Here's my take on how Germany could have won WW2

[Otis Mayfield]

I've been listening to the book:
Ivan's War: The Red Army at War 1939-45


I've long been a skeptic of the theory that Germany could have "won". But I now believe differently.

As you know, the Soviets were dreadfully unprepared for war. Millions of Soviets surrendered to the Germans in 1941. Had the Germans had a different strategy, they could have persuaded those millions of Soviets, along with all of Ukraine, the residents of the Baltic States, the Fins, and more to join them to fight Stalin.

Initially, Soviet troops were eager to surrender rather than face certain death fighting the Germans. According to the book, as the war went on, Soviet soldiers learned of the horrific atrocities that the German SS was committing. As well, they learned of the horrific fate of their comrades in German captivity. Soldiers went from being willing to surrender to fighting until death.

There are three things Hitler would have needed to avoid. One, he would have needed to be content in owning all of Poland and abandoning his plan of "Lebensraum" in Ukraine and the Baltic states as well as Russia. Two, Hitler would have needed to abandon the "Final Solution". Hitler could have deported all of the Jews to France, etc., but putting them into death camps could have definitely been a deal killer. Three, no declaration of war on the U.S. Obviously, I'm taking liberties but whenever discussing alternate history. one is going to take such liberties.

It's probably LIKELY that many Soviet officers, still reeling from the executions of their former comrades (Stalin's purges), would have gladly joined the efforts to remove Stalin. Hell, someone close to Stalin may have simply shot him and that would have been the end of the war and the end of the Soviet Union.

Thoughts?

Germany didn't have any oil.

And it was impossible for them to get more oil.

End of story, pretty much.

Shame all those people had to die for nothing. 63 million dead.

 

[DudleySmith]

If Hitler hadn't attacked the Soviets Stalin would have attacked Germany within 2-5 years. Hitler's economy collapsed first, is all.

As for Germany's post-WW I inflation, it had nothing to do with Versailles, it was all self-inflicted and deliberate on the part of the Junkers who had large war domestic war debts and wanted cheap paper money to pay them off with. Germany had paid next to nothing on the Versailles reparations, and by 1925 it was the U.S. who was paying them for Germany, some of it at least, which is why the French and British occupied the Rhineland and started taking out their reparations in coal, timber, and other commodities. The reparations imposed weren't any higher than those Germany imposed on France in 1871 relative to the size of their respective economies; France paid hers off in 5 years or so. Sorry, no Pity Party for Germany warranted.

 

[DudleySmith]

And it was impossible for them to get more oil.

Not necessarily. Without the U.S. in the war the Brits could have lost Iran and much of the Mideast oil if Germany had taken the Russian fields and/or Rommel had taken Egypt. Without Egypt the entire ME and the Canal becomes useless. An invasion route through Turkey was also an option; Turkey could do little to stop one.

 

[Quasar44]

fncceo
The German AF was very good ..just not big enough in planes and variety of planes

Hitler still thought army and tanks was key

 

[rupol2000]

I think that 43 was a turning point and this is due not only to military operations but also to secret politics. There was a split in Germany at that time, and new technologies began leaking to the United States. It was the time of the beginning of the retreat that coincided with the peak of Germany in the field of military technology, the development of interballistic missiles and atomic weapons. At this time, radical reforms were taking place in the USSR, commissars were removed from power and an officer's command was introduced. As a result, the USA emerges victorious and world leaders from the war, and Britain is destroyed and loses its influence even in Europe.

So, there is the lie about history of ww2

 

[harmonica]

I've been listening to the book:
Ivan's War: The Red Army at War 1939-45


I've long been a skeptic of the theory that Germany could have "won". But I now believe differently.

As you know, the Soviets were dreadfully unprepared for war. Millions of Soviets surrendered to the Germans in 1941. Had the Germans had a different strategy, they could have persuaded those millions of Soviets, along with all of Ukraine, the residents of the Baltic States, the Fins, and more to join them to fight Stalin.

Initially, Soviet troops were eager to surrender rather than face certain death fighting the Germans. According to the book, as the war went on, Soviet soldiers learned of the horrific atrocities that the German SS was committing. As well, they learned of the horrific fate of their comrades in German captivity. Soldiers went from being willing to surrender to fighting until death.

There are three things Hitler would have needed to avoid. One, he would have needed to be content in owning all of Poland and abandoning his plan of "Lebensraum" in Ukraine and the Baltic states as well as Russia. Two, Hitler would have needed to abandon the "Final Solution". Hitler could have deported all of the Jews to France, etc., but putting them into death camps could have definitely been a deal killer. Three, no declaration of war on the U.S. Obviously, I'm taking liberties but whenever discussing alternate history. one is going to take such liberties.

It's probably LIKELY that many Soviet officers, still reeling from the executions of their former comrades (Stalin's purges), would have gladly joined the efforts to remove Stalin. Hell, someone close to Stalin may have simply shot him and that would have been the end of the war and the end of the Soviet Union.

Thoughts?

....Germany is not winning WW2..doesn't matter that some Russians want to surrender..Russia's population was MUCH greater than Germany's
....as with many of this '''what if''' scenarios = there are a lot of ridiculous ifs
..etc

 

[Mushroom]

It would have stopped the supply of the Soviets which was a large part of their success.

Not as true as you would think.

A huge percentage of US supplies to the Soviets did not go through the Atlantic at all, but through the Pacific. The Pacific Route was favored for most supplies, as they were almost totally free of threat from enemy attack. As the Soviets and Japanese were neutral to each other, goods could pass freely from the US to the Soviet Far Eastern ports. This is the route most of the trucks, food, and other supplies actually traveled to the USSR.

About the only exception was actual war supplies, like tanks, artillery, weapons, and munitions. Those were forbidden to be carried on neutral vessels, so these are the supplies taken across the Atlantic. But that was most critical supplies were not in danger of U-boat attacks. Those supplies were critical to allowing the USSR to ignore the loss of the western part of the country (especially the Ukraine), which cost them a lot as that was where a lot of the food, wool, and cotton in the USSR came from.

And with less people to work the farms, they could put more of them into the factories.

 

[Mushroom]

"Our German scientists were more clever than Germany's German scientists"

The thing is, the scientists trying to do the same thing in Germany were trying to follow a doomed path by politics.

Yes, the Germans knew a lot about the potential of atomic weapons. And not only fission but fusion itself. But Hitler did not understand what they were, and forbid all research into fission devices.

Early on when a report was prepared for him outlining the potential of the devices, he dismissed the science behind fission as "Jewish Science", and the effects of fallout as just another kind of chemical weapon (which he had also forbidden to be used). This left his scientists struggling throughout the war to try and create a fusion bomb, without a fission bomb to initiate it. "Pure Fusion Weapons" are theoretically possible, but only in theory because even in 2021 the technology does not exist to create one. No more than we have been able to create fusion power plants.

The Germans might indeed have beaten the US-UK to the atomic bomb, if their hands had not been tied by politics and their leader not understanding the actual science involved.

 

[Mushroom]

Germany's mistake was not taking out the UK when it had a chance.

They never could attack England. They never made any kind of investment into amphibious forces, and those are pretty much required if you are going to take a heavily populated island like England. In fact, they only had 8 troop ships in their entire Navy. With most of them dating back to the 1920's. And they never made any efforts to expand that force. The only troop ship they added during the entirety of the war was the MV Goya.

And that was not even built for that purpose. It was a Norwegian freighter that was captured and converted in 1940 after the Invasion of Norway. But even then was not a "troop transport" as most would think, as it's main task was in moving people and supplies from Germany to Norway.

Next was the MV William Gustloff. Actually a passenger ship completed in 1938, she only made a few cruises through the Baltic before war started. But she never really transported any troops, instead being used as a floating barracks at a submarine school. Only being pressed into service as a transport as the Soviets closed in on Gdansk. The TS Pretoria was the same thing, built in 1936 as a cruise ship.

And you can go through every single troop ship of the Kriegsmarine and see the same thing. SS Cap Arcona, cruise ship. SS Hamburg, cruise ship. SS Deutschland, cruise ship. SS Hansa, cruise ship. And finally the SS General von Steuben, cruise ship.

Not a single purpose built troop transport. And no way to really conduct a landing with any of them on a hostile shore.

The closest that Hitler could have ever come to invading England is about as fanciful as when Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus tried to do the same thing. And would have been just as effective as the Roman Legions were in that campaign.

 

[ReinyDays]

The Germans might indeed have beaten the US-UK to the atomic bomb, if their hands had not been tied by politics and their leader not understanding the actual science involved.

Are you claiming Adolph Hitler was an expert at rocket science? ... I seriously doubt that, but Hitler certainly fully funded the Nazi rocket program ...

The problem was the German nuclear program would take years and years to bear fruit for a war that had to end within months, or be lost ... when rockets were producing results right away ... nevermind the years of research needed to find the best way to obtain fissile material ...

Gen. Groves certainly wasn't a nuclear scientist ... understood the science only as well as Hitler ... didn't stop him from producing nuclear bombs ... but he had the resources in hand to try all the ways to get fissile material ... and more a than a few clever German scientists ... and well beyond German rocket range ...

 

[DudleySmith]

....Germany is not winning WW2..doesn't matter that some Russians want to surrender..Russia's population was MUCH greater than Germany's
....as with many of this '''what if''' scenarios = there are a lot of ridiculous ifs
..etc

Population quit being a major factor with the advent of automatic weapons, rapid fire artillery, and advanced aircraft among other things. Germany didn;t have the manpower to even control all of France, but they found plenty of French pols who would cooperate with them; the same would have happened with the eastern European and Russians. It was in fact Polish police and Ukrainians and other Slavs who handled most of the Operation Reinhard logistics and manpower and provided most of the camp guards. The SS had Dutch and Danish units as well as Ukrainian and Romanians, Bulgarians, etc.

 

[DudleySmith]

I think that 43 was a turning point and this is due not only to military operations but also to secret politics.

It was pretty much military issues, not political ones; there were several events within months of each other from November of '42 to March of '43 that spelled the end of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire both, and most of the German officers knew it as well.

 

[harmonica]

Population quit being a major factor with the advent of automatic weapons, rapid fire artillery, and advanced aircraft among other things. Germany didn;t have the manpower to even control all of France, but they found plenty of French pols who would cooperate with them; the same would have happened with the eastern European and Russians. It was in fact Polish police and Ukrainians and other Slavs who handled most of the Operation Reinhard logistics and manpower and provided most of the camp guards. The SS had Dutch and Danish units as well as Ukrainian and Romanians, Bulgarians, etc.

let's give the Germans 10 Abombs and some B47 Stratojets......!!!!!!!!!!!!!
..yes, population has EVERYTHING to do with it ..the Germans could kill off half of Russia's population with automatics, etc and STILL there would be enough Russians left to defend their country
.....it's very RARE for ONE country to invade another and win TOTALLY
AND---AND!! Germany stabbed Russia in the back--like Japan did to the US--Russia is NEVER going to go with a cease fire/etc

 

[DudleySmith]

let's give the Germans 10 Abombs and some B47 Stratojets......!!!!!!!!!!!!!
..yes, population has EVERYTHING to do with it ..the Germans could kill off half of Russia's population with automatics, etc and STILL there would be enough Russians left to defend their country
.....it's very RARE for ONE country to invade another and win TOTALLY
AND---AND!! Germany stabbed Russia in the back--like Japan did to the US--Russia is NEVER going to go with a cease fire/etc

Rubbish. Germany had already pretty much destroyed the Soviet military; the Brits saved it along with the Americans. If population was such a deciding factor, you would be speaking Mandarin now, not English, and before that probably Arabic or Persian. Modern weapons changed the whole game.

 

[harmonica]

Rubbish. Germany had already pretty much destroyed the Soviet military; the Brits saved it along with the Americans. If population was such a deciding factor, you would be speaking Mandarin now, not English, and before that probably Arabic or Persian.

you prove you don't know shit about WW2, as do most people do......or any wars for that matter ....
.......they never came close to defeating Russia
...we bombed the crap out of Japan and Germany--had MASSIVE forces on each side of Germany...near Berlin and Japan --and they STILL did not surrender
..Stalingrad was over in early 1943
...let's give the Germans some B52s---how about that??? then they would win

 

[DudleySmith]

you prove you don't know shit about WW2, as do most people do......or any wars for that matter ....
.......they never came close to defeating Russia
...we bombed the crap out of Japan and Germany--had MASSIVE forces on each side of Germany...near Berlin and Japan --and they STILL did not surrender
..Stalingrad was over in early 1943
...let's give the Germans some B52s---how about that??? then they would win

Typical hysterical rubbish.

For the Peanut Gallery, this book offers some insights into when the tide turned in both the Pacific and for Germany.

On October 4, 1942, Hitler and the Japanese War Lords were at the apex of their power. By January 1, 1943 the Axis was headed toward certain defeat. The Allies had reversed the tide in five decisive engagements: Guadalcanal, El Alamein, Operation Torch, Stalingrad and The Barents Sea. Thomas Carmichael's incisive study tells the story of those five battles and that ninety days. Detailed maps accompany the text.

The Ninety Days

On October 4, 1942, Hitler and the Japanese War Lords w…

www.goodreads.com

I disagree with some of it, in that I think Kursk was a more definitive turning point, as was the winter battle for Moscow that was only barely repelled by the timely arrival of 125 British armor units and other supplies, allowing Stalin to launch a few offensives and saving Moscow from falling in the Spring,

Other key factors were the Allied bombing campaigns over Germany that forced Hitler to strip the Eastern front of aircraft and anti-aircraft gunnery. Another big factor were the Soviets' massive belts of minefields and bunkers that effectively shut down the blitzkreigs.

If you want to get really obtuse and annoying you can claim Hitler lost the war in 1941.

Focusing on the events of 1941, Nagorski's fast paced chronicle illuminates this pivotal year as never before. It was the year that doomed Nazi Germany to defeat. Catastrophically,it also set the Holocaust in motion and presaged the postwar division of Europe, which triggered the Cold War.

From the inside cover blurb of The Year Germany Lost The War- Andrew Nagorski, Simon and Schuster, 2019. June hardcover edition. This is the one with the emphasis on political chaos for those who don't think the military is as important as political idiocy. Of course, the rightwing nutjobs will start posting their idiotic FDR bashing and Amerkun Evul Empire nonsense from old issues of Pravda from the commies and libertoons.

...we bombed the crap out of Japan and Germany--had MASSIVE forces on each side of Germany...near Berlin and Japan --and they STILL did not surrender
..Stalingrad was over in early 1943

And here you are verifying my claim that massive numbers don't matter. lol

 

[harmonica]

Typical hysterical rubbish.

For the Peanut Gallery, this book offers some insights into when the tide turned in both the Pacific and for Germany.

On October 4, 1942, Hitler and the Japanese War Lords were at the apex of their power. By January 1, 1943 the Axis was headed toward certain defeat. The Allies had reversed the tide in five decisive engagements: Guadalcanal, El Alamein, Operation Torch, Stalingrad and The Barents Sea. Thomas Carmichael's incisive study tells the story of those five battles and that ninety days. Detailed maps accompany the text.

The Ninety Days

On October 4, 1942, Hitler and the Japanese War Lords w…

www.goodreads.com

I disagree with some of it, in that I think Kursk was a more definitive turning point, as was the winter battle for Moscow that was only barely repelled by the timely arrival of 125 British armor units and other supplies, allowing Stalin to launch a few offensives and saving Moscow from falling in the Spring,

Other key factors were the Allied bombing campaigns over Germany that forced Hitler to strip the Eastern front of aircraft and anti-aircraft gunnery. Another big factor were the Soviets' massive belts of minefields and bunkers that effectively shut down the blitzkreigs.

If you want to get really obtuse and annoying you can claim Hitler lost the war in 1941.

Focusing on the events of 1941, Nagorski's fast paced chronicle illuminates this pivotal year as never before. It was the year that doomed Nazi Germany to defeat. Catastrophically,it also set the Holocaust in motion and presaged the postwar division of Europe, which triggered the Cold War.

From the inside cover blurb of The Year Germany Lost The War- Andrew Nagorski, Simon and Schuster, 2019. June hardcover edition. This is the one with the emphasis on political chaos for those who don't think the military is as important as political idiocy.

Germany never came close to even getting a tie ......you people think it was a board game ......yes, the war was decided on 22 June 1941

 

[DudleySmith]

Germany never came close to even getting a tie ......you people think it was a board game ......yes, the war was decided on 22 June 1941

Guess where 'board games' came from? Most of your higher ranks play them all the time, and so do troops; they're called 'field exercises' in many cases, or 'camping trips' for those who like to go on them.

 

[harmonica]

DudleySmith yes, we'll fly troops all over just like they did in Vietnam
AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Russia is not surrendering at all--not even close

 

[harmonica]

Guess where 'board games' came from? Most of your higher ranks play them all the time, and so do troops; they're called 'field exercises' in many cases, or 'camping trips' for those who like to go on them.

Napoleon took Moscow --and lost