YEs that was Clausewitz. I think this is why our army has a saying, "amateurs think about tactics, pros think about logistics" because logistics is one part of the planning you can (hopefully) do without giving the enemy a vote.
Logistics isn't solely about geography. But yeah the Nazis were shit at it regardless. I mean blitzkrieg makes sense when your opponent is close and there are lots of roads. Which is pretty much the polar opposite of, say, the greater Eurasian plains where your supply is mostly trains or horses.....
German intelligence believed that Russia was planning to turn on them, and so they launched a preemptive attack. Later declassified historical documents from Russia revealed, they were *right.*
Umm, no. Stalin actually dismissed the intelligence officer who claimed Hitler was going to attack. He really overestimated their logistic acumen. And that's from the Kremlin archives. There were train cars of oil headed from Bakut to Germany when Barbarossa started.
I forget the source, I read it a while back. But basically, they were both preparing to betray each other, and Germany just acted first, while Russia still believed they had something to gain from delaying it.
A big part of it comes down to the simple fact that Socialism, whether German or Russian, does not work very well. So they end up in a situation where they have to keep finding someone new to rob. So yeah sure they all probably had plans to shiv each other at some point. Just that the idea that Barbarossa was some brilliant spoiler attack for an imminent Bolshevik invasion is shite.
