Hi Indy
Great fan of your show!
Question:
Would you say that Germany’s two week delay in the invasion of Russia caused by diverting troops to Greece (after Italian failure in their invasion) was one of the key factors in Germany’s defeat against Russia?
I mean, the nazis reached the gates of Moscow. I wonder if they had got there 2 weeks earlier in the winter maybe it could have changed things. Im astonished on italian failures and how they had performed better the tide of the war could have changed dramatically!
3 Likes
This is a very long discussion concerning WW2. Even Hitler claimed this, in his secretly recorded meeting with Mannerheim. Most researchers claim Operation Marita didn’t change the schedule of Operation Barbarossa, only a few claim that it really did push the invasion to USSR a few days forward (like Graig Stockings and Eleanor Hancock in their work “Swastika over Acropolis”).
Nevertheless, there is unanimous agreement in one thing: Greek campaign, even if it delayed Operation Barbarossa, it didn’t influenced its outcome. The reasons of the eventual German defeat were its logistic failures, the wrong calculations about the number of the Soviet troops, and the Soviet ability to outproduce Germany in quantity and quality of weapons.
In my personal opinion, I believe that the Greek Resistance played more importand role in the final allied victory, specifically by participating in Operation Mincemeat (Operation Animals), where most Resistance organizations increased their attacks against Axis Occupation forces, to convince them that an Allied landing in Greece was imminent. The price was high, as many civilians suffered and fell victims to mass German executions.
4 Likes