Decky wrote:In a word logistics. Think about how badly they did in real life and they never got past to Volga.
Now imagine them trying to go past the Urals, what would they do after that? Go on to Vladivostok?
They had enough trouble with this sort of thing without trying something as insane as that.
I suppose it was too ambitious to go that far. Infrastructure and logistics would be a massive problem as you said. Especially in the middle of Siberia. However having an empire from Berlin to Vladivostok could have been interesting for them. Perhaps they didn't want to have to deal with Japan?
Preston Cole wrote:Why should they? The Soviet Union would no longer pose a threat if driven back to the A-A Line. Historically, the Urals also marked the frontier between projected German and Japanese spheres. The Urals would be fortified with soldier-peasants to defend the European frontier from the Japanese, Chinese and what remained of the Soviets.
There were plans for Reichskommissariat Turkestan if Case Blue ended well and the Germans could cross the Volga, but it was thought up by Rosenberg and Hitler had a habit of rejecting his ideas.
It would have offered them the chance to control more territory I suppose.
Was the plan to eventually include all Reichskomissariats into a Greater German Reich?
fuser wrote:natural frontier/border, its much easier to defend mountains than open fields.
True.
Smilin' Dave wrote:Another consideration would have been the perceived value - lebensraum etc. was about farming land primarily, and the territories beyond the Urals were not exactly famous for the wealth of their soil. Even the more strategically useful resources like oil, metal ores etc. were more easily found in the 'European' part of the Soviet Union, exploitation of these resources didn't really become a thing in Siberia and the Far East until several decades later.
I see.