Adolf hitler had not sent the wehrmacht into the soviet union?

4 min read

Professor Evan Mawdsley tells Nige Tassell about the direction that World War II may have taken had the Nazis not turned eastwards

WHAT IF...

GETTY IMAGES X1, ALAMY X2

ABOVE: Wehrmacht soldiers in action on the eastern front.

Millions of German troops were involved in the failed military offensive

The largest military offensive in history, Operation Barbarossa – which lasted from 22 June 1941 until 7 January 1942 – proved disastrous for Adolf Hitler and arguably signalled the beginning of his decline from power. Germany suffered more than 750,000 casualties. It was a game-changer. The course of the war altered, ending in Germany’s defeat. But what would have happened had Hitler not sent the Wehrmacht, the nation’s unified armed forces, eastwards?

“The only military alternative to invading the Soviet Union would have been to knock Britain out of the war.” That’s the view of Evan Mawdsley, honorary professorial research fellow in the School of Humanities at the University of Glasgow and author of many books on World War II, including Thunder in the East: the Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945 (Bloomsbury, 2015).

“Of course, Hitler could have settled for the stunning successes of 1938–1940, which gave ‘Greater Germany’ control over western and central continental Europe, from the Pyrenees to the Vistula River in Poland, and from Norway to the Alps. There was also an alliance with Italy, and compliance from a right-wing government of occupied France. But Hitler was in a hurry. He wanted to keep the initiative and stay in control of events.”

SEEKING PEACE

Had he refocused his attentions on Britain rather than the Soviet Union, Hitler had two options. One route was diplomacy, applying pressure on London to accept Nazi control of such a large swathe of Europe. Professor Mawdsley explains that such an approach might not have fallen on deaf ears in Westminster. “There were some politicians in Britain who would have accepted the German political domination of continental Europe in exchange for peace and German acceptance of the status quo as far as the British empire was concerned.”

Hitler’s other option would have been to engage Britain in direct combat, a path that was an uneasy one. “Britain was not a second-rate power. It had the potential to fight Germany and blockade continental Europe, especially if supported by the United States. Plus, it would have taken a long time to build a navy powerful enough to compete with that of Britain.”

Hitler could also have affected Britain by directing his military resources not eastwards but

This article is from...

History Revealed Magazine

3 August 2023

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