Why did German soldiers freeze to death in Russia instead of robbing the Soviets of their clothes?

For Russians, the cold and long winter is always a weapon against foreign invaders. As long as the enemy can survive the winter, the Russians can always hope to survive when they are at the end of their tether. Russia's territory extends from the temperate zone to the Arctic Circle, and it is normal for Moscow to have a winter of MINUS 10 degrees. Therefore, when German soldiers entered the Soviet Union in winter, the first problem they faced was not death, but freezing to death!

At that time, Napoleon's army was menacing. Faced with the heavy snow in Russia, they couldn't even play snowboarding, let alone March to fight, so they had to retreat in despair. However, Napoleon's lessons did not sound the alarm for Hitler. At that time, the brilliant achievements of German armored forces in the French Blitzkrieg made Hitler more confident. He overestimated the fighting capacity of the Germans, despised the Soviet Union and was blindly optimistic.

Hitler set the time for attacking the Soviet Union in autumn, and planned to capture the Soviet Union in only six weeks. Hitler firmly believed that the Germans could finish this task in winter, so when preparing for the war, he didn't think of preparing winter clothes for the army at all, let alone considering the operation of weapons at low temperature.

At the beginning, the Soviet army retreated across the board, and the Germans easily went deep into the hinterland of the Soviet Union and captured 3 million Soviet soldiers in a short time. Then the Germans spent a lot of time in charge of these prisoners of war, arranged for them to eat and drink in Lazar, and sent people to take care of them. The waste of time and energy also gave the Soviets some breathing space.

In fact, after entering the Soviet Union, the Germans have never encountered good weather. In September, the Germans struggled in the mud because of rainy days. 194 1 year 10, it snowed heavily in Moscow, one month earlier than normal. The Germans who are still in a hurry to arrange prisoners of war are completely panicked. They are still wearing summer clothes and autumn clothes at this time, and the temperature has dropped to MINUS 30 degrees.

A large number of frostbite began to appear in the German army, and Hitler ordered the quartermaster department to immediately produce 2 million sets of cotton coats for frontline soldiers. However, how can we make the speed of making cotton-padded clothes keep up with the speed of temperature drop? In addition, it must be mentioned that it is very difficult to send cotton-padded clothes to the front. At that time, Poles used a large number of trains to slaughter Jews, while Germany's war in the Soviet Union progressed too fast and the front line was too long, so the railway repair could not keep up with the progress, and guerrillas often destroyed the railway. So in the long winter, only a small amount of cotton-padded clothes were really delivered to the soldiers. For Hitler, the snow was really cool, and his plan to quickly capture the Soviet Union completely collapsed. Stalin did not forget to put a knife in Hitler's heart at this time. In June, 5438 +065438+ 10, when it was freezing, Stalin ordered a military parade in front of the German army to commemorate the October Revolution.

Indeed, compared with the flustered Germans, Soviet soldiers who are used to this weather are much more comfortable with their own cotton-padded clothes and lubricating oil. When all the German equipment could not be used normally because of freezing, they had put a cold shield on the artillery and lubricated it. According to statistics. In the battle of Moscow, the Germans suffered 580,000 casualties, including frostbite 1 1 10,000 and freezing to death of 50,000.

The climate of the Soviet Union wiped out the German Blitzkrieg, but it was only an auxiliary role. It was the "scorched earth" of the Soviet army that killed the German soldiers and made the German logistics a headache, which is also the reason why the German army could not grab any Soviet soldiers in the case of extremely scarce resources. From the beginning of the war, Soviet troops withdrew and burned the surrounding cities and villages. As long as they are resources that the Germans may use, they will never stay.

Scorched soil can be said to be the inherent policy of Russians in the face of war. When Napoleon invaded, the Germans once set fire to their capital Moscow. Napoleon was in ruins, unable to replenish his supplies. In this battle, the Soviets would rather let their compatriots be displaced than the Germans get a penny. The Germans can't get supplies, and the logistics can't keep up. They went from overwhelming to stalemate, which also laid the seeds for their complete failure.