Still, reading all the last pages again, the US are the key.
If everyone agrees the US would have joined the European theatre anyway in any way, further discussion is futile. If not, Hitler should have used every pact or plan not to let the US get involved.
Hitler saw the U.S.A. as the inevitable, eventual enemy and his actions in Europe reflected this. Pearl Harbor forced his hand and many of his actions look absurd in hindsight, but his motives were basically to enable Germany to match the Americans in industrial power for a perceived long term struggle…
The long term straggle against coalition was impossible for Germany for many reasons. Therefore the Hitler bet on a giant efforts to kick off separate members of coalition through separate quick military compain, like he done with France within few weeks. In 1940 he forced the Luftwaffe to concentrate over Britain, later in 1941-43 heer were almost totally busyed on the East with the same aim - take the soviets off a war.German industry could’t match to the common allies production (even in the best Albert Speer’s dreams) - they simply had no resourses and manpower for that.
true
That’s exactly why he should have changed his aggressive strategy. The UK was not beaten and by dec. 1941 the USSR proved a tough nut to crack as well. However, Hitler DID declare war on the US at that point… A total war SHORT term policy which made the burden way to heavy.
My humble opinionis that he should not let Russia take half of Poland, Letland, Estland and Lituenia, he gave them acces to the Baltic sea, close to Germany that is.
He should have extended fall Gelb, take the army at dunkirk and crosse the channel imedtiatley and take England when her army was in chaos and not up for a real war.
He should take Europe completely, no Vichy France and her fleet, Germany could use more Battleships.
Whitout England in play, the desert warfare would not take up so much resourses, and the is no jumpingboard for the allies into Europe.
Better, the would be no use for the Atlantic warefare and the wolfpacks could hunt down the british navy.
I agree he should seal of the medetarainian sea, Gibraltar is easy to control and it gives you freedom of movement for your troops from Europe to Afrika and into the far east.
He shouls train the soldiers from Italy , Hungary, Romania etc to German standard, and arm them.
He now has acces to Africa and the Fast east, Oil and Ore enough.
He should not attack Russia alone, the Jalanese should join in, and they can attack from all sides, but maybe its better to leave them alone and isolate them.
as with America to the japanese.
Without letting the Russians do that, how would he keep them an axis-leaning neutral? War on two fronts has always been the German military nightmare, and even a victorious one causes problems (after Brest-Litovsk, the Germans kept nearly a million men occupying Russia while the Western Front was collapsing). Invading countries right next to them while giving the Russians nothing is going to make Stalin (who was naturally paranoid anyway) convinced that he’s next.
How? The Panzers were worn out by the time they got to Dunkirk, and it wasn’t a line they could outflank. The Germans didn’t have any equipment or doctrine for Amphibious Warfare, while the Royal Navy has been practicing to defend against it since at least the Spanish Armada. It simply isn’t possible to throw together an amphibious invasion of a major country on the run, no matter how disorganised their defences were.I’d also note that the Home Guard hadn’t been deployed to France. The men might have been somewhat overaged and poorly equipped, but these were the same men who had destroyed the German army in France in 1916-18 and were largely equipped with the same equipment from storage. Against a Wehrmacht shorn of it’s tanks and artillery (they didn’t have the ability to get either across the channel) they’re actually quite a serious opponent.
How are you going to capture them? Most of them are in North Africa, and we’ve already established that whatever amphibious warfare equipment the Germans have is going to be used against England directly. The rest of the fleet was in Toulon, and isn’t just going to sit there and be captured - at best it would scuttle itself as it did when the Germans occupied Vichy, far more likely without Mers-el-Kebir it would move to North Africa and on to England to continue the fight. Without Vichy, the French colonies are going to go to the Free French as well, rather than staying as axis-leaning neutrals as they did.
Which is it? If you’ve already taken England the war’s over and the RN isn’t a threat. More likely with this set of decisions the French navy have joined the British, and the U-boats are the largest ships afloat flying the German flag.
Ummm… have you ever been there? I have (with the British Army) and can tell you it would be something of a nightmare to take. There are something like 20 miles of tunnels under the Rock, and even today the Royal Gibraltar Regiment are the world’s experts in tunnel fighting. There’s a reason it withstood a 4 year siege successfully in the 1780s. Realistically it’s only possible if Spain joins the war - which would require major concessions from Germany regarding trade and rearming the Spanish.
With what? German industry was at full stretch and could barely arm the German forces at the time (absent a move to a total war footing, something Hitler was ideologically against). Training individual soldiers wasn’t a big deal, but training the officers (where most of the problem was) is much harder. That requires a whole different culture in these countries, as well as a military philosophy. It’s unlikely that they would let the Germans take over to that extent.
After the spanking they got at Khalkin Gol, why would they? The resources they needed were to the South (principally in the Dutch East Indes), while Russia had nothing they wanted. Why should they get in a war with somebody who had recently beaten them just to keep the Germans happy?
hi pdf27,
I agree on the some comments, accept the last.
But we do not have to point out to each other why the plan has flaws or difficulties because that is not the question.
The question is, Things Hitler could have done to win WWII
You have to agree with me that taking out England will remove the jumpingboard for armies against Germany, it will change the Atlantic warefare, and the desertware fare will be substantially shortend.
Removing away Vichy france will take away a big area where resistance figthers or foreign commando’s have a base of action.
Sealing the medeterainian gives you freedom to Africa an helps defend your borders.
And you rule out a second or third front, so you have more resources at your disposal for future actions.
To realise it logisticly, mechanichly etc. that is an other issue, not the question though.
I understand as well as you that, when you change one thing in history, reactions of armies and decisisions will change as well, the whole thing will change, and probably, Germany would have lost anyway.
Probably the French forreign legion with the remaining navy would combine with the remaining Britisch forces to start a base somewhere else, supported by the US and Russia they would figth back and dealt with the problem.
Hardly ever mentioned is that Britain saved Europe, without their sturdy backbone Europe would have much more problems
Back to your last comment, nothing to gain in Russia, so why go there.
I understand your reasoning, but it was almost personal for Hitler, the Bolsewists had to be dealt with, he would not leave them alone… never
Anyway this is a hypothetic question, not one of chatting on the possibility if it can be done and what problems to encounter.
I mean we could go on and on, like Eben Emael is imposibille to take, it was taken in 15 minuten.
The only facts we have, is the history presented.
cheers
No dispute there - take out England and the war is effectively over. The problem is how to do it short of intervention by Skippy the Alien Space Bat. The absolute best case for Germany that is remotely plausible is Halifax taking over instead of Churchill thus giving them an armistice - but that’s a recipe for an extended cold war in Europe, rather than a German victory. It would also rely on the Germans not taking any further aggressive actions - they put in one more attack and Halifax falls and gets replaced by Churchill.http://web.archive.org/web/20070504034219/http://www.flin.demon.co.uk/althist/seal1.htm
The reverse if anything - foreign forces didn’t go into Vichy as that would have led to war with them and they’d have to scrape together the forces to capture the overseas colonies. The resistance was also very much a local phenomenon - and Vichy certainly didn’t provide them a safe haven like Pakistan did for the Mujahadeen during the Soviet intervention in the 1980s.
All well and good, but how do you do it? This thread is about concrete actions he could have taken (e.g. send the XXXth Infantry Division to attack place Y on date Z). If it’s going to degenerate into fantasy then why not just say he should have built a Trident missile submarine? It would have won him the war, but is hardly practicable.
Yes, it emphatically is. Anything else requires Alien Space Bat intervention
I’m not saying Germany wouldn’t invade Russia (it actually made a lot of sense - particularly as the Soviets were seriously considering invading Germany a few years down the line, a plan which was trashed by the German invasion. I’m saying there is nothing to gain for the JAPANESE in Russia, so they wouldn’t go there.
Now now, stay nice don’t send skippy and area 51 on me.
I admit, I skipped the most pasges here, just because I had a tought, pages 2 till 31 or so…
Anyway, on details then, lets see if we can open the posibillity.
How to expand fall gelb.
The French army and the Britsch army are on the beach at Dunkirk.
The panzer are not worn out, they are orderd to halt!
The 6th ghost division led by rommel reached the channel, plenty of action left.
The Britisch army on the beach is there professional, trained army, but It is almost all of it!
British Navy is not is the Channel, the luftwaffe would bomb then away, and they didin’t give support when the expeditoinairy force was evacuated.
The force was extracted by lots of fishingboat without support of the Royal Navy.
So, no order to halt, take the armies on the beach prisoner, take all the ships you can find.
Seal of the Channel with subs and air protection, and cross it with all kinds of ships
And believe me, Belguim, France and Holland have so many ships at their disposal, no war ships, but ships
In this stage of the war the British are not prepared for war.
They have a great navy, but a small professional army, and hardly enough active planes over the channel because they would never expect an invasion.
You cross the Channel and try to get a foothold.
The luftwaffe does now what it did some time later, start the airwar over Britain.
Hitler let his panzers stop because, how strange it sounds, he liked England and wanted to stay in peace with them.
I think, with a lot of guts and speed it could be done.
But I also think, any dictator looses the figth he starts.
They overestimate themself always.
And thats good for us all
I haven’t read through all of your replies, but here are the things I think might have worked:
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He should have waited until at least 1942, as was his original plan. By that time, his military would have been built up much stronger, while the allies would have changed little.
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He should never have attacked Russia. The country is just too vast, the resources are too great, the industrial power is too great, and the people are too determined.
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He should never have declared war on the United States. This would have made it a much smaller war, but possibly a winable one.
Waiting until 1942 would probably have been impossible, the economy was stretched with the military build up as it was, it needed a new influx of money which it got from the countries it occupied.
The Allies were also building up, by 1942 they would have been considerably stronger as well, France and Britain would have replaced their obsolete aircraft (especially fighters), Frances new Armoured Divisions would have been more than paper and would actually have their better equipment. Poland would have had more in the way of armour and modern AT weapons.
New equipments and upgrades to German equipment may not have happened if the Germans had not been fighting so Germany may have had more of some type of tanks etc but not necessarily any better ones, it would probably still be mostly horse drawn for artillery and supply as well.
Attacking the Soviet Union was Hitlers whole aim in reality, he wanted the space and resources, he wrote about it and gave speeches on it numerous times, he only toned it down when the non-aggression pact was signed allowing Germany to attack Poland.
Not declaring on the US was a non starter, Germany was already in a proxy war with the US due to lend lease and US ships and aircraft protecting convoys to the UK. Hitler believed that declaring war on the US would cause Japan to follow suit and declare war on the Soviet Union, thus easing his problems.
In a command economy, such as Germany had, they could simply print the money and use it internally to produce equipment. It is true that Germany’s tank designs improved markedly after they encountered the Russian T34s. In any case, Germany was gaining strength much faster than the allies were. The plan was to have a vastly larger fleet of submarines ready before the war started. This could have made a difference. Russia was definitely arming itself, and arming itself far better than the Germans realized. And the Germans had managed to convince Stalin that the Generals were planning a coup, causing him to purge them and weaken his army terribly. The Russians appeared so weak after their disasterous Winter War, which understandably gave Hitler confidence.
Another big problem was that Germany’s equipment was not mass-produceable. It was technologically advanced, but every new project was designed and produced in an operational silo. So parts were not interchangeable between different tank designs, for instance, unlike the Russians who used the same V2 engine on all of their new tanks. This situation made it a logistical nightmare trying to supply parts for all of these different designs. So yes, allowing more communication between different programs would have been a great advantage in that respect. However, that was not the way Germany did it for other reasons. As long as the German society was set up in operational silos, it was easier to keep under control. If one segment gets too “uppity”, like the Brown Shirts, they would be easier to isolate and eliminate the threat before it spread. But Stalin was at least as paranoid about power as Hitler, and Russia nevertheless managed to have interchangeable parts.
The horse-drawn artillery and supplies were definitely a handicap in the invasion of Russia. If he had waited until 1942 to start the war, he would have had more trucks too. If not, he should have postponed it until he did.
Yes, invading Russia had been the plan all along. And Stalin might have eventually invaded Germany from the east anyway. But occupying a country that size was just too difficult. Hitler certainly shouldn’t have taken them on when he did. If Germany hadn’t been planning operation Barbarosa, Franco might have allowed Germany passage through Spain to attack Gibraltar. That would have made a big difference.
Of course, we know in retrospect that the Battle of Britain was too costly in aircraft, especially after he switched to attacking cities instead of airfields. Hitler didn’t know that at the time, because it had never been tried with advanced bombers. But Hitler definitely should not have expanded the war before he had fully digested what he had already bitten off.
Another important thing which Hitler never learned to do was to leave the tactical decisions to the military. He was always screwing them up.
If you just print money you cause inflation, it will lead to hyperinflation if it is not controlled, to control it you need to raise money not print it (see the 1920’s and the Wiemar Republic).
Germany needed to buy much of its resources abroad you need gold for that, Germany was running out due to the amount that had already been spent on re-armament and getting people to work (state building projects etc). The country was struggling, the whole economy was a vast juggling act that rarely managed to keep one sector supplied never mind all of them.
The Soviet Union was always arming itself, it was not something new, it rarely threw away anything either so lots of old outdated equipment was still in use in 1941 (the majority of the approximately 20000 tanks in service for a start). the purges had little to nothing to do with Hitler, they were a result of power consolidation by Stalin. Remove anyone who could even remotely be seen as a potential threat, the more popular they were the more chance they had of being purged.
German equipment was as easy to mass produce as most equipment used by other nations (more so than some of the newer French and British tanks like the Char B1 and Matilda II), the US was not geared up for mass production either but it had a larger capability to ramp up than the Germans, the USSR could mass produce but suffered when it was attacked when it lost factories (with others stopping production as they were moved) and resources.
The T34 was the most common Soviet tank, but parts from one factory did not always fit a T34 made in a different factory. The V2 engine was made in many different versions similar to the Merlin/Meteor line but it was not able to be used in all jobs, specific versions had to be used in the correct vehicle. No different really to the Maybach HL210 which was rebored to become the Maybach HL230 line used or the earlier Maybach HL120 line used in the Panzer III and IV plus variants.
Even with the addition of vast numbers of captured vehicles, increased domestic production and production from occupied countries Germany failed to get even a quarter of its armed forces mechanised. Even if it had it would have run into the fuel shortages earlier than it did.
I never mentioned the Battle of Britain, France and Britain entered the war with large numbers of obsolete aircraft, these would have been replaced by 1941/42, France had very few modern aircraft but had loads of new designs and aircraft starting production in 1940, Germany would have faced more modern aircraft and a lot more of them in 1942.
The same with French tanks, the Renault FT’s would have been replaced (French armoured forces still had 600 of them) and more Char B1 and Souma S35’s would have been available, quite possibly in the proposed armoured divisions which were starting to be formed in 1940. Britain and France would also have had new AT weapons (the 6pdr was originally supposed to have entered service in 1939/40 but in the urgency to re-arm it took longer, British troops had to use borrowed French 25mm Hotchkiss AT guns in 1940 to make up for their shortfall). Britain would have had more of its newer tanks in service with crews actually trained on them.
Not even mentioning that the Poles would have been better armed as well and they caused large losses for the Germans as it was. France and Britain may have been well enough equipped to actually attack Germany in 1942 while it was busy with Poland.
Hitler gained a mythology about him as the Generals did not believe things could be done (like the invasion of France and the Low Countries), Hitler said they could and they were. More because of incompetence on the allied side than Hitlers genius but it built up a myth around him that the Generals got swept up into. You can argue that without his leadership the war either would not have started or would have ended earlier with German defeat as the Nazi party controlled so much of the German life and the military were kept under firm control.
Hitler was a great orator no matter what else he was and could get people to follow him (backed up of course by the Gestapo, SS, etc).
Read them comprehensively…
Anyway, on details then, lets see if we can open the posibillity.
How to expand fall gelb.
The French army and the Britsch army are on the beach at Dunkirk.
The panzer are not worn out, they are orderd to halt!
The 6th ghost division led by rommel reached the channel, plenty of action left.
The Britisch army on the beach is there professional, trained army, but It is almost all of it!
British Navy is not is the Channel, the luftwaffe would bomb then away, and they didin’t give support when the expeditoinairy force was evacuated.
The force was extracted by lots of fishingboat without support of the Royal Navy.
Expand Fall Gelb? Why? The German Army was now into Fall Rot and the final annihilation of the French Army by this point IIRC. The “Panzer Halt Order” is indeed deeply controversial, but you’ve several facts wrong and seem to have some illusions about Dunkirk. Firstly, many of the panzers were indeed worn and in dire need of maintenance and repair, even critics of the Halt! Order recognize this. I believe about 50% of the panzers were on the verge of being combat ineffective. The question is more like: “could the Heer rest and repair their panzers in short order before launching an attack on a Dunkirk?” where the defenses had yet to be consolidated. There is no doubt the panzer troops were exhausted and they needed at least a very brief pause. There are various reasons given for the Halt, such as the area around Dunkirk being poor tank country and the battle requiring more infantry than tanks had with them in order to venture into Dunkirk as it would involve street-to-street fighting against a rapidly growing, desperate force. It was by no means an easy task even for those that believe the Germans could have successfully headed off an evacuation they didn’t even likely believe was possible. I have no idea whomever would have told you the Royal Navy (as well as the RAF) were “not” in the Channel as they had significant cover of the RAF with both sides suffering severe losses…
So, no order to halt, take the armies on the beach prisoner, take all the ships you can find.
Seal of the Channel with subs and air protection, and cross it with all kinds of ships
And believe me, Belguim, France and Holland have so many ships at their disposal, no war ships, but ships
They did try to take the BEF prisoner, but the French consolidated a stiff defense and in the words of one British officer, “fought like the (Spartan) 300!” The plan was to use Goering’s Luftwaffe to bomb them silly, then move in for the kill. Remember, not even the British knew they were going to successfully save most of the BEF Tommies until after the transport operation was underway…
In this stage of the war the British are not prepared for war.
They have a great navy, but a small professional army, and hardly enough active planes over the channel because they would never expect an invasion.
You cross the Channel and try to get a foothold.
The luftwaffe does now what it did some time later, start the airwar over Britain.Hitler let his panzers stop because, how strange it sounds, he liked England and wanted to stay in peace with them.
I think, with a lot of guts and speed it could be done.
But I also think, any dictator looses the figth he starts.
They overestimate themself always.
And thats good for us all
Hitler didn’t actually issue the Halt! Order, the speculation is that he was advised to in order to regain control over his panzer-army–and more importantly his Heer generals–largely ignoring orders and rampaging through France ahead of the infantry. But there was also a legitimate concern that the Panzer Corridor could suffer a surprise Allied offensive severing it and cutting off the lead formations from the infantry ala The Battle of Arras and several desperate, unsuccessful French counterattacks. This is one reason for the order. The other was that Dunkirk wasn’t just a beach, but was a large urban center surround by marshy land not ideal for tanks unsupported by infantry. The force disposition varies, but by the time the German infantry caught up, the defenses were stiffened and could not be easily overcome. And of course there were still large pockets of French troops still fighting elsewhere using newer hedge-hog tactics causing problems for the Germans. Though, it didn’t really matter without a mobile reserve the French had already pissed away in Belgium. The strategic situation was heavily favoring the Germans at this point, but that doesn’t mean they knew it at the time and were in many ways wary of their own success that had been spectacular and unpredictable by any measure…
As far as the German War Economy, they were essentially on a semi-war footing since 1933 when they rapidly expanded the Heer, and built up a virtually nonexistent Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. The ideas that the Reich wasn’t expecting a long war, built a ‘Blitzkrieg Army’ designed to overwhelm enemies in a short war, didn’t favor strategic bombing over tactical air-support, etc. are largely all myths. To say the economy wasn’t switched over to a war footing until 1942 is also a myth–they had defeated the French rather quickly and that did cause a slowdown in R&D and production, but the ramping up of production in 42’/43’ was largely the groundwork laid early on by 1940, not solely the ‘miracle’ of Speer…
Interesting discussion. I actually believe the German Armed Forces were defeated the minute they crossed into Poland. You go to war without reliable supplies of raw materials it will be a tough row to hoe. Only one real source of oil. I read people saying cross the channel immediately. Wow do you have any idea of the logistical nightmare that would be? With no surface Navy to speak of, no landing crafts, no port facilities. Operation Sea Lion was never going to happen. If they had waited until 1942 it would have been worse. France and England would have been much more prepared and that would have made that operation very costly. The Poles would have pounded them worse than they did and that was pretty bad. If you consider what the Poles were up against, they inflicted great pain on the German Forces. This is all a question of Logistics. Napoleon once said “amateurs talk tactics professionals talk logistics”. The one thing most despots like Hitler fail to take into consideration. Japan was in the same boat. Never got off the mat in 1942. If you think about it nor did the Germans.
Thanks to this great post. I like that type of posts. I would share it with others.
quote: I actually believe the German Armed Forces were defeated the minute they crossed into Poland. end quote.
Wehrmacht smashed the Polish. Germans never look liked losing the war until they were in the middle of invading the SU. IN fact, the Germans reach valuable SU city before winter hit. Poland had nothing to do with Germany losing the war.
Hitler should had never Allied himself with the Japanese. Therefore, no declaration of war against the US.
SU invasion was bad luck for the Germans. I firmly believe the winter swayed the advantage over to the Allies ‘the Russians’. Not much I understand about Hitler but I understand why Hitler went to to war with SU; to keep the communists out of Europe.
Actually from what I’ve read Hitler believed -Russia was to Germany- as- “The Wild West” was to America. He was going to build the German “Empire” on the ashes of the Slavic races. The Jewish slaughter was actually a ‘dry run’ for how he was going to exterminate 30-40 million Russians.
There is a scene in “Hitler the rise of Evil” , where Hitler is going to shoot himself after the failure of the Beer hall Pusch and some woman stops him and convinces him to go on…too bad she didn’t have a ‘shopping jag’ and show up hours later to discover his body.
Besides, Hitler got greedy! Intentionally, Hitler was all about grabbing Germany’s land back (which was taken away from her after ww1) and dealing with the Matrix and it’s Jews, all because Hitler had thought the Matrix and Jews sold Germany out with WW1. Hitler got what he wanted; the power of Germany and Poland’s land, Hitler should sat tight and waited. That never happened and Hitler wanted the lot, that doomed him. As long as Hitler was in control and in power of Germany, there was no need to Kill Jews or transported them out. Those Jews could had fought for Hitler adding to the German military might and power. Hitler could not have his cake and eat it too.
quote exterminate 30-40 million Russians. end quote.
I think Stalin did a good job at that. 