Updated: Land for gas: secret German deal could end Ukraine crisis

[happyslug]

20. So Merkel is a Politician who learned the lesson Stalin taught Hitler in WWII

DO NOT GET YOUR FUEL SUPPLY MAD AT YOU. Do NOT go to war with the place you are importing fuel from. Hard lessons, but I suspect Germany really does NOT want to go back to using Horses and bicycles, as the German Army had to do after 1941. Germany before 1941 imported its oil from Russia. Germany did get some from Romania, but the big source was Russia.

Do to the lost of access to Russian Oil, the German Army (and German People) had to cut back on oil uses. For example, a WWII German Army Infantry Division was restricted to just 10% of its pre war usage of fuel after 1941. Notice NOT what the Division used in Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Greece and Russia (In regards to Russia we are talking June 1941 to January 1942) but what that same division used in PEACETIME Training. In WWII, you had three to four infantry divisions to each Armor Division. The cut back on fuel usage was to make sure the Tank Divisions AND German Luftwaffe had to fuel they needed to operate.

The Germans did this several ways:

1. One of the 12 Infantry Battalions in a Division was a bicycle battalion. The purpose of this battalion was a fast re-action group, to fill in any gap in the line being held by the division. The Swiss Army retain a Bicycle battalion for this same function till 1999. Most other armies had trucks to move such troops, but while Germany had the Trucks, it did not have the oil for those trucks, thus bicycles were used,

2. Horses were used to haul supplies. The Trucks in a US Infantry Division would be horse drawn wagons in a German Division, German Divisions did have some trucks, but for fuel consideration NOT sent to last mile to the troops, thus the trucks could stay on main roads and not use as much supplies.

3. Germany became more and more dependent on Rail transportation. During WWII, and until the 1970s, Bombing from Planes were NOT as accurate as claimed during WWII, thus railroad tracks and bridges were often bomb with most if not all of the bombs missing the tracks and the bridges. Thus you could rely on rail-heads as supply points much more then you could today. Since Germany was still using steam locomotives and Germany had plenty of coal, trains were a good option to get supplies to the troops (then to trucks, then to horse drawn wagons, but as the war went on trucks were replaced by more and more horse drawn wagons, wagons operated by Russians recruited by the Germans).

Just a comment that Merkel wants to secure fuel for Germany, she knows her history and does NOT want to attack her fuel source and end up like Hitler fighting a losing battle.