Things Hitler could have done to win WWII

World War II German Military
#21

That might be true in theory but when Stalin chose to defend Moscow along with the other soviet leaders, they made Moscow the center of power and therefore the centre of the campaign. The German General Staff understood this. If the Germans could encircled Moscow before they could escape , or convinced to remain and defend, then the entire campaign could have been decided by taking Moscow. Moscow was the cental communications and transportation hub. No movement westward is possible without it . Further once Moscow is taken, the Germans need only to sweep down the Volga and cut the Red Army off from 2/3 of its oil supply. After that it doesn’t matter too much what they can or can not do, they are reduced to a managable threat.

Just like the BoB, Stalin and the Russians had to prove they could stand up to and resist the nazi aggression…if nothing else than to convince themselves they could do it.

#22

I believe they did build strategic bombers early that were obsolete by 1938 IIRC. Incidentally, the Luftwaffe did have what was generally recognized to be a successful strategic bomber design, but one that was marred by early problems…

But as you know, the Luftwaffe, in one of its fatal flaws, was run by Heer generals who were solely obsessed with close air support and for compensating for the Versailles-imposed weaknesses in German artillery.

The Spanish civil war combined with Hitlers seizing control of the strategic direction of Germany in 1936 changed all this. Hitler didn’t care to develope war economy since that would take too long. Hitler believed the Americans were isolationist and would remain out, while Britain valued its empire to much and the Europeans were weak and would fold when attacked by the racially superior Wehrmacht. Instead he demanded as many forces as possible to act as occupation troops. In that context, Goering thought it better to build more medium dive bombers at the expense of schnell bombers and Heavy bombers.

The Spanish Civil War only confirmed to Hitler’s generals that tactical air power combined with mobile ground forces was key. You can’t blame Hitler when his generals were building an air fleet that was an extension of the Heer. I also will add that it is generally recognized that Germany’s quick work of France in 1940, tactical air power was key as was the massive superiority the French could not match in numbers -if they could match the Luftwaffe in quality to some extent. And the RAF tactical bomber was horrible and its fighter force was knackered by distance…

I don’t recall his name, but there is a reason that one of the key Luftwaffe generals in charge of R&D, a former ace in WWI and playboy who loved America and probably wasn’t really much of a Nazi, and who really didn’t like administrative staff work as he was a pure pilot, committed suicide very early on, maybe late 1941. Because he realized the dire hopelessness of the German position and the inevitable storm of production coming against the Reich when the US inevitably entered WWII…

It was possible to build both tactical and Strategic force in the context of a total war economy. But since Hitler rejected that direction, it would have been a difficult choice but still possible if the airproduction was rationalised around as few types as possible.

But it wasn’t possible to defend Germany by air, create a large tactical force, and then create a huge bomber fleet. Not for Germany IMO. And again, Tankograd would survive as the the Soviets probably would have simply done what the Luftwaffe did with an air defense network, though not as well.

#23

That would be Ernst Udet.

#24

Thank you. I can’t believe I forgot his name. But sleep deprivation, beer, and longs hours are getting the better of me.

#25

On the face of it perhaps, but in reality Stalin moved the seat of government and the Praesidium and a lot of everything else that mattered, including Lenin’s body, about six hundred miles east to Kuibyshev. That doesn’t demonstrate any notion in Stalin’s mind that Russia was going to fall with Moscow. It indicates that the Germans would have repeated Napoleon’s experience of capturing a largely deserted city, to no great practical advantage.

Russia always had the ability to keep withdrawing eastwards, all the time sucking the life out of Germany’s inadequate LOC and eventually bringing them to the point where the Russians would defeat Germany after it had fatally over-extended itself. There was also a huge Russian force on the Manchurian border which could have come into play, subject to the circumstances obtaining with the opposing Japanese forces at the time.

#26

As long as it’s not beer deprivation, you’ll survive. :smiley:

#27

Actually you have to blame hitler, since as CinC he set the pace of the entire rearmament and its strategic direction. Further Hitler insisted on no axis against the UK which the generals saw as the main justification for such a plane in the first place. Secrete Luftwaffe studies in 1937 confirmed that with out such a strategic bomber it was not possible to wage war directly against the UK. Something confirmed in the BoB. The references to “Ural bomber” were purely to suite Hitlers refusal to tolerate any anti British direction.

The late 1930s plan was to build a strategic bomber [Do-19/Ju-89] along with schnell bomber [Ju-88] plus divebombers [Stuka] etc for tactical work. But like all programmes, they depended on key individuals to champion the cause. Udet championed Dive bombing while Wever championed strategic bombing. Wever died in an pre war aircrash and that left the field to Udet to shape development, when Goering installed him incharge of development.

Combined with Hitlers ever expanding demands for more, more and more, these sealed the fate of the strategic bomber and for that matter the Schnell bomber as well. Coimbined they could have made a great pair since the Schnell bombers secondary roles was long range bomber escort. The figures for the original Ju-88 prototype before it was bastardised into a slant bomber show, it was very fast and very maneuverable, more so than the Me-110…as well as the fact that it had more than double the range of the Me-110.

#28

Actually those moves were done in late 1941. Im speaking of the summer fall when Barbarossa was planned for. At that point Stalin insisted on defending Moscow and insisted his government stayed with him. The original German invasion plan was cut down , to the level of defeating the Red Army by the time they passed Smolensk , with out any follow up to Moscow.

This was the conclusion of a vast game of wishful thinking that the Red Army was small , weak and easy to defeat and German racial superiority would preveal. Most German officers knew that they had one chance to defeat the Russians and taking Moscow was the key. Many also feared it was much larger than they were letting on. But Hitler and his nazi elite believed in their own propaganda and gamble on the easy, quick victory…not for the first time such a gamble would change the course of history.

#29

Moscow wasn’t directly threatened by the initial Barbarossa campaign. It was only the next step starting in October 1941 that directly threatened Moscow, which encouraged Stalin to prepare to abandon Moscow.

As I said earlier, that doesn’t suggest that Stalin had any notion that Russia was going to fall with Moscow, regardless of the importance the Germans attached to the capture of Moscow.

#30

To the Germans, the importance of Moscow was its infrastructure they could have hunkered down in during the winter. But then, battling into Moscow wouldn’t have been easy just as Stalingrad wasn’t. The Germans would have been out of their element of mobile encirclement battles and would have fought the bloody street-to-street fighting that favored the Soviets and would have bogged down the Ostheer.

In any case, our Russian friends can thank the Japanese for releasing large reinforcements to the West in what amounted to a separate peace…

#31

A greater emphasis on strategic bombing as opposed to the tactical onus on the Ju-88s and such would have changed nothing in relation to the War in the West against the British. The Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain not because they failed to smash the cities of Britain. They lost because they shifted focus from the RAF’s aerodromes to the cities in retaliation. Not too mention they were fighting a competent, well prepared enemy in the RAF as the tables were turned against them -and it was Luftwaffe pilots that now had to fly across the channel…

#32

Yes, and if those in the Japanese leadership who wanted to strike into Siberia rather than southwards had got their way it would have been a very different war, for the Soviets and the rest of the Allies.

Which is where the Axis fell down compared with the Allies, because the Axis were more in the nature of a group of fascist nations each pursuing their own ambitions without regard to any common purpose, where the Allies were primarily the reverse.

#33

Exactly which is why I suggest that Barbarossa should have been targeted to end with the encirclement of Moscow by September. Historically this didn’t happen because the original plan, fraught with wishful thinking and racial overtones, believed that the Red Army could be defeated by Smolensk. Had the planning been all along for target moscow , the operation would have been concluded in that manner… probably by the end of September.

Ushering the Gestapo in so quickly on the heels of the Troops was Hitlers big mistake, since it was not until that materialised that the Soviet people found their back bone and realised that one devil might be preferable to another devil.

Further a parrallel operation through the Middle east and in cooperation with Turkey ,would have made the invasion of Russian a two thrust invasion. Stalin would have to lose one or the other.

Such a scale of operation could not begin until 1942, but would be worth the wait. As long as Stalin believed in the non aggression pact, they could wait that long.

In the mean time destroy the UK. Don’t wast the long range bombers on the BoB instead focus on massive Convoy attacks inconjuctiuon with Uboat attacks to strangle the UK. When that happens you can start the BoB. Yes the primary focus would be to follow onriginal Strategic bomb doctrine targeting RAF military bases and not shift to city targets as this was far down the list of bombing priorities.

Historically the terror bombing of British cities was part of Hitlers war to scare the UK out of the war , as was the rushed invasion plan and the limited Uboat war.This is what happens when you deviate from your doctrine.You end up fighting the war the way the enemy wants.

So ultimately an invasion plan has to have been prepared.

#34

Errr… no. The German general staff were actually competent, and would have realised that this simply wasn’t possible. Look at all the places where the Germans stopped their advance, and you’ll find that it wasn’t lack of pre-planning or troops - but lack of fuel and munitions. Furthermore, a very large fraction of the German army did that distance on foot - so resupply of boots becomes an important issue too. The pace of the advance was set by the rate at which they can get supplies forward to the troops - which in turn for the German army of the time was set by the pace of horse-drawn transport and railway construction/repair. A fully motorised army might have been able to advance faster (although the problems with transporting fuel foward the US/UK had in late 1944 suggest otherwise), but as it was the Germans had no hope of reaching Moscow before the deep freeze set in - and they had no experience of fighting in those conditions, meaning their equipment (tanks, weapons, etc.) were not yet adapted to them. Thus, Moscow was realistically out of reach until Spring 1942.

Uh… what the hell did Turkey have to gain from such a war? Atatürk had only been dead 5 years, and Turkey an independent state for 20 at that point (having fought to be free of the Ottoman Empire). There was nothing for them to gain by joining in with the Axis, and much to lose. Besides, the terrain through which they would have to advance was pretty awful with no good roads or railways - so the Russians could stop such an advance with pretty minimal forces.

Except the two don’t use the same resources (air attacks were tried on channel convoys before the BoB proper started - but most of the important ones went into Liverpool, well out of the range of escorted German bombers). If you divert resources prewar into U-boats, you set up a much earlier confrontation with the UK and accelerate UK rearmament - U-boats are purely useful for convoy battles against the UK, and after WW1 the UK was very sensitive to them. Again, you lose at least as much as you gain.

Umm… I call bullshit. The area bombing of UK cities was carried out because the German bomber fleet couldn’t survive while attacking anything else - so went to night area bombing (the same reason the UK did, as it happens). Again, the invasion plan was rushed because they hadn’t expected to need one and had to come up with something, while the U-bpat war was only limited due to lack of resources (as previously mentioned, not something the Germans could develop prewar without the UK getting VERY upset about it and doing something nasty to the Germans.

#35

And not only the pace of horse-drawn transport but the often overlooked problem of the transport required to carry food for the horses and their crews. Large numbers of horses continually moving through any given point cannot be fed by foraging.

Australia had a related problem on the Kokoda Track in 1942 where most supplies had to be carried by the troops and, primarily, native carriers. But the quantity of food the carriers had to carry for themselves increased with the length of the advance so that as the front advanced the front line supplies needed to press forward were steadily reduced by the need for the carrier train to carry supplies just to maintain itself, while there was no corresponding increase in the labour force available to carry supplies and while further limitations were imposed by the traffic capacity of the Kokoda Track as troops and others moved in both directions along a narrow track in very difficult country.

A related problem with the fleet train supplying the British fleet in the Indian Ocean from 1942 limited the scope for action of that fleet, and dictated that Britain could not significantly increase the size of that fleet.

A similar problem occurred with internal combustion engine transport as fuel had to be transported to supply the freight train, but the ratio of fuel required to maintain the freight train to freight carried is considerably more favourable for internal comubstion engines than for horse or human freight trains, due to the relative efficiency of the energy produced by the respective fuels in their respective engines.

#36

There is a further (related) problem peculiar to Russia. As you advance into Russia from the West, the country is shaped like a funel. As you advance down it, your force/space ratios decrease. Since it takes significantly more force to attack than defend, an attacker will find their freedom of action increasingly circumscribed as they move East (due to the requirement to hold any territory taken).

This whole topic is on a false premise anyway - that if Hitler or some other unnamed German had done something differently, they would have won WW2. This has two related trains of thought - that the Germans winning would somehow be a good thing, and that the person suggesting the ideas is somehow a strategic genius who is better than both Hitler and the German General Staff. Both are fallacious - Nazism was a genuinely evil system, and most people suggesting such courses of action have no idea of tactics, let along strategy.

The one thing they never, ever do is allow for the fact that the Allies would have some form of reaction of their own whatever the suggested course of action (usually carried out with imaginary forces and phantom logistics - this thread is a prime example) is. Which is even more obviously fallacious than most of the other arguments.

#37

What you people need to do is to read something other than western histories ,after which you’d understand the war allot more.

From a morality POV , which BTW should have nothing to do with this thread '… Hitler was not that much more evil than Stalin and some would argue allot less. Further all countries that indulge in empire building do so by brutally repressing & exploiting the occupied territories and almost always at the expense of millions of life’s. Try speaking to India historians about British Home rule…they almost make Hitler look like a ‘normal European despot’.

One Indie historian told me that British home rule caused the deaths directly of 12 million of his country men in combat and the governors policies toward the cyclical famine may have been responsible for another 45 million out of 120 million, over the 4 centuries of British Home Rule. And to be clear , about 1/2 of those deaths may well have occurred in the last 20-30 years of the 19th century…not so far away in history, from the Nazi period.

One could argue from the POV of history, that had Hitler been born in the 19th century, he would have been seen as just another in a succession of brutal European dictatorships.

But surely we should not indulge in that kind of rhetoric, if the focus of the discussion is supposed to be military history? Surly that kind of discussion should be on a separate thread?

There is not really much point in responding to the other posts since they show a distinct lack of understanding of the history of the war from the German side, and since they started the war , that has to understood. It was absolutly central to Hitlers rush to war in 1936 , that…

[A] His war was a racial war against the Jews and the Slavs and the military aspects were secondary.

[b] to acknowlegde that Hitler substitued Military power for his Will power , his belief in German Racial superiority and his unshaken faith in his ablity to manipulate the other European powers including the British and the Soviets. He was convinced that the British would remain out of the war to protect their empire and he could cut a deal . So inorder to facilitate that , all anti British rhetoric was prohibited. Pandering to the British about naval treaties etc, was Hitlers way to generate a false sence of secruity.

[C] Hitler as part of the above game refused to allow general preperations for even a war economy to support such a war because he believed it would not be needed.

As a result of these the very country thats most responsible for WW-II was in some respects the least prepared for the war. So it falls on us to explore what might have been had a different course of action been followed.

#38

One note to the previous comments by pdf27 and RS*, what motorized transport the German Ostheer did have was often the much less robust and reliable captured French designs. Breakdowns and a logistical nightmare also significantly contributed to hindering the advance of the Ostheer…

#39

Please define “Western histories,” and then let us know which Eastern histories to read…

From a morality POV , which BTW should have nothing to do with this thread '… Hitler was not that much more evil than Stalin and some would argue allot less. Further all countries that indulge in empire building do so by brutally repressing & exploiting the occupied territories and almost always at the expense of millions of life’s. Try speaking to India historians about British Home rule…they almost make Hitler look like a ‘normal European despot’.

They were both pretty fucking evil, and both severally hindered their countries war efforts by doing things like -oh- summarily executing their entire high commands on the eve of War, firing commanders that spoke with clarity and truth, pissing away their soldiers lives and equipment by demanding that they fight to the death instead of evacuating or retreating, and spending enormous resources to wipe out ethnic minorities which actually detracted from their War efforts…

As for your other comment, while I am no fan of British Imperialism and colonial history, I doubt British soldiers threw entire families out into subzero temperatures after stealing their winter cloths, food, and houses…

One Indie historian told me that British home rule caused the deaths directly of 12 million of his country men in combat and the governors policies toward the cyclical famine may have been responsible for another 45 million out of 120 million, over the 4 centuries of British Home Rule. And to be clear , about 1/2 of those deaths may well have occurred in the last 20-30 years of the 19th century…not so far away in history, from the Nazi period.

I’d be interested to know where exactly he is getting his historical sources from…

One could argue from the POV of history, that had Hitler been born in the 19th century, he would have been seen as just another in a succession of brutal European dictatorships.

We’re coming awfully close for being a tad apologist here…feel free to compare a dictatorship that was much more than a fraction as brutal as Hitler was. The only one I can think of off the top of my head would be the Belgian prick King Leopold who “raped” the Congo and killed hundreds of thousands if not over a million. But it would be difficult to compare Hitler’s, and his willing henchmen’s, use of technology to institute mass murder based on faulty science and decades of Antisemitic scapegoating…

But surely we should not indulge in that kind of rhetoric, if the focus of the discussion is supposed to be military history? Surly that kind of discussion should be on a separate thread?

You seem to be the only one bringing it up…

There is not really much point in responding to the other posts since they show a distinct lack of understanding of the history of the war from the German side, and since they started the war , that has to understood. It was absolutly central to Hitlers rush to war in 1936 , that…

No offense, but you don’t seem to be presenting it very well. Nor are you really providing anything new…

[A] His war was a racial war against the Jews and the Slavs and the military aspects were secondary.

But they only began to kill Jews in earnest with the unspoken assumption that the US entry into the War in 1942 (the Wannsee Conference where the “Final Solution” “evacuation” of the Jews would be initiated was held around February of 1942) signaled the doom for any hopes of a complete German victory, if not the complete destruction of the Third Reich. It was sort of vengeance more than a real race war policy as there were varying opinions within the Nazi movement over what really should be done to the Jews. We could even perhaps argue that the entry of the US accelerated the Holocaust and some speculate that something less than the complete annihilation of European Jewry might have been acceptable if the Germans had been winning all along…

[b] to acknowlegde that Hitler substitued Military power for his Will power , his belief in German Racial superiority and his unshaken faith in his ablity to manipulate the other European powers including the British and the Soviets. He was convinced that the British would remain out of the war to protect their empire and he could cut a deal . So inorder to facilitate that , all anti British rhetoric was prohibited. Pandering to the British about naval treaties etc, was Hitlers way to generate a false sence of secruity.

[C] Hitler as part of the above game refused to allow general preperations for even a war economy to support such a war because he believed it would not be needed.

As a result of these the very country thats most responsible for WW-II was in some respects the least prepared for the war. So it falls on us to explore what might have been had a different course of action been followed.

The Germans, and Hitler, knew that they didn’t have the resources to feed a prolonged war economy nor did they have the industrial base necessary for quick expansion. Even the Battle for France was thought a risky gamble and many in the German high command were dubious as anything other than a very quick victory would have left France and Britain with a massive strategic advantage culminating in a general offensive Eastward by the middle of 1941 or early 1942…

#40

This has two related trains of thought - that the Germans winning would somehow be a good thing, and that the person suggesting the ideas is somehow a strategic genius who is better than both Hitler and the German General Staff. Both are fallacious - Nazism was a genuinely evil system, and most people suggesting such courses of action have no idea of tactics, let along strategy.

Gee…Look what I started.

I take a bit of offense to the ‘projection’ of thought in that statement.

  1. Hitler was a monster, and a stupid one at that. German winning would NOT have been a good thing. But, since they came so close to winning, I came up with this topic.

Which brings us to,

  1. No, I don’t believe that I am a strategic genius. As I stated in the first post of this thread, I invite others to contribute to exploring Hitler’s ‘mistakes’.

Yes, I should have said up front that starting WWII was the original BAD idea for Hitler and the German people. If I was not clear about this point in the beginning and caused some ill feelings, then the mistake is mine.

Perhaps I have played Panzer General II too many times. It allows for a German victory in the East, then an invasion of Britain and ultimately an invasion of the East Coast of the USA. Spoiler alert: The German forces get nuked on US soil, so there is really no victory possibility for Germany at all.

As far as where this thread touched on with the rise of Hitler; I contend that it is an essential question to ask, “how did a pennyless WWI Austrian Corporal come to power to control Germany and wage a war against civilization?” Look close at Hitlers backers, especially those Elite of The City of London and Wall Street.

Yes, Stalin was also a Banker’s boy and there was an attempt in the USA to overthrow FDR and institute a Fascist Regime in the USA by these Bankers.

For more on the rise of Hitler and his ‘mistakes’, see the historian Webster Tarpley and this vid on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzwhNimpA3U

(Ignore Paula Gloria on the Vid)