Comment - FBXL Lotide

Well yes, but also oil in the Caucasus and trying to find some target which if won could deal a morale blow to the Soviets? (Not sure about the specific reasons)

original

Sort:hotnew top

Muehe@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Well no actually, at least according to the guy himself (added note and emphasis):

Now I do not always do things just as the others want them done. I consider what the others probably believe, and then do the opposite on principle. So if Mr. Stalin expected that we would attack in the center [Moscow], I did not want to attack in the center, not only because Mr. Stalin probably believed I would, but because I didn’t care about it any more at all. But I wanted to come to the Volga, to a definite place, to a definite city. It accidentally bears the name of Stalin himself, but do not think that I went after it on that account.

Indeed, it could have an altogether different name. But only because it is an important point, that is, there 30 million tons of traffic can be cut off, including about 9 million of oil shipments. There all the wheat pours in from those enormous territories of the Ukraine, of the Kuban territory, then to be transported to the North. There the manganese ore was forwarded. A gigantic terminal was there; I wanted to take it.

Now you can of course question if the narrative given in a propaganda speech is accurate, but I have never really seen sources for Hitler wanting to attack because of the name. So it kind of seems like a persistent urban legend to me.

original
- Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Hmm, I gotta say, up until reading that I completely dismissed that the name had anything to do with it. Maybe it comes across differently in german, but as it is here, that very much sounds like he was trying to cover that he very much did it for the name thing to piss him off.
  
  I mean, what would you think if trump gave a speech like that today, with 5 unprompted reasons why it had nothing to do with the name, including that he doesn’t even care about the name. And that he is actually just super smart and tactical and stuff. He likes doing things nobody would expect…
  
  original
- railway692@piefed.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The fact that he explicitly says he doesn’t want you think he did it because of the name makes me think m’Hitler doth protest too much.
  
  original