[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by Webstral

Shirer's assertion that Hitler saved the Eastern Front by refusing to countenance retreat has some merit. The Army would have lost huge amounts of equipment that couldn't be moved. Who knows how many men would have been left behind for lack of transport. There were no established positions to fall back on, so the retreat could have gone right back to Poland.
We'll never know, of course; however, there is good reason to believe that a retreat would have finished the German Army on the Eastern Front during the winter.

On the other hand, it was Hitler's decision to keep the campaign going despite the onset of a winter for which the Wehrmacht was not prepared. If he saved the Eastern Front, he saved it from a blunder he made himself. I've never bought off on the idea that turning the panzers aside from Moscow to destroy Soviet forces in the Ukraine was a bad idea. However, I do believe that the rasputitsa should have marked the end of the campaign season on the Eastern Front. Small-scale offensives in lieu of Operation Typhoon could have continued to inflict losses on the Soviets west of Moscow while good winter positions were prepared. Of course, for me to say this flies in the face of Prussia military thinking and the lessons Hitler and his generation of Germans learned from WW1--namely, that only offensive warfare brings victory. Nonetheless, if Hitler saved the Eastern Front during that first terrible winter, he saved it from his own mindless adherence to the strategic offensive and his slavish devotion to the idea that the Russians, being inferior peoples, were just about finished from July, 1941 onward.


Webstral

Yeah I think that the Germans didn't want to set up Static Line anywhere. They realize that it had cost them in WWI dearly. If they were able to set up Static Defensively line, then it would only lead on to believe the Soviet would do the much the same... Meaning the Germans would have much harder time restart their offensive and giving the Soviet breathing room that they need so desperately at that time.