How Germany could've won?

Are these threads still going?

Has Germany won yet?

 

It was possible, but unlikely. Hindsight is 20/20 of course.

The defeat of France is the greatest military achievement in warfare. Two World Powers of about equal strength on paper - and the one conquers the other with almost no casualties. This "miracle" allowed Germany to acquire much need infrastructural. It allowed them to fight 3 World Powers simultaneously.

Its argued that Germany did not want to go to war with England and France in 1939. That they were still "gathering their amrs" so to speak. They thought they would call the bluff of France and the UK with Poland. The idea was Germany would, one by one, take its neighboring nations and build up its forces. Probably to start their "war" in the late 40s or so. I forget who it was, but a high ranking German Official admitted after the war that if the UK or France had attacked them while they were in Poland, they could have defeated Germany relatively quickly..

I love using Starcraft as an example. Everyone starts off with a Command Center and no fighting troops. The first thing you do is build workers; SCVs. The SCVs gather minerals and gas. The more SCVs you build, the more minerals and gas you have, the more soldier and tanks you can make to fight. You eventually get enough minerals to build another Command Center, where you can get more minerals and gas etc..

So in the beginning of the game the player has to make a gamble.

Option 1: Do I make a lot of SCVs and try to expand to another Command Center first?
or
Option 2: Do I immediately put all my resources into building combat units as fast I can?

The disadvantage of the first option is that you are open to attack early, but the advantage is that you have a powerful economy ready to mass produce equipment for the "late game". The advantage of the second option is that you can "Blitz" other players who have not built up armies or defenses. However, the disadvantage of opinion 2 is that if you don't win with your Blitz, you don't have the economy to carry a long match in the "late game".

Basically when the UK and France declared war on Germany after Poland, they forced Germany into going with option number 2 above... This Blitz was very successful at first against France. But the German economy and military was still not set up to fight a long war against the economic monster that is the United States (supplying the UK & USSR). Thus, Germany turned to its hated, but resource rich, foe - Russia.

If Germany could push Russia out of Europe and take their resources, then would Hitler have an infrastructure to defeat the Western Allies.

Germany's biggest enemy was its lack of resources to fuel her war.

The attack on Russia could not wait. Russia was just recovering from the Winter war and the Purge. This is the weakest point to hit Russia. Waiting would only allow the Russians to get stronger as they industrialized. Hitler and Stalin knew they would eventually fight each other, so it was a race against the clock.

The rest is history. So my friend, you see Germany in a way actually did the best that they could given the cards handed to them. The fact that they defeated France is pretty mind blowing really. From the start, Hitler thought France would actually be where most of the fighting would commence!

My opinion using the power of hindsight would be if Germany could have somehow mastered a plan to get Russia and the Allies to fight each other. Or have gotten another World Power as an ally (who, I am not sure). The most realistic option that "might" have helped change things would have been to get Japan to invade the USSR. But it really did depend on them defeating Russia. And Hitler knew it. Which is why they "couldn't give up" on the Eastern Front. And why immediately after Stalingrad they desperately pushed into Kursk.

The logic was:
No beating Russia = No beating America.

Once Kursk failed and the Allies landed on Normandy the following year, Germany was faced with a two front war. Its fear from the beginning. All this and that doesn't even get into dealing with the American development of the Bomb that Germany would eventually have to face no matter what she did in Europe.

 

But of course: at Soccer World Cups 1954, 1974 and 1990.

 

Very interesting. Of course hindsight is 20/20.

I think its very interesting about them using France as a bargaining chip. That may have worked. Or perhaps try to get the UK and company to team up with them against Russia. I think that could have been really realistic. Another biggie is that nobody for saw the power that the US and Russia would become. (They beat Russia in WW1 why would it be different this time?)

Theres also the factor that Hitler was not what you'd call a man of compromise. I think he'd have a serious ego problem with giving up conquered land. (Just look at Stalingrad). And his "manifest destiny" view of invincibility. I mean his over confidence was a big problem.
So even if you had a time machine and went back. He'd probably dismiss you and give some rant about German supermen and Russian pig dogs or whatever.

 

I read over bits and pieces of this thread and, am intrigued and fascinated with the perspectives I saw..looks to be some intelligent and well thought out responses within here.

I imagine a lot of people have seen this and, while there are many other factors to take note of and consider that have already been discussed in this thread, I have always found this particular video interesting in a "What if" scenario - perhaps there's some of you whom not seen this video, itself has some intriguing perspectives from both sides of the line.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd6ShJNO9pI[/youtube]

 

Have we had a montage of nuclear weapons on here for a while?
Must be overdue another.

2:35's my favourite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gD_TL1BqFg

 

Perhaps something better than Mussolini:

 

I read an interesting book today, cited and backed up with facts. Chamberlain and the French were purposely conceding to Germany because they were sure he was going to lead the crusade to topple Stalin. England and France signed the pact with Poland because Poland was anti-communist, anti-Soviet Union, and 13 days before 0/1/1939 one of the top men in the Polish government praised Germany. Poland refused to allow Russian troops into their land to bolster defense of German aggression and refused to cut any deals with Stalin and the Communists, so the British and French signed the pact with Poland just to save face. As seen in events, they had no intention of coming to the rescue and let Poland burn to the ground, and in the winter of 1939 the Allies were planning offensive attacks on Russia and to support Finland and take NO ACTION against Germany, even though they declared war on them and not Russia. The heads of the Allied governments thought they would reach a peace agreement with Hitler before any actions were taken which is why they didn't move any ground troops into the Rhineland when the entire German war machine was in Poland. Hitler must have had some thirst for revenge, and as Germany was expanding East ultimately the major European powers would be all fighting for economic dominance in one way or another.

 

Interesting. Could you please tell us the tittle of the book. I would like to have it in my library.

 

IMHO, there's just too much wrong to bother correcting in detail.

 

This is a lot of nonsens .

Besides,talking about "the Allies" is wrong : Britain had only 2 divisions,thus,it would be France that should do the fighting .

 

Read the book, its by Peter Cohen. I also saw an interview with a member of the French government at the time on the BBC's "the World at War" who even talked about planning an offensive against Russia through Finland and nothing planned against Germany before or after Britain sent more troops. I didn't quote it verbatim but its sourced and Britain had more 150,000 troops active on September 1939

 

Could have something to do with 1) Poland's rapid destruction between the evil alliance of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany 2) Finland holding out against the Soviets.

Which British idiot wanted to throw themselves onto the continent immediately? To what use? Oh, that's right, let's ignore the wishes of France, and the fact the French army vastly outnumbers the British.... It's an Allied conspiracy to give away Poland! Because we know the British were constantly trying to negotiate a peace already after the 2nd of September.

The UK strategy has always been to nibble at the perifery. Their naval superiority gave them that luxury.

 

I should have been clearer. The bankers, industrialists, and money-men of Britain, France, and the US were behind the support of the Nazis under the guise of toppling Communism, but the officials and statesmen in the government eventually saw the light at the end of the tunnel of Nazi hegemony in Europe.

 

And even Churchill admitted in his series of books afterwards that it was German economic interests under the growing Nazi Empire competing with those of the British Empire with all that comes with it including hegemony, resources, capital, global competition, etc. that had to be stopped, the war was the pretext.

 

That simply doesn't make sense.

 

Its on record that numerous American and British bankers, lawyers and industrialists were openly financing and supporting the Nazis in the run-up to the war. Hell, some were even prosecuted at Nuremburg, though they never served any time. Allen Dulles, John Foster Dulles, both lawyers for Cromwell-Sullivan, were the go-betweens for money going to and from Germany and the West using the BIS. Du Point oil, Henry Ford, GM, Standard Oil, IBM, Prescott Bush. This stuff is all cited and not very hard to find in real scholarly works by professionals. J. Edgar Hoover seized Prescott Bush's funds using the "Trading with the Enemy" Act for his work the the Union Banking Company, as they were basically a money-launderer for the Nazi Industry. Soviet Bolshevism was seen as Western Free Market Capitalism's gravest danger, and the big businesses and Industrialists were the ones with all the power pulling the strings. Rockefellar, J.P. Morgan, etc.

 

This is a conspiracy theory without any foundation : everything Wallstreet did was legal,besides,Wallstreet had no ideological preference : it was also doing business with Stalin .

 

Some of them did indeed have investments in Germany. Some of the same ones also had investments or commercial undertakings in the USSR. In some cases it was companies in both countries that owned parts of each other or who had made deals that had nothing to do with the Nazis and may even have predated them. Germany was a key player in the industrial world in the first half of the 20th century.

Which means that they were found innocent of the crimes under consideration. That's not something that those not brought before the tribunal can claim is it?

Indeed, but what's your point?

And that's why Ford was setting up plants in the USSR. International capitalism for better or worse has trancended politics on many occasions. It's the nature of the beast. That doesn't mean there was some huge conspiracy in place.

 

But you cannot argue of Churchill's speeches in 1919 and 1920 against Bolshevism and its goals to destroy everything Western, and the fact the 300,000 Western Allied troops were sent to fight down the Bolshevik Revolution from 1918-1922, and yes Wall Street did play a role in financing the Soviets but on the Trotsky side, when Stalin purged and took power after Lenin is when things started to change in terms of the view of Soviets from the Western World.

And the firms in U.S.-German firms, for example I.G. Farben's subsidiary, there were four members on the board- 2 Germans, 2 Americans, but only the Germans were put on trial. Standard Oil (Rockefellar) kept a lock on their patents for use only with Germany's I.G. Farben in regards to synthetic oil and refused to release the patents to U.S. Companies after war was declared with Germany until Congress finally stepped in, with help from Truman's committee. GE and Krupp shared a similar patent deal with Carbaloy and either wouldn't sell or jacked up the price to U.S. firms until the Senate stepped in. Studies conducted after the war by the government concluded that U.S. businesses were let off the hook and could have and should have been prosecuted to the full extent.