Hitler and the Pacific...

Does anybody know how much attention Hitler paid to the battles of the Pacific? I would imagine he could work his timing on the Western Front to coincide with difficulties the Allies had in the Pacific for max advantage

 

Just checking in on this again. Does anybody know if Hitler recieved Pacific briefs so he could decide how to position his troops?

 

The only time I remember Hitler mentioning anything about the war in the Pacific was Pearl Harbor, I don't remember his exact words, but he was just as shocked as the U.S. Then of course he declared war against the U.S on the 11th of December, seriously helping to screw himself and his country over.......

 

It's not at all clear just how good or bad a move his declaration of war was. It would have been better for him to have delayed a bit to get more subs into position but war was coming and allowing the US to remove a significant area of the Atlantic from the area available to send subs to simply by fiat wasn't all that positive for Germany either. His declaring war also meant that the US was going to concentrate more on equipping it's own forces rather than sending them to the USSR or the Commonwealth where they might end up on the front line quicker.

Hitler certainly "screwed" Germany but he'd done that already.

 

I'm not sure. My position at this point is that it's not clear just how bad of move it was declaring war on the 11th. Waiting a bit to get more of his forces in place would probably have hurt us more. Waiting for us to declare war when we were ready would probably have been even worse for him and Germany. What the least bad course was for Germany is IMO an open question and not a trivial one. Politics, economics, and the military situation all play a part and interact in pretty complicated ways.

 

It would make it easier to justify the Germany first approach. If the US declares war though hopefully things would be better prepared especially as far as ASW along the East Coast. The public was also very upset with Japan so might have been somewhat amenable to a delay in the declaration of war vs Germany. On the other hand FDR wanted as many as possible behind the declaration of war so may well have decided to ask Congress for one while there was a lot of public support.

All in all this is one of those "truisms" that I think merits more investigation. It may well be accurate but it could just as easily be off. Depends a lot on how it is framed as well. By 6 Dec 1941 Hitler had already pretty much assured Germany's defeat the question at the time was when and at what cost. Did he have better options than declaring war on the 11th? I think so but I also think he had worse.

 

I absolutely agree that Germany was done the very minute they attacked the Soviet Union on that fateful day of June 22 1941, but with the addition of the U.S as you mentioned, the sheer production numbers were enough to slowly ware away at the German's. For the people of Germany, the day and night bombing campaign killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. In some ways though U.S involvement saved Hundreds of Thousands of Germans from the Soviets, British and U.S treatment of POW's was way better than the Soviets, and that's an understatement.

 

But US production was already supporting both the British and Soviets. Furthermore the US would enter the war. FDR had been aiming for it for some time but neither the population or the military was really ready for it (Congress might have passed the declaration as early as the fall of 41 had FDR requested it but without the margin FDR wanted). So how much damage did Hitler really do to his prospects by declaring war on the 11th?

 

Indeed but given the PH attack did the German declaration really have that much impact? If so when was it enough to offset the shipping losses off the East Coast?

 

I'm with Opana on this one, yes the U.S was making materials for the Brits and Soviets, but not at the same pace or quantity after Pearl Harbor. The U.S giving an a set amount of lend lease items, when the U.S got involved there was no set amount, it was just "make as much as you can".

 

OP here:

Ok, thanks to everyone who has responded. We pretty much have a consensus that Hitler was too caught up in his own fronts that he didn't listen to briefs on the Pacific.

So now I have a new question. If Hitler didn't take Pacific briefs then who did?

 

Hello exhausted, I think that the Germans were so caught up in their own problems and information that besides maybe hearing about major battle's and the occasional sharing of intelligence that there wasn't much communication between the two at least in the way of strategy or coordination (besides submarines)