Did the soviet union intend to attack germany 2 weeks after germany attaked the soviet union?

by mrKaasa

TLDR: i have 2 questions, 1:was the ussr about to invade germany two weeks after germany did and 2: was hitler buddhist?

i am reading Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger Knights Cross, and the introduction to the book makes two claims that got my bullshit detector going

  • Lenin and Stalin made no secret of their desire for a second European war to establish a communist Europe. The Soviet build-up towards this end began long before they embarked upon the road in 1939 with the occupation of eastern Poland, and in 1940 the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In his recent book, The Icebreaker, Viktor Suvorov (the former military spy Vladimir Bogdanovich Resun) makes the case that Soviet military theory was based on offence and the conquest of territory ‘for the world revolution’. Operation Groza (Thunderstorm), the invasion of Europe to the Atlantic, was scheduled to begin on 6 July 1941. The statement of General S.P. Ivanov, Chief of the General Staff Academy of the USSR armed forces in 1974 that ‘the Nazi High Command succeeded in forestalling our troops literally two weeks before the war began’ seems eloquent enough proof of this allegation, and more recently Russian academic historians Vladimir Nevezhin and Mikhail Meltiujov have found archive material that supports Suvorov’s allegation.

Wacker, Albrecht (2008-06-15). Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knight's Cross (Kindle Location 66). Casemate Publishers. Kindle Edition.

  • From the earliest beginnings of the National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Party or NSDAP (The Nazi Party), the primary aim had been the destruction of Bolshevism. This was for religious reasons as well as political. The hidden religious basis of National Socialism was reincarnation without a heaven (Hitler’s table talk, 13 December 1941). Judeo-Christianity was nothing but communism (Hitler’s table talk, 30 November 1944) and modern Bolshevism was nothing but Christianity without the metaphysical trappings (Hitler’s table talk, 14 December 1941). Hitler saw himself as the Grail knight, Parsifal, the prophet of man’s rebirth in a new form, his task being to elevate mankind for the global struggle to eventually escape the cycle of reincarnation. The secret name of his Berghof residence, Gralsburg – fortress of the Grail – seems to confirm this (Hitler’s table talk, 2 February 1942). Hitler’s dedication to a Buddhist philosophy is obvious from the fact that throughout the Great War he carried the five works of the philosopher Schopenhauer in his gas mask case (Hitler’s table talk, 19 May 1944) and knew large tracts of them by heart. He thought as a pantheist and a mystic, since he perceived God as being the sum total of all that is (Hitler’s table talk, 24 October 1941),

Wacker, Albrecht (2008-06-15). Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knight's Cross (Kindle Locations 67-76). Casemate Publishers. Kindle Edition.

commiespaceinvader

Bullshit meter is right since the whole book is a favorite in right-wing circles and the author is very close to some Neo-Nazi organizations in Germany.

As for your first question: The so-called Preventive War Thesis has been dis-proven in the 60s, the 80s, the 90s and once more in the 2000s. It generated a lot of material, and I highly suggest you take a look at the sources I'll cite below but to boil it down to the essentials:

Viktor Suvorov is a liar who knowingly and willingly misquoted evidence and gave false references for sources that do not exist. Contrary to Suvorov's claims, even after the archives had been opened no plan for an attack on Germany ever surface in the Red Army's archives. And the plans Suvorov does make reference to are all plans that deal with a possible German attack on the Soviet Union stating that best defense action after Germany has attacked would be an offensive plan. However, this plan was just a circular memo not signed by Stalin, Timoshenko et. al. so it seems to have never been taken seriously.

The preventive war is a myth of Nazi propaganda. The Red Army was in no state to attack in 1941 and its defensive stance was a major reason why the Germans were able to be so successful in the first weeks of the war. The only remaining adherents of the thesis are extreme right-wingers and Neo-Nazis such as David Irving and no one has ever been able to make a convincing claim backed up by actual evidence.

Furthermore, the Nazi plans to attack the Soviet Union date back to 1940 and were driven by an ideological conviction. No Wehrmacht document ever mentions an impeding attack of the Soviets.

As for the second question: There was an affinity to eastern esotericism in some Nazi circles, especially in the SS but the above mentioned quotes from the table talks are taken out of context or interpreted wrongly. Hitler notoriously rambled on in his table talks on a variety of subjects and therefore it is hard to establish any real basis for political actions from them.

For example:

In the quote you provided it says "The hidden religious basis of National Socialism was reincarnation without a heaven (Hitler’s table talk, 13 December 1941)." In Hitler's table talk of December 13, 1941 Hitler said: "I can imagine people being enthusiastic about the paradise of Mahomet, but as for the insipid paradise of the Christians ! In your lifetime, you used to hear the music of Richard Wagner.After your death, it will be nothing but hallelujahs, the waving of palms, children of an age for the feeding-bottle, and hoary old men. The man of the isles pays homage to the forces of nature. But Christianity is an invention of sick brains : one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery. A negro with his tabus is crushingly superior to the human being seriously believing in transubstantiation"

There is nothing about reincarnation in this one.

Similarly, the Gralsburg in the February 2 entry refers to the SS's Wewelsburg, not the Berghof. All Wacker cites here is out of context mumbo jumbo.

Sources:

  • Hitler's Table Talk.

  • Wigbert Benz: Die Lüge vom deutschen Präventivkrieg 1941. In: Geschichte lernen: Legenden – Mythen – Lügen. Heft 52, 1996, S. 54–59.

  • David M. Glantz: The Initial Period of War on the Eastern Front. 22 June–August 1941. Proceedings of the Fourth Art of War Symposium. (1987) Reprint, Frank Cass Publishers, London 1997.

  • David M. Glantz: The Military Strategy of the Soviet Union. A History. (1992) Reprint, Routledge/Curzon, Abingdon 2001.

  • David M. Glantz: Stumbling Colossus. The Red Army on the Eve of World War. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1998.

  • Alex J. Kay: Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940–1941. Reihe: Studies on War and Genocide, Bd. 10, Berghahn Books, New York/Oxford 2006.

  • Wolfram Wette: Die These vom Präventivkrieg und der Überfall auf die Sowjetunion. In: Klaus Meyer, Wolfgang Wippermann (Hrsg.): Gegen das Vergessen. Der Vernichtungskrieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941–1945. Deutsch-Sowjetische Historikerkonferenz im Juni 1991 in Berlin über Ursachen, Opfer, Folgen des deutschen Angriffs auf die Sowjetunion. (Berlin 1991) Haag und Herchen, Frankfurt am Main 1997.

  • Wolfram Wette: Über die Wiederbelebung des Antibolschewismus mit historischen Mitteln. Oder: Was steckt hinter der Präventivkriegsthese? In: Gernot Erler, Rolf-Dieter Müller, Ulrich Rose (Hrsg.): Geschichtswende? Entsorgungsversuche zur deutschen Geschichte (1987). Dreisam Verlag, 2. Auflage, Köln 1991.