Why with Austria and Sudetenland

Originally Posted by Skipper67
I believe the Omega meant that the German army was not "completely" ready and that some units had still obsolete armament. There are always these cliché pictures with modern Panzers and aircraft raging Blitzkrieg, but these were the spear heads and many other troops followed on horses and bicycles. Not to mention that the Navy had not enough ships to challenge the British

The Longer Hitler put off war.And was able to prepare the war would have had longer run for Germany. My reasoning was the idea of letting Russia attack Poland and use that as reason for invasion. Instead of Gleiwitz incident. With Russia invading claim that it had to invade Poland to protect Germany. Let Russia have what was promised in the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact. Thus buying Hitler more time to build up airforce and so on. England and France may have been slower to move not knowing, who to attack. Note hind site is 20/20. And everyone has brought new thoughts on this matter. But beast of burden in Blitz war should have sounded foolish even to Hitler. The Omega

 

An interesting position. According to the alliance treaty France and Britain were to protect Poland against any ennemy. I believe there is a "what if" thread on the forum which deals with this situation. Russia waited for Germany to attack first precisely to avoid a war declaration from France and from England.

 

Agree totally Skipper.....

That damn sneaky Stalin!

 

Yes but a fine politician and a hell of a strategist. Eventually he's the one who got territory from Poland and kept the territories behind the Brest-Litowks line in 1945.

 

From what I have gathered from this discussion. He Hitler had a timeline in his head and was sticking to it. And going to war is like having kids,If you wait till you can afford and are ready for it you never would have kids or a war.And its much easier to take land with blitz warfare,But your plan for holding on to it better be much better than the one used for having taken it. The Omega

 

Hitler was also in 1938 suffering from voice problems and was found to have a benign tumor in his throat. That was removed but Hitler got so far as to make his first testament before (?) the operation. Don´t know if this has anything to do with it but late in the 1930´s Hitler was saying he wanted to have war before he was too old, and by this he meant that he could not wait for another ten years. Perhaps another part of the puzzle why war started in 1939.

 

Really? I neither knew he had a tumor nor that science was advanced enough to remove it. Interesting aspect , to say the least.

 

It was a simple procedure actually if I recall correctly. A polyp in his vocal cord, typical of people speaking and singing a lot, and removed it with mr H probably in light anestesia using a scope through his mouth.

 

Removal of exposed tumors on or near the surface goes back to at least Roman times in the west. Kaiser Wilhelm II died following a unsucessfull attempt to remove a throat tumor.

The surgical techniques for such things were known. The science that was lacking was first the understanding of infection & sanitation, and secondly anesthesia. Not much point in skilled cutting if the patients inariably die of shock or infection. Surgeons were limited to realtively minor procedures or fast amputations.

 

Adolf didn't have a timetable as such. As Kai says, all he had in terms of timetable were his fear of getting too old and not have energies enough to pursue a war, his fear of disease, enhanced by this polyp, and his notion that he was irreplaceable, any successor he might have would not have his willpower etc to go through.

 

And found the previous posting of the first testament:

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/10177-hitler-s-testament-1938-a.html

 

As far as I know, Stalin wasn't half as interested in invading Poland as Hitler was. Hitler wanted to take over Poland; Stalin didn't invade until well after the Germans had defeated the Poles and did so just to make certain that the Germans didn't occupy their section of the country. Hitler would never have let Stalin invade Poland first, either, because that would risk Poland collapsing suddenly and then have the Russians suddenly sitting right next to the German border, occupying traditionally German land, and making Hitler look like a fool for allowing the arch-enemy communists beat him to the draw.

In addition, as others have pointed out, Hitler wanted war and realized that the sooner the better as already by late 1938 both France and Britain were rearming and everyone knew war was becoming more probable. The economies of France and Britain were bigger than Germany's and this meant that time was not on Germany's side. While Germany would get bigger and better, the Allied rearmament would outdo the German and make any future confrontation much more difficult.

However, one shouldn't think that Hitler was desiring war with France and Britain. If he could avoid war with the western Allies, he would. Hitler wanted first and foremost to "blood" his army. He knew that his army had no actual battle experience and this would be crucial in any ultimate war with the western Allies or Russia. This is why Hitler was upset that he hadn't gotten to fight Czechoslovakia and why he didn't want to just negotiate to get back Danzig. He wanted a localized war where his army and air force could gain experience destroying a much smaller force. He bargained on being able to fight a localized war in eastern Europe without drawing in France and Britain. And so even after he started the war Hitler kept trying again and again to come to terms with Britain; if he didn't have to fight them he would have been more than happy. His ultimate goal would have been to bring in Britain as an ally in a grand crusade against the Soviet Union.

By coming to terms (temporarily) with the USSR he thought he had checkmated the Allies and kept them from declaring war since it was obvious at that point that Poland was doomed. He even delayed Case White a few days in an attempt to keep the Allies from declaring war. It didn't work and he decided he was too far along to stop and so the attack on Poland went ahead and WWII proceeded as we know from history.

So, Hitler wanted a quick and easy, localized war in eastern Europe before ultimately turning on the USSR and, if necessary, the western Allies. Whatever the case, it made sense to move in 1938 and 1939 because at that moment Germany had already rearmed to a significant degree while Britain and France had just started. There was a narrow window of time in which Germany would be superior and could disregard French and British opinion. As Kai-Petri also pointed out, personally Hitler didn't think he had a lot of time and so there was a "perfect storm" of causes that came together in 1939 and led Hitler to moving when and where he did.

 

Nothing to disagree here, a well written and informative post.

As a side note, Stalin's beef with Poland was about some disputed formerly Russian territory, while at the same time adding more buffer territory for an enemy (Germany, who else) to walk before reaching the SU's proper borders, the same thing with the Balt states and the bits of land north of Leningrad. This was another instance of Stalin's typical method of opportunistically making use of an inopinate occasion.

 

Stalin was also among the Red Army troops ca 1920 trying to take Warsaw when the so-called "miracle at the Vistula" took place. Stalin was considered one of the main men at fault the battle was lost, well, if this is the truth I cannot say for sure. Anyway, some say this was another reason why Stalin wanted to pay the debts to the Poles and I think Stalin remembered well if anyone had hurt him in any way....

Battle of Warsaw (1920 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)