Could Germany have won WW2?

Soldato
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Fascism is definitely right wing and Communism is definitely left. But politics is like a circle and if you go far enough the two ends more or less join up.

I disagree that Fascism is Right Wing. I've given multiple examples of Left Wing attitudes and policies in both of our modern examples of Fascism (Italian Fascism and Nazism). Whilst Fascism and Communism are doctrinally and historically violently opposed to one another, I don't feel that makes Fascism Right Wing any more than my arguing with a White person makes me Black.

That said this is good argument and I retract the part of what I wrote above about everybody always arguing by logical fallacy:

The bully boys SA enabled Hitler to gain power. The SA were ideologically wanting revolution, and wanted to target the money holders - the brownshirts (SA) wanted to more strongly to enact the socialist part of National Socialism. After Hitler gained power he dismantled the SA in the so-called 'night of the long knives'. This was because the Nazis could not afford to have the SA antagonizing the elites in the country because Hitler need the acquiescence of the these power blocks to stay in power and further his aims (and because the SA as a power block could have threatened Hitlers position).

You make a valid point about Rohm's "Second Revolution" and the support of the elites, but I have two countres to it. Firstly, Rohm wanted a very extreme wealth redistribution which would have been disastrous (imo - q.v. the Soviets). Hitler with his new found entry to the halls of power no longer wanted full revolution because he didn't need it. But the Nazis DID still carry on with a lot of wealth redistribution long after the purge of the SA leaders. I say that the fact Hitler didn't want ultra-extreme Left wing behaviour does not mean that the Nazis weren't still overwhelmingly Left Wing in behaviour and doctrine. Secondly, the elites did back the Nazis for quite some time as a natural counter to communists whom they greatly feared given what was happening in the East at the time. However, it was a bargain with the devil and they lost control quickly. Additionally, a lot of the "elites" Hitler wanted to woo weren't the arch wealthy so much as they were the German military. The generals. I agree with the above but think the impression of Hitler divesting himself of socialism and joining a bunch of oligarchs is not accurate. He divested himself of the street level thugs (many of whom later became soldiers) and struck deals with the elite until he had total power. But the Nazis remained socialist and their subsequent government and policies showed this.

That said, thank you for putting the case FAR better than people I usually debate with. I am happy to agree to disagree and I hope I manage to post this before you read my other post and react badly to my comments about the usual people I argue this with!
 
Soldato
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Are you saying the Nazis were Left Wing or at least leaning more to the Left than the Right?

Yes. And to be explicit, I refer to the actual Nazis, not bone-headed neo-nazis who don't know their history (or biology) and simply think Nazism means ill-founded rants about "jews/blacks/muslims" and have no political theory beyond that. The latter can be Right Wing or Left Wing but are mostly too uneducated to really be called anything.
 
Man of Honour
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No chance, the only side that could win was the side that included the US.

Reminds me of my old dad’s laconic cum sardonic view of WW11, where he went to Normandy just after D-Day on an American LCT, was wounded outside Caen, and shipped back to a Military Hospital in Mill Hill, north London.
He always reckoned that the War took place, because America had the money, Russia had the men, and England had the time.
 
Soldato
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Personally from the vast reading I have done the last few years on the subject there are so many what if's and buts, yet if he'd followed the original timescale and given himself the extra 3 or 4 years the military were telling him they would need they would have wiped as much of Europe and Russia out as required, the super weapons being developed would have been ready and most likely would have beaten America to the Bomb. Thanks the maker he was a military idiot.

I'm weaker on this area so I look to others for agreement, but isn't it fair to say that Hitler didn't intend for the scale of war he got at the time. He wanted to expand into Eastern Europe and hoped to avoid war with Britain and Russia for the time being, no? So he actually did intend to have a couple more years before taking on the rest of Europe, I thought?
 
Caporegime
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I'm weaker on this area so I look to others for agreement, but isn't it fair to say that Hitler didn't intend for the scale of war he got at the time. He wanted to expand into Eastern Europe and hoped to avoid war with Britain and Russia for the time being, no? So he actually did intend to have a couple more years before taking on the rest of Europe, I thought?

That still wouldn't have been enough for the timescale laid out and in particular the naval/uboat strength that was required. Yes he wanted to avoid war with Russia and Britain but has he had a little restraint and let his Military tell him when they were actually ready the fight could have been so much worse. Anyway people always state XYZ as reasons for the war being shortened or lengthened but there was so much going on at once, even commando tactics on a small scale that add together, it's such an interesting subject.

Someone briefly mentions that the Japanese were more historically evil? Was this against the Chinese?.... I'm guessing they used a lot of horrific torturing techniques

All Hell let loose by Max Hastings is a must read tbh, Beevors book too. I had no idea the scale of the atrocities the Japanese committed against the Chinese. The 40-1 rape groups assigned to each woman, the bits of wood, metal and such that they shoved up them afterwards. The eating of American troops which the Americans even now don't like to talk about because they didn't/don't want their people to think their soldiers/sons were eaten instead of dying a valiant death. Both of those books have an awful amount detail in about the Japanese that I wasn't aware of. I guess it's because I knew about the Germans and Russians crimes but the Japanese stuff shocked and sickened me. I'm amazed the Chinese haven't paid them back.
 
Soldato
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I'm weaker on this area so I look to others for agreement, but isn't it fair to say that Hitler didn't intend for the scale of war he got at the time. He wanted to expand into Eastern Europe and hoped to avoid war with Britain and Russia for the time being, no? So he actually did intend to have a couple more years before taking on the rest of Europe, I thought?
Last thing he wanted was war with Britain, it became an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the round the clock bombing campaign that totally destroyed Germanys infrastructure.
 
Soldato
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Yes. And to be explicit, I refer to the actual Nazis, not bone-headed neo-nazis who don't know their history (or biology) and simply think Nazism means ill-founded rants about "jews/blacks/muslims" and have no political theory beyond that. The latter can be Right Wing or Left Wing but are mostly too uneducated to really be called anything.

Do they read history books in the alt-right bubble or do they just high five each other's unsubstantiated, clueless forum ramblings?

At the beginning of the 20th century, Socialism essentially revolved around "class struggle" and Hitler took certain mechanisms from Socialism, not the ideology itself:

The ‘National Socialists’ wanted to unite the two political camps of left and right into which, they argued, the Jews had manipulated the German nation. The basis for this was to be the idea of race. This was light years removed from the class-based ideology of socialism. […] By presenting itself as a ‘movement’, National Socialism, like the labour movement, advertised its opposition to conventional politics and its intention to subvert and ultimately overthrow the system within which it was initially forced to work. By replacing class with race, and the dictatorship of the proletariat with the dictatorship of the leader, Nazism reversed the usual terms of socialist ideology.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319473.The_Coming_of_the_Third_Reich


Furthermore, while some economic policies were indeed inspired by socialism, the social policies were 100% traditionalist/conservative. Women were to be housewives and mothers who wear traditional German peasant dress, no make-up, trousers, dye in their hair or smoking in public. I suppose these are left wing policies too huh?


The economic left wing of the Nazi party was tolerated because they needed the votes while the Weimar Republic existed. As soon as Hitler took full power, they were eliminated:

By the early 1930s Strasser was head of the Nazi political organization and second only to Hitler in power and popularity. As leader of the party’s left wing, however, he opposed Hitler’s courting of big business as well as his anti-Semitism and instead favoured radical social reforms along socialist lines. He finally resigned his party offices in 1932. Hitler was able to avert large-scale losses in membership after Strasser’s defection, and, after Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship, Strasser lost almost all of his influence. He was murdered on Hitler’s orders during the Röhm purge of 1934.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregor-Strasser

According to Speer, "...the Right, represented by the President, the Minister of Justice, and the generals, lined up behind Hitler...the strong left wing of the party, represented chiefly by the SA, was eliminated."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives


The falsities you are are peddling are a modern construct of the alt-right and they were created because, as we all know, "Reality has a well known liberal bias". Placing the Nazis on the Left political spectrum was lunacy then and it is lunacy now.

The first anniversary of the Nazi dictatorship is approaching. All the tendencies of the regime have had time to take on a clear and distinct character. The “socialist” revolution pictured by the petty-bourgeois masses as a necessary supplement to the national revolution is officially liquidated and condemned. The brotherhood of classes found its culmination in the fact that on a day especially appointed by the government the haves renounced the hors d’oeuvre and dessert in favor of the have-nots. The struggle against unemployment is reduced to the cutting of semi-starvation doles in two. The rest is the task of uniformed statistics. “Planned” autarky is simply a new stage of economic disintegration.

The more impotent the police regime of the Nazi is in the field of national economy, the more it is forced to transfer its efforts to the field of foreign policy. This corresponds fully to the inner dynamics of German capitalism, aggressive through and through. The sudden turn of the Nazi leaders to peaceful declarations could deceive only utter simpletons. What other method remains at Hitler’s disposal to transfer the responsibility for internal distresses to external enemies and to accumulate under the press of the dictatorship the explosive force of nationalism? This part of the program, outlined openly even prior to the Nazis” assumption of power, is now being fulfilled with iron logic before the eyes of the world. The date of the new European catastrophe will be determined by the time necessary for the arming of Germany. It is not a question of months, but neither is it a question of decades. It will be but a few years before Europe is again plunged into a war, unless Hitler is forestalled in time by the inner forces of Germany.


Leon Trotsky November 2, 1933

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330610.htm



Finally, if you decide to reply to this post, you might want to add some sources to the usual ramblings. Experts, historians etc. , I'm interested in the academic foundation of your ideas, assuming such a thing exists.


 
Soldato
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From what I've seen on various documentaries, the two things that stand out in my mind are that a), as you mention, taking on Russia and generally biting off more than they could chew (stretching themselves too thin), and b), Hitler was no military strategist.

Aye, if my memory serves me correctly he also ordered the Luftwaffe to stop it's attack on Britain just as the RAF was about to collapse, we rebuilt and history says the rest.
 
Caporegime
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Hitler took personal control over the eastern fronts biggest battles and basically ordered the armies there to hold their ground and fight to the last man. Not allowing them to retreat or surrender. An unskilled psychopath. He would move entire army groups around on whims and ideas.
Germany lost ww2 the minute the Russian campaign lost momentum. I'm pretty sure Russia could have won alone should the french d day landings taken a turn for the worse.

Don't forget the waste of time and resources Germany was forced to use propping up the Italian idiots in the south.
 
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Yes, they very easily could have won, as the poster above stated the italians were as good as useless.
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Soldato
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Hitler took personal control over the eastern fronts biggest battles and basically ordered the armies there to hold their ground and fight to the last man. Not allowing them to retreat or surrender. An unskilled psychopath. He would move entire army groups around on whims and ideas.
Germany lost ww2 the minute the Russian campaign lost momentum. I'm pretty sure Russia could have won alone should the french d day landings taken a turn for the worse.

Don't forget the waste of time and resources Germany was forced to use propping up the Italian idiots in the south.

Hitler did not over commit in Africa, I would say they had a negligible impact if anything. I would also argue Hitler's days were numbered as soon as he invaded Poland, Stalin would not suffer such an ideological enemy on his border for long, and he was stalling Hitler as long as he could to attack Germany himself but Hitler did so faster. Now say if Stalin was the aggressor, Germany would be steamrolled as is evident in 1944-1945, a massive numerical superiority in man and materiel. Germany could not have a dream of matching the industrial output of Russia even if it conquered the entirety of Europe.
 
Soldato
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I've read a lot of similar wwII questions on quora and it's changed my understanding to be roughly the following:

- Germany could have eventually won the battle of Britain (air battle) if they didn't turn to Russia, but it'd have been Pyrrhic. As from there, they would have needed to keep supply chains over the north sea and they'd probably need to defeat our navy to do that which they were miles from ever being able to even match us with. Hitler also wanted Britain and its empire to just sort of stay as it was - it displayed a lot of what he liked. He would have needed to destroy his "idol" just to carry on with his project that'd then be severely hampered.

- Russia would have eventually battled with the Germans at some point, and barring perfect Nazi military tactics in Britain (and in turn all her territories, which were the largest overall 'power' in the world at that time) Russia would have beaten the Germans.

- Same goes for the US

The reality is that Germany would have ultimately come up against the three big powers (Britain, US and Russia) and while Britain could have "lost" due to being overstretched with the Empire, it'd have never been sustainable for the Germans to then upkeep and it was actually beyond what they wanted to achieve as a state. The US would have got involved at some point regardless of Pearl harbour as soon as they noticed that certain powers were about to get all the British territories.

People have to rmeber that although Germany took mainland Europe by storm they still had a hell of a long way to go before they were able to take on "the world". Pursuing Russia just sort of hurried up the inevitable.
 
Man of Honour
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and they'd probably need to defeat our navy to do that

If they had won the air war then they'd have had air superiority against surface ships of the RN and that is a huge advantage.

Hitler also wanted Britain and its empire to just sort of stay as it was - it displayed a lot of what he liked. He would have needed to destroy his "idol" just to carry on with his project that'd then be severely hampered.

I don't think we were exactly his idol but he saw a lot of parallels in the more hardcore elements of the British empire and its likely what lead a lot of his thinking around the early days of the war - its conceivable that he hoped that with events of Dunkirk those elements would come to the fore in a Britain that was more in line with his goals.
 
Caporegime
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Yes, they very easily could have won, as the poster above stated the italians were as good as useless.
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Most of the literature I have read by British historians only just rates us as ground fighting unit marginally above them. With our strength by then being in commando tactics.


I've read a lot of similar wwII questions on quora and it's changed my understanding to be roughly the following:

The US would have got involved at some point regardless of Pearl harbour as soon as they noticed that certain powers were about to get all the British territories.

.

Again all the recent stuff I have read said the opposite, the Americans didn't get a toss about the breaking up of the Empire and who took it. Reluctance to get involved was due to them thinking all we wanted to do was hold on to our empire which they has no interest in helping.
 
Soldato
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If they had won the air war then they'd have had air superiority against surface ships of the RN and that is a huge advantage.



I don't think we were exactly his idol but he saw a lot of parallels in the more hardcore elements of the British empire and its likely what lead a lot of his thinking around the early days of the war - its conceivable that he hoped that with events of Dunkirk those elements would come to the fore in a Britain that was more in line with his goals.

True about air superiority, but we'd have tried to disturb military supply as much as possible and maybe go on the offensive to a few German ports at the request of the US if they were then being reactive. In general, Britain was a huge faff in proactively being a nuisance rather than just stepping aside in Europe which is all the Nazis seemed to want.

If the Nazis had well and truly invaded Birtain, i assume many british generals etc wouldn't want to play ball, so the empire would also greatly destabilize, and even if independence was granted to india etc, it'd just leave the door open to other nations to take advantage. I'd be interested to see Nazi documents on a plan for Britain in the event of winning, or what they considered a victory / satisfactory. It's almost more effort to then handle the empire than actually just busying Britain with the luftwaffe.
 
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