Hey, 14 years later and I still disagree. The RN was what kept Germany from successfully invading Britain. Even if Hitler had managed to dragoon all the shallow freeboard canal barges from the Rhine the RN would have been feeding the fishes with Operation Sealion.
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The Germans were desperate to get the breadbasket that was Ukraine, I believe. Also, would not have Russia invaded Germany instead? Need to brush up on my WW II history…
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One could even argue that the first “mistake” was allowing the expeditionary force to be evacuated from Dunkirk.
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Maybe, in six or seven years, when the Red Army had recovered from the Purges, and built up its industrial strength.
The plans for more immediate war, such as they were, were based on the Soviets driving into German-Occupied Poland and facing the Germans there. Stalin rejected any plan that called for retreating and fighting on Russian soil.
Barbarossa revealed what a pipe dream the Soviet plans were. Even as the Germans were wiping out the Red Army Air Force on the ground, Soviet trains were delivering food and raw materials to the Nazis, and border outposts that were being overrun by German troops were told not to spread “rumours” i.e. first-hand observations of tanks crushing Red Army battalions.
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