Steel Soviet Union

From the perspective of Guderian, the director of the German armored forces, the request Hitler just made is undoubtedly extremely excessive and almost impossible. It can even be said to be equivalent to asking Guderian to personally create a seemingly fundamental Impossible miracle.

Not only were his demands not met, but Hitler imposed unreasonable demands and orders with a little profit. Guderian, who increasingly felt that Hitler's actions were likely to cause an irreparable disaster, immediately decided Continue to argue with Hitler.

"My head of state, the Russian tanks are far beyond our preconceived limits in terms of both quality and quantity. Those new T34 medium tanks and KV series heavy tanks have far exceeded ours of the same type. All the equipment, even though I don’t want to admit it myself, it is an indisputable fact that the Russian tanks are already better than our German tanks.”

"There is still a long way to go before a new tank that can overwhelm the Russian tanks will be finalized and put into production. Our armored forces can only continue to replenish new tanks and send them to the front line so that our total number of tanks can match the Russians! Otherwise, in terms of quality and quantity, The double disadvantages cannot be compensated for by the courage of the German soldiers!"

Hitler, who originally thought that his concluding speech had the final word, did not expect that Guderian's reaction would be so fierce, and he even stood up to argue with himself, making the ground red.

Feeling more and more that he was losing face in front of so many subordinates, and his tone gradually began to smell of gunpowder, Hitler simply began to have a serious fight with Guderian.

"Guderian, I want to tell you one thing first! That is, before setting off to hold this meeting, I had met with Dr. Ferdinand Porsche privately in Berlin."

"Dr. Porsche personally promised me that the new tank he designed is many times more powerful than those Russian tractors. The design plan of Henschel Company has also been submitted for bid review. We now have double insurance in our hands! In the long run From a perspective, our armored forces undoubtedly have the advantage!”

The spitting Hitler was already a little too excited at the moment. His special liking for tanks made this aloof and racist German head of state unable to tolerate any bragging about the superiority of the Soviet armored forces.

"Besides that, Guderian, if I had known that the number of Russian tanks was really as good as what you said in that book, I believe I would not have started this war!"

The book by Guderian that Hitler was referring to was actually the book on armored forces written and published by Guderian in 1937 - "Attention!" tank! 》

In this book, Guderian, who had his own unique and rigorous views on armored forces, pointed out the strength of the Soviet armored forces and believed that the Soviet tank design concept of pursuing mass production during wartime even at the expense of lowering some quality was very suitable. Large-scale wars may break out in the future.

Guderian, who made a long-term and in-depth investigation of the Soviet armored forces, pointed out in the book that the number of tanks owned by the Soviet armored forces in 1937 may have reached as many as 10,000.

Guderian's argument caused quite a stir and had an earthquake-like effect among the top German military officials at the time. A number of senior German army generals, including Beck, the then Chief of General Staff of the German Army, all expressed their disapproval of Guderian. Derrian's argument raised serious doubts, and even almost led to Guderian's "Attention!" tank! "The book was not published in Germany.

Judging from the scale of Germany's own armored forces and industrial production capacity in 1937, the Soviet armored forces, which gradually started to develop tank design with the help of early German tank designers during the Soviet-German honeymoon in 1930, were able to develop in such a short period of time. The miracle of "students catching up with their masters" within a few years is simply incredible.

In fact, whether it is the scale of Soviet tanks encountered by the German front-line troops after the launch of Operation Barbarossa, or the declassified data of later generations on the specific number of armored units of the Soviet and German armies during World War II.

In 1937, the total number of combat tanks of various types possessed by the Soviet Army was approximately 70,000, which greatly exceeded Guderian's conservative estimate of 10,000 tanks. It was also geometrically far superior to the German armored forces of the same period. above the scale.

But even when the Soviet-German war officially started, Guderian's seemingly absurd argument was corroborated by the massive torrent of steel in the hands of the Soviet army that seemed to be fighting more and more and could not be destroyed at all.

Whether it was Hitler himself, the political and military advisory group around him, or even some of the senior German generals in the German General Staff who surrounded Hitler and advised him.

It directly used the "ostrich policy" to selectively ignore the massive number of tanks in the hands of the Soviet army that far exceeded its own estimates.

The reason for this is that on the one hand, the top brass of the German army and even Hitler's advisory group arrogantly believed that the strength of the Soviet army was actually vulnerable to the powerful German blitzkrieg offensive. Even having such a large number of tanks could only slightly delay the death of the Bolshevik regime. In short, it was insignificant and in vain.

On the other hand, a considerable number of senior German military and political figures have the problem of following Hitler's subjective wishes and actively catering to Hitler's subjective wishes.

And when Hitler, who was surrounded by these good words all day long, heard too many "auspicious words", what would happen to the increasingly conceited and arrogant German head of state when he first heard the objections from Guderian? The result is naturally self-evident.

Hitler, who knew that the comparison between the number of enemy and friendly tanks on the front line was not optimistic, faced Guderian's blunt advice, but once again selectively ignored it.

Guderian, who had fulfilled his responsibilities, ultimately failed to persuade Hitler to believe in him and change his existing views. However, the disastrous consequences of the selective ignorance and evasion of these senior leaders in implementing the "ostrich policy" will in the future But the German soldiers who fought bloody battles on the front lines had to pay for it.

In the end, this front-line combat meeting turned directly into a quarrel between Hitler and Guderian about the issue of armored forces and eventually broke up.

Hitler, who believed that Guderian was being alarmist, embarked on his return home resentfully, while Guderian, who lamented in his heart that he was unable to change the existing situation, was thinking alone about the next combat action.

"In any case, even if the battle plan of the General Staff Headquarters is changed, the preparations for the 2nd Armored Group to launch an attack in the direction of Moscow must be completed as soon as possible."