How close were the Nazis to winning?

On the issue of whether Germany should have attacked Russia:

Have you heard the theory that it was a preemptive strike because Russia was about to invade Western Europe?

Here's a post from another thread with some info on that.
http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=321844&page=6&p=1063148423#post1063148423

If the above link stops working, do YouTube searches on, "Hitler's War - What the Historians Neglect to Mention", "Hitler Saved Europe From Stalin", and "Who Started World War II? by Viktor Suvorov".

Here's Hitler explaining it himself.
http://www.youtube.com/results?sear...0.0.0.0.62.62.1.1.0...0.0...1ac.1.JuwZT8siAAQ

He may have been lying to get the people to back him but at least we know what the German soldiers and citizens were thinking. They weren't thinking about world conquest. They were thinking about defending their territory from the Russians.

 

By the time the Battle of the Bulge came around it was wayyyy to late for the Germans. The Germans had lost any operational mobility after Kursk. Kursk was the Germans last chance of effectively being able to maintain any kind of operational efficiency and fight for some sort of stalemate (Of course they would have had to win alot more large battles after Kursk to do so)
Germany had very good chances of holding Europe as long as Hitler kept up the fight against the UK and continued negotiating with the USSR. Once he invaded the USSR in 41 he stupidly exposed himself to a 2 front war and faced his armies with conquering a huge territory using insufficient manpower and logistics.
Despite this stupid move, Hitler (with alot of luck) might have been able to beat the USSR if he would have saved the slavic people from communism instead of exterminating them. Of course Hitler's idealogy would never allow such a thing and only helped unite his enemies against him.

 

Well your right that Hitler was, as most of the German high staff called him, "a man wielding a General's authority with the skill of corporal"

However, I wouldnt call Rommel a master strategist. Rommel was an excellent tactician. He wasnt a grand strategist. Rommel's lead style would not be effective at the highest levels of command. General's like Manstein on the other hand. Now that is probably the best general of the war. I cant think of any commander of any nation that came close to Manstein's strategic ability.

 

What do you think of the theory I put forth in post #26?

If that turns out to be true, the preemptive strike was the lesser of the two evils. If he had waited for the Russians to invade first, he would have been in a much worse position. France and England might have ended up fighting alongside him though.

I'm not saying I'm 100% sure the theory is true but I've never seen any substantial reason to rule it out. We do know from his speech that that's what he gave to the German people as the reason for the invasion. At least we know that the German soldiers didn't have world conquest in mind when they were fighting as Americans are taught.

 

Here are some excerpts from Hitler's books.

http://www.angelfire.com/folk/bigbaldbob88/MeinKampf.pdf
(excerpt)
----------------------------------------
All alliances, therefore, should have been viewed exclusively from this standpoint and judged
according to their possible utilization. If land was desired in Europe, it could be obtained by and
large only at the expense of Russia, and this meant that the new Reich must again set itself on
the march along the road of the Teutonic Knights of old, to obtain by the German sword sod for
the German plow and daily bread for the nation.
----------------------------------------

http://www.whitehonor.com/ZweitesBuch.pdf
(excerpts)
----------------------------------------
The sword was the path breaker for the plough. And if we want to talk about human rights
at all, then in this single case war has served the highest right of all: it gave a Folk the soil which it wanted to
cultivate industriously and honestly for itself, so that its children might some day be provided with their daily
bread. For this soil is not allotted to anyone, nor is it presented to anyone as a gift. It is awarded by Providence
to people who in their hearts have the courage to take possession of it, the strength to preserve it, and the
industry to put it to the plough.
Hence every healthy, vigorous Folk sees nothing sinful in territorial acquisition, but something quite in keeping
with nature. The modern pacifist who denies this holy right must first be reproached for the fact that he himself
at least is being nourished on the injustices of former times.
-----------------------------------------
The Folkish State, conversely, must under no conditions annex Poles with the intention of wanting to make
Germans out of them some day. On the contrary, it must muster the determination either to seal off these alien
racial elements, so that the blood of its own Folk will not be corrupted again, or it must without further ado
remove them and hand over the vacated territory to its own National Comrades.
-----------------------------------------
Only a conscious Folkish race policy would be able to save European
nations from losing the law of action to America, in consequence of the inferior value of European Folks vis-àvis
the American Folk. If in place of this, however, the German Folk, along with a bastardisation systematically
conducted by Jews with inferior human material and a lowering of its racial value as such caused thereby, also
lets its best bloodbearers be taken away by a continuation of emigration in hundreds upon hundreds of
thousands of individual specimens, it will slowly sink to the level of an equally inferior race, and hence to that
of an incompetent and valueless Folk. The danger is especially great since, because of the complete indifference
on our side, the American Union itself, inspired by the teachings of its own ethnologists, has established special
standards for immigration. By making entry to American soil dependent on definite racial prerequisites on the
one hand, as well as on the definite physical health of the individual as such, bleeding Europe of its best people
has, indeed, perforce been legally regulated. This is something which our whole so called national bourgeois
world and all its economic politicians either do not see, or, at least, will not hear of because it is unpleasant to
them, and because it is much cheaper to pass over these things with a couple of general national phrases.
-----------------------------------------
Thus
she will again want a great merchant fleet, she will want coaling stations and bases in other parts of the world,
and finally she will want not only international sales markets, but also her own sources of raw material, if
possible, in the form of colonies. In the future such a development will necessarily have to be protected,
especially by maritime means of power.
-----------------------------------------


It's pretty clear that he had imperial ambitions. Maybe the Russians really were about to invade and he saw that as an opportunity to take some Russian territory for Germany without the appearance of blatant imperialism. I guess only the higher-ups in the then German government know what was really going on. All we can do is speculate.

 

May I also raise the fact that one of Hitler's biggest military mistakes (before USSR, USA etc) was to pause the push to Dunkirk. Have its sprearheads continued then the BEF & French would have suffered a much bigger blow hence the outcome may have been different.

 

Its very debatable. IMO if Stalin had chosen to attack Germany it was only because he knew Germany was going to attack him. Hitler was always openly talking about invading the Soviet Union and freeing the world of Communism. Stalin obviously had territorial ambitions. However, its not sure if his ambitions went as far as Germany and if they did was he willing to pay the price for it? I think Stalin got what he wanted out of the non-aggression pact. He received half of Poland all of the Baltic States and Germany did not interfere with his invasion of Finland. I dont think he was interested in fighting Germany. It was too risky. I think his other territories of interest were in the balkans and far east. Hitler however wanted russia so it kind of forced Stalin to address the threat, and it actually worked in his favor.

 

I think this would have mattered more if he had actually invaded the British Isles. But yeah. I think ignoring the British was his largest mistake of the entire war.

 

Likely not close due to a series of errors, from Dunkirk onward.

 

Have you heard the theory that he did that as a gesture in his effort to make peace with England? I'd never heard that theory until I watched this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7nE5fvFXNE&bpctr=1382041224
(1:02:40 time mark)

If the link doesn't work, do a YouTube search on "Hitler's War - What the Historians Neglect to Mention".

I hadn't thought of that. That's very plausible. Russia had taken a few countries before the Germans invaded though: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and Finland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Baltic_states
http://ww2today.com/finnish-troops-defend-the-mannerheim-line

I would have been afraid that it would keep going even though it might have been a preemptive strike against a German attack. It might not have stopped after conquering Germany.

Here's the post with the summary of revisionist info again so that it doesn't get buried.
http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=321844&page=6&p=1063148423#post1063148423

 

Here are two on-line revisionist books that I found.
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/David Hoggan-The Forced War.pdf
http://www.watchmenfaithministries....World_War_Vol._1_-_Before_Sarajevo__1928_.pdf

I haven't gotten around to reading them yet but that's no reason for me not to post them for others to read.

Here's some more revisionist info on why WW2 may have started.
http://northerntruthseeker.blogspot.se/2012/03/more-important-history-revealed-how.html

 

Well the USSR took the baltic states as part of the agreement of the non-aggression pact with Germany. Those states were original territory of russia before the end of ww1. So I know that Stalin wanted those. He might have wanted the east part of Poland to give himself a buffer against a German attack. I think Stalin might have wanted parts of the balkans as well. In particular parts of Romania. Im just not sure if Stalin had real intentions of waging a war against Germany. From a logical standpoint it would not have been worth the cost he would have to pay but I also dont see Hitler or Stalin as very logical people.

 

All we can do is speculate I suppose. I look at lots of revisionist stuff but I just don't take it as fact. The official American version of things is usually upside-down from reality though. Another thing we can do is talk to people from Germany. I haven't been able to do that but David Irving has. Do a YouTube search on "David Irving Holocaust".

Here are two videos worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtpHHQUtaeM
"Hitler Saved Europe From Stalin"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYSy80WlmWY
"Who Started World War II? by Viktor Suvorov"

An interesting theory about the Japan-Germany connection is put forth in this video. I wish I'd made a note of the time mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOEM_xOGE8U

It says that Germany told Japan that if they attacked Russia from its Pacific coast, Germany would declare war on the US. Germany held up its end of the bargain but Japan didn't. If course it's only a theory and I don't see how it can be proved or disproved.

Here's a recorded radio program.
http://ia601208.us.archive.org/14/i...wiiAndWhoTheRealWarMongersWereOct-19-2012.mp3

 

I must say I initially started studying history in college to answer a similar question. However after quite a few years of research I have gained more insight into history and noticed that I was looking for the answer in the wrong section. This might seem like a military question, but it's actually economic and social. And let me explain why:

You see Germany under the Hitler leadership transformed massively into a direction which it could not survive in the long run. Hitler was spending way too much money. Way more than the government ever took in. In 1938 Germany was pretty much bankrupt. The financial reserves were depleted and the few gold reserves left would have gone the same year. Germany also had no more credit. No country was willing to further fund the German government. The only reason why the war got postponed is that they annexed Austria. Austria on the other hand had a dire economy with 20% unemployment but they had a zero deficit budget and healthy financial reserves. In other words from a government perspective Austria was healthy. The gold reserves of Austria at that point far exceeded Germany's reserves. Now this wouldn't be too bad if the German system wasn't build around "cannons instead of butter". The problem with military spending is that you spend a fortune on a battleship, it costs a fortune to maintain and in the end, after about 20 years it's outdated. Basically you blew an extraordinary amount of money without ever putting the money back into the economy or infrastructure of your country. So building a military based economy costs a fortune. Remember that any government is the biggest contributor to their countries GDP. If they run out of money the biggest employer of the land basically goes bankrupt.

This was even worse in Germany of the late 30s as the German government was heavily outweighing the private sector. The entire German system was build on overspending. So the only way the government could survive this is by conquering new land and exploiting that countries resources because they had non themselves left. With Austria's reserves the German government was able to survive another year without further conquests. This economic reason was a major factor why Germany started the war in 1939 not 1938. Also they annexed the Czech Republic at that time. Other peoples money and reserves postponed the war.

Now come the social aspects I initially talked about. Hitler thought that education was bad for the people. In his "vision" the German Reich would eventually only have one university and merely five high schools. Neither would allow women. This is a huge step back as Germany in 1938 was already was missing qualified work force. They had enough labor workers, but they were missing qualified workers which Austria had. Although this policy never got to be, it already shows the crazy direction Germany was heading. If you study economy you will find out that governments are looking to have between 2.5 to 5% unemployment rates. According to economists 2.5% of the people have health issues, are lazy or for one reason or another just won't work. If your unemployment is lower than 2.5% it usually means you're missing qualified workers.

People who serve in the Army don't contribute to the growth of a nation. Hence the direction Germany was in either way was ending up in a disaster.

Militarily speaking Germany was also never close to victory primarily because of Winston Churchill. Churchill in 1941 was not prepared to end the war with Germany. After Germany conquered France and beat Britain in Norway the initial idea was to divide the world between Britain and Germany. Hitler saw in the Brits some "Germanic" group he considered somewhat equal. So he wanted piece and the offer from the British perspective was just brilliant. But Churchill was crazy enough (and looking back at it we are all thankful he was) to decline the offer and continue the war. Most of Germans airforce was now busy fighting against British bombers and fighters instead of further developments. What I mean by this is, that the engineers were seeing Britain as the primary opponent and bombers or fighters which could fly long distance were not the priority. How Germany would eventually conquer Britain was unknown. I think I remember reading that more than two thirds of the German airforce were in battle against the RAF (Royal Air Force).

Much of Russia's military production was east of the Ural mountains or was moved there after the initial attack in 1941. You would need long distance bombers to take out their production capabilities. But there was maybe a short period of a time in the winter of 1941. The German army was close to Moscow and Stalin refused to leave, but Hitler decided that it was more important to commence towards the Finnish frontline than conquering Moscow. Also he declared war to the US after Perl Harbor. Completely unnecessary from the German perspective.

So to sum up my answer to your question. The Nazis were militarily never close of winning as the system was crumbling the people back home. The military capabilities of Germany could not control such a vast area and the generals knew that. They might conquer it short term, but they could never hold it.

 

Very nice argument you have put forward. I appreciate the level of detail you went to

 

The Nazis overreached. If they spent some time to secure Europe and their N. African oil lines then they could have built up enough resources to take on the UK and Russia combined. The America First Committee was a powerful anti-war group in the USA that strongly opposed joining the war in Europe. If Japan hadn't have bombed Hawaii, I doubt that the stance of non-intervention would have changed. Invading Russia too early (before the western front was better secured) and Pearl Harbor (which single-handedly brought the US into the war) were the worst things that happened to the Nazis after the war started. A lot of this was bad luck for the Nazis, but then they gained their power so quickly by a lot of good luck (including up to 40 failed assassination attempts on Hitler).

 

I think people overestimate the power of the US military in 1941. Not to mention that Hitler declared war on the US not the other way around. They thought they had nothing to worry about as they were militarily out of reach anyways and not that powerful anyways. I remember reading someplace that Germany ranked the US military on par with Portugal back then...

 

I would say that that is underestimating it a bit, but there is no question that most of our military in 1941 was in pretty rough shape.

Our fleet was aging, our armour was a complete joke (less then 100 M2 Medium tanks), aircraft a generation behind that of most of the rest of the world, and our proposed replacements were still on the drawing board.

However, where both Germany and Japan underestimated the US was in our sheer industrial capacity. In an amazingly short amount of time we were able to completely transform our industrial capacity, and literally flood the Axis powers with ever evolving pieces of equipment that within 4 years became among the finest in the world.

The US went from the M2 Light Tank to the M26 Pershing during the course of the war.
The US went from the B-17 Flying Fortress (5,000 lb standard load) to the B-29 Superfortress (20,000 lb standard load).
The US went from the Colorado class Battleship (32,600 ton displacement, 2 4 gun 16" turrets, 21 knot speed) to the Iowa class Battleship (50,000 ton displacement, 3 3 gun 16" turrets, 31 knots).

The US military that emerged at the end of the war in 1945 was not the same as that which entered it in 1941. We pulled our forces from China in November 1941, sure that we could no longer support them. And we lacked even the capability to protect Wake or the Philippines.

 

all true but the USA's best weapons were the atlantic and pacific oceans...neither germany or japan had the technical or logistical ability to successfully attack and damage the USA despite it's limited military capabilities in 1941...the USA's population and industrial base was immune to attack the axis powers were not, that's an extraordinary advantage to have in war...

 

The advantage of the USA in the war was the distance. It's not that easy crossing an Ocean without an ally on the other side. The military capabilities in the 1940s just weren't there yet.
The USA are geographically very well protected. Without England to land on the USA would have had a much harder time invading Germany too...

 

False, Germany was well aware of the power of the US. The US had already pretty much sided with the allies, and Hitler had hoped that by declaring war that the Japanese would re-open a front against the soviets in the east and it would allow the Germans to extend their war on allied shipping. By December of 41 Germany was already losing all momentum against the russians and Hitler loved to gamble.

 

yes exactly, without the world's largest aircraft carrier(England) how would they have staged or supported an invasion, logistically and technically if not impossible very, very difficult...

 

That makes sense. Invading Russia just before winter seems asinine otherwise. The weather probably killed more Germans than the Russians.

 

Japan could not open another front. I have never really seen any kind of proof that Hitler actually expected that to happen. And even if he did, it could not have happened.

Japan barely had the resources and manpower to control what they already had at the end of 1941. They were unable to take most of China, nor Burma, India, or Australia. And there was no way on Earth they were going to attack the Soviet Union. And their offensives in Wake and Philippines took a lot more men then expected.

And even if they did attack the Soviets, it is doubtful that they would have had any impact on the war in Europe. Siberia was simply to large, and not enough of critical importance came from there to have much of an impact. The Soviets would simply have staged a fighting withdrawal and let the country destroy most of the invaders.

If Hitler thought the climate along the Eastern Front was bad, that would have been a cakewalk compared to what the Japanese would have faced in Siberia. And with less roads, and one really bad railroad to send supplies down they would could have poured millions into it and it would not have made a bit of difference.

 

I agree. I even read that the the Japanese intention was never to invade continental USA. The destruction of the pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor and another major victory which was planed for Midway, would force the USA into a piece agreement, in which they would have to give up the Philippines and Hawaii. The Japanese were really keen on a peace agreement in which the USA would be forced to continue trading and stop the embargo.

Their intention really was only to create a European type colonial empire and get primarily Brits, Americans and French out of Southeast Asia. They didn't know that this system which they saw made Europeans rich for centuries was in the process of dying. At that time Britain and France still controlled vast areas outside Europe.