Would Hitler have won World War II if he had left Russia alone?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I am reading an article on counterfactual history and that question came up.

[leftyohiolib]

1. did the us build the nukes with help from paperclip scientists?

[Octafish]

95. No.

MANHATTAN Project was before Operation PAPERCLIP.

[yeoman6987]

2. God let's hope not

That guy was horrid!

[el_bryanto]

3. Hard to say but Nazism wouldn't have been able leave the Communists alone forever.

I don't think.

Bryant

[DanTex]

4. Depends what "win" means, but there's a pretty good chance he would have.

The Russian front is where by far the Germans took the most casualties. He had already taken France, and it's unlikely Britain could have held up if all the forces used to attack Russia were instead used to invade Britain.

[former9thward]

12. I never understood why he attacked Britain to begin with.

They had no resources he needed and would have been a huge headache if he had took them over.

[BlindTiresias]

14. Not as much of a headache as you might think

There was a large amount of fascist sympathy in Britain and as they would not be subject to the same exterminationist policies the Russians were I think you'd find that most people would accept the occupation.

[longship]

39. Absolute rubbish.

There was a reason that Winnie became PM in May, 1940. The Brits were sick and tired of not fighting the war, under Chamberlain. Once Winnie took charge, appeasement became a non-starter. Admittedly a flawed person, Churchill was the right person at the right time. He was, like Edward R. Murrow described him that May, "the best broadcaster" in the country. He inspired his country to soldier on. Any fascist sympathy was a non-starter after May, 1940. "We will never surrender." Your claim is utter tosh.

It was the USA who had Hitler sympathizers, like Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, and George W Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush. It was FDR who fought these idiots and their politics of neutrality and Nazi sympathizers while Britain was fighting the war. That position here became a non-starter on December 7, 1941, a whole year and a half after Britain had utterly cast it aside.

Sheesh!

[BlindTiresias]

108. There were collaborators in every state the nazis invaded

Britain would be no different and you'd see alot of people quiet down and perhaps more subtly assist a resistance if literally the 80% of the german war machine that was used up in Russia was now available for a sustained campaign against Britain.

And yes if the US shared a border with nazi germany we'd have our own equiv of Vichy France and the Russian Free State, seeing as that the Russians faced certain genocide at the hands of the Germans and they -still- had significant numbers of collaborators.

Furthermore if the occupying Germans guaranteed the maintenance of wealth and prestige for the elite you'd likely see a Vichy scenario emerge rapidly, as this area of society is where the most fascist sympathy was.

[longship]

111. There was no way that Hitler invades Great Britain.

And Churchill knew that from day one.

In his great speech upon the rescue at Dunkirk, he addressed this directly.

Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonizing week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster. The French Army has been weakened, the Belgian Army has been lost, a large part of those fortified lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining districts and factories have passed into the enemy's possession, the whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck almost immediately at us or at France. We are told that Herr Hitler has a plan for invading the British Isles. This has often been thought of before. When Napoleon lay at Boulogne for a year with his flat-bottomed boats and his Grand Army, he was told by someone. "There are bitter weeds in England." There are certainly a great many more of them since the British Expeditionary Force returned.

Of course, he later finishes the speech with a typical and iconic flourish.

Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Arguably Churchill's greatest wartime speech. You can read and/or listen to the whole thing here

Churchill knew that a German invasion was a fool's errand. The Brits certainly prepared for the eventuality of such a thing, but those high up in Britain's government knew it was not likely to happen. Germany just did not have the facilities to accomplish such a task, and Hitler himself wanted to ally with Britain, not conquer it. Churchill knew that, too.

[BlindTiresias]

114. Fair enough

It is very difficult to ascertain what would happen in the 40's if Nazi Germany had not invaded the USSR (this itself is improbable as others have argued).

[longship]

115. Yup! It sure was an interesting time, though.

Reading that history from different perspectives is certainly captivating. After 1968, when Britain released many of their WWII secrets, A Man Called Intrepid was published and sent the historians back to rewrite everything they thought they knew about Britain during the war. It turns out that Churchill knew pretty much what the nazis were doing, or not doing. And he played them like a fiddle.

Best regards.

[AgingAmerican]

94. Nonsense

Hitler did consider the Brits to be more civilized than the rest of Europe, but they would have suffered the same harsh treatment irregardless.

[BlindTiresias]

106. harsh treatment yes

Similar to the french. What the Russians received was far, far worse.

[AgingAmerican]

109. Very true

He considered Eastern Europeans to be subhumans. Hitler was a major asshole. The Russians had the final say in that one though.

[Sunlei]

33. for their bank and the location.He got the bank control very first thing of every country he invaded

[Deny and Shred]

53. France and England had already declared war

on Germany. England had sent an expeditionary force to the continent. It famously retreated to Dunkirk, then back to Britian by sea.

AH thought he could come to an agreement with England - assure British Empire possessions would remain intact in trade for Germany's free hand on the continent.

[former9thward]

58. Yes, but Britain was in no condition to carry on the war by itself.

If Hitler had not attacked Britain there would have been a stalemate and eventually Britain would have had to trade with a Nazi Europe.

[Deny and Shred]

88. Agreed.

You asked, so I answered. As others downthread elaborated, he didn't apply the same ruthlessness to Britain as he had Poland. The Brits were always pragmatic before, and no longer in the ascendancy in terms of Empire. They should be glad to keep their possessions went his thinking.

While Germany rearmed through the 30's, the same can't be said of the other European democracies. The Great War had claimed an entire generation of Frenchmen (I hate the misinformed American 'surrender-monkey' notion about the martial history of France) and many other Allied personnel.

The US was still staunchly isolationist as late as Dec '41, despite France & Poland falling, the remaining Western European territory conquered, England being bombed and Russia invaded all the way to the gates of Moscow.

Both Italy and Japan chose not to 'play the part that Hitler had cast for them' as Sir Alan Bullock said in A Study In Tyranny. Had he delayed Basrbarossa, had Japan not engaged the US, had he not dismissed the opportunities that Mussolini's African adventure created in '41, had he driven through Suez to his desired oil fields and consolidated his Western victories, things would be very different.

Within a year or two, a new reality would have dominated the European continent. America & Britian would have punted and done business eventually. It took Pearl Harbor to galvanize US opinion.

[louis-t]

5. From the accounts I've seen, going after Russia was

a HUGE blunder on his part. He may not have won in the end, but he might have done a lot more damage before losing.

[newfie11]

20. That's what I've read also. Nt

[amandabeech]

79. If Hitler had not decided to become his own field marshal and general staff,

he might have done a lot better. As it was, he would not allow his generals to consolidate lines or stage strategic retreats. It was hold your position no matter what and move forward. Any general who did not do as Hitler said, no matter how wise or experienced, was out of there.

Holding Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad might have been difficult, but he may have been able to chop off a whole lot of "lebensraum" east of Poland, Hungary and Romania. Whether he would have been able to hold a line to the Caspian oil fields is something again.

An interesting question would be how far Hitler could have gone in the East if he had continued the Sitzkrieg in the West. It is not clear whether the Western Allies would have attacked or whether they would have made common cause with Stalin if Hitler had moved East only.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. I don't know if he could have avoided war with the Soviet Union

Hatred of the Jew and of the Slav were what especially made him the monster he was. Hatred of Bolshevism as well. Mein Kampf is loaded with references to the Russian people as animals of no value, who either must be killed or deported to enable the creation of lebensraum for a German wonderland to the east. He needed an enemy on the inside and one on the outside to stir the people's hatred. Hitler invaded Poland and carved it up with the Soviets. I think it would have been only a matter of time before the two nations fought. Hitler didn't really want England or France as much as he coveted the vast territories to the east that he could sanitize for the expansion of the German people.

[RedRocco]

44. the war with the soviets was the main event from the start

the rest was only setting-up exercises.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

50. That's right - the war in the east was what Hitler was mainly about

although there was some interest on his part, as a veteran of World War I and the German defeat, of getting back at the French for taking back their provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and exacting economic reparations against Germany at the end of WWI. Apparently Hitler ignored that it was Germany that invaded France in 1870 during the Franco Prussian War under Bismark, seized Alsace and Lorraine in the first place, and exacted heavy reparations against the French.

[Capt. Obvious]

7. He could have sent more resources to Africa and taken the Suez

and then the Middle East and be on Russia's underbelly where they had their resources.

[BlindTiresias]

8. Easily

Russia sucked up 80%+ of the German war effort. Without an eastern front to pull away from the consolidation of Europe and the campaign against Britain Nazi Germany would be in a much better position.

[bemildred]

9. He would have done better to finish with the English first.

But he needed oil and other things for his war machine, and didn't want to pay.

[longship]

82. After May, 1940 there was no way Germany was going to finish Great Britain.

Invasion was never going to happen. The logistics of such a thing made it impossible. Churchill knew that all along. He also knew (and stated so) that a German bombing campaign would not work against Britain. The new Supermarine Spitfires were damned good against the German bombers. Plus, he had lots of secrets. RADAR, amongst an incredible infrastructure of secret skulduggery to both anticipate and undermine almost anything Hitler tried. (Bletchley Park, and A Man Called Intrepid)

Hitler never had a chance against the Brits, let alone against Winston.

[bemildred]

84. All the more reason not to take on Russia, I would say. nt

[hifiguy]

10. in all probability, yes.

Though a Hitler-Stalin clash was inevitable at some point, both monsters being what they were.

[BainsBane]

11. I think it quite possible

Russia would have never joined the war and Germany would have not had a second European front.

[JPZenger]

13. Many things that could have allowed Hitler to win

I'm reading a good book entitled 1940 about the German invasion of Britain. Hitler had half-heartedly ordered the preparation for that invasion, but he never put much energy into it. Hitler had really expected that Britain would negotiate an end to the war.

Many of the German military chiefs thought the invasion was doomed to fail, but were too scared to say so. The barges, ships and boats were lined up in the French and Dutch ports for the invasion. The invasion would have mainly involved tugboats pulling river barges full of tens of thousands of troops and thousands of horses at 4 mph.

The currents and tides make navigation very difficult in the Channel, even in ships that are designed for ocean transit, which the German fleet was not. At that point in time, the Germans mainly had 6 destroyers, some lightly armed converted trawlers, and a few small torpedo boats to support the invasion fleet. The book makes the argument that the Royal Navy would have made mincemeat of the invasion fleet before it reached shore, even without the help of the RAF.

The German plan also assumed that the barges would be able to turn around and bring another way of troops and horses ashore. Those barges probably would have never made the first trip intact. The result would have been 50,000 German troops drowning.

Horses were a big part of the German invasion plan of Britain, because Germany had insufficient numbers of trucks.

The Allies spent 4 years preparing and practicing for D-Day, and conducted many smaller amphibious landings to gain experience. The German armed forces were given 2 months to prepare.

----
One author said that if Hitler had invaded Iraq and grabbed its oil supplies, Germany would have been much better off. It would have been an easy invasion.

If Hitler had cooperated with Ukraine, he could have used their vast agricultural products and natural resources on friendly terms. The Ukranians hated the Soviet government, would have welcomed friendly assistance to separate themselves from Moscow. Instead, Hitler quickly alienated every Ukrainian with his brutality. Hitler was obsessed with destroying Communism, and was not thinking rationally about controlling territory and resources.

It Hitler had not declared war on the US right after Pearl Harbor, it may have been difficult for FDR to get a declaration of war against Germany. Instead, the US might have put most of its efforts into defeating Japan.

If Italy's army had stayed out of the war, Germany might have been better off.

If Germany had put more women to work in factories much sooner, it could have had much greater production of war material.

In many ways, Hitler was his own worst enemy.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

21. Hitler's Luftwaffe under Goering made a fatal mistake regarding England

The German air force was making a lot of progress in blowing up British air fields and winning the battle of Britain. They also were extremely effective in destroying British radar installations. Goering didn't realize this at all and in fact didn't understand the importance of radar at this point in the war. When the British decided to send bombers over German cities (not military installations) it so incensed Hitler and Goering that they stopped going after British air fields and radar and sent their bombers over cities in retaliation. It's widely believed that that mistake stopped the Germans from eventually acquiring air supremacy over England.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

32. There were a lot of Nazi sympathizers in the Ukraine

and apparently still are. They lined the roads in the hundreds of thousands when Hitler first sent in his troops following operation Barbarossa. Anti-semitism was supposedly very widespread in that nation. Ukrainian divisions of SS took part in helping to exterminate 800,000 Ukrainian Jews, especially the all-Ukrainian SS "Gallizien" division according to research by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. While it's true that over 4 million Ukrainians eventually served in the Red Army, a number of Ukrainian divisions of volunteers served in the Wehrmacht and at least seven battalions of Ukrainian paramilitary police.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/ukraine-wwii-legacy_n_3688865.html

[Va Lefty]

74. "In many ways, Hitler was his own worst enemy."

Excellent point. I remember reading that in early 1943 British MI5 abandoned plans to assassinate Hitler. They concluded it was better for the Allies if Hitler was alive and making the decisions.

[joeybee12]

15. Would Russia have left Germany alone?

Stalin was no shrinking violet...would he have sensed an opportunity and Germany would have fought them without truly initiating the conflict?

[BlindTiresias]

16. Unlikely

Stalin had no plans for a European campaign at any point, having given up on the Europeans after the failure of the Spartakist revolt.

[JPZenger]

19. Stalin and Hitler might have had conflict over border nations, but no Soviet invasion

Stalin had killed off most of his experienced military officers out of paranoia.

Stalin invaded eastern Poland in cooperation with Hitler, and then tried and failed to takeover Finland.

Stalin's interests were closer to home. When he was warned repeatedly that Germany was about to invade the USSR, he absolutely refused to believe it and did not order any preparations. After German did invade, he was in a complete state of shock for a week and did issue any orders.

[BlindTiresias]

22. yeah I agree

At the most you would see proxy wars and maybe skirmishes, whether this would lead to an actual war is up to debate.

Outside of lunatics with dodgy sources like Viktor Suvorov, though, very few historians seriously think that Stalin was gearing up for a large scale European invasion.

[hifiguy]

30. Yup. Stalin's massive purges of the Soviet military

left little of the officer corps standing. It's a wonder Zhukov was still around. You are right on the button in your entire post.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

59. Stalin did go into a three day drunk after Operation Barbarossa

Not picking on Marx but he relied on Russian nationalism and not socialist internationalism to rally the Russians against the Germans. He also reopened the churches.

I'm not convinced Stalin was a much better guy than Hitler.

[hifiguy]

60. The three great monsters of the 20th Century

were Mao, Hitler and Stalin. I don't think the order matters much. I'd probably nominate Pol Pot for the #4 slot, though.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

63. Stalin was crazy...

I forgot the name of the book I read but it was written by one of the relatives of the great Russian authors. Stalin was delusional when it came to the invasion. He denied it while it was happening until he couldn't deny it anymore.

When Stalin was offered mine sweeps by FDR he said they were superfluous because they use humans for such operations.

[brentspeak]

107. Not only did Stalin refuse to believe intelligence reports

that Germany was about to invade, he literally had the messengers (spies) who provided the reports shot, or, in the case of Soviet double agents who were acting as Nazi SS officers in Germany, left exposed for the SS to capture and execute on their own. These Soviet intelligence reports on the upcoming Operation Barbarossa proved to be remarkably accurate, but before Hitler launched his invasion, Stalin dismissed all the urgent warnings as British or German and/or Trotskyite "counter-revolutionary" propaganda. Stalin actually trusted Adolf Hitler, while liquidating everyone else.

[brentspeak]

102. Stalin would not have attacked Germany

One of the great ironies of WWII was that Stalin, the man who trusted no one, actually trusted Hitler not to invade the Soviet Union when he did.

[intaglio]

17. My personal thought has always been in the other direction

16 days after Hitler invaded Poland, Russia did the same. Imagine for a moment that Hitler then (faked) a withdrawal and informed the Western European Powers that he really wanted to eliminate Russia ...

[pampango]

49. Good question. If Hitler had invaded Russia rather than France in the spring of 1940,

England and France may well have not intervened. They had already declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland but had not done anything militarily against Germany. Germany would have had no western front to worry and the USSR would have had one less year to prepare for the invasion than actually happened. Germany reached the outskirts of Moscow and St Petersburg as it actually happened.

[ballabosh]

72. An interesting "what if" I read once

And I apologize that I can't remember where I read it and can't find it, is that if the UK and France would have held to their commitments to Poland to the fullest, the war may have ended pretty much before it began. Contrary to popular belief, Poland had a comparable army to Germany (in the first few days, Germany took heavy losses in the invasion), but not as advanced, and no air force to speak of. Germany committed 75% of it's forces to the eastern front. If France would have immediately invaded, Hitler would have been forced to pull some of those troops out of Poland. And if the UK would have provided air support, the Poles could have lasted much longer. If the Germans had bogged down in Poland, the USSR might have not invaded or even if they did, they may have been emboldened to break their pact with Germany and invade from the east. Germany might have been finished within weeks.

I'm not a military history expert, so I don't know how likely this is. But it's an intersting hypothetical.

[DontTreadOnMe]

78. I agree. Hitler could have gone from Poland to Stalingrad easily.

If he did not attack France and England, they would have stayed out of it.

Once Hitler defeated Russia, he would have had all the oil resources and food to supply further conquests.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

81. It might have made it difficult to later go after England and France

The large French army in 1939 and the 350,000 member British expeditionary force along with the Dutch and Polish divisions that fought in the battle for France were expecting a static war like World War I. The British barely brought over any air force to the continent. The French with their Maginot line were doomed to failure against a lightning war led by German tanks. In the opening of the war, German tanks were not that much better than French or British. But their tactics were far superior. Amazingly, the biggest advantage the Germans had was the radio, with which every one of their tanks was equipped. It was an extraordinary innovation no other country had. The French and British were still using tanks the way they did in world War I, mainly supporting advancing lines of infantry and with runners running from tank to tank to tell where their own tanks were situated on the battlefield. The German tanks could spearhead an advance and never lose contact with each other, would never lose contact with their command center, and would always know how to make their numbers count in concentrating on enemy positions. That simple matter of the radio would have quickly become apparent to the British and French if the Germans had first used their blitzkreig tactic against the Russians in an all-out campaign. The old and outmoded general staff of the French would have been replaced with younger generals with more a modern grasp of the battlefield (like young General DeGaulle, who for a while fought the advancing German tanks to a standstill).

[Algernon Moncrieff]

18. Hitler's goal was never to "leave Russia alone"

But let's play "what if":

You have several factors:

What does Russia do while Hitler is doing other things? Stand still? Invade?
What does the US do?
What does Japan do?

Assuming that '39 went the way it went, and the invasion of France succeeds, Hitler's next logical step would be to conquer England. His best shot of doing that was in '40, when the Luftwaffe had superiority over the RAF pre Battle-of-Britain. So let's say they proceed with Operation Sea Lion: they would have to win a quick, decisive victory over Great Britain (like in under a month). If they get bogged down in a battle for England, a) Russia probably invades Germany (via Poland) pro-actively and b) America probably enters the war in Europe far earlier.

If you are playing alternate history, here are more interesting questions:

a) Suppose Hitler backs away from anti-semitism? Many of the scientists who give America the A-bomb fled Germany.
b) In December 1941, suppose Japan choses to take Vladivostok and invade Kamchatka and Siberia instead of bombing Pearl Harbor. A beleaguered Russia now has to fight on two fronts, and the US may not enter the war until '42 -- if at all.

[TheMightyFavog]

46. b Sounds like one of my favorite tactics for Axis and Allies whenever I play Japan

Last edited Tue Aug 12, 2014, 05:39 PM - Edit history (1)

It's risky as all hell, and you can too easily either get tunnel vision or stretch yourself too thin and let the UK and US steamroll over you, but if done right, can help Germany get the USSR out of the game very quickly.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

69. Wargame strategy is about the only practical application of this discussion

It's like asking what happens if Lee gets to the top of Little Round Top on Day 2 of Gettysburg.

[Capt. Obvious]

75. It's hard not to take out the Pearl Harbor fleet

and leave that menace there.

I've tried to half-ass it and take out some of Pearl Harbor while carving up Asia. It's a tough call. You need your planes to battle in Hawaii but you're guaranteed to lose them. You can send your planes to mainland Asia to help gobble up territory.

[MohRokTah]

66. Any invasion of the English island would have resulted in chemical warfare.

Churchill would have immediately gone to chem weapons the moment the Nazis invaded.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

68. Yes, indeed.

Although I'm not certain that would have played well in the American press.

[Cali_Democrat]

23. Assuming America joined the war?

England alone would have stood zero chance, even with its empire. England did have a very powerful navy though. I don't think Hitler would have been able to invade them.

Remember, Hitler needed resources for his war machine and additional space in the Soviet Union. That's why he invaded them.

America was self-sufficient and was able to produce mind boggling amounts of weapons/tanks/planes/ships etc...

Eventually it would have dragged on much longer, but I do think that US industrial production would have been too much, especially if the US didn't have to fight Japan.

Also, what if the US dropped the atomic bomb on Germany?

That would have been a possibility.

Bottom line, nobody knows for sure.

[PoutrageFatigue]

24. Interesting question.

I think the answer is 'possibly'. Since before the first world war the Germans always had the problem of having to fight a war on two fronts. If they had been able to annex the flatlands and France quickly, then race back to defend their Eastern borders, things might have gone differently.

There was great dis-interest towards another European war in GB, and as stated elsewhere, more than a smattering of Nazi-sympathizers in the upper echelons of GB, not least of whom was Prince Edward, so it is not inconceivable that Hitler could have persuaded the Brits to sit on the sideline if he promised not to attack.

So hard to tell with so many moving parts, but I just wish that Austrian painter had succumbed to the poisoned gas he got in WWI...

[GusBob]

25. Perhaps. Perhaps also if had listened to his Generals at and after Stalingrad...

He was obsessed with capturing Stalingrad, somewhat because it was named after Stalin. The stalemate and blockade there along with the brutal winter and over extension of his supply lines bled his Army and allowed Russia to organize and mobilize its forces.

His Generals called for a strategic withdrawal, especially after the Russian offensive which encircled the Armies after Stalingrad. He refused and fired any General who disagreed with him.

The defeat in Russia was a strategic blunder. Perhaps if it was managed differently...the outcome would have been different. Also if the Army group south had captured the oil fields in the south the turnout woulda coulda been different

[Bad Thoughts]

26. Short answer: no

The invasion was partially predicated on getting industrial resources from the east and opening up shippingto the Middle East. The German war production would have suffered without them.

[Spider Jerusalem]

27. a) if he'd not invaded the Soviet Union, b) if he hadn't declared war on the USA.

[DanTex]

28. I think if he had been able to make some treaty with Stalin, the USA couldn't have stopped him.

If he had simply have taken Western Europe, and agreed to split Eastern Europe with Stalin, the Nazis might have lasted a while.

[Cali_Democrat]

35. What if the US dropped nukes on Germany?

That would have been pretty hard to deal with, no?

[DanTex]

37. I guess it probably would have been, yes.

I was thinking about conventional war, but I assume that if we had started nuking them, that would probably be it.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

38. The Germans also had an atomic bomb in the works

although it was well behind the development of the American one. If the Germans had devoted more scientists and resources to their heavy water project instead of devoting so much intellectual capital to the development of other "wonder weapons" (Hitler had less faith in the atomic bomb than in other potential super weapons for their two front war- long range bombers that could reach New York, V-1 and V-2 rockets, fighter jets) who knows? It might have meant the end of mankind.

[Cali_Democrat]

43. It would have been a race to see who could develop them first on a massive industrial scale

The British, Americans and Canadians pooled their resources for the Manhattan project. They also had access to pretty much unlimited resources and manufacturing capacity in North America. The whole reason why Germany invaded the Soviet Union in because they needed more resources.

In all likelihood, the British, Americans and Canadians would have developed it on a massive industrial scale first and dropped bomb after bomb. It was total war at that point.

That would have been the end of Nazi Germany.

[abakan]

62. there were no nukes to drop on Germany..

We got our rockets and nukes thanks to German scientist.

[Cali_Democrat]

70. Well....

The Manhattan project was started in 1942. While Germany had their own program, the allied program was way ahead when it came to using uranium and plutonium for those bombs. That material was hard to come by at the time. Germany was never able to achieve a working nuclear bomb. They actually weren't even close. A working bomb was achieved by the allies in 1945, the same year as Germany's surrender.

Also, the first nukes were dropped from a B-29 plane. It wasn't delivered by a rocket.

[abakan]

71. The german scientist came to White Sands in 46.

http://www.scientistsandfriends.com

I still say there were no nukes to drop on Germany.
B-29 Named Enola Gay named after the pilots mother. Paul Tibbits. His brother was one of my instructors in school.

[Cali_Democrat]

73. The first nuclear bombs were developed and dropped in 1945....

I'm not sure I understand your point about a German scientist coming in 1946.

The German program pretty much reached its height in 1942 when they decided it wasn't worth it and pretty much abandoned efforts. The allies continued to pour enormous amounts of resources into their program and achieved a working bomb in 1945.

[abakan]

76. According to what I have heard working at White Sands for 10 years.

The german scientist came to the proving grounds to build on the V2 model and test rockets for the US. Don't know could be wrong so I'll shut up now and go back to my knitting.

[Cali_Democrat]

77. I think we're talking about two different things

You're referring to the V2 rocket program in which both the US and Soviet Union took German scientists and developed their own programs after WW2.

The Manhattan project was the allied nuclear weapons program which started in 1942 and developed the first nukes in 1945.

[rock]

29. Signs point to yes

No. I didn't use a Magic 8-Ball. Why do you ask?

[Cleita]

31. Many historians and military experts think so.

What people don't remember is Hitler and Stalin were allies at first in carving up Poland. I believe. I'm posting this from memory so it could have been another Eastern European country, however, in the beginning they were in cahoots. When Hitler decided to make war with Russia he poked the bear.

[Sunlei]

34. He would have steam rolled over Russia if the weather was better for his (loyal) troops.

[SQUEE]

48. Also the strategicly monumental blunder of delaying Barbarossa for 6 weeks

So he could pull Mussolinis ass out of the fire in Greece and Macedonia.

Between the floods from a wet winter and a delayed timetable, the German Heer was stopped short by winter on the outskirts of Moscow.

After the Finns had handed the Soviet troops their asses in the Winter War, Hitler was decidedly overconfident in the ability of the Wehrmacht to crush the Red Army... So in a wierd way the Italians and the Finns both Axis nations ended up being a large part of hitlers defeat.

[neverforget]

85. Hitler also had the chance to take Moscow in the Summer of 1941 but instead he

ordered his panzers to move south into the Ukraine. The Soviet defenses before Moscow were few and disorganized at the time. Instead, Hitler allowed the Soviet forces to regroup and dig in while awaiting the winter weather and reinforcements from Siberia to arrive.

[Sunlei]

105. millions died in Ukraine. A few brave people hid in caves there, underground for years.

a lot of written history.
On the dining room table lay one of their most precious family treasures: a memoir of their survival, originally written in Yiddish by their mother, Esther, and then privately published in English in 1975.

“My mother never trusted authority,” Shulim told us. “The Germans, the Russians, the Ukrainians. It didn’t matter. She taught us early on that no matter who it was, if they told you to do one thing, you always did the opposite. If the Germans said, ‘Go to the ghettos, you’ll be safe there,’ you went to the forest or the mountains. You went as far away from the ghettos as you could go.”

In the early 1930’s, Esther Stermer was the proud matriarch of one of the most well-regarded families in Korolowka. Her husband was a successful merchant. It was a rare time of opportunity for many Jews in Western Ukraine; Jewish cultural life and Zionist and socialist movements were thriving.

But with the rise of Nazi power in Germany, and increasing anti-Semitic violence at home, all that soon came to an end. In 1939 the Germans seized Czechoslovakia and then invaded Poland. Threatened by Hitler’s eastward advance, the Russians countered by invading western -- or Polish -- Ukraine. For a short time, a cynical non-aggression pact between the Germans and the Russians kept the region quiet even as the rest of Europe erupted in war. That shaky peace collapsed in June 1941, when Hitler’s armies stormed the border from Poland and rolled across Ukraine’s open plains toward Stalingrad and the oil fields of the Caspian Sea. Almost immediately, German Einsatzgruppen paramilitary units began roaming the country, executing Jews and others at will.

Priest's Grotto (also known as Ozerna or Blue Lakes Ukrainian: Озерна, meaning: "lake&quot is a cave in western Ukraine near the village of Strilkivtsi (Ukrainian: стрілківці , located within the Borshchiv Raion (District) of the Ternopil Oblast (Province).

Priest's Grotto is part of the extensive gypsum giant cave system, and is one of the longest caves in the world with over 127779 m. of explored passages. It is about 450 kilometers (280 mi) driving distance southwest of Kiev, and about 5.5 kilometers (3.4 mi) south of the district seat of Borshchiv. In World War II it was used as a refuge by Jewish refugees from the Nazi occupation during the Holocaust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest's_Grotto

[TeamPooka]

36. Hitler made two huge mistakes. One was invading the Soviet Union. The other was declaring war on the

USA a few days after Pearl Harbor.
It brought America into the war in Europe which until Hitler declared war, the US population wanted no part.
We wanted to destroy Japan out of revenge but we still didn't want to fight in Europe.
Hitler declared and FDR, who wanted in on the European war very much, said we shall defeat Germany first and went ahead with his battle plan in the order he wanted.
If Hitler had kept the truce with Stalin a while longer and avoided bringing the USA into his war he could have solidified his hold on Western Europe for the long term.
The forces deployed to Russia would have been on the coast of Normandy waiting to repel the invasion bringing the odds of a successful D-Day by England and her allies much lower.
But Hitler was greedy and stupid and thankfully, blew it big time.
A simultaneous two-front war is a hard thing to win.

[MohRokTah]

40. As long as he never allied himself with the Japanese, most likely.

Operation Barbarossa was one of the greatest strategic blunders in all of human history.

He could have worn down the Brits, but he would have faced chemical weapons the moment he invaded. Any invasion of Britain should have followed the old Viking invasion points and not anything directly across the channel. It would have been tough going, but he could have taken The Brits eventually

Without Russia sucking away all of his resources, he could have consolidated his holdings in Western Europe prior to launching any attack on the Soviet Union, thus limiting any conflict along those lines to a single front.

Without entanglement with Japan and the US entering the European conflict. he could have eventually taken the world.

But he got pissed at the Brits not folding so opened up the Russian front and basically made it a war of massive attrition from there, especially when Japan pulled the US into the fray.

[StevieM]

41. He might have won if he had listened to his generals during the Russian invasion.

The Germans could have defeated the Soviets if they had taken Moscow early. Hitler made terrible mistakes every time he concluded that he knew better than others.

[Motown_Johnny]

42. We still developed the A bomb first

so odds are we would have ended up nuking not just Japan (twice), but Germany also.

[Xithras]

47. If Germany had beaten Britain, the A-Bomb wouldn't have mattered.

Hitler didn't realize how close he was to defeating the British in 1940. If he had kept Germany focused on taking British soil, he could have captured it long before America developed the atomic bomb.

Without Britain, America would not have had a way to deliver it. Long range jet bombers weren't developed until the early 1950's, and the first ICBM's weren't developed until the late 1950's (and even that development was heavily assisted by captured German engineers & technology). The atomic bomb would have acted as one hell of a deterrent to prevent the Germans and Japanese from attempting any direct invasions of American soil, but without a delivery mechanism would have been useless against Germany itself.

[Cali_Democrat]

51. The B-29, which dropped nukes on Japan, had a range of thousands of miles

The US took over occupation of Iceland in 1941.

That plane could have easily dropped the nukes on Germany from Iceland.

[Xithras]

87. It would have never got through.

The B-29's that bombed Japan only got through because Japan was essentially beaten already, and barely had a functional air force. If Germany had beat the UK, the Luftwaffe would have been at full strength along the British coast for the duration of the war. American bombers would have had to fly the length of the North Sea, which would have been a suicide run with the German military occupying the land on three sides. More importantly, if Britain had fallen the Germans would have captured their radar technology. Couple that with the fact that a defeated Britain would have also meant full ME-262 production, and the B-29's wouldn't have stood a chance.

Not that it matters much anyway. It's highly improbable that the United States would have carried on with a major engagement against the Nazi's if Britain had fallen. Without a functional allied government and staging area in Europe, continuing the war would have been nearly impossible. Nuking the Germans wouldn't have done much good without the ability to place troops in Germany to occupy it afterward.

Plus, there's another dangerous possibility. The Germans didn't get nukes because the heavy water plant in Norway was famously destroyed by the Norwegian resistance. That occurred only because the resistance had direction and help from British special forces (in fact, the rebels only targeted it because the British wanted it destroyed). If Britain had fallen in 1940, it's entirely possible that the Nazi's could have been a nuclear power by 1945.

[Cali_Democrat]

90. LOL! This is some of the craziest conjecture I've ever seen!

The B-29 was able to fly at such a high altitude. Higher than pretty much any German fighter plane at the time. It had a pressurized cabin. It was very advanced for its time.

Do you realize how big the sky is?

During WW2, Germany was able to shoot down planes conducting bombing raids (not B-29's. those were only used against Japan) because hundreds of planes were flying together, often times in broad daylight. They were obvious and easy to spot. A single plane flying at high altitude at night would have been extremely difficult to spot in time to prevent a nuclear strike. Radar technology was pathetic back then and the allies had better radar technology anyways. Also, decoys could have been flown from land or carriers in the Atlantic etc... etc... etc....

Do you realize how many bombers, fighter planes and and carriers the US was able to produce during WW2? It was ridiculous.

The notion that Germany could have picked off any and every single plane attempting to fly over Germany to drop a nuke is absurd. This isn't a precision strike. It's a nuclear bomb. All you have to do is drop it on a city at night.

You're definitely over thinking this.

Anyways, it's moot. Hitler's air force was taking huge losses against Britain in 1940/41. The British had a much more powerful Navy than Germany and would have torn up any German invasion force as they crossed the English Channel. Hitler knew this. That's why he went East.

[Xithras]

93. Not conjecture.

Just subtraction. Remove the British from WW2 history and the entire war changes. From the development of nuclear weapons (stopped largely due to British involvement), to the introduction of jet fighters (largely stopped due to heavy bombing campaigns launched from British soil), to Nazi posession of radar, the entire hsitory of WW2 turned on the fact that the British didn't fall.

BTW, the service ceiling of the B-29 was 32,000 feet. The service ceiling of the ME-262 was 37,500. In an alternate WW2 timeline where Britain had fallen, the Nazi's would have been more than capable of intercepting and shooting down a B-29.

FWIW, most historians do believe that Operation Sea Lion would have failed. The original Nazi plans were to take river barges from the Rhine and float more than a half dozen divisions to the south coast with the Luftwaffe providing cover. The result would have been a German slaughter, as the Royal Navy would have ripped the barges apart. The Germans could have overcome that problem, but Hitler chose to turn east instead. If he had stayed focused on Britain, it's unlikely that the island could have held out.

[Cali_Democrat]

98. If the Germans were so good at shooting down enemy planes

How was Britain able to bomb in the heart of Germany as early as 1940? Again, radar technology sucked back then.

The notion that Germany could have shot down any enemy aircraft approaching its territory just doesn't hold water.

Germany could have been attacked again and again by nukes rather easily.

[sarisataka]

100. The B 29 could have penetrated German airspace

with losses, just as over Japan.


I wonder however where are all of these nukes coming from. After Nagasaki until about June 1946 was the last time the world was nuclear free. We kept planning and preparing for Operation Olypic in case the Japanese did not surrender. After Nagasaki we were out of nukes for six months.

[Motown_Johnny]

92. night missions

plenty of bombers got through to Germany


pretty hard to find one lone bomber in the dead of night

[Motown_Johnny]

56. It could have (and probably would have) been used

against military targets in England and France. Delivered from aircraft carriers in the North Sea, they might also have been able to hit Germany itself.


I don't think we would have hit major cities the way we did in Japan, but I think we would have found a way to use them.

[MohRokTah]

67. The payload was too big and a B-29 would never have gotten airborne...

from an aircraft carrier.

The size of the bomb matters a lot in this.

[Motown_Johnny]

91. You could modify a B-24

I am just pulling specs off of Wikipedia, so if any are wrong I apologize ahead of time. The thing is that this alternate history debate isn't really serious anyways so I am not going to kill to much time looking into the details.


Little Boy was 9700 lb

The B-24 was capable of short range missions with 8000 lb worth of bombs


It had 10 .50 cal. Brownings that (with tripod) weigh about 127 lb each. Then you need to add in the weight of the ammunition. Besides that, you would not need the turrets for the gunners which would also make the plane lighter and more aerodynamic.

If you strip that ~1270 lb plus ammo weight and turret weight off the B-24 you are pretty close to, if not over, the 1700 pounds you need to lose in order to take it from 8000 lbs of bombs to 9700.


There may have also been ways to increase the horsepower of the engines to carry a little more weight.

I think it is pretty unlikely that someone would not have found a way to build five or ten aircraft capable of flying off a carrier and dropping an A-bomb.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy

^snip^

Weight 9,700 pounds (4,400 kg)
Length 10 feet (3.0 m)
Diameter 28 inches (71 cm)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-24_Liberator

^snip^

PB4Y-1

B-24s were also used by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps for ASW, antiship patrol, and photographic reconnaissance in the Pacific theater, and by the U.S. Coast Guard for patrol and SAR. Naval B-24s were redesignated PB4Y-1, meaning the fourth patrol bomber built by Consolidated aircraft. Navy PB4Y-1s assigned to Atlantic ASW and all Coast Guard PB4Y-1s had the ventral turret replaced by a retractable radome. Also, most naval aircraft had an Erco ball turret installed in the nose position, replacing the glass nose and other styles of turret.


Armament

Guns: 10 × .50 caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns in 4 turrets and two waist positions
Bombs:
Short range (˜400 mi): 8,000 lb (3,600 kg)
Long range (˜800 mi): 5,000 lb (2,300 kg)
Very long range (˜1,200 mi): 2,700 lb (1,200 kg)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Browning_machine_gun

^snip^

Weight 38 kg (83.78 lb) 58 kg (127.87 lb) with tripod and T&E
Length 1,654 mm (65.1 in)
Barrel length 1,143 mm (45.0 in)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

45. Considering that 75-80% of German military deaths were on the East Front...

and, George Marshall said that if the Soviets weren't in the war it would have taken twice as many western troops to defeat Germany.......

[Bad Thoughts]

83. Marshall was admitting that US and UK were using Russia as a sinkhole

They were not yet willing to risk their armies in direct confrontation with Germany, so they funneled money and material to Russia in order to occupy Germany, and ordinary Russians were easily sacrificed by the Soviet general staff (as they often were by Russian generals).

[WatermelonRat]

52. He might have won WWII, but he'd lose WWIII against the Soviets shortly afterwards

Nazi Germany and the USSR were never going to stay at peace. One was eventually going to backstab the other.

[LiberalArkie]

54. If he had left Britain and Russia alone. Yes I think so.

[Warpy]

55. Unlikely

Germany, even with vast conquered territory, lacked the natural resources and vast manufacturing capacity of the US. Once the US entered the war, it was good night Adolph.

It would have taken a great deal longer and it would have cost many more lives. Likely Berlin would have been nuked along with Japanese cities before it was over.

Getting bogged down in Russia did the world a favor, although survivors of Stalingrad would probably say the price was too high.

[Warren DeMontague]

57. It was an absolutely mind-breakingly bad move, from a military strategy perspective.

But, then, Hitler was not what you would call operating on a full tank of rationality, so that probably had something to do with it.

In my more optimistic moments I feel that these sorts of things, like the fact that Hitler's hate drove top scientists- many of them Jews, many of them knowledgeable on nuclear fission- out of Germany and to the Allies- are potentially inherntly self-limiting and ultimately self-defeating aspects of totalitarian and repressive regimes.

I like to believe that. That stupidity, hate, and evil eventually do themselves in.

[quaker bill]

61. Only if he had gotten nukes first.

Had he not attacked Russia, they would have eventually come for him.

[gyroscope]

64. Two big questions

1. What if Hitler didn't invade Russia

2. What if Japan didn't attack Pearl Harbor and provoke the US into fully entering the war.



The Axis Powers may very well have been the victors of WW2.

But their hubris got the better of them and each thought of themselves as
being so invincible that they would even dare to take on the two sleeping giants (US and USSR).

[HuckleB]

65. It might have made the war go longer, leading to even more death, but, no.

Plus, it may have led to the likelihood of atomic bombs being dropped on Germany.

[NobodyHere]

80. Even if Hitler left Russia alone

It's doubtful the Soviets would've left Hitler alone.

[roamer65]

86. Hitler was a megalomaniac.

There was no chance of him leaving the Soviet Union alone.

[sarisataka]

89. Overall the question is too simplistic

Germany and U.S.S.R. were going to fight sooner or later. Hitler wanted sooner, Stalin later.

Hitler had already made two serious strategic mistakes in fighting the British

-allowing the BEF to escape at Dunkirk. There was noting preventing the panzer divisions from isolating the beach thus trapping the BEF except Hitler's orders. Some historians have said he allowed the BEF to get away as a good will gesture, hoping England would agree to peace and joining him in the fight against communism.

-letting Goering oversee the Battle of Britain. Goering was a good WW1 fighter pilot and had a decent grasp of tactical air operations. He knew jack about strategic air combat and had an ego as big as a blimp. RAF Fighter Command was strained to the breaking point and in a matter of days would have pulled most fighter squadrons back to western airfields, thus curtailing their ability to stop the Luftwaffe raids. The switch from attacking the RAF to cities was a double blessing. It allowed the RAF to rest and rebuild while staying in the fight and it solidified civilian morale, which though high, had been starting to waver. The raids on cities made everyone feel as if they were an important piece, personally fighting the war. Exactly the opposite effect Hitler expected t would have.


Had everything gone perfect for Germany it would have limited British participation. There was no option of surrender. even had London fallen, they Government would have moved to the colonial empire, Canada most likely, and continue the struggle as best they could.

What is more intriguing is, would a German victory of the British in Europe, convinced the Japanese that they could take the European Pacific possessions without the U.S. intervening. If so, Pearl Harbor would not have been attacked, the Philippines could have been bypassed and the U.S. remaining, if not neutral, at least a non-belligerent for some time.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

99. Hitler's mistake was to delay the advance on Dunkirk

but he eventually ordered German troops into action. The fighting was very heavy. The French First Army held off seven German divisions on the approach to Dunkirk, many laying down their lives. A British officer in his memoirs compared their stand to the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae in one of the heroic actions in the war. Hitler delayed the move on Dunkirk because the weather was bad making it hard to send in the Luftwaffe and tanks. Part of the French First Army managed to escape to England but 40,000 held out against the Germans until they ran out of ammunition and stayed behind. In addition to the British expeditionary Force, about 150,000 French, Belgian, and Polish troops made it across the channel.

[Octafish]

96. Very possibly.

With German forces at near-full strength, England may have fallen. And the US would have to lead what was left of the free world against Germany and its allies, which might have included the same Soviets. With the extra time, German science may have developed technologies too dangerous to mention in public.

[alcibiades_mystery]

97. He would have run out of oil

He couldn't get oil from the British protectorates or areas to their south and east, and he wouldn't have been able to get oil from the East (i.e., the USSR).

[rickford66]

101. Bingo

[brentspeak]

103. Hitler's ultimate goal was always to invade the Soviet Union

You might say that the very reason Hitler started WWII in the first place was to try and take out the Soviet Union. He had two primary obsessions: 1) wipe Jewish people out of Europe; 2) conquer the Soviet Union. Obsession #2 helped him accomplish much of Obsession #1.

[DetlefK]

104. Hatred for Communism was the very reason Hitler entered politics at all.

His motivations were actually pretty simple: Wipe out everything that threatens his world.
1. Violent communist demonstrations in Vienna, Communists calling for the installment of a radically new political regime.
2. Germany empoverished after WWI and somebody has to be at fault, possibly the people who work in finance.

If history had played out a bit differently, maybe Hitler would have become an actor. He had talent for that.

[Ex Lurker]

112. This NT.

[moondust]

110. The fascists and the communists hated each other.

Totalitarians do not coexist well; each wants absolute control of everything. Eventually Hitler and Stalin would have probably had it out to settle disputes over who was the real boss of all the territory and resources that lay between them.

[The Second Stone]

113. He wasn't going to leave the east alone, this was clear from

Mein Kampf and his speeches. He wanted that land. Naziism only continued to work as long as the dice continued to roll, much like a Ponzi scheme. Had he ever stopped it would all fall apart, and he knew it.