Stalin had to watch Hitler taking The Netherlands, Belgium, and France in six weeks while the Red Army failed to conquer Finland. Must have given him a cold lump in the stomach.Smitty-48 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 7:09 pmIn terms of Hitler and Stalin, Stalin betrays Hitler first.
Stalin and Hitler agree to invade Poland at the same time.
Stalin however holds back for a week when Germany goes in.
That is the week where Britain and France declare war on Germany, but not the Soviets.
Stalin lures Hitler into the trap, because Stalin wants the British, French and Germans to go to war with each other again.
The plan being for Stalin to invade from the East once they had exhausted themselves in the trenches.
What Stalin is not expecting is for Germany to win in the West in six weeks.
This is what throws a monkey wrench into Stalin's attack plans.
Stalin then tries to stall for time by sucking up to Hitler.
Hitler however rounds on him, in order to beat Stalin to the punch, which he does.
After that, he just played for time and relied on general Winter. Do to the Germans what the Finns did to him on a bigger scale.
The Russians had no idea how to defend against the German mechanized assault. After a while the figured it out. Look at Kursk.
