How Germany could've won?

[SIZE=.95em]The territories that Germany had conquered in 1940, though they pro-vided substantial booty and a crucial source of labour did not bearcomparison with the abundance provided to Britain by America. The aerial arms race was the distinctive Anglo-American contribution to thewar and it played directly to America's dominance in manufacturing.But though the disparity in aircraft deliveries was extreme it was notuntypical. A similarly vast gulf was also evident in relation to energysupplies, the most basic driver of modern urban and industrial society.Whereas the Anglo-American alliance was energy rich, Germany and itsWestern European Grossraum were starved of food, coal and oil.The disparity with respect to oil was most serious. Between 1940 and1943 the mobility of Germany's army, navy and air force, not to mentionits domestic economy, depended on annual imports of 1.5 million tonsof oil, mainly from Romania. In addition, German synthetic fuel fac-tories, at huge expense, produced a flow of petrol that rose from 4 milliontons in 1940 to a maximum of 6.5 million tons in 1943. Seizing thefuel stocks of France as booty in no way resolved this fundamentaldependency. In fact, the victories of 1940 had the reverse effect. Theyadded a number of heavy oil consumers to Germany's own fuel deficit.From its annual fuel flow of at most 8 million tons, Germany now hadto supply not only its own needs, but those of the rest of Western Europeas well. Before the war, the French economy had consumed at least5.4 million tons per annum, at a per capita rate 60 per cent higher thanGermany's. The effect of the German occupation was to throw Franceback into an era before motorization. From the summer of 1940 Francewas reduced to a mere 8 per cent of its pre-war supply of petrol. In aneconomy adjusted to a high level of oil consumption the effects weredramatic. To give just one example, thousands of litres of milk went towaste in the French countryside every day, because no petrol was avail-able to ensure regular collections. Of more immediate concern to themilitary planners in Berlin were the Italian armed forces, which dependedentirely on fuel diverted from Germany and Romania. By February1941, the Italian navy was threatening to halt its operations in theMediterranean altogether unless Germany supplied at least 250,000tons of fuel. And the problems were by no means confined to the Reich's satellites. Germany itself coped only by dint of extreme economy.In late May 1941, General Adolf von Schell, the man responsible for themotor vehicle industry, seriously suggested that in light of the chronicshortage of oil it would be advisable to carry out a partial 'demotoriz-ation' of the Wehrmacht. It is commonly remarked that the Luftwaffe suffered later in the war because of the inadequate training of its pilots,due in large part to the shortage of air fuel. But in 1941 the petrol shortage was already so severe that the Wehrmacht was licensing itssoldiers to drive heavy trucks with less than 15 kilometres of on-roadexperience, a measure which was blamed for the appalling attrition of motor vehicles during the Russian campaign. Shortages made them-selves felt across the German economy. So tight were fuel rations thatin November 1941 Opel was forced to shut down production at itsBrandenburg plant, Germany's largest truck factory, because it lackedthe petrol necessary to check the fuel pumps of vehicles coming off theassembly line. A special allocation of 104 cubic metres of fuel had to bearranged by the Wehrmacht's economic office so as to ensure that therewere no further interruptions[/SIZE]



The Wages of the Destruction, page 410.

 

The Wages of Destruction, page 124:


With hindsight it is hard to avoid the conclusion that after the defeat of France Germany would have done better to adopt a defensive posture, consolidating its position in Western Europe, attacking British positions in the Mediterranean and forcing the British and the Americans to bomb their way onto the Continent. Given that the Red Army ultimately proved to be the nemesis of the Wehrmacht, this is hard to deny. But what is too often ignored in such counterfactual arguments is the grow-ing awareness in Berlin that, even after the occupation of Western Europe, Germany did not have the upper hand in a long war against Britain and America. The chronic shortage of oil, the debility of the European coal mines and the fragility of the food chain, made it seem unlikely that Germany would in fact be able to 'consolidate' its conquests of 1940 without falling into excessive dependence on the Soviet Union. Even if this were possible, the combined manufacturing capacity of Britain and America vastly exceeded the industrial capacity currently under German control and this, in turn, spelled disaster in a protracted air war. The German army, on the other hand, had proved its ability to achieve decisive victory against what were thought to be the strongest armies in Europe. When we bear this range of factors in mind it is easier to appreciate why a defensive strategy seemed like a second-best in the autumn of 1940. After the defeat of France, the dream of a gigantic land empire seemed within reach, and, given the industrial strength looming on the other side of the Atlantic, there was no time to waste.

 

Green Slime, the evidence I posted contradicts the idea that the Germans did not take the Americans seriously. The real problem for Germany was that the USSR didn't colapsed as the Germans planned. And due to this, they could not have the means to counter the Anglo-American aerial armies.

Also, I cannot provide evidence now, but forget the story that the Reich was in "peace like" economy until after Stalingrad. This is a myth created by Speer. Other members perhaps can provide you evidence about this.

 

http://ww2history.com/experts/Adam_Tooze/Germany_s_ability_to_win_the_war

LAURENCE REES: It’s right, isn’t it, that by the summer of ’41 the Germans realise that industrially they can’t cope with the demands of the war effort?

ADAM TOOZE: Yes, the most extraordinary demonstration of that is the sort of train of logic in relation to the Luftwaffe’s planning which takes on spectacular new dimensions in the autumn of 1940 and the spring of 1941, directly as a response to the threat that they perceive as being imminent from the build up of British and American air strength. This immediately raises the question of how these aircraft were going to be supplied with rubber and air fuel, which leads to the spectacular planning for the I.G. Farben facility at Auschwitz, which by the end of the war is the single largest investment project ever undertaken by the Third Reich. The extermination camp facility there is dwarfed in its scale and implications by the investment they’re making of six hundred million Reichsmarks in the I.G. Farben plant that is just a few miles away.

But then the question is how do you feed the synthetic fuel plants with sufficient coal? And it’s obvious by the spring of 1941 that even if you’re going to synthesise your petrol, you’re not going to be able to supply enough coal to synthesise the quantity of petrol necessary to fuel the aircraft which you feel you’re going to need to fight the British and the Americans. So into the planning for Barbarossa goes this radical extension of the economic objectives of the Barbarossa invasion that, on strictly economic grounds, requires the prioritisation of the southern flank of the invasion. Even before the famous debate between Hitler and his military commanders in the autumn of 1941 this problem has already been pre-programmed by the train of logic on the economic side.

So by the summer of 1941 the Germans are calmly assuming that the southern flank of their offensive will reach as far not only as the Crimea, but the Caucasus by the end of 1941, so as to enable them by 1942 to bring on stream the oilfields of Baku, and what we now know as Azerbaijan, as a key element in the German strategic planning system. And the invasion to drive a prong of the German armed forces as far south as that, let alone to build the pipeline of the structure that will be necessary to extract the oil from there, is a scale and a dimension of military planning which the Germans are entirely remote from at this point, because the German army’s assumption is the war has to be won in the first 500 kilometres of this penetration.

So there’s a complete disconnect by the summer of 1941 between the economic and armaments programmes which are geared towards the long run war effort against Britain and America. This is assumed to be an attritional, strategic war waged in multiple dimensions by air and by sea and in North Africa on land. The specific planning for Barbarossa now just simply has to assume that it’s going to be like France: that it’s going to be over in a matter of weeks and it’s not going to cost very much in terms of manpower and equipment. And that contradiction explodes into the open in the autumn and reaches its absurd high point in December 1941 when the Germans simply decide that the situation is so irresolvable that they will declare a long Christmas holiday over 1941-42 to allow the armaments factories to somehow reconcile the different conflicting priorities, because there’s no other way, essentially, of making sense of the dilemma that they’ve backed themselves into.

They have to win the war in the East in a matter of weeks and the victory has to be on a scale which they don’t really even dare to spell out in military terms and yet is clearly documented in the economic planning. It has to go as far as the Caucasus, not just the Ukraine, and it needs to go there in the first phase of the offensive.

LAURENCE REES: It’s a fantasy.

ADAM TOOZE: It’s, at that point, a complete fantasy, yes.

LAURENCE REES: But these are intelligent people.

ADAM TOOZE: Yes.

LAURENCE REES: So how are intelligent people fantasising about something so important as a world war?

ADAM TOOZE: Well, they’re acting in the framework of a regime that has a massive momentum of its own. They believe in the possibility of a military victory. I don’t think one can exaggerate the significance of having defeated France in a matter of weeks. That’s the real obstacle to German world power. That’s the obstacle on which they failed in the late spring and early summer of 1918 when it looks like the Ludendorff Offensive at the last moment is going to snatch victory for the German army, and it slips away from them. The troops are too exhausted and there’s the 'stab in the back' and so on.

All of a sudden in the spring of 1940 they demonstrated the possibility of quite a different kind of history, and that’s the dream that they’re chasing in 1941. You’re completely right, there is no sense in which these different elements cohere, there is a kind of formal coherence to what’s going on. There’s a plan for everything, and each plan in its own terms makes a degree of sense, but there is no realistic strategic rationale at that level.

 

I will not ignorate, however, the evidence provided that Hitler underestimated the Americans, including your quote of a private conversation of Hitler. Also, the fact that the Germans encouraged the Japanese to attack the US, as well as the Japanese themselfs not regard the Americans as motivated opponents validates your point Green Slime. Other thing about estimatives of the time was in the WM's evaluation of the Soviet strenght. IIRC they were estimating some 300 divisions by late 1941, when actually there were 600. So, your point has more sense than the ones of my sources. =P

 

Not really a contradiction. I don't believe that the Germans allowed themselves to see it. Those in the "know" hoped that it would be 4 or 5 years until the USA could bring sufficient force to bear, and that they'd perhaps take even longer to develop proper force co-ordination, and be efficient. There were those that fretted needlessly (it wouldn't change the outcome), but what's the point of that?

So while a distinct "long term issue" (what to do about the USA?), they still had immediate problems (whose got my Oil?) as well as basic Nazi idiocy with competing organizations and conflicting goals (It's mine!), as well as the basic fundamental dilemma; a complete lack of strategy.

Who on Earth starts a global war with no clear strategy, alienates allies, and instead just relies on seat-of-his-pants luck and "providence"? Yes, that's right! Our very own moustachioed Austrian, and his merry band of goose-stepping black-leather fetischists!

 

You just need to accept that Hitler was contradiction. He preached order and efficiency, yet allowed chaos. Germany badly needed labor, yet millions were killed in order to achieve purity.

 

Wages of Destruction, page 668:

By any reasonable estimation, Hitler's declaration of war on theUnited States sealed the fate of Germany. The economic and militaryforces arrayed against the Third Reich by early 1942 were overwhelm-ing. As we have shown, this fatalistic view was shared by all those mostclosely involved with the management of the German war effort up tothe Moscow crisis. Udet of the Luftwaffe, Fromm of the army, Thomasof the Wehrmacht high command, Todt in the Armaments Ministry,Canaris in intelligence, Rohland and his colleagues in the Ruhr, all cameto the same conclusion. All these men had thrown in their lot. But they were not ignorant of the basic trends of earlytwentieth-century history. They were as convinced as the vast majorityof their contemporaries of the pivotal importance of the United Stateseconomy. None of them doubted that once American industrial capacitywas mobilized - and they were fully aware of the measures that hadalready been taken in 1940 and 1941 - Germany's situation would beworse than that of 1918.

 

FDR claimed in 1940 that a 50,000 planes/year mark would be achived (it was almost in 1942 with war economy). This is one of the measures mentioned above that the Germans were aware. Actually, the Americans were producing the double of that by 1944, and they could have produced more if necessary. And it was not only about aircraft production, but also fuel production and pilot training (here the Germans were also not well compared to the US).

 

They had a strategy, albeit a risky one. It's a controversial thing, but there are authours who argue that the Germans may have well stalled already in France. Deceased author Ernest R. May is one of them in Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France.

 

Do you have any sources that support this? Or could he have commissioned the study so he could say: "Our experts looked into it and it didn't look good, here's the report".

 

Its rather clear in the text of the report itself.

The full text can be found in the UK's national archives (forget any links you may find to neu.edu, they're all dead)
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/coldwar/archive/G2/g20901.htm is page 1;

"Even though the will of these two countries may be defined as no more than a square deal for Poland,..."

IMO, it doesn't get more clearer than that in political circles.

If Churchill just wanted to get rid of the problem, then he would've behaved more as the Americans did, and not bothered mentioning it at every opportunity. FDR did support, but not to the extent Churchill hoped, and the Poles needed.

Seriously, do you really think politicians spend so much time at international conferences persuing issues they aren't interested in, sending communiques, and request reports from military planners, that are going to be kept secret for 50 or more years (UK secrecy laws) so that their reputation looks good after they're dead?

There is also adequate sources describing Churchill's dispair at Stalin's actions.
http://books.google.se/books?id=_XaFaNshCrkC&pg=PA300&lpg=PA300&dq=Polish+arrests+march+1945+Churchill&source=bl&ots=no6LuMbyDG&sig=FWuPIG_q1G_MLSUba4Fb0F49Wyc&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=rn0BUuLiJqWG4ATPhoHQCQ&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Polish%20arrests%20march%201945%20Churchill&f=false

 

I like Strange Victory...but have to look at it sometimes as a work of opinion rather than fact in a lot of its conclusions. May in my view was grinding his little axe on that work

 

Green Slime asks the question "Why would anybody start a Global War without a clear strategy?"

First Hitler did not intend a "Global War" but rather a series of discreet conflicts against individual opponents of his own choosing. What he ended up with was a global conflict in which he lost the initiative to dictate both the scale and scope of the war.

Before we all feel ourselves content that once again we have proven without a shadow of doubt that Hitler was a fool of the first order, we should look back a bit at our own history. Wars are started for a whole cornucopia of reasons and with expectations they will all end by Christmas, but how many ever do so?

America and NATO in Iraq and Afghanistan, nope that one didn't go as planned

America and Vietnam, not quite

Korean War, pretty close from the western perspective, though it nearly veered into WWIII

World War One, yep that was sure to be over by Christmas....4 years later and after millions of dead.

The Spanish-American War, well the Spaniards laid down pretty quick but for some reason those liberated by glorious America didn't feel so liberated after all.

Half of Britain's colonial wars were exercises in Blundering to Glory.

The American Civil War, One good battle and them Rebels/Yankees should see reason, right?

The list is almost endless, in fact it might be easier to list the wars that went as planned and on schedule and budget.

 

Wrt the war in Iraq, there were people, even in America, who foresaw that 150,000 ground forces occupying a country the size of Iraq was going to end in disaster. Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted the cheap option, and bought the quagmire. I could see it coming from a long way off, and I'm not a strategic genius by any means.

Hitler actually kept extending his war, until he achieved global war, by his little lonesome.

He didn't finish England (he never had a realistic plan for what to do about them), so he started a new war with Russia. That didn't go too well, so he declared war on the USA, which he wasn't obligated to do... now that's global, and that's really without equal. Kaiser Willhem and co. were more forced into action by various treaties and alliances, and by the ability to mobilize large numbers quickly.

In Korea at least both sides had clear goals, and clear red lines.

Vietnam, well, I don't think that was ever envisaged as a short war, by anyone with a realistic view of the situation. Perhaps the French had that hope prior to Dien Ben Phu.

Britain at least had some strategy present in most of her wars. Even if that sometimes amounted to no more than to be seen dying holding the flag. Whether its the inabilities of officers or the lack of resources under which they were oft-times called to operate under, doesn't mean that England had no plan for her Empire building. Quite the opposite. Often plans and responses were made to threats or perceived threats, treaty and negotiation were all part of that. And in the context of her adversaries, England was most often no less prepared: it was the stage of the times.

The issue for me isn't "on schedule and on budget", more of the sheer opportunism, and complete lack or disregard of long term planning. Realising that sacrificing the immediate gain can give a greater boon later. Especially seeing as how Hitler set the tone and pace in the early years. Plan Z's on-off-on-killed is just one example. In 1938, if you draw up a plan and lay down expensive hulls, knowing you are planning to get adventuresome in the autumn of 1939, and yet have no real idea of how to handle France and England, should they get stroppy at that date. The early easy victories created a hubris and belief that providence would carry the day. It doesn't in the long term. It sure is nice to be lucky, but luck favours the prepared.

Hitler wasn't a fool by any means, but he wasn't a brilliant strategist.

 

Vanatu Belasar...Vanatu....or the coconut war....Although no troops as such..few of my mates went and sorted it out...Definitely back by Xmas and definitely within budget...Brought few coconuts home to us too....

 

Is it? I would expect the report and especially the request for it to be worded in such a way. I've worked on a fair few projects where the wording impllied that the people upstairs wanted one thing but what they really wanted was a report that showed the oppsoite. Their initial wording inusred that it would be difficult to challenge the report based on bias.

Perhaps not but that doesn't mean that it's all that clear.

It's clear that Churchill didn't trust the Soviets and would have prefered an independent Poland and for that matter independent countries throughout Easter Europe. But that is why he may have needed the "Unthinkable" report. If he didn't have something like that in hand the question could be raised why did he just talk and not do. That report gives him a very good reason for not acting.

I'm not sure how you got some of that from what I've said. I certainly never implied that Churchill wasn't concerned with the post war threat from the Soviets. What's not clear to me at any rate is just why the "Unthinkable" report/plan was requested.

 

Because the report was seen by only a very limited number of people? So couldn't have been to merely handwave away criticism as to inaction. He can't just whip it out at the house of commons and bludgeon an MP with it.

 

But he could say "we looked at it and it looked bad" and if his critics had the clearance he could show it to them. I'm not saying this is the case but it seems a reasonable alternative.

 

But he could make that statement anyway. He doesn't need the JPS to issue a highly secretive report with a specific date for action. The report made it very clear, that without the whole-hearted support of the USA, it was a no-go, and President Truman made it clear, he had other concerns, and rightly so.

I believe he had the report made to placate his own conscience, to ascertain, that yes, he had looked at every eventuality.