Could Germany have won WW2?

I've watched a few documentaries on this and given this a bit of thought and think that there are a few key points that lead to Germany being unable to win the war.

The Battle of Britain: The RAF was on the verge of collapsing when some German bombers accidently, or 'accidently' (I don't know), bombed London causing Churchill to order the bombing of Berlin. Hitler then retaliated and the RAF airfields were given a break whilst the blitz went on. I feel this is moderately important because Germany may well have attempted a sea-borne invasion (Operation Sea Lion) for which the BoB was a precursor, had they got control of the air. Whilst I feel they would have ultimately lost or failed at, due to the quality of their navy and our navy, it would have surely rattled the UK and cost us even more merchant shipping supplies in the Atlantic or channel. Would we have had the confidence to rock up in North Africa resulting in a push through Italy if we had been beaten? If we did not, "Hitler's soft underbelly" would have remained intact and the Italians would still an axis power and german resources could stay on the eastern front...

Invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa): This is the big one I think. Hitler was on track with Army Group Centre to reach Moscow before winter struck but he swung this army south to take some oil fields (to help Army Group South), delaying the blitzkrieg to Moscow. Had Hitler kept up his blitzkrieg momentum and reached Moscow before it got Very Cold (and taken the city) would the SU have sued for peace or otherwise "been out"? Because Hitler would then have his leibensrealm (don't fancy googling how to spell that...) so he might have seriously tried negotiating peace with the UK (with the UK very much on the backfoot) as he considered the British not far below Arians. I think by this point he had already offered for us to bow out fairly gracefully but keep out Empire. Crucially, I don't think any D-Day plans would have been successful without the SU steamrolling through Eastern Europe in 1944. I really think this one move cost him the war more than any other.

Declaring War on the US / alignment with Japan: Hitler did not need to declare war on the US. I can sort of see why he did; the US were supplying the UK and SU with all sorts of arms in their own ships and deliberately placing their neutral ships in the way (e.g. Iceland). I don't know if the US would have joined in the European war if Hitler hadn't made the decision for them; they were anti-war in general and the pacific theatre was particularly savage so there might not be much appetite to join in. Would D-Day have been successful without US service men but with UK, Canada, Australia (plus smaller numbers of other countries)? I'm not sure...

Then there is the nuclear prospect. I recall from one documentary that Hitler was not that interested in nuclear technology, but would he have been able to strap one to the top of a V2? No idea about the mass of the early nuclear bombs. The other angle is that had D-Day failed or not gone ahead at all, could we have "borrowed" a nuke from the US? I would have thought yes, and that may well have ended the war regardless of the year.

There are so many scenarios that could alter the 20th century beyond recognition...
 
One of the big reasons why Hitler could not have ever won WW2 was simple logistics. Germany's was horrible - it was still horseback in many areas! Add to their constant overengineering, resulting in breakdowns that couldn't be repaired on the field often, and their lack of oil supplies, and it was always going to be a disaster.

The Nazis were equipped for quick Blitz strikes, not for prolonged war. The UK refusing to surrender is essentially what cost Hitler the European theatre, as he had to waste time dealing with us instead of focusing fully on the Soviet problem.
 
fastwunz said:
It still astonishes me that a country so civilised as Germany could allow itself to do the things it did. I know ‘why’ it all happened but literally, how could the populace even countenance such atrocities, brutal invasions, mass slaughter and destruction of its fellow human beings? How?

I cannot for one moment think either myself or anyone I know for that matter would ever think they were doing the right thing and yet, they did. Hitler must have been one hell of a brain washer.
Click to expand...

No different to today with brexit etc in the UK and the USA with trump. The masses are easily manipulated by mass media. Make the population scared and blame the 'other people' and convince everyone getting rid of a people / organisation will solve all your problems and people who are gullible lap it up.

As the Nazi's said, you can't convert the interlectuals so don't try, make your arguments appeal to the common man and make it emotional with a simple slogan.

'It's the Jews fault'

'it's the EU'S fault'

'get brexit done'

Now obviously I'm not comparing genocide to leaving the EU, but remember were talking about the psychology only, I.e. How to program the masses.

Also don't think of it retrospectivly, at the time of the psychology I'm speaking of, the normal german voter had absolutely no idea Hitler would commit mass genocide, they thought they were voting for the benefit of themselves and their country, but we're led down a different path.

However Hitlers and the nazi's slogans were errely similar to the brexit campaign, also even more similar how trump is operating now.....the mass population mind games generally always work and are always the same.

Again think of it retrospective, not what would happened 3-4-5-6 years after the people had voted.....that is why the Germans voted Hitler in, he promised them the world, and for the first year or two just prior to invasions Germanys economy was booming for the native non jew German, he made ppl feel good, of course that would soon change in a few short years as his anti jew campaigns grew.....but by that point he has already entrenched himself and became impossible to remove from power.

Keep an eye on the next 5-10 years of our modern existence, especially if trump trys to entrench himself in power.....and watch what the torys do with brexit.
 
The US only had a few nukes (I think one left afer end of WW2) of course their enemies didnt know that at the time.

The question could have Germany won, I think the answer is yes, but their opportunities were narrow.

A constant in WW2 was airpower, early on Germany had it, the biggest battle in Poland was significantly aided by Stukas, likewise first year of Russian invasion, Germany relied greatly on its airpower. Same in France, and rest of Western Europe.

In the battle for Normandy, there was a slow battle of attrition which Germany was losing, the allies with their industrial might were managing to out supply German troops over the sea, vs Germany only having to do it over land, this was aided largely by Allied air bombing German logistics and factories. The breakthrough, which kick started the advance was massive carpet bombing of German troops and tanks, so again airpower.

When the Germans counter attacked, under bad weather, they initially made good gains, but as soon as the clouds cleared and the allied planes were back in action, they were pushed back.

The fuel issue I dont know how big a problem that actually was for the Germans, whether it meant they had undeployed tanks and planes as said in the history books, or not.

I think if the UK was taken then that means using that as a launchpad for the allied attacks would have been lost. The war could have been very different, so to me the key is the battle of Britain. Churchill resisted multiple requests of peace.

I personally think the Russians were planning to attack in 1941/1942 hence I think that was the reason the Germans suddenly switched attention.

They had so many "nearly there's"

Jet fighters.
The new subs that were been developed which are the basis of modern subs used today.
The V2 rockets, which modern missiles were designed from.
Very nice tiger tanks, which the problem was they could never produce in decent numbers, so ultimately lost out to much larger numbers of weaker tanks.

The allies strategy was akin to RTS computer games, where a strategy would be to won by brute force, attacking with 10x the firepower the enemy has to overwhelm them, the size of the Air raid forces from the allies was monstrous.
 
Roar87 said:
Why do you think that? Hitler respected the Brits, he didn't want a war with us
Click to expand...

Of course not - Britain in 1939 was still very powerful and therefore not a country anyone wanted a war with. He wanted a surrender instead, or at least isolationism to begin with and a de facto surrender afterwards. Hitler's only concern was for where he ruled.

4K8KW10 said:
The potential outcome could have been a pan-Germanic union of all the Germanic nations.
I think Hitler not only didn't expect declaration of war from Britain but help from Britain.
Click to expand...

Like help from Italy. There was no union of equals on the cards, only at best a pseudo-union of subordinate countries. Like, for example, eastern European countries under the Soviet Union.

If Hitler wanted a "pan-Germanic union of all the Germanic nations", why did he conquer most of them? Also, it's a hell of a stretch to call Britain a Germanic country. English is generally classed as a Germanic language, but that's a very loose classification and it's quite different to England being Germanic, let alone the whole of Britain.

flea.rider said:
simple fact is if he would have dug in and waited 6-12 months before attacking the ussr and held the eu before attacking the uk .. then yes he would have won .. //why ?
because his long range missiles and rocket powered planes would have been in operation .. never mind the new tanks and hand weapons ..
thank god he felt he could not wait ..
Click to expand...

There are two big problems with the "wait and attack the USSR later" idea. Firstly, the USSR was planning to attack Germany. Were they going to be ready to do so 3 months later? Hitler didn't know. Secondly, Germany was almost out of oil and wouldn't have been able to mount an attack on the USSR 6-12 months later. They were already far more dependent on horses than is often realised because they didn't have enough oil to fuel all the vehicles needed. There are extant documents showing how acute the crisis was. Hitler was being increasingly bluntly told by his advisors that the oil situation was critical, to the extent of being informed that if Germany didn't secure a lot more oil supply by the end of 1941 they would lose the war. Which he knew anyway and which was the reason behind some of his apparently stupid strategic decisions.

4K8KW10 said:
Well, he was right about that. Why did Britain accept the U.S independence, in the first place?
Click to expand...

Because it was another facet of the ongoing conflict between the British, French and Spanish empires. In the late 18th century, those dozen British colonies weren't worth anywhere near a global war. The idea that this was solely colonists rebelling against the mother country and declaring independence is nonsense. Useful nonsense for USA nationalism, but still nonsense. The French and Spanish empires played a far larger part in the American war of independence than the American rebels did. Many of the important conflicts in the war weren't in America and didn't involve any of the American rebels at all and none of them were solely American rebels against the British empire.

CaptainRAVE said:
Good thing Hitler never got hold of nukes. Would have been game over.
Click to expand...

Probably, but thankfully they weren't even close. Not that anyone knew that at the time.

neocon said:
No, the Americans had a secret bomb that could've been dropped on German cities.
Click to expand...

They had two and potentially a 3rd. They didn't have the capability to produce them in larger quantities in a short period of time, though they were very good at pretending they did. Feeding false information to the enemy is an important part of war.
 
chrcoluk said:
[..] The fuel issue I dont know how big a problem that actually was for the Germans, whether it meant they had undeployed tanks and planes as said in the history books, or not.
Click to expand...

It was catastrophic. It goes beyond "undeployed tanks and planes". It's also unbuilt tanks and planes (and submarines and everything else). It's also failed logistics because they didn't have the fuel to move the resources to where they were needed. It's also an inability to sustain an idea crucial to the military strategy of "movement war" that was a key part of WW2 Germany's plans. What's usually called 'blitzkreig' now, although that word was never used by the Germans in WW2. In WW2, Germany was fielding horses. Huge numbers of horses. Because they didn't have the fuel to use vehicles for logistics. Armies on foot. Artillery pulled by horses. In the 1940s. But it went even further than that, because by that time oil was also crucial for manufacturing and war needs a lot of manufacturing capacity.

This is a longish video (~45 minutes) but it does a good job of covering the oil situation in WW2.

 
I thought this was a joke. But you are still going with it.

Germany never had the resources by sea or air to successfully invade England and they hadn't a hope of wining the Battle of Britain.
(Fighter Command ended the battle stronger than when it began, with about 40% more operational pilots, and more aircraft. The Luftwaffe meanwhile emerged battered and depleted, having lost 30% of its operational strength)

They didn't have the means to reach Canada or the US in any strength.
 
Angilion said:
That's debateable now, but also irrelevant. Also, why do you count only two Germanic nations? ("the other Germanic nation"). Why not other countries that speak a Germanic language? There are half a dozen at least. Most of which were invaded by Germany in WW2. Why not the other countries that were in the area the Romans called Germania, the origin of the whole idea of "Germanic"? Which didn't include Britain.

As for betrayal, the only country Britain arguably betrayed in the run up to WW2 was Czechoslovakia.
Click to expand...

I would argue in many respects also Poland and to a lesser extent Norway - but in reality there were limits to what Britain could do - mounting a defence of Poland would have meant being much more prepared in advance than the reality.
 
chrcoluk said:
....
The fuel issue I dont know how big a problem that actually was for the Germans, whether it meant they had undeployed tanks and planes as said in the history books, or not....
..Very nice tiger tanks, which the problem was they could never produce in decent numbers, so ultimately lost out to much larger numbers of weaker tanks.
Click to expand...


The issue with the tiger was its was heavy on fuel, would break down a lot, complex to make and repair. A lot were abandoned due to those issue as any other.
The other issue was they couldn't protect them from air attack. If they were caught out in the open. Even if a actual direct hit was rare, the shock wave from Bombs would damage both tank and crew.
If you are retreating and a tank runs out of fuel, or throws a track, or breaks down. Its abandoned and lost.
But it was beast no doubt about that...
 
Angilion said:
It was catastrophic. It goes beyond "undeployed tanks and planes". It's also unbuilt tanks and planes (and submarines and everything else). It's also failed logistics because they didn't have the fuel to move the resources to where they were needed. It's also an inability to sustain an idea crucial to the military strategy of "movement war" that was a key part of WW2 Germany's plans. What's usually called 'blitzkreig' now, although that word was never used by the Germans in WW2. In WW2, Germany was fielding horses. Huge numbers of horses. Because they didn't have the fuel to use vehicles for logistics. Armies on foot. Artillery pulled by horses. In the 1940s. But it went even further than that, because by that time oil was also crucial for manufacturing and war needs a lot of manufacturing capacity.

This is a longish video (~45 minutes) but it does a good job of covering the oil situation in WW2.

Click to expand...

yeah thanks for the link.

Ironically I do agree with some of his points, I always felt the history books calling hitler an idiot was primarily down to the fact hitler didnt survive to defend his decision making
 
I think he just should have returned the territories pre-WW1, allow Poland to exist with a small land area, settle with the Soviet Union and try to keep the west at bay.

Probably 99% success.

 
Last edited:
The Running Man said:
The US was heavily lending both supplies and resources to the UK and to an extent Russia.

As I said, had the UK fallen very early things would have been very different indeed.
Click to expand...

Yes and we probably would have done if Germany continued to focus on the RAF. I just don't see what Hitler thought he'd gain from Japan by declaring war on the USA as well.

Angilion said:
It's a thought, but I don't think it would drastically altered the outcome of WW2. Roosevelt understood that the USA was going to be at war with Nazi Germany and it was only a matter of when. Unsurprisingly, he wanted it to be fought somewhere other than in the USA and with powerful allies. He knew that meant starting sooner rather than later. The sticking point was widespread popular support in the USA for isolationism, but Roosevelt was already planning the war well before the USA officially declared war on Germany and the USA was already sort of involved in the war before it was officially involved in the war. Granted, initially the USA charged the UK a lot for help. That part often gets overlooked. But at that stage it wasn't viable in terms of domestic politics for Roosevelt to do otherwise and it quickly changed. The USA was actively involved in fighting a war against Germany months before the official declaration of war, although some of that was officially whitewashed for a little while. The first USA soldiers deployed to Britain, for example, (6 months before Germany declared war on the USA) were officially described as "technicians" because that was a useful lie at the time. Greenland was occupied by the USA even earlier, although the USA forces doing so were (at least officially) the USA coast guard rather than the USA military. Iceland was occupied by openly acknowledged USA military forces (replacing British and Canadian soldiers deployed elsewhere) in July 1941, still 5 months before Germany declared war on the USA. The fighting between German and USA military forces started 3 months before Germany declared war on the USA and the the first deaths in combat of USA military came a few weeks later. Roosevelt acknowledged the new policy to the USA public before Germany declared war on the USA, after a USA ship openly flying the USA flag was attacked by a German submarine. Still well before Germany declared war on the USA.

So I think it wouldn't have drastically changed the outcome of the war if Germany hadn't declared war on the USA.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I always thought though it would have been difficult for Roosevelt to justify to the American populace that taking the fight to Germany is the right call, and not those sneaky Japs that just sunk all our boats/sailors. We'll deal with them later sorta talk.

I'm not well versed in American politics but don't congress have a say in this kind of stuff?
 
potatolord said:
Soviet Zerg rush ftw.

Stalin: "I am in your base killing ur d00dz"
Click to expand...

I don't think the imbalance in number of soldiers was as great as it's often made out to be. The idea that the Soviets just threw soliders at the Germans a dozen or so to one has serious flaws (especially given recently declassified Soviet-era documentation about WW2). Tanks, probably, but not people. The USSR sure did make a lot of tanks in WW2 (and most of them were pretty poor).
 
Smokey Deza said:
Yes and we probably would have done if Germany continued to focus on the RAF. I just don't see what Hitler thought he'd gain from Japan by declaring war on the USA as well.
Click to expand...

I don't think that what he could get from Japan was the main reason. War with the USA was already inevitable and time was on the USA's side, not Germany's. The USA had vast quantities of oil and other resources and an enormous industrial manufacturing capacity. Germany didn't.

Interesting. I always thought though it would have been difficult for Roosevelt to justify to the American populace that taking the fight to Germany is the right call, and not those sneaky Japs that just sunk all our boats/sailors. We'll deal with them later sorta talk.
Click to expand...

It was, which was why the initial steps were done on the quiet, even going as far as issuing a secret order for USA military vessels to take the offensive. It's also why the pre-declared-war conflict was packaged as not war at all, even when USA ground forces were openly involved (e.g. the occupation of Iceland). But when Germany started sinking USA ships and killing USA citizens (and Roosevelt made very sure everyone+dog in the USA knew that had happened), popular opinion in the USA shifted.


I'm not well versed in American politics but don't congress have a say in this kind of stuff?
Click to expand...

In a declaration of war, yes. But a president who's willing to push the issue can send "technicians" and "advisors" and deploy military forces to defend USA stuff. Like USA military bases in Iceland and Ireland and Britain and USA ships at sea and a remarkably wide interpretation of USA waters in the Atlantic. Roosevelt was skirting the edge a bit while the USA was officially neutral, for the reasons I gave.
 
4K8KW10 said:
I think he just should have returned the territories pre-WW1, allow Poland to exist with a small land area, settle with the Soviet Union and try to keep the west at bay.

Probably 99% success.
Click to expand...

In this scenario, in the long term Germany would be unable to compete industrially, militarily, academically and culturally with USSR and USA. It would have to resort to existing as a muppet of one of the superpowers (like it did post WW2).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom