Given how the Kursk salient was impossible to break through, would it have been better for the Germans in 1943 to send sufficient men and arms to conquer Leningrad and defend along the rest of the front?

They wouldn’t have ever done that because they could have captured Leningrad for years at any point of the siege but didn’t because Hitler and Himmler wanted to starve everyone in it to death. Hitler had some kind of preoccupation with starving the city and even sent an order to Army Group North not even to accept a surrender but to continue starving them. When ordered not to advance on the city after it was totally surrounded the generals thought at first this had to be a mistake or misunderstanding of some sort.

Wehrmacht dreaded city fighting because they lost their tactical superiority in the streets and room-to-room combat. It always caused significant more casualties.

Kursk was a shock in itself because it was the first time the Red Army could defeat Wehrmacht in the open, in summer. Previously Red Army victories were only achieved in winter conditions, with summers being typically marked by Red Army mass retreats and catastrophic encirclements.
After Kursk the Germans knew they had lost all advantages against the Red Army, but before Kursk there was still wishful thinking that the Wehrmacht was superior and could achieve a decisive victory, even with its extremely limited resources.

>>17862267
He didnt want to have to take care of the population afterwards

>>17862246 (OP)
>Be 1943
>Ignore the massive formations of several enemy armies in the center
>Use and lose everything to take a city in the back rear instead.
>Invite the enemy to execute Operation Uranus 2.0 on said city.

Why is OP always a braindead monkey?

>>17862246 (OP)
>1943
doesn't really matter 2bh. Outcome was settled by here

>>17862292
The outcome was settled in 1941

>>17862508
The outcome was settled on September 3rd 1939.

>>17862283
They understood the Soviets had an advantage in the open too. What you're talking about is ancient BBC documentary logic, not reality. The entire point of the 1943 German offensives on the eastern front was to keep the Soviets guessing instead of just preparing their own offensive and exposing the weaknesses of the German army. As long as the Germans could keep going with the localised offensives the Soviets would have to assume that the end of the war is really, really far away. The early 1943 ones were small, but their effect was good enough to get the Soviets to agree on sitting down to the negotiating table - nothing came out if it, but perhaps a success in Kursk and subsequent small battles like that would've convinced Stalin that it's better to concede some things for the time being.

>>17862598
Its not "BBC documentary logic" to state the very obvious and rational fact that the wehrmacht had yet been undefeated by the Red Army in the open field outside of winter conditions, because they hadn't. It's a fact.
Operation Uranus came as a shock to the Germans that the Red Army was able to launch a successful offensive on them (as the counter-offensive after Moscow had resulted in catastrophic losses). Kursk now proved that the Red Army had operational success even outside winter conditions.

And the Germans did not strike at kursk to "hide their weakness", they did it because they believed they could achieve a decisive battle that had the best chances if success during the summer, one which would knock out the Red Army concentration and allow Germany greater flexibility in the east to cover more ground.

You probably have a point in some of the arguments you raise, but I don't think it's completely definitive either.
Apparently there was a low-level talks of peace negotiation between Germany and the USSR in 1943, but that both sides were holding back to wait for the outcome at Kursk to get stronger hands at any official negotiation. The Germans firmly believed they could and would win at kursk.

>Leningrad falls
>1943
Then what?

>>17862892
Then Germany wins anon.
Stop asking further questions.
It's the same thing with the Moscow 1941 narrative.

>>17862987
It’s not that, it just frees up more German troops to defend the front. The objective is for more of Europe to fall to the Western Allies.

>>17862267
If that was true then why did the Soviets forbid anyone from leaving the city and why’d they continue to shuffle men in to the point they had 50 divisions (almost 1/6 of the red army at the time) inside the city?

>>17862292
>>17862508
>>17862513
It was settled in 1688.
No jews in England, no war.

>>17862987
Why are they like this? Why can’t we have strategic speculation threads?
>the heckin Nazis would win and we can’t even allow anyone to think that or else they might try it again
Who? Who is going to try it again? Who is going to say “the Nazis could have won if they did x, I will now do a racism”?
No one does this. What we see here is an irrational fear. These posters literally will not even allow a speculative Wehrmacht victory because of this irrational fear.
>no Germany was destined to lose its so obvious
It wasn’t obvious to anyone at the time and the cost to actually beat the Germans was immense.
There is no cosmic law stating England must prosecute the war forever, America can never play peacemaker, and the USSR will always in all cases tolerate the level of casualties and devastation they underwent.

I know this will bother you, but stopping the Nazis isn’t something that really drove anyone. Being a Nazi held no moral weight at the time. No one cared if the Germans were Nazis or Democratic republicans, they were at war with them.

Stop these juvenile political games. You come across as someone with a grudge.

>>17862267
I don't understand this logic thoroughly... If after a whole winter it becomes clear that not even 50% of the population has starved, then surely it means the siege isn't tight enough?

>>17862614
You see you say it like that but compare the scale and potential of Kursk against even the 1942 summer offensive(not to mention Barbarossa). In 1942 the goal was to carve deep into the Soviet lines and capture oil fields that would improve Axis situation in that aspect. The operation involved massive amounts of troops trying to achieve the goals consistently for like 6 months.

Kursk meanwhile was a smaller scale and stake battle even though you look at the numbers and they're insane. However the reality is the Germans looked at the front and basically said - if we can take that salient out, we'll shorten the frontline geometrically and maybe encircle some soviet units. The distances they needed to cover were relatively short. We're not talking about taking most of Donbas and then moving up to Stalingrad and Grozny. No, it's about closing a salient that was 250km wide and 60km deep. The sole fact that the Germans have to take 250km from the flanks while the Soviets at worst will have to hold until they can move the troops at the front of it out of potential encirclement(never more than 185km) simply shows that the chances of grand encirclement were low, and all this battle would result in was maintaining initiative by the Germans. That kind of operation was also unlikely to result in prolonged campaign, jrl including the soviet counterattack phase it only took a month and a half, meaning that the Germans who simply couldn't sustain large offensives anymore could count on getting it all done and stabilising before they're out of gas.

This was the mark of German operations in early 1943 in general. Relatively small, limited offensives meant to retake and then maintain the initiative from the Soviets post-Uranus and as such show Stalin that the Germans may not be able to pull war winning move anymore, but raise the estimated price of victory. After Uranus Germans don't believe they'll make the USSR capitulate anymore and their military actions reflect that

>>17862267
That was only the case in 1941. In the following years they started seeing value in the Soviet population and sent them to the home front as slave labor. They sent Manstein to take Leningrad in 42 but he had to use those forces to defend against a Soviet offensive instead.

>>17862290
>Operation Uranus 2.0 on said city
You are the braindead monkey. Leningrad was nothing like Stalingrad, it couldn't be supplied across the river like Stalingrad was. It's flanks weren't defended by out weak outstreched Axis armies. No kind of large mechanized offensives was possible in the swamps around Leningrad.

>capture Leningrad
What would that accomplish? Even if they could take it, all they'll have is hordes of starving civilians.

>>17864096
It’s a good propaganda victory, and this late in the war they needed one.

>>17862246 (OP)
OK, They take Laningrad. Then what? Even if they do an ofensive and capure more land east after, then what? It realy would change mutch, maybe give the Germans a PR win and prolonge their hope of winning but not that mutch.

>>17864098
It could possibly prolong Operation Bagration.

>>17864098
Not that much, but their strategy at this point was to stay overall on the defensive and make the Red army bleed out. Taking Leningrad would've been easier than Kursk, they would've captured a bunch of supplies and equipment and would be able to reposition more troops afterwards.

>>17864066
You basically just confirmed everything I just said retard.

Also I have no idea why you even bring up Caucasus, grozny or stalingrad. I never even mentioned these in my post so idk if you're just schizophrenic and reply to things that were never said. It's weird nonetheless.

Maybe you should read my post again and look at what I actually said, and try not to fill in with your own assumptions of what you think I said but didn't say.

>>17863138
Because it's about as interesting as speculating what would happen if a meteor came down from the sky and struck Stalin and Roosevelt simultaneously.

>>17864106
Why? The entire center is wide open lol.

If anything it will make Bagration worse.

>>17864123
Yeah, fair point, but honestly, I don’t think it would’ve been easy either. The Soviets had heavily fortified the area by 1943, and the Leningrad Front was reinforced with fresh divisions, artillery, and anti-air assets. The city had survived two brutal years of siege and was still holding. Any major assault would’ve meant urban warfare in a massive, industrialized city, something the Germans weren’t exactly eager to repeat after Stalingrad. Plus, the Soviets had interior lines of supply across Lake Ladoga and a functioning railway. They would've poured in reinforcements fast.

Also, even if they did take Leningrad, moving east from there toward cutting off Soviet forces or linking up with the Finns more deeply would’ve required serious manpower. The Germans were already stretched thin. If they’d pulled enough troops to do that from Army Group Center, they would’ve left the Kursk bulge dangerously exposed. That salient had to be addressed one way or another. It was a real threat to the German front line stability. Ignoring it could’ve let the Soviets launch their own offensive into the flank or rear of Army Group Center.

So yeah, I get your point. Leningrad might've made more sense than Kursk if it was easier. But in reality, both were bloody, risky operations, and shifting forces north probably would’ve just opened up a new crisis in the center.

>>17864161
meant this

>>17864152
Bagration was launched at the border with Estonia and Latvia. The Soviets would’ve needed to remove the Germans from Leningrad before heading there.

>>17864161
Plus the terrain around is shit to do an offensive on, its full of rivers, canals, and swamps. To the south and east, you'll find mixed forests and peat bogs. Plus the urban fighting if the germans reached the city.

>>17864175
Why? They were perfectly fine with letting Army Group North sit in the baltics for the remaining of the war IRL after bagration.
In your retarded scenario they also have no reason to root out army group center who will be sitting there. In fact it will br desired because army group center is now completely cut off from the Reich and basically a limb force that wo be even more costly and problematic fir germany to maintain

All they need to do is to go full steam ahead until the Germans can scrap anything to stop them.
As was said, this idiocy would only speed up Bagration, not slow it down.

>>17864161
>Plus, the Soviets had interior lines of supply across Lake Ladoga and a functioning railway. They would've poured in reinforcements fast.
The first step of the German plan was to take the Ladoga coast with the Finnish army. There would've been nasty urban combat but against an opponent that was completely cut off, so very different from Stalingrad.

Spreading forces thinner to attempt Leningrad’s capture could have hastened defeats elsewhere.

>>17864744
Just not attacking Kursk would've prolonged defeat since they wouldn't have wasted their armored reserves on that futile attack.
Also the Soviets had about 500k soldiers in Leningrad pocket, compared to over a million troops and thousands of tanks in Kursk.