Hitler visits the Eastern front (Feb 1945)

German Wartime Newsreel (Die Deutsche Wochenschau).

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[mookins45]

@mawel1955 That sounds like a perfectly valid source, but whatever Stalin's desires, his forces couldn't fulfill them given the state of their equipment, and that of their command structure after the purges. Stalin wished to make a move after what he expected would be an exhausting war in the West, that would leave Germany ripe for the taking. But when that didn't happen, we know he tried to buy time, placating by allowing overflights etc. A '41 attack went by the wayside with France's fall.

[mawel1955]

@mookins45 I cite as my source an article by Viktor Suvorov, former member of the Soviet General Staff. Survorov writes in the June 1985 issue of the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies that Stalin was, in fact, preparing "the biggest troop movement by a single state in the history of civilization" in order to launch an attack on Germany sometime in the summer of '41.

Your pro-Soviet falsification of history is just as annoying.

[mookins45]

@mawel1955 Soviet wargames showed that their armed forces were no match for Germany's. They had no offensive capability and they knew that; the whole world knew it. This pro-Nazi falsification of history isn't surprising, but it is annoying,.

[mawel1955]

@dreamcastII Thanks for the additional corroboration. Also don't forget that Soviet archives also reveal that Stalin did intend to attack Germany in the summer of 1941. Barbarossa was, in fact, a preventative measure. German intelligence became aware that the USSR was massing offensive armament and troops in western Ukraine. The reason Soviet troops fell back so easily after June 22 was that they were unprepared for 'defensive' war as opposed to 'offensive' war. There is a difference.

[wboquist]

@dreamcastII Thanks to both of you for the references!

[dreamcastII]

@wboquist I recall the Oxford Companion to WW2 also gives evidence of Stalin offering peace for territory. (I seem to remember he did it twice, after Stalingrad and I think after Krakow in March 1943).

[mawel1955]

@wboquist In answer to your question, John Toland alluded to Stalin's peace feelers in his 1973 book 'Adolf Hitler'. It was not until 1990 however that Soviet historian Professor Alexander Samsonov confirmed it in the WGBH/Thames Broadcasting documentary 'Stalin' . He stated that Soviet archives show that Stalin did indeed attempt, through King Boris of Bulgaria, to end the war through negotiation, offering the Ukraine and Belarus for starters in return for peace and economic aid.

[wboquist]

@mawel1955 That is the first I have ever heard of "peace feelers" coming from Stalin - at any time. Would you point me to a book or some other source of documentation? I would like to know more. Thanks.

[IustitiaPax]

@wboquist That is what I meant to say. Hitler was not liked by many Dutchmen, many French and British, but in other parts of Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Baltic states, Slovakia, Ukraine, parts of Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosniak enclaves of Bosnia, Hungary) he was popular. Hitler was a populist and very popular until the bitter end. A real cult of personality, unlike the fake Stalinist one.

[mawel1955]

@wboquist The history books are still very kind to Stalin for that reason. The Western World simply does not want to face up to the fact that 'Uncle Joe' Stalin was, in reality, a murderous, evil maniac and that Roosevelt was more than happy to hand over half of Europe to this monster for fifty horrific years. Only now the truth is coming out that Roosevelt's assistant, Harry Hopkins, was an NKVD spy and informer and encouraged Roosevelt in his subservience to the Stalin regime.