Hitler's Biggest Mistake?

World War II German Military
#101

Development of German atomic weapons were not nearly as advanced as believed and certainly no where near the development of a H-bomb when the war ended.

While there is speculation the Germans exploded two dirty bombs in the last weeks of the war, the reality is they were at least three years from completion of a Hiroshima device.

Quite simply the reasons why the Germans lagged behind in atomic development was a lack of concentrated development with teams of scientists competing against each other and a very low funding level.

Overall the German effort to produce atomic weapons was miniscule in comparison to the Manhatten Project.

Regards to all,
Digger.

#102

Previous two posts:

The German scientists working on their nuclear weapons programme were several orders of magnitude out on the calculation of critical mass. They were very, very, wrong. Because they had severely over-calculated critical mass, they didn’t think that atomic weapons were worth pursuing.

No A-bomb, no H-bomb. Simple as that. You cannot have the second without the first.

#103

You both are quite correct about the errors in the calculations, however if the development had been taken with a eye to the war in a 5 or 10 year horizon and the resources dedicated I believe that the problems would have been resolved. While that Manhatten Project had a much larger budget ect. If the war had not started the Manhatten Project would not have been started. I believe that the budget for the MP was about 1 billion dollars which was an astronomical amount at that time. If the war had not been started Congress would never have allocated such a large amount to a theory that was not proven to work. The German development would have proceeded unimpeded.

War and the planning for war can push technological progress.
BTW I believe that it was the German admirals that told Hitler that they needed 5 years to get the Navy prepared to take on the British Navy and win.

#104

May I ask then this question?

The what if’s I know !!! But What If ?

If it were just Germany alone in Europe and the British lost the battle of Britain… With all of German concentration on the USSR new fronts could have been opened up to take strategic points… Moscow was Germanys bridge to far.

It was indeed the USSR that in reality defeated most of the German army.

#105

Spot on Fritz and welcome to you.

#106

What if Questions:

What if Hitler chose not to invade the Soviet Union after the Balkan Campaign and instead invaded Turkey with the aim of eventually getting at the oil fields of the Middle East?

Probably some of the manpower and material that had been amassed for Operation Barbarossa would still be needed to guard the Eastern frontier.

Would he have had more success using those resources against Turkey and whatever the British Empire could have thrown against him at that time (summer 1941)?

Would Stalin have attacked Germany eventually, if Hitler had not attacked first? If so, could Hitler have forestalled a Russian attack before he was able to successfully capture the oil fields of the Middle East? If he did manage to capture those fields, could they have been held?

If Hitler had invaded the Middle East through Turkey and gained the oil fields, how would this have affected the British Empire which at that time stood alone against Germany? Would they have sued for peace? Would the United States have stepped in on the side of Great Britain and declared war on Germany?

(I have seen similar questions posed elsewhere and am just interested in your thoughts).

#107

I would choose either attacking russia or america because they brought him to his last days.

#108

Hitler starting the war was his biggest mistake.
Hitlers second biggest mistake was turning on the USSR to soon.

#109

I voted for the USA because it was our industrial might that turned the tide. The USA supplied all the Allies with many armaments. The USA’s industrial might and Hitler’s stupidity did the Nazi’s in!

#110

Actually, Hitler’s biggest mistake was his own incompetance as a military commander. His refusal to allow tactical withdrawals cause large losses to his army. The biggest blunder was Stalingrad.

#111

If Germany had not invaded Russia, would have this freed up enough manpower to win the African campaign? Thus cutting a major supply route and opening up the whole Middle East. This would have most likely put the British in even a more tight spot. But if he delayed even a year that would have made some major differences. Japan would have still attacked the US and would he have still declared war on the US? He would have been able to build more U boats and strangled Britian. His more modern weopens would have been able to come into play, thus delaying the outcome. And he could have used the time in formulating a plan on the invasion of the British Isles. Possibly going into Ireland first and then tackling the main Island. The British would have to move to Canada to continue the war. Thus in 1943 Japan and Germany attacked Russia together they might have succeeded. But Stalin would not have been idle, his moblization would have been complete. And if after German declared war on the US, would he have followed suit and invaded Germany in 1942? Russia would have been even more isolated if Germany was in controll of the Middle east and sitting on the border in Poland.
His biggest mistake was not understanding his enemies. He did not have a grasp of hidden industrial might of the Soviet Union and the US. He did not believe what his advisiors told him about what kind of war machine they could have put together. But in the end Germany was on the wrong track to develop nuclear weopens and that have decided the whole thing.

#112

War with the Soviet Union was inevitable as a Soviet attack on Germany was planned for 6th July 1941.

This is the reason why Soviet losses were so heavy in the first days of Barbarossa, the bulk of their forces were not in defensive positions and suffered accordingly.

Regards Digger

#113

I don’t know where to begin so ill start here…

1 Not waiting until 1945 to start the war.
2 Not working on the advanced type XXI submarine until it was too late.
3 What a waste of man power and resources it was to make the Karls and the Doras.
4 Not putting more research and development in to the Me 262 early on.
5 Wasted money and resources on the v1 and v2.
6 Wasted money on the battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz.
7 Wasted money on all those weird side projects.
8 Should have listened to the Horton brothers on the America bomber project (got the ball rolling sooner). But if he had waited this would not be needed.
9 Hitler’s insistence that all the Me 262’s be bombers.

#114

I voted declaring war on U.S.S.R because the U.S.S.R is the closest country. At least the closest enemy.

#115

Hitler angered the Best Beast of the East and it came back and beat him s#%tless! Stupid idiot… :roll:

#116

Please tell me you are being ironic.:roll:

#117

Redcoat:

That is most likelly result of reading “Icebraker” (Ledokol) book by Rezun. The ex KGB defected to UK.

Without trying to picture Stalin as little peaceful girl wearing pink balet robe, I think it is nonesence that USSR wanted to start war in 1941.
But it is a very big separate subject for this thread, IMHO.

#118

MAte where did you get such crazy ideas?
What’s this the resault of your own think or “historian” Resun/Suvorov presented it for you.

Do like the Resun - love the D.Irving too :slight_smile:

Cheers.

#119

Hitler made many mistakes, as did his opposition.

One cannot consider the pros and cons of the events leading to the strategy and decision making of WW2 without considering WW1 - cause and effect etc. Hitler was looking to unite German people’s and expand eastward in order to provide room for them. One of his reasons for going earlier, rather than later, is that he was a man in a hurry. He wanted to live long enough to see ‘Mein Kampf’ come to fruition.

Taken in that context, the comments as to whether he was right or wrong to go when he did don’t really count. We can see with hindsight that he made some very serious strategic and tactical errors, but then when one considers his motivation, it’s understandable. From the moment he invaded the USSR he was beaten. It was just a matter of time. If the US had not joined the war, he would still have been beaten - it would just have taken a tad longer. :slight_smile:

#120

I also think he put to much money towards the tanks.