500+ divisions of men, thousands of tanks and aircraft, and finally, thousands of miles of terrain to fight in one and multiple cities to drive for.

No other front compares to such scale. Not to discount the importance of the other theaters or the men who fought in them but to me, thats what draws me invariably back to this subject. Its massive scale creates a gravity which invariably draws the WWII buff back for more

On a less grandiose level, its also more interesting because at it's heart the other two major "fronts" on the continent, the Italian and Western fronts, were done deals as soon as the Allies landed and managed to establish themselves. The outcome was never in doubt after that.

With the eastern front, up till late 43, the possibilities are wide open. It makes for very fertile ground to plant a host of "what ifs"

Posted by Nikademus:"With the eastern front, up till late 43, the possibilities are wide open. It makes for very fertile ground to plant a host of "what ifs" . I agree with this, and I'll take it one step further. the plans and wargames supposing a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe in the 1980s were based in a large part of the Soviet-style adaptation of the German blitzkrieg vs the NATO concept of a flexible defense, which was also based on the German experience of fighting the Russians. This concept affected our force allocations and defense spending up until the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Of course, there were other factors involved, but the German-Russian War and its 50-year political aftermath directly led to the shape of Europe and the fate of Russia in the early 21st century.

One more observation:apart from the massive tank battles of the Gulf War, we will not likely see conventional war on this scale for the remainder of our lifetimes, UNLESS the Chinese are involved.

Originally posted by KG Erwin:
One more observation:apart from the massive tank battles of the Gulf War, we will not likely see conventional war on this scale for the remainder of our lifetimes, UNLESS the Chinese are involved.

Might wanna include India and Pakistan too (they've fought three major if localized wars within the last 50 years and every so often they start testing their nuclear weapons despite the other's protests) - India will soon surpass China as the world's most populous nation (over 1.2 billion people I believe?!).

Also Russia IF she decides to turn its back on market/political reforms and harken back to the "good old days". I believe Putin recently revived the old communist national anthem, and I'm sure there are numbers of Russians who resent the fact that they've gone from superpower to "has-been" in a short ten years or so.

As an aside, I moseyed into the ARt of WAr forum last night. Hardly ever go there, but there's this thread "Nationalism and Yanks" that goes on for like 9 pages. Two of the most extreme radicals in there - SA Grognard from South Africa and J Rico (Germany) make for some hilarious if semi-retarded reading.

Basically, SA thinks that US troops are the worst in the world and the Swiss the best when everyone knows the Swiss haven't fought a war for over 120 years. I rest my case there. As for Rico who's also virulently anti-US, he claims that the Bundeswehr is superior to the US Army and that American tankers are semi-illiterate. Well, if so then why did the US have to station two full corps in Germany during the Cold War, not to mention British and NATO contributions in case of Soviet attack?

Needless to say, both have been flamed to a crisp and still they remain defiant
Check them out if you want to fall off your chair laughing as I did! It's even more hilarious than the Muzrub/varjager battle accounts!!

Ahem... May I add in here something?

A friend of mine who has been serving some time told me recently: "The Job of the Bundeswehr is to slow down enemy advance until a real army arrives to take the shit away" I think this speaks for itself. Bundeswehr is notorious for its obsolete equipment and its helicopters, tanks and whatever equipment that isn't repaired because there is no money for the new parts. However for years Bundeswehr had the most modern jet in the world: Some Mig 29 taken over from the NVA (GDR's Army) at the time of reunification 1990. Well suiss, they seem to have the best generals. Even strategists like Clausewitz said that it is best use for an army not to use it but to reach the goal by just threatening the enemy to use it. Saying this, for more than a hundred years Suiss has been an unbeaten military threat for Liechtenstein.

Originally posted by SoleSurvivor:
Ahem... May I add in here something?

A friend of mine who has been serving some time told me recently: "The Job of the Bundeswehr is to slow down enemy advance until a real army arrives to take the shit away" I think this speaks for itself. Bundeswehr is notorious for its obsolete equipment and its helicopters, tanks and whatever equipment that isn't repaired because there is no money for the new parts.

Yikes! Is it really that bad, or are exaggerating a little?

[Frank, if your reading this, your observations don't seem to match SoleSurvivor's opinion? ]

I probably should have expected this. It was the reunification that did it, right? Massive amounts of government spending trying to bring east Germany up to the standards of west Germany, left little for the military?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SoleSurvivor:

A friend of mine who has been serving some time told me recently: "The Job of the Bundeswehr is to slow down enemy advance until a real army arrives to take the shit away" I think this speaks for itself. Bundeswehr is notorious for its obsolete equipment and its helicopters, tanks and whatever equipment that isn't repaired because there is no money for the new parts.


Well, I can't give you detailed specs on modern tanks compared to WWII ones but I thought the latest version of Leopard 2 is only marginally inferior to the latest Abrams. In fact, the initial Abrams were equipped with the famous German 120mm gun, which was better than the 105mm it started with. I only brought up the Rico postings because I think it's quite asinine/idiotic for any country to claim it can beat the modern US Army division for division. To illustrate, if it came down to UNARMED combat, the Chinese and Thais with their superior martial arts ability - kungfu, muay thai kickboxing would certainly whop any UNARMED infantryman in any army. But war is not Bloodsport, and no army is going to beat the US army today in a conventional confrontation. If we want to get into that, it should be which army is the best AFTER the US? Personally, I would say it's a toss-up (division for division) between the British, Bundeswehr, Israeli, South Korean and possibly Taiwan. Of these only British troops are volunteers - the others are conscripted but I believe (at least for the last three countries) that overall morale, discipline and training standards are incredibly high. I believe much of their armed inventory is also American in origin, e.g. AFVs, artillery, etc.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SoleSurvivor:
However for years Bundeswehr had the most modern jet in the world: Some Mig 29 taken over from the NVA (GDR's Army) at the time of reunification 1990.

Just wondering - my impression is the F-18 Hornet in 1990 was slightly better than the MIG-29 in terms of general avionics and as a combat aircraft.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SoleSurvivor:
Well suiss, they seem to have the best generals. Even strategists like Clausewitz said that it is best use for an army not to use it but to reach the goal by just threatening the enemy to use it. Saying this, for more than a hundred years Suiss has been an unbeaten military threat for Liechtenstein.

Haven't heard of any Swiss generals. Are there any famous ones in the 19th century? Who did they fight or threaten? And isn't Liechtenstein a tiny duchy that's known more as a tax haven than for its armed forces?

By the way, SoleSurvivor, the last time I seriously discussed the state of the Bundeswehr with a German was in 1989, just before reunification. Could you please tell me what's the situation now, 10 years after? Did the merger of 2 separate armies give the new Bundeswehr a boost or are there still serious problems between the former West and East German units?

[ July 21, 2001: Message edited by: Chimera ]

I did my year of armed service in the Bundeswehr five years ago (in a tank artillery regiment), and this is what I think: This army is very different from the Bundeswehr before 1990. I was born in the GDR and I don't know if the Bundeswehr was ever as strict as our NVA, but for german standards discipline seems rather lax now , at least in comparison to former times or the Wehrmacht. I think training standards are still very high, but motivation is rather low because no-one expects to ever see a war. Most equipment is obsolete and in need of repair, but spare parts are rare and there is never enough money. A common joke about how to use our G-3 semi-automatic rifles that all bear production dates of the 60s: "20 warning shots and one aimed throw".
But all of this is true only for "normal" units. We have units specially designated for NATO service in foreign countries (Krisenreaktionskräfte - crisis reaction forces). Those consist only of (usually highly-motivated) volunteers who receive special training and modern weapons. Germany still produces first-class equipment, but only in limited numbers, and much of it is sold to other countries.
All in all I think the majority of Bundeswehr units is not ready for a war right now, mainly due to a lack of money, and there are no real attempts to improve this situation because no-one believes that we still need an army this large. There are more and more voices who call for a small but efficient professional army.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Micha:
[QB] I was born in the GDR and I don't know if the Bundeswehr was ever as strict as our NVA, but for german standards discipline seems rather lax now , at least in comparison to former times or the Wehrmacht. I think training standards are still very high, but motivation is rather low because no-one expects to ever see a war.

Well, with the Cold War long over and with Europe moving gradually towards political and
monetary union (EU, Euro) BTW I'd like to know what you think about the Euro replacing the Deutschemark from next year on - hopefully there won't ever be anyone for Germany to fight again. And I suppose having a relatively large army also helps create jobs. Is the pay decent for a soldier who makes the army his career?


[QUOTE]Originally posted by Micha:
All in all I think the majority of Bundeswehr units is not ready for a war right now, mainly due to a lack of money, and there are no real attempts to improve this situation because no-one believes that we still need an army this large.

I follow market and economic developments in Europe quite closely, and Germany is one of Europe's strongest economies (on absolute basis), along with Britain and France. I'm quite surprised to hear you say the army's suffering from a lack of funds - believe it's probably due to serious cuts in the defense budget rather than a weak German economy.
But from what I've read and discussed with fellow market watchers, there are still those who say that there's still many problems 10 years after reunification. Many West Germans feel the East Germans to be an economic drain and adopt a patronizing attitude towards them, while the East Germans resent being treated like "Italians". Could I poll your opinion on this issue please?

Mark


[ July 21, 2001: Message edited by: Chimera ]

[ July 21, 2001: Message edited by: Chimera ]

Chimera,
I already survived the change from the Mark of the GDR to the Westgerman Deutsche Mark, I guess I will get used to the Euro as well.
You are right, a large army creates jobs, but these jobs do not to much for the economy but have to be paid by the state, so that does not help very much.
I do not know how much an officer makes but from what I have seen you can live from it but you do not get rich.

As to the reunification, well, for most people the country is still divided, I guess. You can usually judge instantly if somebody is from the West or the East. The problem is that while some of the West Germans who came into the East to work here were willing to really help, most came because they were not good enough to make it in the West. So we got a lot of rather incompetent people in leading positions, especially in public institutions, and they still think they are doing us a favour by sharing their "expertise".
As to the economy in general, it is true that the West pays a lot of money that goes to the East, but the problem is that most contracts there go to West German firms so that the money does not stay in the region and therefore cannot really help development here.
But I am not an economics expert, so I cannot really judge the situation. But it is true that the overall economic situation is not too bright, and although Germany might still be able to afford a large army, most people and the government think that the money is better spent elsewhere so the Bundeswehr budget gets ever tighter.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Micha:

I do not know how much an officer makes but from what I have seen you can live from it but you do not get rich.


In developed countries/democracies an officer , even if he makes 3 or 4 star general, won't be rich but he'll be comfortable. It's only in hideously corrupt countries (a few here in the western Asia-Pacific region) where the generals have networths that go into the tens of millions. And it's not like they know crap about soldiering. Countries where the top 3% of the population control like 97% of the wealth of the country, in other words ripe for revolution.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Micha:

As to the reunification, well, for most people the country is still divided, I guess. You can usually judge instantly if somebody is from the West or the East. The problem is that while some of the West Germans who came into the East to work here were willing to really help, most came because they were not good enough to make it in the West. So we got a lot of rather incompetent people in leading positions, especially in public institutions, and they still think they are doing us a favour by sharing their "expertise".



In Asia there also seems to be this common perception that Americans and Europeans who decide to come and work here are those who couldn't make it back home, which is not always true of course. There will always be the black sheep incompetents, but there are also many genuinely capable management-types who see the myriad growth opportunities in countries like Taiwan and Singapore.


[QUOTE]Originally posted by Micha:

But it is true that the overall economic situation is not too bright, and although Germany might still be able to afford a large army, most people and the government think that the money is better spent elsewhere so the Bundeswehr budget gets ever tighter.



Hey, if Germans are complaining, how do you think the weaker economies in Europe - Greece, Romania, etc are feeling?

One of the main problems of germany is/was that its social security systems drain a lot of mony from the government which gets it from the people, of course. Thus taxes are relatively high. On the other hand the German govt has really high debts and is currently working hard (or at least making people believe it would) to lower its expenses. A cut in the Bundeswehr doesn't obviously hurt the people and seems to even help raise public opinion a bit as opposed to increasing income by higher taxes.Now we must admit that the 1989 NVA wasn't the NVA of 1979 so along with the fine high tech equipment that the Bundeswehr inherited it also got a lot of crap. Now with these cuts in budget German industry can produce the finest equipment of the world.... and sell it to Uganda or whoever may pay for it but certainly not to the German forces.

The problem is also one of structure. Could/would the USA afford to put every male into service for a year or two additionally to the regular armed forces? I have my doubts since there is no need for it. By the next decade European defense will be an integrated network of high-equipped well-trained professional armies. Where is the need for a large number of ill-equipped conscripts? German budget is seriously drained by these men who can commit virtually nothing to any war we can imagine.

About the east: It is a pool of highly motivated and skilled labour willing to do demanding work for relatively low payment. Communications infrastructure now is leading with glas-phase cables, ISDN support etc almost everywhere. The road network... well the main routes are in top shape or currently being built up.

The east/west attitude isn't as strong as a few years ago, at least among the younger people. Of course, there are still ignorant people everywhere. The east/west transfers aren't a gift as some westeners believe. They consist of a) a special tax "Solidarzuschlag" that is paid by both people in east and west of the country and b) of "Länderfinanzausgleich", regular money transfers from rich to poor states that existed before the reunification. Bavaria, now one of the paying states, has been receiving these payments for a long time when their economy was weaker.