good morning jack

  

M  Y       P  L  E  A  S  U  R  E

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Objective

  

Center of the Soviet universe.

Located here is the vast bureaucracy that enables

Stalin's rule.  Communications are governed from here.

Moscow is the nation's transportation hub.  It harbors

many industries.  German generals believe Russia's

capitol is indispensable to communist rule.  

Take it and your other objectives fall into place.

You win.

Not so fast.  Napoleon captured Moscow and still lost 

the war because he had not destroyed the Russian army.

This was Hitler's rebuttal to his generals' focus on Moscow.

The Fuhrer's strategy was to encircle the Russian army

nearby and then quickly destroy it.  Moscow and Hitler's

other objectives would be left relatively undefended.

It takes a lot of troops to restrain a couple of hundred

thousand armed enemy soldiers.  The biggest problem

was there weren't enough Germans to close the noose

because most Nazi soldiers traveled on foot.

They couldn't keep up with their tank force up front.

Rich in mineral wealth, industry and agriculture,

Ukraine was a treasure for resource poor Germany

to acquire.  Here was Hitler's lebensraum - true

living space for an expansive Third Reich.

Where does the Russian navy go when the Soviets

lose this vital Baltic port?  What does Moscow do 

when it loses the defense industries centered in

Leningrad?  The Nazis lay siege to the city when it

became clear their army couldn't capture it.

Leningrad's population became the bull's eye 

in a years long battle.

Energy problem solved.  A gusher of oil for thirsty Germany.

The area is a peninsula of petroleum products located

on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, just beyond

the Caucasus mountains.  Follow the Volga River south.

You can't miss it.

Kick in the door and Stalin's whole rotten structure

collapses like a house of cards.  That was the fantasy 

Hitler counted upon to conquer Russia in eight weeks.

Baku supplied Stalin over seventy percent of his oil.

If Germany captured Baku then Russia was hard up

for fuel while Hitler became a screaming dynamo. 

Defeat Russia and Germany became a continental 

power, like the United States.  Hitler's power would

span Europe, from the Urals of Asia to Gibraltar,

guarding the Mediterranean Sea.  Here was 

Nazi power capable of taking on Roosevelt,

anywhere across the globe.  Equals.  A fair fight.

It was just a matter of time.

*  *  *  *  *

©  Tom Taylor

 OVER   EASY

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good morning jessicca

  

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   dad

 

coldValentine

Barbarossa

  

History's largest invasion.

Three million German soldiers began their attack

on Russia with an artillery barrage all along the

1,200 mile front.  It was 3 am, June 22, 1941;

the first days of summer.

There was no better time than now to battle Russia.

Germany was at the height of its military power, having

just defeated the British and French in a matter of weeks.

Stalin was startled by this demonstration of blitzkrieg.

He made urgent demands on his generals and industrialists,

to grow him the most powerful and modern of armies.

Hitler believed Russia to be vulnerable and the time

he had to take advantage of this would be brief.

German troops overwhelmed Russia's defense.

Stalin was blind to the immediacy of Hitler's threat.

So long as Britain remained undefeated, the Germans

would not open up a second front by attacking Russia.

The order of the day had been 'don't antagonize Hitler'.

The Russian troops facing the Nazis weren't ready.

The military was still recovering from Stalin's purge

of the officer corps two years previous.  Most of his

top generals were executed.  Uncle Joe had 

paranoid tendencies.  It came with the job.

It was quickly made clear they were not your friends.

The Germans were your conquerors.

They behaved accordingly.  

Russian guerillas sabotaged German efforts behind the lines.

There were those among the Russian population that were

ready to welcome German troops as liberators from Stalin's

ruthless rule.  Instead they became lethal enemies of 

Hitler's forces.  The Nazis couldn't tolerate help coming

from the Slavs.

Allies.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

It's politics.  You succeed with what you have.

Hitler gambled that he could defeat the Soviet Union

by year's end or lose everything.  

What Germany and Hitler feared most, would 

come to pass.  This alliance of industrial behemoths

could only crush the Third Reich.

And at its leisure.

*  *  *  *  *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

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good morning jeremy

  

E   X   O   T   I   C          D   A   N   C   E   R   S

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   dad

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Mussolini

 

The Individual dies and becomes nothing.

The State is eternal.  It is everything.

Charismatic.  A born leader.  A man of destiny.

The people sweep him into power.

Mussolini is now the State.

Junior partner to the Nazi next door.

Near war's end Mussolini and entourage are captured

attempting an escape to Austria.  Italian partisans 

shot them on the spot and strung them up for 

all the world to see.

*  *  *  *  *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

coldValentine

 

good morning justin

  

F I V E     M I N U T E     L O L L Y G A G

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