It’s the unmentionable Pinniped!
Seriously, how are they going to get there? As Lord St Vincent said of Napoleon, “I do not say the French cannot come, I only say they cannot come by sea” - and the disparity was massively more in favour of the British in 1940 than 1803…
Better preparation would have been a nice issue.
The plan of Hitler seeking peace with the UK was a very plausible idea. He knwe that that would be a start of western relief.
While not invading Poland at all from the start would have have been a most attractive idea to most of us - including me - one must understand that Hitler in his mind on one hand but his ideology for sure on the other could not but start a war. Nazi Germany would have been dead without a war in 20 years time anyway if it did not change its policies. it would have been to big or to small depening on the way you look at it. The fact is Hiltler had a “greater germany” without any international conflict by early 1939 already, with an empire including Czech republic, Austria AND Slovakia:
No German that was influenced by Hitler (not all gemrans were) complained about the situation. It was nazism itself that led to the destruction. If Hitler would have changed his ideas by 1939, including working and trading with western countries, nazi germany would have lasted much longer.
The Nazi’s way of running the economy meant they had no choice really except to go to war (although the huge spending on re-armament started before Hitler came to power).
To keep the economy fluid they needed injections of money they got that by taking over countries and stripping them to pay for the German existence.
Always wondered if Germany had gone a trading route instead, it would be slower to get to full employment (and they were always looking at the big three of the time industrial economy’s of the British Commonwealth, USA and USSR) but with the technological leads they had in some areas, as well as investment from the US (which was already happening) they may have become a European industrial powerhouse (similar to what did happen post war to the modern day).
Yes, I agree. But it would mean lots of thing that did not fit into Hitler’s views, right? The conclusion can be simple: the biggest mistake Hitler made was to continue his reign and policy after 1938. The western powers seeked peace until he invaded Poland. From that point, nazi germany was no longer a “potential threath that needed constraint” to the UK and France, but a real threath seeking much more power over the continent than eventually was forseen.
Hitler had “nothing to gain by waiting.” The Wehrmacht was undergoing a continual process of building up for the perceived eventual confrontation with the West, including projections for the Kreigsmarine to reach some sort of parity with the Royal Navy by the mid to late 1940’s. The problem was that their enemies were now building up as well, and the French were just starting to modernize her armed forces just as the British were beginning to refit the RAF with Spitfires, she was also turning her attention to expanding the Army from a a small, professional Empire constabulary to a larger army of maneuver. The big phantasm haunting Hitler the most was the potentialities across the Atlantic in the United States with the massive potential for mass production and seemingly boundless resources. Even if Germany never came in direct conflict with the “Jewish” controlled U.S., certainly America could bankroll and equip an Anglo-French Alliance in a long war of attrition - a type of war the French were counting on. We’re not even mentioning the Soviet Union here. Or the chronic lack of direct access to natural resources forcing a dependence on the Bolsheviks that the Nazis abhorred. In Hitler’s view, “he had nothing to gain by waiting” (Adam Tooze) and thought the chances of victory were greater by seizing most of Europe and trying to equalize the odds for a long war against the “Jewish controlled” United States by knocking out her continental proxies of the “Jewish puppet,” FDR. Of course his logic was a mixture of rational, pragmatic realism entwined with complete Antisemitic conspiracy horseshit; but there was a somewhat logical basis for Hitler to go for broke and attempt a strategic coup de main seizure of Europe before the U.S. or U.S.S.R. would be able to effectively respond…
Yes, of course, once you are trapped in a logic, you cannot BUT invade poland and the … history books.
The fact is, the biggest mistake could be the trap, not the logic within the trap.
This statement is not true and entirely speculative and does not indicate an understanding of the domestic political climate of the time.
There was a serious economic problem Germany faced in 1939: it was basically bankrupt. Germany entered into a cycle that required it to seek additional “capital” - ie, free money in this case - by invading countries and stealing everything - including gold - in sight. His first victims in this were his own countrymen - the Jews. Germany “consumed” other countries and had to wring them dry in order to finance its profligate ways. There’s been precious little discussion in here of the economic realities that Germany faced, realities basically of its own creation. But then, no one ever accused Hitler of being an economic genius, but Hjalmar Schacht, his finance chief, was well aware of the truth.
Exactly.
By the time the US came into the European war, as a consequence of Hitler’s idiotic declaration of war on the US combined with Pearl Harbor rather than any initiative by the US to get into Europe, most of Europe was, in effect, a huge Nazi state.
America sat on the sidelines while that happened, because a large part of domestic sentiment was not in favour of getting into another European war.
Without the impetus of Pearl Harbor, there is no reason to expect that domestic sentiment would have changed.
Indeed, a German victory over the Soviets would have suited a good many powerful people in the US who were opposed to communism, so that was another factor in favour of the US not getting involved.
Not an area I’ve ever looked into.
Sounds a bit like a Ponzi scheme at the national / international level, where everything is alright for the existing investors as long as new investors keep coming in to put in capital to fund the interest paid to the investors (in this case Germany) but it all falls apart when the rate of acquisition of new investors falls below the level needed to acquire capital to pay interest.
Just a couple of points.
Regarding the German economic situation in 1939, royal744 definitely has a point, and Nick’s use of the term “Ponzi scheme” is pretty well on the mark as well. The Nazi “economic miracle” had been financed by a tsunami of borrowing, much of which was less than entirely transparent (sound familiar ?). Much of the cash had been expended productively (autobahns, etc.) but much of it had gone in current expenditure, and for purposes not inherently productive (armaments). It is ironic that Hitler’s economic “magician”, Dr Hjalmar Schacht, who had brilliantly orchestrated this financial circus, began to lose favour from 1937, precisely because he failed to see that stable prosperity was not Hitler’s paramount aim. In his view, the priority was, by that time, to rein back and consolidate, rather than press forward with spending on tanks and guns, and bread and circuses, the latter course being one that in his view was likely to expand the deficit bubble to unmanageable proportions. Economic considerations, if nothing else, required that the march to war proceed on its natural momentum.
As regards that momentum - Hitler’s foreign policy was substantially opportunistic. It was a matter of “events, dear boy, events”, as Harold MacMillan once put it. Opportunism and “events” propelled Germany towards the inevitable war on a timescale in advance of that planned by Hitler, the German High Command, and Goering, Hitler’s new economic “guru”. They became trapped in a process that they could not really control.
On the question of whether the Germans could have launched an invasion of Britain across the Channel, disregarding the question of contol of the air - at best debatable. Two problems are evident. First, the Germans were fairly poorly equipped to launch a seaborne invasion, anyway. Much of the land forces would have had to be transported on makeshift transport, mainly canal barges assembled from all over western Europe. This form of transport was not suitable for use on sea, and would have been very vulnerable to air and sea attack. Particular difficulties attached to the transport of tanks and heavy equipment - canal barges and suchlike were very unsuitable for such purposes. If the Germans had tried it, they would have come under full attack by the RAF - Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands, as well as the Royal Navy Home Fleet. In the circumstances, Raeder’s reservations about this scenario are perfectly understandable. The only hope of avoiding it would have been to engineer a situation in which the Home Fleet did not fully engage until the landings in England had been completed; the Germans simply did not have the surface fleet capacity to deal with the RN. Even if this had been achieved, an intervention by the Home Fleet in the days after the invasion, combined with continued air attack, would have isolated the German landing forces and subjected it to devastating attack from the RAF and British warships offshore - and who can doubt that Churchill would have authorised an all-out effort on the part of the latter to disrupt or destroy the enemy, even at the cost of British civilian casualties. All in all, Raeder’s insistence on air superiority - indeed supremacy - as a precondition for an invasion seems quite sensible. The Battle of Britain really was important. Best regards, JR.
JR is essentially correct, Nazi Germany did not have the available resources to defeat Island Britain by blockade…
The way Island Nippon was defeated, even before Nuke-time…
That the U.S. by ‘cash & carry’ made on the deal, big time… in `39-41, is another matter…
You speak of 1937… I plunged “around 1938” in the middle of nowhere… Still, was there ever a “turning point” where Nazi Germany could have turned its economics towards something that happened 10 years later (Marshall plan, western investments)?
post or pre- war: It is all based on borrowing and loans.
I believe Hitler’s biggest mistake was his decision to reject England’s African deal. At the time, Germany was desperate for raw materials and hard currency, as the armaments industry drained Germany’s public finances and diverted investment away from private companies producing German household goods to private, unscrupulous armament producers. Instead of exploiting Tanzania’s (once German East Africa) natural resources, Hitler turned to eastern Europe. By initiating numerous, zero-sum trade agreements with poor, resource-rich eastern European countries, such as Yugoslavia and Romania, Germany was allowed to export her surplus goods in exchange for natural resources at an exorbitant profit. By buying up eastern Europe’s cheap products at a discount and crowding out British and French investment in the region, Germany effectively trapped eastern Europe’s political economy. Not a desirable move on Germany’s part.
But what Hitler missed was a lost opportunity to alleviate the resource shortages in the armaments industry; so, he should have taken Africa more seriously. Rearmament in Germany provoked Hitler’s expansionist desires, which in turn forced the allies to react to German economic aggression on the continent, something Hitler should have avoided at all costs.
Don’t know anything about this.
Could you elaborate?
The British were buying Romanian oil to stop the Germans getting it in 1939/1940 not exactly crowding out Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union was the major supplier to Germany until June 1941 and Britain along with France were not particularly fans of the Soviet Union having made plans to go to war ostentially to assist Finland in the Winter War but in reality to try to convince Norway to join the allies.
How could Germany exploit Tanzania’s resources when it was a British Mandate between 1919 and 1963 with parts being under the control of the Portugese?
Just what was the African deal - shape, form, area, timeline as I have not seen anything about it?
I have seen some thing supposedly from German sources in 1940 claiming the Northern part of Africa was to be handed over to Italy, Middle/Central Africa was to be a German Colonial area (for resources), with Southern Africa to be under control of pro German Boers/Afrikaans. Of course this was dated after the start of the war and was to be done once Germany had secured Europe for itself. As such it was a future plan and not therefore a mistake.
Or is Mistake is, that he had Battle Syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, well you don’t know. he did have one of the worst jobs in WW1. and he was a bit:evil: mad to say the least
Hardly unique at that:
Winston Churchill was commander of 6 Royal Scots Fusiliers.
Clement Attlee was in the South Lancashire Regiment, was the penultimate man to leave Sulva bay at Galliopli, and later fought in Mesopotamia and on the Western Front.
Anthony Eden was with 21st King’s Royal Rifle Corps, won the Military Cross and at one point was the youngest Brigade Major in the British Army.
Harold Macmillan was in the Grenadier Guards, and was very badly wounded in the Battle of the Somme. After spending the entire day in a slit trench with a bullet in his pelvis, reading Aeschylus in the original Greek, he was evacuated to a hospital where he spent the rest of the war, and never walked properly again.
Alec Douglas-Home was only 15 at the end of the war, and Harold Wilson was only 2.
So every British Prime Minister from 1940 to 1963 had spent time in the trenches, often quite a lot of time and in the same places (Anthony Eden observed at a conference in the 1930s that he and Hitler had probably fought in the same part of the Ypres sector at the same time). They didn’t go around murdering millions, and indeed neither did the overwhelming majority (>>99.9%) of veterans with PTSD from that war.
First of all, I do apologize for my imprecise response. I am an old man, and I often forget exact details from documents and books I’ve read years and years ago. So, understand that I don’t believe I’m right, leccy, it is that what I’ve gathered over the years is based on memory alone; and the authors of these books that I’ve read over the years do not have the final say on history. So, I’ll address some of what you’ve written in response.
I have no doubt that the British were intent on not allowing Germany to expand in that part of Europe. The 1936 Gawtkin/Jebb memorandum indicates that Britain was suspicious of Germany’s interest in eastern and southeastern markets because she knew Germany’s actions were not friendly to British economic nor political interests, as balance of power logic indicates that if Germany, or any continental power, were to challenge the status quo on the continent by conquest, the offshore balancer (Britain’s role) must act to check this challenge. The memorandum indicates that Britain should check Germany’s actions because allowing “things to take place as they are” is patently unsafe for European relations.
Also, there is evidence that Britain was buying vast quantities of Romanian oil to stop Germany, but one has to place one’s self in Romania in 1938 in order to understand what actually took place there. Yes, Romania was afraid that satisfying German raw material demands would turn her into Germany’s dependent, but Romania had other concerns closer to home that made Anglo-Romanian trade irregular and difficult: she had a sizable German minority sympathetic to Hitler, and her economy needed exchange currency. So what does Romania do to rectify this situation? Romania decides to initiate high export taxes and fix minimum prices above world prices in order to make up the currency shortfall. Yes, Romania needed British capital, but Romania’s export taxes were large enough to hinder smooth trade relations. But it’s also important to note that Romania wasn’t Germany’s only source of oil. Before 1939, I believe, two-thirds of German oil came from either Latin America or the United States. So, it seems likely that Germany feared that Britain’s brief, but insufficient overtures to Romania were pretexts: the real reason behind them was to encircle Germany and cut off its supply of oil. At this time though, Romania was more interested in finding a way out of her German dilemma–to satisfy these requests, and make a profit, or not to satisfy, and lose out on that much needed exchange currency. This dilemma was of utmost importance to Romania because she needed more investment capital from Britain, so that she could stop her country’s turn toward Germany. Britain, on the other hand, needed much less from Romania. Romania’s exports, besides oil and, maybe grain, were not all that important to Britain’s economy. After all, Romanian trade was too corrupt and inefficient to be of much use to Britain in the long run. Sir Cadogan, in fact, once said of Romanian wheat, “we don’t want the damned stuff.”
Just what was the African deal - shape, form, area, timeline as I have not seen anything about it?
I apologize. I should have been more clear as to what this English African deal was all about. In 1936, Dr. Schacht, in a meeting with Leith-Ross, broached the subject of African resources, but according to Hehn in his book, A Low Dishonest Decade, the return of the African colonies was brushed aside when Lord Halifax met with Hitler in November of that year. Nevile Chamberlain even stated that giving Germany back her colonies was acceptable, even contemplative, only if Germany accepted the colonies as “a full and final settlement” on all her territorial claims. I believe, if memory serves, that Chamberlain’s memorandum in 1937 contemplated transferring the ex-German colonies of West Africa to Germany, even though the French would find offense, as Germany was being given a larger territorial concession than the UK to France.
We all know Chamberlain had lots of ideas concerning the allowment of Germany to expand as “final solution”…
It failed.