I am reluctant to question Hollywood or Mr Tom Cruise, the Scientologist, as historical sources because Hollywood and L. Ron Hubbard are often recognised by the credulous majority as putting forward things based on a true story.
However, just for the sake of clarification, which government is the Conspirator Government?
However, just for the sake of clarification, which government is the Conspirator Government?
Dr.Carl Friedrich Goerdler’s Government I think. Dr.Goerdler will be Germany’s Chancellor after they confront Hitler.
Yes, well, by July 1944 it didn’t take a great intelligence to realise that Germany was on the road to defeat.
Your original statement was that
the Conspirator Government said that they knew that Germany would loose the war from the start and so that they must kill/confront Hitler.
Gee, what a pity they didn’t act on their foresight when the war started, instead of putting up with a loser for five years.
I vaguely recall the German General Staff mulling over the idea of joint operations with Japan in the Mid-east, but nothing came of it because Japan just wasn’t interested, and neither the Japanese nor the Germans had the necessary logistical resources.
That was typical of the Axis powers; their plans and ambitions far outran their ability to make things happen. The Japanese were so dumb, they began the Pacific war without having enough shipping to both support their offensive campaigns and maintain their war production effort. By 1942, the Japanese government was fighting their own military over the allocation of logistical shipping tonnage, there just wasn’t enough to go around, and that was the reason they eventually decided to give up the fight to recover Guadalcanal.
If the Japanese didn’t have the few hundred thousand tons of shipping necessary to maintain two pared down infantry divisions on Guadalcanal, how the devil were they going to find the millions of tons of shipping required to support major armies in the Mid-east?
There are lots of things to speculate; one thing is for sure, he should have put all Germany efforts in developing a nuclear bomb nor later than the middle of 1945, otherwise, no matter the contingencies of the war in the different theaters, it would have ended with Germany devastated and defeated by nuclear bombing of its cities. The Fuhrer didn´t realize the vital importance of this matter and there wasn´t in Germany a scientist politically involved, like Einstein in America, to convince him of this crucial aspect of the war.
Said this, there are other things that he could have done:
-Discard the slightest posibility of an alliance with Britain, at least with Churchill as PM.
-Force Franco to let him take control of Gibraltar, otherwise, march on Spain.
Again, some of the things you advocate that Hitler should have done were far beyond Germany’s capabilities;
Spain did not control Gibraltar, Britain did. It would have taken a tremendous effort to capture the “Rock” from Britain and it probably couldn’t have been held against a siege by the Royal Navy. Marching on Spain would have been useless and simply driven Franco further into neutrality, or, at best, tied down more German occupation troops.
Taking Suez and the Persian Gulf oil resources would have taken a major campaign and required so many resources that Germany couldn’t have attacked the Soviet Union. But trying to take the Persian Gulf oil resources before Barbarossa would have caused Stalin to shut down all the supplies of food and oil going to Germany, because Stalin was eying the Persian gulf as his own. Either way, it’s not a solution for Hitler.
Building 200 U-boats before 1940 might have been possible, if Hitler had abandoned the buildup of the Luftwaffe and the rearmament of the German Army. Remember Plan Z? It included a provision to build 249 U-boats, but upon commencement of the war in 1939, economic and industrial reality set in, and the plan was quickly scuttled. Even if Plan Z, or something like it, had resulted in the construction of large numbers of U-boats, the British and Americans would have reacted by building large numbers of escorts and ASW aircraft. In any case, the U-boats were never as effective as most historians seem to think. Clay Blair in “Hitler’s U-boat War” analyzes the results and concludes that the U-boats, throughout the war sank less than 1% of the Allied ships engaged in the North Atlantic convoy crossings. That’s far below the level necessary have any chance of affecting the outcome of the war.
The suggestion that Germany should have put more effort into an atomic bomb project has merit, but once again, the reality founders on the shoal of an inadequate German industrial and economic base.
Until about 1934, Germany was in the forefront of nuclear physics research, but in that year, Hitler decreed that all Jews serving as German Civil Servants were to be dismissed. Since college and university professors under the German education system were civil servants of the state, all the Jewish physics researchers were barred from teaching or doing any research. Einstein had already left Germany in protest over Nazi discrimination against Jews, but the new law resulted in 1,600 German scholars being immediately dismissed. Many of these were nuclear physicists who were being avidly courted by universities in Britain and the US. Eleven of these great minds had already won Nobel prizes in nuclear research, advanced mathematics, and chemistry, fields vital to the atomic bomb project. Since these people could no longer work in Germany, it was a no-brainer to emigrate to Britain and the US where jobs were plentiful.
So abruptly, the center of gravity of nuclear physics research shifted to the United States and Britain. But even then the Germans were first out of the blocks with an atomic bomb feasibility study in 1939. It was Leo Szilard, a Hungarian Jew, who had been educated in Germany, who awakened interest in developing an atomic bomb in US government circles in 1940. Szilard recruited Albert Einstein to write a letter to Roosevelt and the rest is, as they say, history. Even then the US didn’t really get started on it’s atomic project until late in 1941.
Germany, nor even Britain, did not have the industrial base required to quickly build an atomic bomb. Only the US could have mustered the huge resources required while also fighting a war, to build an atomic bomb. Germany, however, actually initiated two programs aimed at developing nuclear power for military use; one was run by Werner Heisenberg and the other was run by Kurt Diebner on behalf of the German Army. Both men realized that because Germany did not have the industrial infrastructure to enrich uranium, that an atomic bomb was only possible for Germany by creating Plutonium in a reactor. The trouble was neither project was able to build a nuclear reactor which could sustain a chain reaction.
Part of the problem was in choosing a “moderator” substance to make the reactor sustainable. The US had looked at heavy water, but because it was very expensive and difficult to obtain (there were only two commercial sources in the world at the time), the US researchers settled on graphite of extreme purity. The Germans were forced to use heavy water because German industry could not produce large amounts of graphite of the required purity. As a result, the Germans never managed to achieve a sustained reaction during the war. That was something Enrico Fermi in the US managed in late 1942, so the US was far ahead of the German project even early in the war.
Two very good books on the subject of the US and German bomb projects are "The Making of The Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes, and “Beyond Uncertainty; Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and The Bomb” by David C. Cassidy. I recommend them highly.
Germany, nor even Britain, did not have the industrial base required to quickly build an atomic bomb. Only the US could have mustered the huge resources required while also fighting a war, to build an atomic bomb. Germany, however, actually initiated two programs aimed at developing nuclear power for military use; one was run by Werner Heisenberg and the other was run by Kurt Diebner on behalf of the German Army. Both men realized that because Germany did not have the industrial infrastructure to enrich uranium, that an atomic bomb was only possible for Germany by creating Plutonium in a reactor. The trouble was neither project was able to build a nuclear reactor which could sustain a chain reaction.
Ever heard of the Germans desperately finding the Heavy Water in Norway just to make an Atom Bomb?
Yes, and if you would be so good as to read the next paragraph in my last post, you would find what use the Germans put it to.
It turns out that heavy water was not the blessing it seemed at first. It was very expensive, difficult and slow to manufacture and really was not a very suitable moderator in reactors although it could be made to work with much difficulty. For the Germans, heavy water was not a means to the construction of an atomic bomb, but only the means o create a nuclear reactor which in turn could be used to produce plutonium which could be used as the explosive element in an atomic bomb.
Unfortunately for the Germans, they never managed to make a heavy water reactor work.
I’m aware of Szilard and the others, I post a detailed information about the Manhattan Project Team in another thread.
Well, It is normal that they had troubles in Germany since the Jew State declared War on Germany in 1930 I think, they were in some way citizens of an hostil nation.
I know that Hitler never put many interest in the german nuclear program, I don’t know, as I said were are speculating over speculations. Germany had a great technological advantage in almost every field and as you said the science ( at least , the theory) around nuclear fision was developed in Germany, so it is something that we will never know.
This post got a little messy I promise learning to quote properly, but not now, it has been a long day and I make an extra effort trying to put my ideas in english, thanks for sharing your well informed opinion on this matter.
Please explain what you mean by this.
“Jew State”? Which state was that? I’m not aware of any state declaring war on Germany in 1930. Germany’s economic troubles were largely caused by Germany’s decision to withdraw from the world markets during the financial crisis of 1929-1930. Adam Tooze, in “The Wages of Destruction” documents this quite well.
It’s not speculation; Germany’s so-called technological advantages were largely illusory, and it had no advantage in the area of nuclear physics research after Hitler deliberately drove out all of the Jewish researchers. The theory of nuclear fission was not developed in Germany as such, but rather by an international team of physicists centered on Germany. But Neils Bohr, a Dane, Enrico Fermi, an Italian, Edward Teller, Leo Silard and Von Karmen, all Hungarians, as well as Austrians, British, and Americans all made significant contributions to atomic theory in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The fact that Hitler drove most of the German-based nuclear physicists out of Germany was to blame for Germany falling behind in science in the 1930’s and it was a self-inflicted wound.
Actually no, it wouldn’t have. Germany had very few tankers and those they did have would have been inadequate for moving the oil to Europe. In addition, the Royal Navy simply would have blockaded the oil in the Persian Gulf, so it wouldn’t have done Germany any good even if they had been able to capture the Mid-east. Besides that, Stalin would never have tolerated a German presence in the Mid-east as he coveted it for himself. As for a blow to the British economy, which was a lot more resilient and robust than Germany’s, there was nothing in the Mid-east that couldn’t also be obtained in the western hemisphere.
Well, get a copy of Blair’s book and read it; Blair, himself, a WW II submariner, tabulates and analyzes every convoy and every U-Boat attack during the entire war. He presents quite convincing evidence that the U-boat campaign was largely ineffective, and concludes that at no time during WW II were Germany’s U-boats ever close to defeating Britain or knocking it out of the war. Churchill’s famous statements about the danger of U-boats were largely for the consumption of US political leaders to encourage them to make more resources available to Britain.
US and British merchant construction programs alone widely outpaced German sinkings and made it impossible for the U-boat campaign to prevail. See attached chart.
I understand and can interpret the meaning of your post. Hopefully I have been able to straighten it out a bit in my reply.
Having spent a couple of weeks running around the tunnels in Gibraltar last summer with the Gibraltar Regiment, I’d have to say that it would have been almost impossible to take. By 1940 pretty much the entire garrison was underground, and fighting your way in against a competent defence would be almost impossible. Denying use of the harbour (the entire point of the exercise) and destroying the guns at the southern tip to allow Axis shipping free passage would be relatively simple though - if Spain was willing to join the war.
if Spain was willing to join the war.
There is no way that Spain would join the war. After the destruction the Spanish Civil War brought, the only thing the Spanish will do was to deliver volunteers for Germany. 
Further to #310 which was posted as a moderator, as a moderator I want an explanation of this statement.
And I want it the next time you post, because you are on thin ice with comments like this.
I am allowing for a possible language difficulty with English, but make sure you’re clear with your explanation.
Seconded.
As for Spain entering the War and attempting an attack on Gibraltar, the Allies had already considered launching Operation Overlord in Spain as a way of avoiding the Atlantic Wall but decided that it simply wouldn’t look good attacking a neutral, albeit fascist, country in addition to wanting a more direct route to the German heartland. Had Spain entered the War, it may have been far more problematical for the Germans in the end with more coastlines to defend and another allied army with archaic armaments the Allies would have run roughshod over…
A factor which could have caused Spain problems was the ancient Anglo-Portuguese alliance.
Although Portugal was neutral in WWII, it was possible that Britain would have invoked the ancient treaty to put troops into, or through, Portugal against Spain.
The problem for Franco would then have been the risk of a German thrust across Spain to meet the British, potentially requiring diversion of German troops from and through France and thus weakening the Atlantic Wall.
Of course, this would also have weakened Allied forces but a feint through Portugal, whether as an apparent build up or thrust, would have caused larger problems for Germany and Spain if they thought that this was where the invasion was coming from.
I know that U.K. tells Franco that after the Genoa bombing, any of Spanish city can have same or harsher treatment. Franco understands that the Axis cannot grant him a direct aid with aviation or naval fleet so he decides to stay neutral.
Well, that comment was regarding the issue of the scientists forced to leave Germany, I don’t want to polemicize on this matter at all, but unless this is a fake document ( it would be possible), this is what I was talking about, but as a I said, there is no interest in disputing about dogmas.
http://guardian.150m.com/jews/jews-declare-war.htm
I hope this is not regarded as an antisemitic site,
Furthermore, this comment was just about those scientists difficult situation in Germany in the decade of 1930’s, as a POSSIBLE explanation, I’m aware of the possibility of forged documents related with this matter.
I’m well aware of the slippery road, no intention of hurting anyone feelings.
This is the last time I refer to this in this forum.
