Where Germany lost the war

Yet more good points, Friedrich. Still, I think, with all due respect, I would still disagree on a few.
I have not read Walsh's book, but I would have to disagree on Hitler. My take on his military abilities is this- from everything I have read, Hitler would only concern himself with minute details. His plan for Kursk, for example, was simply to cut off the salient. When he met with his generals to discuss the upcoming battle, the meetings generally would concentrate on something like engaging the T-34 using a specific tactic. He would brush off concerns about the battle as a whole (concerns which need to be addressed by the overall commander), and only concentrate on minute details better left to battalion commanders. In other words, you point out his incompetence in minor details; I would propose that those minor details were the only thing Hitler addressed.

Also, more good points on Moscow. But again, in the spirit of good historical debate, I would have to disagree on a couple. First off, I don't think Stalins command structure would have fallen apart had moscow been defeated for one main reason- until early 42, Stalin really didn't have any command structure to have fall apart! It wasn't really until after Stalingrad that the russian army began to develop a more cohesive and functional structure.
And here's my other point- you refer to the Germans conquering the western part of Russia, which I agree that they could have done. However, you follow up with (a very logical point) the germans and russians declaring an armistice- unfortunately for the germans, Hitler was anything but logical on this topic. He viewed the war in russia as a crusade against bolshevism. I don't believe he ever would have proposed or accepted any kind of armistice.

these are minor points tho- You present a compelling scenario which I generally agree with. And to further your point, the german army of ww2 was probably the most impressive defensive force the world has seen (offensive could be argued as well very easily!). Had they been able to straighten and strengthen their Eastern front as you theorize, I do believe the germans would have easily been able to hold such a front.

And Erich- now you've got me! Do tell of this new info on Kursk! maybe a new thread?

 

Crazt :

You've probably heard of the title by George Nipe "Decision in the Ukraine summer 1943 II SS panzer and III Panzerkorps". George's basis for the offensive gains and retreat of the 1st-3rd SS Pz. was from Sylvester Stadler's work : "Die Offensive gegen Kursk 1943". I do not have this last book from now defunct Munin-Verlag, but have heard the maps are quite nice. Nipes maps are abolutely terrible, in fact they suck !! Anyway I think Nipe is the first to have Stadler's material translated from the German to English and used in his volume.

E

 

It is very nice that we are discussing this tread in this lovely manner! I hope there will be some more treads like this! Not more... a lot! And I agree with many of your thoghts also. You are no t as "crazy" as we thought...

 

Erich, I have heard of Nipe, just haven't gotten around to purchasing yet. Also I just noticed (linked off these forums, from Kursk thread) another book, (forgot the authors and short on time at the moment!) Kursk: A Statistical Analysis. That one looks really good...

Thanks Friedrich, I agree! This whole forum and those posting in it really impress me- I tip my cap to all the historians present!
You guys really know your sh*t!!!

But, Friedrich, get in a car with me sometime... the Crazy nickname would become clear!!!

Cheers, and a great weekend to all!

 

Well, I think my grandfather drives faster and crazier than me... Well, I have not got a car... I bloody had to reject a beautiful BMW for my birthday... damned pride! But I have a BMW motorbike and I am very crazy also! Well, beside of my excentricities. Last year I made a surrealist film for Literature class... the teacher told me to go to the psichologyst...

 

In fact they lost the war for a big part in 1940, but also in 1941.

In 1940 because the allowed that 340.000 soldiers could escape from the beaches of Dunquerque. If they would have been captured, Germany could have invaded Brittain.

In november 1941 when Hitler decided to go after Rostov and Kiev instead of Moscow.

 

Germany lost the war in 1940 when Hitler broke the non-agression pact with Russia. If Hitler had focused on Britian then there is no doubt that Hitler would've taken Britian. (Personally I think that Hitler was a little messed up in the head). It probably would've allowed the Luftwaffe to evolve a little quicker too.

 

Mustang, the non-agression pact, 'Molotov-Von Ribbentrop' was broken on June 22nd 1941 when Germany launched operation "Barbarossa", the invasion of the Soviet Union, which was not precisely a suicide.

 

But Hitler DECIDED to break the pact in 1940, so Mustamg is right on the money...

Cheers,

[ 05 October 2002, 10:28 PM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

 

Thanks for backing me up there Andy. I think that the production of the Me.262 could've had an effect on the war too.

 

I wonder if the Me 262 would have saved Berlin from the Red Army ´soldiers or would have been able to kill off the Red Army to win the war in the East?

It was a weapon, sure a good one, a VERY expensive one, just for one purpose (Hitler re-desiged it, for bombing tasks, but hey that was blundering): protecting the German air space from U.S/GB bomber airplanes.

As the USAF/BC's SBC wasn't a decisive campaign to win the war against Germany, the Me 262 wasn't a decisive weapon.

Guess you have to pay some credit to the Red Army who killed of the Wehrmacht during 1941-1945.

Cheers,

 

Good point. The Me.262 was so expensive that the Luftwaffe would just be getting smaller. The Russian planes on the other hand were cheap, and were built in very large numbers. If Germany/Hitler had decided to build the Me.262 in "larger" numbers and hadn't given it the bomber role, the quantity of Russian planes might have been too much for the Me.262. Besides, if he had won the war with Me.262's he wouldn't have had enough money left to build on to his conquered land. The Third Reich wouldn't have lasted 1,000 years that's for sure.

 

No, Me-262 alone would not have saved the Reich, I think, but trying to make it a bomber was one mistake in a series of flops.

Earlier production by 18 months would have changed the air-war in the west, and caused huge losses to the allied bomber armadas. " Give me 300 Me 262´s and I´ll drop 200 bombers anyday " said by Galland (?). That would have given the Allied some thinking to do.

As to the production losses Speer ( Yes, Andy, I do know you don´t trust him but I don´t have other numbers to use on this ) estimated that the bombings caused some 35% decrease to what might have been in 1944. So the end of bombings would have changed something. And these bombings did not just affect the production lines, but the morale of working people and time of working hours per day.

The Soviet army was a huge killing machine once it started rolling.I don´t think anyone here on this forum disagrees.

 

Yes the 262 should of been given a top priority to the fighter arm and the development of the Arado 234 as the chief jet bomber but it didn't happen.

E

 

Yep. Giving the 262 the bomber role was a major mistake. It slowed to within the 400 mph range. Slow enough so that the Allied fighters could intercept it.

 

Now, if you change production priorities in a situation of limited resources given, some other weapon or industry has to bite the dust for it.

More Me262's but much less 88 Flak? Ammo? Uboats? It takes very long to re-design or re-arrange production capacities from one weapon to annother, especially the more complex a weapon (and the early jet airplanes were VERY complex) is.

So basically the realistic decision was to built more jets at the cost of many more other "workhorse" planes like the Fw-190 etc. Plus the huge fuel consumption of jet airplanes, something Germany needed at last. And the factories for jet engines had to be built from botton up.

All I'm saying that changing dramatically from one product to another takes time and leaves a production hole. So evolution of an existing product (as done on the FW-190 and Me-109) is easier and more smooth if you have to ensure a stable and increasing output. I see the Me262 as a successor for the old Me-110 destroyer which definately was a end-of-life product in late 1943.

Leves the problem of a successor for the light Me-109 fighter who was outdated by this time, too. Maybe the jet-driven Heinkel "Volksjaeger"?

Cheers,

[ 07 October 2002, 06:31 AM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

 

I wonder if some of these resources were put into action elsewhere:

1.Huge resources were diverted to the production of vengeance, or 'V', weapons, which had a very limited impact on Britain when rockets and flying bombs began to fall in the late summer of 1944.

2. Gigantic construction project for an underground economy was authorised by Hitler in 1943. Organised by Himmler, using camp labour , millions of man-hours and billions of marks were spent.

3. Instead of making many different types of tanks, the "Russian way " should have been adopted, with just a couple of models. Less need for different spare parts etc. Using all the vehicles of different nationalities just brought problems with maintaining their engines etc. On the Speer subject I came across some knowledge that at one point there were over 20 different motor cycles in use in Wehrmacht...If you´re a collector that sounds fine but trying to keep an army going..don´t think so.

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And some extras I found:

By late 1944 8 million Germans had fled from the cities to the safer villages and townships because of the allied bombings.

Vast exodus of workers (an estimated 16 million) and factories (more than 2,500 major plants) from in front of the advancing Germans allowed the USSR to reconstruct its armaments economy in central and eastern Russia with great rapidity.

One could produce a mighty slick looking and most effective Jagdpanther V with all the bells and whistles or one could opt to produce five shoddy looking, but most functional and reliable T-34’s instead.

 

Sure. But the chance of that Jagdpanther killing more than five T-34s isn't that slim either when properly handled!

 

Does it count when I decided to kill my wife or when I actually killed her?

No, the Me-262 could not have won the war in the West by itself and much less the war in the East. Actually, no weapon that we could have deployed in the Eastern front (except for an A-bomb) could have won the war in the East by itself. Many, many factors; tactical and strategical were needed to defeat partially the Soviet Union and that, before winter 1941-1942.