(The Black Monk) wrote in message . com...

snip

Had the Germans been statesmen they would not have had
to contend with resistence in eastern Europe,

See below.

indeed they would probably have had several 100,000 more allied troops

German troops in France in 1941 were equipped largely with captured
Czechoslovak, Polish, Yugoslav, and French equipment. The troops of
Germany's sattelites were equipped with their own (generally poor)
equipment, and the Germans gave them very little to make up the
equipment deficiencies in the Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, and
Finnish armies.

So the Germans would have faced severe problems equipping any great
number of additional troops, at least before Speer's rationalization
of the German war economy starts to boost output.

snip

This alternative strategy is not as far-fetched as it seems.

Unfortunately, this strategy fails to take account of the logistical
and material constraints under which Nazi Germany waged Barbarossa.

German transportation assets, such as the captured Soviet rail
network, the German truck fleet, German draft animals, and fuel supply
proved insufficient for the transportation of ammunition and vehicle
and aircraft fuel only. And German draft horses died by the hundred
thousand during Barbarossa, because they couldn't survive the
conditions the East. For the Axis forces in the East therefore, their
food, warm clothing, shelter, survivable draft animals, and fuel for
heat had to come at the expense of the population in the areas they
occupied, who had little enough to begin with. The German Army
couldn't afford to trade for these things, since trade items from
Germany would tie up train capacity that was already insufficient for
the transportation of vehicle fuel and ammunition. So German Army
requirements for food, warm clothing, shelter, survivable draft
animals, and fuel for heat had to come by uncompensated requisition
from people who have little to begin with.

In no event will this be popular, no matter what the German policy
behind it is.

In every event this will provoke resistance, no matter what the German
policy behind it is.

It is likely that a German policy that is not explicitly genocidal
will provoke less resistance than the historical one, but the
occupation is still sufficiently harsh that resistance is manifested.

The impact of this on the course and outcome of the war in the East is
open to question.

Elements in the Wehrmacht were outraged at the Nazi mistreatment
of Eastern Europeans,

Indeed some were. But a look at the German logistics system shows
that there was no real alternative for them, apart from not waging war
in the East at all.

Stuart Wilkes