One of the most important decisions in history was Adolf Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
Operation Barbarossa transformed Nazi Germany's war from a conflict with a weakened Britain and the still neutral US into a massive war on two fronts. In the battles on the eastern front, three-quarters of the army of Nazi Germany were involved, and it was on the eastern front that two-thirds of its losses fell.
So what would have happened if Hitler had not invaded the USSR? The dynamics of the Third Reich and Hitler's personality traits indicated that Germany would not have taken a passive position. In fact, it is rather difficult to imagine that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union could do without war with each other, and the main question in this case would be when this war could start.
In one of the possible scenarios, Germany could invade Britain in 1941 and thus end the war in Europe, freeing up the resources of the Third Reich for a further war on one front in the east. In this case, Operation Sea Lion - the landing in the south of England - would simply be postponed for a year. The problem is that the German navy would still be seriously inferior to the British naval forces in terms of power and numbers - even if it had a new warship, the Bismarck. The British would have had an extra year to strengthen their fleet and rebuild the divisions that had been defeated in the French campaign. In addition, Great Britain would continue to receive assistance under the Lend-Lease program from the United States, which by September 1941 had already become one of the warring parties, escorting their convoys in the North Atlantic. A few months later, America officially entered the war: despite the Japanese advances in the Pacific, the United States would have concentrated on preventing Great Britain from being defeated and out of the war. However, a much more likely scenario is that Hitler could go not east, but south. Considering that after the summer of 1940 most of Western Europe was already under his control, and the countries of Eastern Europe either submitted or entered into an alliance with Nazi Germany, by mid-1941 Hitler had a choice. He could either listen to his instincts and ideology and oppose the Soviet Union, with its rich natural resources and vast territories, which greatly attracted the Nazi colonists. The defeat of Russia would also be the apocalyptic culmination ofwhat Hitler considered an inevitable collision with the country-cradle of communism.
Or he could head for the Mediterranean and the Middle East, as advised by his fleet commander, Admiral Erich Raeder. In the real World War II, Rommel's North African campaign was of secondary importance compared to the main campaign in Russia. In the alternative scenario, North Africa could become the main scene of action.
In this case, Franco could be pressured to abandon Spanish neutrality and allow German troops to set foot on Spanish soil and capture Gibraltar, cutting off the direct route from Great Britain to the Mediterranean for the British. (If Franco had shown stubbornness, it was possible to invade Spain, and then still capture Gibraltar.) Another option was to strengthen Rommel's African corps, which was to move through Libya and Egypt and capture the Suez Canal (Rommel almost did this in 1942.). From there, the Germans could reach the oil fields of the Middle East, or, if Germany attacked Russia in 1942, clamp it in pincers from the west and south, passing through the Caucasus. Meanwhile, steel and other resources could no longer be used for the construction of tanks and other ground weapons,and to create many submarines with which to block British naval supply routes.
Could this alternative strategy of the Germans have worked? The Nazis' Mediterranean operation would be very different from their invasion of the Soviet Union. Instead of a land army of 3 million, a Mediterranean operation would require primarily a large number of ships and aircraft to support the relatively small number of ground forces advancing in the Middle East. If the Soviet Union remained neutral (and continued to provide Germany with resources in accordance with the agreement between the Nazis and the Russians), Germany would be able to concentrate its air force in the Mediterranean. German aircraft defeated the British Navy in 1941-1042, despite simultaneously providing support for the Russian land campaign. The full power of the Nazi Air Force would be unbreakable.
On the other hand, the logistics of a campaign in the Middle East would pose major problems due to the long distances and the inability to transport fuel. Germany had a strong air force and navy, but it was primarily a continental power, whose strength lay in its land army. Assuming America entered the war in December 1941, then it is entirely possible that the main focus of the European theater in 1942 would have been the support of the reinforced African corps by the German-Italian air and naval forces in its fight against the British and American air forces., Navy and ground forces in the Middle East.
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This, in turn, raises another question: what would have happened if Hitler had not canceled Operation Barbarossa, but had only postponed it until the summer of 1942? Assuming that Hitlerite Germany and her allies were successful in the Middle East, the Soviet Union could have faced the German-Italian expeditionary forces advancing north through the Caucasus (perhaps Turkey would have joined them too). An extra year would give Germany more time to plunder conquered Western Europe and take advantage of its resources.
On the other hand, in June 1941, the Red Army was taken by surprise, not yet recovering from the Stalinist purges. An additional year would give the Soviet Union the opportunity to complete the regrouping of the Red Army and put into service new weapons, such as the T-34 tank and Katyusha rocket artillery combat vehicles. Had Operation Barbarossa been postponed until 1942 - and had Britain not surrendered - Germany would have had to launch its offensive against Russia while strengthening its defenses in the west in anticipation of an imminent British and American strike.
Refined combat skills, as well as much richer combat experience, would have provided the Wehrmacht with an advantage at the start of Operation Barbarossa in 1942. However, the losses that the Red Army would have suffered in 1942 would have been substantially less than the actual losses in 1941. That is why now we can say that the postponement of Operation Barbarossa for a year would be a real gift for the Soviet Union.
Michael Peck