Why did Hitler and Stalin not meet in person?

[George L Gregory]

You continue to discuss about what Hitler said and to claim that what he did was determined by what he said in 1925 .
And what he said in 1925 was nonsense,because it could not be done : Germany had not the manpower to conquer Russia, to occupy Russia, to colonize Russia and to exploit Russia .

I maintain that his philosophical and political views that were written in 1924-25 never faltered.

[George L Gregory]

And about digressing : i replied on post 4 ( by gebhk ) who said that Hitler had since long made the decision to attack the USSR .
There is NO proof for it and everything is indicating the opposite .
There is NO proof that in December 1940 Hitler decided to attack the SU,because of what he had said in 1925 .

You claim to have read Mein Kampf yet you erroneously claimed that the book doesn’t show that Hitler wanted the Soviet territories when in fact he wrote explicitly that Russia and its border vassal states were the places where Lebensraum were to be found for the German people.

[George L Gregory]

And, I will give the opinion of an historian whose authority is much greater than yours or mine : Christian Gerlach .
In Forum Barbarossa : Beitrag 4-2001
Operative Planungen der Wehrmacht für den Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion
he writes :
''Aus Sicht Hitlers und der deutschen Führung stellten die Vernichtung der Sowietunion und des Weltkommunismus zwar langjhärige.grundlegende politische Ziele dar .Auf lange Sicht hielt man daher einen Krieg im Osten für unvermeidlich .Doch nicht deswegen fiel 1940 der Entschluss zum Angriff . ....''
This means that both, the hostility to the USSR and international communism and the decision to attack the USSR were NOT related .

Are you sure you understand what you quoted there?

What do you think the things were that Gerlach was referring to when he mentioned long-standing fundamental political goals?

[gebhk]

Hi Ijadw

Since apaprently you now agree with Christian Gerlach, an authority you apparently accept, that:

From the point of view of Hitler and the German leadership, the annihilation of the Soviet Union and world communism represented long-standing, fundamental political goals. In the long run, therefore, a war in the East was considered inevitable.

which is what I said, can we please move on from this irrelevant distraction back to the topic in hand. It would be a shame for it to degenerate into 45 pages of irrelevant twaddle like the otherwise potentially interesting topic of General de Gaulle's thoughts on the Polish Camapign did.

[ljadw]

And, I will give the opinion of an historian whose authority is much greater than yours or mine : Christian Gerlach .
In Forum Barbarossa : Beitrag 4-2001
Operative Planungen der Wehrmacht für den Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion
he writes :
''Aus Sicht Hitlers und der deutschen Führung stellten die Vernichtung der Sowietunion und des Weltkommunismus zwar langjhärige.grundlegende politische Ziele dar .Auf lange Sicht hielt man daher einen Krieg im Osten für unvermeidlich .Doch nicht deswegen fiel 1940 der Entschluss zum Angriff . ....''
This means that both, the hostility to the USSR and international communism and the decision to attack the USSR were NOT related .

Are you sure you understand what you quoted there?

What do you think the things were that Gerlach was referring to when he mentioned long-standing fundamental political goals?

Gerlach did not say that war with the USSR was a German aim.He said that the German leadership said that a war with the USSR was inevitable .

[ljadw]

You continue to discuss about what Hitler said and to claim that what he did was determined by what he said in 1925 .
And what he said in 1925 was nonsense,because it could not be done : Germany had not the manpower to conquer Russia, to occupy Russia, to colonize Russia and to exploit Russia .

I maintain that his philosophical and political views that were written in 1924-25 never faltered.

And I maintain that his philosophical and political views (from 1924-1925,or earlier or later ) did NOT determine his foreign policy .
And I repeat that this is so with most political leaders :the leaders of the USSR were convinced that capitalism and communism could not exist together,but their foreign policy was ( including the foreign policy of Stalin ) to accept and even promote peaceful coexistence . Since 1968 they supplied the West with oil,coal and gas ,but still continued to shout that capitalism had to be destroyed .Since 1957 the Soviets could defeat NATO in a conventional war, they did not do it ,although the strength of NATO was decreasing .
And, it was the same on the other side :Foster Dulles ( mister morality ) said when he became secretary of state in 1953 that he would roll back communism . Nothing of this happened, as one could expect .
Words are words and acts are acts and acts are not determined by words .

[ljadw]

Hi Ijadw

Since apaprently you now agree with Christian Gerlach, an authority you apparently accept, that:

From the point of view of Hitler and the German leadership, the annihilation of the Soviet Union and world communism represented long-standing, fundamental political goals. In the long run, therefore, a war in the East was considered inevitable.

which is what I said, can we please move on from this irrelevant distraction back to the topic in hand. It would be a shame for it to degenerate into 45 pages of irrelevant twaddle like the otherwise potentially interesting topic of General de Gaulle's thoughts on the Polish Camapign did.

Gerlach did not say that war with the SU was a goal.
And, you fail to understand that every sentence that includes the words ''in the long run '' is meaningless ,because in the long run ,every one is dead .

[gebhk]

Yep, Monty Python's argument clinic beckons.
No it doesn't
Yes it does.

Best just ignored.

Meanwhile back to the discussion about why Hitler and Stalin never met. I there any evidence that they just plain loathed each other? While I suspect Stalin would have met the devil himself if it suited his schemes, Hitler was in his perverse way a man of principle who may have baulked at that. Maybe?

[LAstry]

has been asked before..
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=8511&p=73596&hilit ... lin#p73596

[ljadw]

Why should Hitler and Stalin meet in person?Before WW 2 ,political leaders mostly did not meet in person .

[gebhk]

The question isn't about 'mostly' but about 'at all'. And most country's AH dealt with he met their leaders at least once. He met Chamberlain, Mussolini (many times), Ionescu, Daladier, Petain, Hacha, Horthy, Quisling, Ryti, Tiso... the list goes on. Just about everyone except Tojo and Stalin, so the question is a reasonable one.

[ljadw]

He did not meet MacDonald and Baldwin,he met Petain, Quisling,..during the war .
Til 1940 Stalin did not occupy an official function, thus there was no need to meet him .
And, if he would meet him,would he go to Moscow or would Stalin go to Berlin ?
If my memory is still correct, before the war Hitler visited only one country : Italy.
Besides, given the very bad relations between both countries,why would/how could they meet each other ?

[gebhk]

Virtually all of that - so what? None of it is relevant to the question. The point is he met the leaders of many if not most of the contries that he dealt with befiore the war, during the war, he was friendly with, he was not friendly with. So why not Stalin? Perfectly reasonable question. Enough of the non-sequiturs, I say!

Incidentally Stalin did not occupy an official function till 1940? Which 'Stalin' are we talking about? Presumably not the Joseph Stalin who was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for 30 years and throughout the time when Adolf Hitler was in power?

Before the war (aside from his military service), Hitler visited Switzerland, Norway (albeit, I believe, without setting foot on Norwegian soil) and Klaipeda in Lithuania (albeit the last was, briefly, technically German Memel when Hitler visited it if you want to be anal). Not that this has any relevance, you don't have to travel to another contry to meet another person. This brings us to another of a long list of leaders Hitler met in person, Franco, whom he met just inside the French border in October 1940. Given that the relationship of Spain to Germany was fairly analogous to the Soviet Union at the time - ie a friendly and supportive neutral, this certainly raises the question - if AH felt it necessary to meet Franco, why not Stalin upon whose friendly neutrality Germany depended on far more than it did on that of Franco?

[VanillaNuns]

Did Hitler not say to Goering and Ribbentrop in the summer of 1939 that world leaders looked down on Stalin because he was not the elected Head of State or even the Head of Government?

He was just Secretary General of the Communist Party...


EDIT: Gebhk beat me to it already.

[George L Gregory]

Why should Hitler and Stalin meet in person?Before WW 2 ,political leaders mostly did not meet in person .

That’s just more claptrap from you. It was and is normal for leaders of different countries to meet each other.