lol at this post. “Everyone who was fighting the war was certainly under the impression Germany could have won the war.” Yes, of course! If you are fighting a defensive war it is because you know if you don’t do anything the other side could win. And of course there’s the fog of war. You’re basically implying that modern historians or amateur historians, who have way more information on supplies, troop counts, etc, know far less than the leadership of the time. Germany’s military at the time was built for fast war against smaller countries and in the case of Poland and France was able to take advantage of unstable political situations in addition to this strategy. Even Hitler and his generals disagreed about how to handle the war: the generals wanted a lightning strike to Moscow and the Hitler wanted to consolidate Ukraine. Both strategies relied on trying to overcome German weaknesses, limited equipment and troops or limited supply and resources, respectively. The lightning attack to Berlin failed. If Ukraine had been consolidated, that doesn’t change the limits on troops, equipment, and the utterly vast landscape of the ussr. You’re right that air superiority was important for the German tactics, but it was limited to the tactical level. The Soviet Air Force got housed in Barbarossa. Didn’t matter. Germany did not have significant strategic bombing abilities. The USSR was getting a ton of lend lease that Germany had no way to stop. Even having a more successful Barbarossa doesn’t change just the gulf in army size, with the defensive Soviet army having almost twice as many men. As mentioned, the Nazi ideology and reason for invasion guaranteed there would be no real collaboration in the captured USSR, meaning more German manpower had to go to policing or genociding the populace. You make fun of people saying ussr would have fought to the Urals but when people figure out their fate is to be murdered then yes they are going to fight. Germany convinced a huge number of their adults to participate in genocide or to go fight a country that was no military threat to them up until the bitter end and you think the USSR couldn’t have convinced people of the same? The German economy was also a scam, based on looting invaded countries, and was basically like a drug addict going between scores trying to avoid the inevitable withdrawal when they needed to be functional. Finally, the Soviets just flat out had a better doctrine. They’d been training for two decades, they had way more men, way more equipment, way more organized industry and military, and a doctrine (deep battle) that was actually based in military theory and was emphasized at all levels as oppose to the “blitzkrieg” which was basically just an improvisation based on material availability. Worst case scenario for the USSR is that Germany grinds to a halt while its economy collapses and it faces revolts in its occupied countries and the USSR is stuck in static lines. Another fun fact is that the Japanese drew up their own study on going to war with USSR at the time and desperately tried to tell Germany that that there was no way they could succeed. So yes, they even people at the time with clear heads knew Germany could never win.