Lately stuck on WW2 history.

[Anomalocaris]

The war between Germany of Russia was pretty much inevitable.   The longer Germany wait to invade the USSR, the weaker Germany forces involved in the invasion would be relative to soviet defending forces.

Not the point.

The more I look at the over all tactic of Hitler's Nazis, the fatal flaw in his tactic is that he more often than not thought that by expanding, you could simply take over the defeated's resources. I think the main reason Barbarossa failed, was because once he invaded, he didn't have enough supplies or time to utilize the captured territory's resources. 

The real reason for war are strategic control over resources. If you don't have enough supplies and bad planning, you might have initial success, but wont have the time to take advantage of what you capture.

The problem with exploiting resource seized from occupied land that you described is a long terms one.  It takes several month to a year to begin to make occupied resources productive in th ebest of scenarios.  Operation Barbarossa was lightning attack that started in June 1941 and had failed by dec 1941.   There was never any way Germany could have utilized occupied resources within 6 month so that it could have made the slightest difference to the outcome of operation Barbarossa itself.  

In so far as germany’s Failure to utilize occupied resources affected germany’s Ability to wage war against the USSR, that effect probably only really kicked in after 1943.   By the time Germany had already lost all chances of actually defeating the USSR.   The only impact germany’s Failure had was to make the massive soviet offensives of 1944-1945 easier and maybe brought forward germany’s Final defeat by a few month to a year.

Regarding why Barbarossa failed, although the German army did exhibit some very impressive tactical skills pulled off some bragworthy successes, on the whole, German entire high level effort from pre-attack reconnaissance, logistic planning, clarity of objective, situational appreciation, and plan for an end game was one massive clusterfuck.

In some ways, Germany and the german army has this tendency to view successful large scale offensive as an end in itself, not an means to an end.   Instead of justifying why they are trying to achieve particular success in light of a clear strategic end game, they have a tendency to look for opportunities to achieve spectacular tactical success, and then take it on faith that once great success is achieved, how that tactical success will convert to a favorable strategic outcome will just magically become clear.

So in some ways German offensive become an exercise in looking for Russian troops to kill rather than eliminating Russia’s ability to field more troops.

[Brian37]

You'll never have to commit suicide over guilt of what your superiors do if you always realize you are not a master race. This is a picture of a Nazi sympathizer  Mayor realized they were going to lose. 

[Anomalocaris]

You'll never have to commit suicide over guilt of what your superiors do if you always realize you are not a master race. This is a picture of a Nazi sympathizer  Mayor realized they were going to lose. 

Popular history tends to focus on overweening german air of racial supremacy between 1870-1945, with its pretentious of being the ubermenschen and exterminators outlook towards people of the east. But they often overlook there is a flip side to this Darwinian outlook. Germany always felt, even as it grew stronger, that all the other races of the world is out to keep germans down and as a germany was always 5 minutes from catastrophe and losing it all. Many Germans genuinely felt Germany was in a life or death reckoning with the world, and Germany must keep winning, and if Germany loses, the world will completely destroy Germany, and subjugate the German people so they can never rise again. So there is nothing to live for if Germany loses.

[DeistPaladin]

Being in the middle of Europe, which itself was a constant battlefield since Rome fell, probably contributed to those feelings.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Being in the middle of Europe, which itself was a constant battlefield since Rome fell, probably contributed to those feelings.

I've heard of WWII being described as just another chapter in Europe's eternal civil war.

[Brian37]

You'll never have to commit suicide over guilt of what your superiors do if you always realize you are not a master race. This is a picture of a Nazi sympathizer  Mayor realized they were going to lose. 

Popular history tends to focus on overweening german air of racial supremacy between 1870-1945, with its pretentious of being the ubermenschen and exterminators outlook towards people of the east.   But they often overlook there is a flip side to this Darwinian outlook.   Germany always felt, even as it grew stronger, that all the other races of the world is out to keep germans down and as a germany was always  5 minutes from catastrophe and losing it all.   Many Germans genuinely felt Germany was in a life or death reckoning with the world, and Germany must keep winning, and if Germany loses, the world will completely destroy Germany, and subjugate the German people so they can never rise again.  So there is nothing to live for if Germany loses.

Darwin's evolution, has nothing to do with ignorant bigotry. The theory of evolution was science. What the Nazis considered "science" was bullshit and an excuse to be sick fucks.

[Anomalocaris]

Being in the middle of Europe, which itself was a constant battlefield since Rome fell, probably contributed to those feelings.

I've heard of WWII being described as just another chapter in Europe's eternal civil war.

To say war between European powers is a chapter in europe’s Civil war implies much of Europe is somehow a cohesive polity. It has never been, and as we are seeing now it still isn’t.

[Deesse23]

You'll never have to commit suicide over guilt of what your superiors do if you always realize you are not a master race. This is a picture of a Nazi sympathizer  Mayor realized they were going to lose. 

Popular history tends to focus on overweening german air of racial supremacy between 1870-1945, with its pretentious of being the ubermenschen and exterminators outlook towards people of the east.   But they often overlook there is a flip side to this Darwinian outlook.   Germany always felt, even as it grew stronger, that all the other races of the world is out to keep germans down and as a germany was always  5 minutes from catastrophe and losing it all.   Many Germans genuinely felt Germany was in a life or death reckoning with the world, and Germany must keep winning, and if Germany loses, the world will completely destroy Germany, and subjugate the German people so they can never rise again.  So there is nothing to live for if Germany loses.

Racial supremacy thinking was purely a thing of the nazi era 1933-45. During the second empire 1870-1918 Germany was like any other major european nation in the age of imperialism and colonialism: extreme nationalist and jingoist, but not predominantly racist, at least not against the other europeans (but all europeans vs everybody else, africans particularly).
From 1870 until Bismarck got sacked (1890?), Germany was politically well entrenched in Europe. It was Bismarcks policy to not be militaristc and risk wars but to entrench germany in european political alliances while isolating France (the main adversary) to avoid wars, particularly with France. Bismarck loved to be protrayed in a military outfit, being vain and all, but actually he was a politician through and through. It was politically a purely defensive strategy, of course not without saber rattling, like everybody else.

The big change came with Wilhelm, who envied his relatives (Gramma Victoria, Uncle Edward and Cousin Niki) and their empires. He most probably suffered from a  (inferiority) complex related to his crippled left arm. Bismarck particularly wanted to be/remain closely allied with Russia, Wilhelm preferred Austria-Hungary! Bismarck didnt want to participate in colonialism, Wilhelm did, and pissed off France and Britain mostly, bringing them closer together.

During the 20s, Germany tried to appease the allies for a long time and comply with the versailles treaty and its burden (while at the same time trying to look for loopholes). There was no "live or die" or "germany vs the rest of the world". Of course there was a deep sense of humiliation and a sense of beign denied a rightful place within the ranks of leading european nations. The nazis used this underlying feeling(s) to encourage and feed this into the rage that finally became the Nazi struggle for world domination, but again, that started in the 30s, not in 1870.

There was no "Germany vs the rest of the world" attitude until probably 1910, when the dice was already cast for a future major confrontation, and later again only after 1932-33.

[Anomalocaris]

You are describing official foreign policy and its implied world view.  I am describing an influential attitude found in the society. We are talking about members of the society choosing suicide over living past germany’s Defeat.

[Deesse23]

You are describing official foreign policy and its implied world view.  I am describing an influential attitude found in the society.  We are talking about members of the society choosing suicide over living past germany’s Defeat.

Popular history tends to focus on overweening german air of racial supremacy between 1870-1945

I was just replying to this simply wrong statement with an elaborated explanation. There was no constant racial supremacy in Germany between 1870-1945. Not in official policy, and much less with the population.