Russia won a number of key battles that helped them to win. Though these Russian victories caused little damage to the German army in terms of numbers, the men’s morale dropped. If soldiers have low morale they do not fight with as much courage, confidence or purpose as they did with higher morale. The German army faced the problem of low morale after each defeat, and so their men did not want to fight. At Stalingrad the Germans suffered their first defeat and this dealt a crushing blow to morale of the Germans and had a huge psychological effect on them. However, the Russian gained in confidence and morale after beating the Germans, making it easier for them to beat the Germans again and again; Russian confidence grew with each victory. Germany’s only tactic was Blitzkrieg and they had no alternative to it when it didn’t work. Because the Russians kept on escaping the German encirclements caused by Blitzkrieg the Germans soon found themselves in city and town battles and got bogged down in combat. The aim of Blitzkrieg was to have as little combat as possible and to make the enemy surrender quickly. Once the Germans got into combat, they couldn’t use Blitzkrieg. The Germans didn’t have an alternative to Blitzkrieg, and so they weren’t used to close combat. When they had to use close combat in cities and towns they were unprepared causing them to suffer losses such as Stalingrad. The Russians also had better intelligence than the Germans so they often knew of coming attacks. The Germans sent coded messages about attacks in what they believed to be an unbreakable code but the British broke the code and sent the decoded messages to the Russians. Sometimes the Russians knew of attacks before German generals did as Hitler didn’t like telling his officers what was happening in case it leaked to the Russians. This meant the Russians were prepared for attacks - helping them to win against the Germans.
The Russians also won because of their weapons, not because they were better because they more technical, but better because they were simpler. Their simplicity meant that they could be manufactured a lot easier than the German weapons that were a lot more complicated. As they were manufactured easier, more of them could be made so the Russians had more weapons than the Germans. The Russian designs worked better because of their simplicity too. The Russian tank the T-34 had few moving parts to prevent it breaking down, wide tracks as there were hardly any or no roads in Russia and the ones that were there were bad quality and often just tracks. The wide tracks meant the tank didn’t sink into the mud caused by melting snow or rain. The wide tracks also meant it was more stable on slush. The Russian tanks also had a sloped front so shells would bounce of them and of course, there were more of them as they were easier to make. In comparison, the German tanks had lots of moving parts and fancy bits meaning they broke down easier and more often and were a lot more difficult to repair, often having to be sent away to be fixed. Once they were sent away, they were hard to transport back as the railway track were blown up by the Partisans. This caused the Germans to lose tanks. The German tanks also had narrower tracks causing them to sink in mud and be unstable and sink in slush made by the heavy Russian winter snow. The German tanks didn’t have the sloped surface of the Russian tanks and so were easier to blow up by shells. There were also less of them as they were hard to manufacture. The factories that made the German tanks were also being bombed by the British and the Americans, so even less tanks and other weapons were made. Because the German designs for their weapons were impractical for the war in Russia, the Germans stole the Russian designs.
Another factor that helped to defeat the Germans was the Russian winter. The Germans thought the war would be over by winter so they didn’t have the right equipment for it. The Germans had equipment suited to summer or autumn and not winter in Russia. Many of the Germans would steal the Russians’ boots as they were a lot better than their own. Not only were the Germans’ equipment unsuited for the weather, their tactics were too. Blitzkrieg had worked successfully in France and Poland in summer, they had not tried it out in winter conditions and it didn’t work. Their tanks froze and had to be warmed up by lighting fires beneath them but then the snow also thawed meaning that they faced difficulties in using the tanks as they did not work well in slush. The Germans themselves weren’t used to fighting in such bitter conditions. If that wasn’t enough, the suffered worsened supply shortages, no supplies could get through because of the winter. As a consequence of the Russian winter, many Germans died weakening the German attack even further.
Leadership was a big problem for the Germans and was a major part of their defeat. Hitler became obsessed with cities causing him to lose lots of men. At Stalingrad, Hitler lost an army because he thought that if he took Stalingrad it would make Stalin look weak. He could’ve pulled his army out but thought it would deal Stalin a blow as the city was named after him. Hitler also thought cities could be defended like castles and so were a good place to retreat to. However, just like a castle, they could be surrounded and supplies blocked off. This is what the Russians did, surrounding the city, blocking off the supplies and finishing off the Germans by either starving them to death or attacking them. Hitler lost many troops because of this.
Another reason why Russia won was because they had greater manpower than the Germans. The Russian soldiers were actually worse soldiers than the German soldiers but they seriously outnumbered the Germans and this helped the Russians to win and made it easier for them to defend. Other than the fact that it had a huge population, Russia had many men because it was able to replace the ones it had lost, unlike the Germans who couldn’t. The Russians fought because they hated Germany as Hitler had betrayed them. Many Russians fought fiercely against the Germans because of this and there were many replacements for any soldier that fell as the Russians were determined to beat Germany and Hitler. There was another reason why Germany inspired so many Russians to fight – the Germans treated many Soviet citizens so badly that they joined the Partisans to fight them. Even Ukraine, who hated Russia, fought with the Russians to defeat Germany as it knew Germany was worse than Russia. Another thing that drove the men to fight was the fact that they would be shot for retreating or showing cowardice. “Not one step backwards” was the motto by which the Russians fought. Sometimes, behind the advancing line there would be a line of machine guns to shoot any man that tried to run back. At least twenty-thousand Russians were killed in this way. The Russian men also had an advantage over the German men as they knew the terrain, roads and towns in which they were fighting. This helped the Russians in combat in towns and cities as they knew alleyways, buildings, hidey-holes and tunnels that the Germans didn’t. The Russians used underground tunnels a lot when fighting the Germans and this meant that they could ambush and launch secret attacks on the Germans; the Russians had an element of surprise that the Germans didn’t have.
The last, and one of the main reasons for Germany losing in Russia was the Germans second leadership problem; Hitler was crazy. Instead of letting someone else taking control of the war he conducted the whole war often making stupid decisions that cost many lives. Hitler thought he was invincible and so thought that he would be able to win the war himself, so he told his generals what to do and they did it, even if they thought it wasn’t a good idea. Stalin, on the other hand, let his generals conduct the war for him. Zhukov is the man that led Russia to victory against the Germans. Even if Stalin was insane like Hitler, he had sense when it came to fighting wars, meaning that Russia could, and did defeat Germany.
After losing in Russia, the tide turned completely for Germany. Previously they had been winning the Second World War but now, from 1942/1943 onwards, Germany began losing, probably because of their defeat in Russia, and by the end of 1945 World War II was completely over.
