janh -> RE: Couple of questions, importance of Leningrad etc (9/13/2010 10:10:01 PM)
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ORIGINAL: wosung All this is based on serious archive research in Russia and Germany. See: Jörg Ganzenmüller: Das belagerte Leningrad 1941-1944: Die Stadt in den Strategien von Angreifern und Verteidigern. Thanks for the reference, every day one learns something new. Too bad the crucial chapters around p.20 are not accessible. High Command, with Hitler of course at its the head, accounts for its decisions, whatever they may have decided in the case of LG, and whatever later on became public of that information. It would seem quite inconsistent why Hitler would basically decide to eliminate the population of LG, but spare for example those left in Sevastopol, Rostov, Kharkov, Smolensk etc upon occupation of these centers. Maybe the author, with the information he could dig out, arrived at this conclusion, but it leaves me wonder about its significance. Even illogical and crazy as Hitler was, he and his staff would probably have acted more consistently. I would bet that if the opportunity to take LG had arisen in late 41, or 42, without the need of distracting assets from other, more important operations, Hitler would not have hesitated to seize it. Maybe it is one of the opinions that so often spring in historical science and require much more effort to correct than to spread. Or maybe those, that cannot be proven or disproved due to lack of evidence. Anyway, an interesting discussion.
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