What did Germany need to win the war?

Was IBM directly involved? I recall reading that IBM did provide the men to repair the machines and new parts for the machines/ new machines but were not involved in using the data.

 

What i have read indicates that they (IBM) were very much complicate in their involement in the third reich and data collection in regards to Jews and other undesirables.

Not exactly the correct title but about ten years ago a book came out called something like "IBM and the Holocaust".

IBM did in fact sold them the equipment, trained men for the implentation of the equipment and maintained the equipment during the war, no they did not use the data for themselves, but IBM was as culpable as the Nazis in the Holocaust, without IBM the Nazis would never have achieved as much as they did.

 

Yes a finger slip or two, complicit it is. I follow your thinking, but according to the book IBM knew what their computers (Data Collectors) were for and sold them the machines anyway, i strongly suggest if you can read the book.

 

The Nazis would have still done everything they did, it just would have taken more work. Trying to blame IBM for the Holocaust is a a bit far fetched.

 

A comprehensive plan that envisioned [SIZE=-1]Operation Sichelschnitt ([/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sickle-stroke)[/SIZE] succeeding. The problem with sickle-stroke was that the plan ended at the English channel, there was no comprehensive planning for "what next?".

The important thing missing from sickle-stroke was a long term objective. What is sickle-stroke supposed to accomplish?

Assuming that the objective of sickle stroke is to defeat the enemy completely then sickle-stroke can be extended. If instead of ending sickle-stroke at the English channel, you extend its area of operation into England, then things change in the overall planning. Instead of having the French channel ports as objectives of the breakthrough, you extend their line of march northward and have the encirclement of the Allied forces in Belgium as a second objective. The original plan just called for pushing them to the channel, but if you intend to then move on to England you don't want a long drawn out battle against troops which can be supplied from the sea, you want them completely cut off in a battle of encirclement that Guderian was so good at fighting.

So, when the German units reach the English channel they then move north to link up with units moving south from Holland. The BEF is now surrounded.

Now an invasion of England does not have to contend with the Allied forces which have been shuttled over from Dunkirk. The British at this point have almost nothing to face an invasion with. Home guard units, that's about it.

If you make the paratroop divisions part of sickle stroke and give them British ports as objectives and launch them as soon as it is clear that the BEF is done, there isn't much the British can do about it. The Battle of Britain now becomes what it should have been, every fighter and bomber in the Luftwaffe's arsenal attacking British airfields and radar installations.

An Errol Flynn type of operation launched as soon as the BEF is bottled up would have most likely succeeded. German ships now can transport troops to port facilities instead of needing to land them on beaches. If this had been done quickly the Germans might have been able to get several divisions to England before the Royal Navy could do anything about it. Air power could then be used to resupply these units. As the units advanced they would overrun the RAF bases. As Guderian said several times the best way to defeat enemy air power is to capture the bases they fly from.

Every eyewitness account I have read from people in the British defense forces, preparing to repel the expected German invasion in 1940 read pretty much the same way. "We have five guys and an old Prussian war era cannon to defend 10 miles of beach". "We had to drill with sticks because we had no rilfes". "We had no ammunition to practice with so we had never actually fired a gun"...

I don't think this would have been easy. Every able bodied Brit would have volunteered to fight the Germans with any weapon they could find. The Germans would have massacred British civilians in retaliation. With every pane in the Luftwaffe attacking RAF bases and the RAF fighter planes in the air combined with German units overrunning RAF bases, the Luftwaffe maybe could have established air superiority. And as the fighting in Norway and alter Greece showed, once you gain air superiority the battle is over.

After such bloody fighting there would have been no "peace" treaty. The British would have followed plans laid down long before and fell back on their Empire to continue the fight.

But, Hitler would now be free to jump into Africa in full force. Malta would fall, then the Suez, then the middle east, Iraq would launch their pro-Axis coup a few years early, Turkey would be forced to at least be a friendly neutral, the Balkans would fall.

Then the Russians would have seen the writing on the wall and launched a surprise attack and the end result would have been the same, Hitler in his bunker, the Russians laying waste to Berlin. LOL

 

Oil, more men, and better tactics.

 

I strongly believe that Hitler cost himself the war early on in the peice by not capturing the BEF at Dunkerque.

This would amount insofar as to Britain the loss of

230,000 prisoners of war (equaling 15+ divisions).
64,000 vehicles.
750,000 tonnes of war materiel (include Norway an additional 250,000 tonnes making 1,000,000 tonnes overall).
500 ships and vessels either sunk or extensively damaged.

Then Hitler should have launched Operation Seelowe within 4 weeks of Dunkerque no matter what at that point Britain could not replace the loss of those division captured at Dunkerque and St. Valery-en-Crux.

So this is my answer

1, Hitler orders the panzer divisions into Dunkerque to destroy the Dunkerque Pocket, while the Luftwaffe solely concentrates in attacking shipping of the rescue convoys of Operation Dynamo.

2, Hitler completes the invasion of France but must capture France entirely and no armistice but a full unconditional surrender, creation of a German Republic of France with Petain as president, Paris as the capital and that France as partof the unconditional surrender must sign a mutual-assistance treaty with Germany and that the Franch military comes under the direct control of the OKW.

3, Hitler must conclude a mutual-assistance treaty with Norway (Quisling)

4, Hitler must deal with cutting off the Mediterannean by capturing Gibraltar via Spain either with or without Spannish approval, Hitler says Spain owes Germany for the Nationalst victory and now Germany is coming to collect on that debt.

5, Hitler launches Operation Seelowe by throwing everything that Germany has at Britain no holding back, Hitler orders Petain and Quisling to Berlin and orders them to envoke their mutual-assistance treaties and so France and Norway declare war on Britain.

Britain must be knocked out of the war, invasion so close after the destruction of the BEF at Dunkerque and St. Valery-en-Crux is the only option, anything else allows Britain to recover. Once Britain is invaded Hitler must deliver an uncondtional surrender and that part of that surrender is that Britain must sign a mutual-assistance treaty with Germany.

And to finish off postpone Barbarossa until 1942 or 1943 and build up a Deutsches Gropf Armeen (German Grand Army) with the deployment of British and French troops as part on any invasion forces into the Soviet Union.

 

Perhaps military conscription in all the occupied countries? First off it can be argued that Germany suffered from unreliable allies, often causing 'trouble' as Mussolini did in the Balkans, not 'pitching in' as Japan did against Russia, and expanding the war, or simply being too technologically backward or inneficient (as was the case with romania, hungary, bulgaria...). The volunteers in the Waffen-SS did perform well on some occasions due to their ideological motivation (they did join willingly after all) but also due to their advanced weaponry and training. Severe lack of manpower later on in the war could have been avoided with mass conscription like this no? I know many foreigners were drafted into labor..but perhaps giving them guns would have taken it too far?

Protecting all facilities of production underground, although time consuming, would have after the beginning of the major allied bombing offensives become extremely profitable.:atomic:

The scrapping of all 'wonder weapon' programs such as the retaliation weapons could have funneled more cash, manpower, and resources into making more TANKS TANKS TANKS!!anzerattack:

In my humble opinion, a great increase in portable machine guns such as the -34 and -42 as well as their ammunition, along with a gross increase in the production of hand-held anti-tank devices (ie panzerfausts) would have contributed greatly to the functionality of infantry units stripped of costly heavy weaponry.

 

The Britts rescued very little material if the BEF had been captured The British would have lost additional troops but not much additional material. Even with that Sea Lion would have been very unlikely to succeed. Now if it created a moral failure in Britain that would have made the difference but I don't see it as likely.

 

So what are you saying, that the capture of the BEF at Dunkerque and the 51st Highland and 1st Canadian Division (Part) at St. Valery-en-Crux equalling something like

250,000 prisoners (17 Fulltime Regular Divisions)
67,000 vehicles
1,000,000 tonnes of equipment (France, Low Countries and Norway)

would not be an impact or would be an impact

to replace those lost divisions would take months and the vehicles and equipment would at best take 18 months to recover

Oh don't even think to include the LDV they were at the time a dad's army, which was poorly trained and woefully armed, many thousands trained with broomsticks and other implements due to having no guns.

 

What did Germany need to win the war?
It's hard to add anymore suggestions after reading so many good and well thought out posts in this thread.

To summarize all the good posts, Germany needed:
1. A stronger, better mobilized war economy.
2. Less politics or interservice rivalry in their military (Such infighting was tacitly encouraged to maintain Hitler's hold on power)
3. Better mass production of their proven equipment designs.
4. A secure source of raw materials, including fuel.
5. A larger manpower base.

 

at first it seems correct, but if u think again u realize there is something wrong in your analysis (al least to me).

- thanks to armistice with relatively few divisions the nazis got control of france for 4 years.

- with armistice the colonies remained under the rule of an allied country (france's petain). germany was not able to take control of overseas territories. what would happen to north africa?

- the germans were not able to use directly the french fleet. the only one solution to avoid that it becomes an enemy fleet is to get it out of the war (that's what happened).

- remember that many french accepted vichy government just because it brought peace and keept german soldiers away.

- to ask unconditional surrneder you must prove u have the force to crush yr enemy. french army was defeated, not wiped out. so if german asked the french unconditional surrender the war would go on and on, with parts of the country going on fighting for months. the anti german feeling in france was still strong. france would risk becoming a never ending thartre of war, with many german divisions permanetly deployed across the country.

- so with strong delays in the french campaign crossing the channel would be very risky.

- and the same can be said for britain. in case of invasion the nazi plan was to occupy just the south and let the rest of the country under a puppet government (lord halifax is PM). after all it was a sensible idea.
no british government would ever accept unconditional surrender, in case the war would continue overseas.

 

I welcome your viewpoint and i have to say that France was in no shape at the time to argue the point if Germany offered unconditional surrender. Petain was at that point under severe pressure to end the conflict and offered the Germans an Armistice and historically Germany accepted, my P.O.D is that Hitler insisted on an Unconditional Surrender and Petain had no choice but to accept for France would have delayed the inevitable a week or two. Or face total annihalation.

 

mmm.... the "annihilation of france" fits perfect for propaganda speeches, but in fact nobody can forsee what would happen if the nazis started to use the iron fist in france. maybe many french inclined to peace would change their minds.... certaimly taking control of all france would have been a huge task and germans losses, which had been ridiculous before, would rise dramatically.
and still the nazis would have 2 main issues to face: the colonies and the french fleet. what would happen to them?

Your "unconditional surrender" scenario is built exploiting the advantages the nazis got from the armistice (short war, no losses, low hostility from population, no need to worry for colonies). But that's not a fair game

 

As I've read it the French accepted the armistice in the hopes of saving the population from a hostile occupation and preservation of the remnant of the French military forces in France. As it was they were wrong, but thats a different discussion. A demand for unconditional surrender would probablly have reverted the French leaders to the plan to remove the government to Africa. Reynaud had considered this with support from part of the ministers in his cabinent, and a portion of the Deputies he polled. However several Ministers and Deputies argued that the Germans would be reasonable and a lenient armistices was possible. Exhausted and lacking unity in his government Reynaud dropped the idea and left the government a few days later, replaced by Petain. Like the others Petain hoped for reasonable terms that would preserve French military power and independance. Like the others he was shocked at the terms dictated, but by then more precious time had run out and the French leaders now in power had their morale collapse.

A unconditional surrender diktat may very well have sparked the holdouts who had supported Reynaud to pressure Petain to make the move to Africa with the remnants of the government. Total anniliation of Metropolitan France is assured by either unconditional surrender, or another couple weeks of fighting. Just a matter of choosing which poison. Retreat to Africa preserves a independant French government and the possibility of later achiving better circumstances.

 

carl, i agree.
so in fact the "unconditional surrender" scenario might be this:
- the existence of a anti-nazi french government based i north africa, which can rely on the intact fleet.
- the mediterrenean would be dominated by the anglo-french units
- the italian fleet stay permanently in horbours
- crossing the mediterranean become a nightmare for axis, and of course germany don't send afrika korp,
- mediterranean becomes crucial and the british decide to reinforce egypt.
- libya is not resupplied and collapse soon!! french attack from the west and british from the east.
- in a few months all north africa becomes an allied stronghold threatening italy and southern nazi occupied france.
- germany reinforce france and send troops in italy. the invasion of britain is completly ruled out by germans

this is just an hypothesis, but it sounds quite scaring for the nazi, doesn't it?

i think the armistice was the best option for the nazi, definetely.

 

I can't see how the French had any option, the French Military could not defend itself against a combined Army Groups A,B & C and the 60+ divisions held in OHW reserve and throw in the Luftwaffe as well, and a cameo appearence of the Italians.

France at the time was going through the worst case senario in political instability, their military command and control was falling apart there was almost no effective communications between HQ and field commanders, when push came to shove planned offensives came to nothing, in essence the French Military was a organisation fighting a modern enemy with Napoleon tatics, France or more to the point Petain was in no position to reject an ultimatum of unconditional surrender. France by this stage had no stomach for war, like the Italians in 1943.

But to conclude, Hitler offers the French or the Petain Government many concessions such as retaining the military to maintain law and order and as a self defence force including her Navy. Paris and not Vichy would remain the capital. Also expanding the role of the French Foreign Legion as occupational forces in French territories. Plus i have added in something from left field of that France and Germany conclude a Mutual Assistance Treaty. France becomes a self autonomous nation of the Greater German Reich.

 

i disagree 100%
so basically u say:
- france has 1million man army
- nazi defeatd the french army
- so now the nazi have 1million french marching under german flags and ready to die for it.

can i say that it is unrealistic?

i recall you that all european countries that joined the axis were actually axis allied! italy, romania, hungary they were not conquered by germans! they joined the nazi!
no conquered country in europe gave its regular army to the germans (i'm not referring to the ss volunteers divisions). why should the french have done it????

and btw, u said the same for the british... sorry, but i really can't see a british army trapped in stalingrad and obeying to hitler's absurd orders.

so dear von Rundstedt, we are in a dead end road, what do we do now?

 

I agree with Neon Knight here Von, all of the soldiers that fought under the German flag were volunteers or governments loyal or sympathetic to the German cause. Even the the Russian troops from prison camps which decided to betray their country did so voluntarily, the rest faced their horrible fate.

While the choice of either dying or fighting against your country on the side of an enemy, might not have been much of a choice... It was a choice afterall. The countless of Red Army POW's which met their fate as a result of their loyalty to THEIR country contradicts your claim.

Who is to say that the French would not have done the same thing?