@SuperbattleshipYamato hard to argue against any of this really. The IJN was so far gone by this point in the war that there’s not really much they could have done to salvage their situation one way or another. The bit about the allies not having many LSTs in general is something I never knew before though.
WW2 Article: Advanced German Technology
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More important than the Horten Ho 229’s stealth characteristics is the fact that it met or came close to meeting Goering’s 1000/1000/1000 goal.
Goering was a fat, idiotic drug-addict. Those goals as you call them came about during some drug-induced braggadoccio to Hitler to regain his favor after a number of Luftwaffe disasters. They don’t mean anything.
I also have a low opinion of Goering. His braggadocio and false promises were largely responsible for a number of German problems and defeats. At Dunkirk, Goering had promised Hitler that the British force could be destroyed by air. Hitler therefore elected to preserve the strength of his own army with the thought that the Luftwaffe could finish off Britain’s troops.
Slightly over two years later, the German Sixth Army had become encircled inside Stalingrad. The German Army had paid a high price for the conquest of Stalingrad in the first place: Soviet soldiers were considerably more successful in killing German soldiers in house-to-house fighting than in open field combat. Considering the heavy price which had been paid to acquire this crucial city, Hitler was highly reluctant to abandon it to the Soviets. He felt that if the German Army abandoned the city, it would have to pay another high price in blood when it retook the city later.
Goering told him this was unnecessary. The Luftwaffe, Goering promised, would use cargo transports to deliver all the supplies that were needed. The German force could remain in place until the Soviet encirclement was broken.
The Stalingrad force never received more than a fraction of the daily supplies Goering had promised. As wholly inadequate as the transport effort was early on, it grew steadily and significantly worse as the weeks continued. Bad weather, losses of cargo transport planes to Soviet anti-air guns and fighters, and other factors caused the daily tonnage arriving in Stalingrad to continue to dwindle. When the remnants of von Paulus’s Sixth Army finally surrendered, its soldiers were starving, and almost completely bereft of ammunition and medical supplies.
Goering’s incompetence and lack of credibility should not be allowed to obscure the achievements of Reimar. Meeting the 1000/1000/1000 goal was a remarkable accomplishment, regardless of whatever thoughts (if any) that may have been going through Goering’s head when he formulated that goal. A medium bomber that could fly over 150 MPH (nearly 300 km/h) faster than a P-51 Mustang could have been very useful to the German war effort.
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So only Germany had flying wings?
Northrop N-1M?
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So only Germany had flying wings?
Northrop N-1M?
The Northrop N-1M was an experimental American flying wing design which first flew in 1941, and which had a top speed 1/3 that of the Horten Ho 229. Obviously that wasn’t good enough, so Northrop created another, slightly faster flying wing design in late '42. The N-9M was about 2/5 as fast as the Horten. By June of '46 Northrop had an experimental flying wing that was 2/3 as fast as the Horten. (The YB-35 had a much longer range and much larger payload than the Horten.)
By October of '47 Northrop had created a prototype jet version of its flying wing–the YB-49. This aircraft was 5/6 as fast as the Horten; while having a significantly longer range and much larger bomb load. But then
[In 1950], all Flying Wing contracts were cancelled abruptly without explanation by order of Stuart Symington, Secretary of the Air Force. . . .
[In] a 1979 videotaped news interview, Jack Northrop broke his long silence and said publicly that all flying wing contracts had been cancelled because Northrop Aircraft Corporation had refused to merge with competitor Convair at Stuart Symington’s strong suggestion, because according to Jack Northrop, Convair’s merger demands were “grossly unfair to Northrop.”.[3] A short while later, Symington became president of Convair upon leaving his post as Secretary of the Air Force.[4] . . .
[In] April 1980, Jack Northrop, now quite elderly and wheel chair bound, was taken back to the company he founded. There, he was ushered into a classified area and shown a scale model of the Air Force’s forthcoming but still classified Advanced Technology Bomber, which would become known as the B-2A; a sleek Flying Wing. Looking over its all-wing design, Northrop was reported to have said: “I know why God has kept me alive for the past 25 years.”[8]
German designers and engineers deserve credit for using the flying wing design to create what would have been a highly effective fighter/interceptor and medium bomber. Northrop deserves credit for using the flying wing design to create what could have been an effective postwar heavy bomber. The German design employed two jet engines; the Northrop jet design of late '47 used six. This illustrates that the German and American aircraft were intended for different roles: the Germans emphasized speed, maneuverability, and dogfighting ability, and the Americans focused on range and large bomb payloads.
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If I had to rank the nations of WWII in order of their technological prowess, I would place them in the following order: the US, Germany, UK, USSR, Japan.
However, I wish to thank Lazarus for for pointing out the obvious discrepancy of the Germans utilizing both the most advanced form of transportation (V-2 and ME262) and the least advanced form (horses and feet) of all participants. Whereas the Allies, particularly the US, had a great deal of transporation, even to basic infantry, provided by gasoline powered vehicles such as the Jeep which gave the US and UK a very clear advantage of mobility:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeep
Jeeps were used by every division of the U.S. military and an average of 145 were supplied to every infantry regiment. Jeeps were used for many other purposes including cable laying, saw milling, as firefighting pumpers, field ambulances, tractors and, with suitable wheels, would even run on railway tracks.
This show the level of technology for the participating countries in WWII varied considerably both between nations and within individual nations.
One perfect example was the Jerrycan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JerrycanA simple, but effective technology that was eventually reverse engineered by the Allies. This alone might have enabled Rommel to do as well as he did in N. Africa as one of his big problems was a severe shortage of fuel. With the massive industrial production capabilities of the US and the clear need for this by the British colonies prior to the war, why didn’t either side develop an equivalent prior to the war as had the Germans? Its not as if this were a difficult thing to do.
I can point to dozens of similar accounts on both sides illustrating the spotty development of technology during the war. Why was the concept of drop tanks (greatly extending flight distance of fighters) developed so late in the war? Why did the Japanese, despite having perhaps the best submarines of the war, neglect to develop anti-submarine technology? Why were the Russian tanks, despite the low technology of the soviets (such as the poor quality of steel and poor erognomics and lack of radios) in many ways superior to the German tanks, such that the Germans copied the best features (such as sloped armor)? Why were the British, after having cracked the German enigma code, so lax in their own communications (they could have simply developed a similar code)?
Technological development for all sides was uneven and always in development such that the best technology was often obsolete before it could be mass produced . Not that mass production was always possible or even desirable. As an example of undesirable production, the German shortage of fuel precluded the use of “Jeeps” for infantry even had they decided to build these.
Note to Zukov; While I can appreciate wanting to use the best sources, I prefer to use wikipedia links (and other well known media sources) because these are fairly accurate and usually virus and spyware free. Some of the other links, while potentially better sources of information, are also not as secure and often of a more questionable quality than Wikipedia. If the link address looks odd, I generally won’t click on it…
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Um, the Germans lost the war and in the process perpetrated the most evil, disgusting and unforgettable atrocities in all the long and brutal history of mankind. Who cares if someone “slams” the German Army? Good God, man. You don’t wish the Nazis had won the war, do you?
Like Zhukov, I’m wondering what larger point – if any – is being made in what might otherwise simply be a discussion of the state of German technology during the Second World War. Since this is Stanley Cup playoff season, let me use a hockey analogy to explain (in abstract terms) what’s puzzling me. Assume that Team X has just defeated Team Y in the last game of the playoffs and has won the Stanley Cup. The coach of Team Y is being interviewed after the game, and he tells the sports reporters something along these lines:
"Yes, well, it’s true that the other team won…but that’s an overly simplistic way of looking at the situation. Just look at the hockey equipment that our side was using, or was developing, and you’ll see that we were way ahead of the other team.
"For instance, we invented special high-impact helmets and shoulder pads. Those would have given our guys a huge advantage in body-checking: we could hit the other players much harder and dislocate their shoulders without being injured ourselves. It’s too bad that the development problems we ran into meant that they never advanced beyond the prototype stage because, by golly, if we’d ever gotten them into use on the ice we’d have flattened the opposition.
"Then there’s the super-advanced skate blades we produced. They gave our guys 10% more speed than the other team could manage on their old-fashioned conventional skates – or at least they did for the three players we were able to equip with them, because we only had time to manufacture three pairs before the playoffs ended. Think of the difference they would have made if all of our players had had them! It’s unfortunate that their production was delayed by the fact that our suppliers also had to work on all those other Advanced Hockey Equipment Initiative projects that didn’t turn out to be quite so useful – like the one to develop light-amplifying helmet visors, which would have allowed our guys to keep playing if the hockey arena lighting had failed, or the system to encrypt the player numbers on the back of their hockey jerseys, so that our guys would be able to decode the numbers of their team-mates while leaving the opposition unable to recognize anyone from behind.
"And we especially outclassed the other team with our hyper-polymer composite hockey sticks. Those were by far our greatest technological triumph! They could fire the puck faster and straighter than any normal wooden stick the opposition had. We would have gotten them on the ice long before the playoffs started, of course, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the owner of our team insisted that these sticks should also have the capability to shoot pucks along curved trajectories as well as shooting them straight. Our players thought that this additional capability was a waste of time and effort, when what they really wanted was just a simple straighter-shooting stick, but the owner firmly believed that a curve-shooting stick would fool the other side’s goalie a lot better.
"Anyway, we did manage to equip most of our players with these super-sticks in time for the final three games, so that was a big plus on our side. It’s only at that point, however, that we discovered how easily the super-sticks broke. They were a real headache to replace because they were so expensive and took so long to manufacture. But that’s the price you have to pay for quality. Just look at Team X’s equipment if you don’t believe me! Their old wooden sticks were so cheap that they broke even more often than our super-sticks! Okay, it’s true that for every stick they broke they had two dozen new ones ready to replace it, but that’s just because they were so cheap to manufacture. And anyway, that’s also partly because Team X had ten hockey-stick factories working for them, in contrast to our single factory – so that was a grossly unfair advantage on their part, and if you ask me it shouldn’t really count in the final analysis.
“I just wish the playoffs had lasted longer because we were really on our way to solving those problems. Our general manager got the owner to drop his requirement that our super-sticks shoot curves, so the second-generation models would have been a lot simpler to produce. We also persuaded our owner not to launch a brand-new program to develop a new dual-function stick which could be used both by our goaltenders and our skaters. And as coach, I was starting to put much more emphasis on coming up with a solid game plan for a change. I’ve always believed that my priority should be training the guys physically, to make sure they were the fastest and strongest players on the ice, and I’ve always felt that as long as my boys were well-trained physically they didn’t need a game plan any more complicated than ‘Put the puck in their net and keep it out of ours’. My assistant coach got me to try to be a bit better-organized at tonight’s final game, however, and I must say it did seem to make a difference, so that goes to show that we could have turned things around in that department too if we’d just had a little longer to make use of all our terrific technological advantages.”
This little imaginary monologue is exaggerated, of course, but it’s not fundamentally different from what sports teams (and sports fans) sometimes say when they’ve been knocked out of their game’s playoff series. I’m just curious about the fact that essentially the same thing is being argued in this thread about Germany’s technological developments during the Second World War.
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Alright boys don’t bring politics into this. I really don’t have time to type a massive response to your answer because I’ve got a life outside of board games and history. Saying that I wish the Germans had won the war has nothing to do with the conversation. I’m glad they didn’t. Hitler and his Nazis commited acts more horrible then perhaps anyone in history. However what about the German people? If I had a German grandfather in the Heer are you calling him a sick inhuman bas***d that deserves to be shot? What if the US or Australia or the UK or wherever your from, invaded a poor defensless country? Then another nation declared war. What would you do? In my opinion anything other than defending your country, family, and home is unacceptable. Not all these men fought because they hated Jews, Blacks, and other “different” people. They did it to protect everything they held dear. So I don’t want any arguing or complaining about how this is completely irrelevent (because it is). I have only one question . Would you do the same?
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Alright boys don’t bring polotics into this. I really don’t have time to type a massive response to your answer but I’ve got a life outside of board games and history. Saying that I wish the Germans had one has nothing to do with the conversation. I’m glad they didn’t. Hitler and his Nazis commited acts more horrible then perhaps anyone in history. However what of the German people. If I had a German grandfather in the Heer are you calling him a sick inhuman bas***d that deserves to be shot? What if the US or Australia or the UK or wherever your from invaded a poor defensless country? Then another nation declared war. What would you do? In my opinion anything other than defending your country, family, and home is unacceptable. Not all these men fought because they hated Jews, Blacks, and other “different” people. They did it to protect everything they held dear. So I don’t want any arguing or complaining about how this is completely irrelevent (because it is). I have only one question . Would you do the same?
Oh, man. For one thing, I was born in Germany, the same as my mother and father, their parents before them, their parents before them, and down the line for some generations, and I like to think I’ve shed my bias. My great-grandfather, an NCO in a Waffen-SS panzergrenadier division, was killed during the Battle of the Bulge (my dad’s grandfather moved to the U.S. when he was young and fought for the U.S. in the same battle - I like to think he shot my German great-grandfather :lol:).
Before this topic gets any more off topic, I would like to say, Pvt. Ryan, that the German people are not as innocent as you seem to believe. They watched as their Jewish neighbors were hauled off and they cheered like schoolgirls every time Germany invaded another country. No matter what German apologists say, the German people were arguably just as responsible for the atrocities their leaders committed.
Oh, CWO_Marc, I for one greatly appreciate the analogy. Not a huge hockey fan myself, but I couldn’t stop laughing when I read that.
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@CWO:
Um, the Germans lost the war and in the process perpetrated the most evil, disgusting and unforgettable atrocities in all the long and brutal history of mankind. Who cares if someone “slams” the German Army? Good God, man. You don’t wish the Nazis had won the war, do you?
Like Zhukov, I’m wondering what larger point – if any – is being made in what might otherwise simply be a discussion of the state of German technology during the Second World War. Since this is Stanley Cup playoff season, let me use a hockey analogy to explain (in abstract terms) what’s puzzling me. Assume that Team X has just defeated Team Y in the last game of the playoffs and has won the Stanley Cup. The coach of Team Y is being interviewed after the game, and he tells the sports reporters something along these lines:
"Yes, well, it’s true that the other team won…but that’s an overly simplistic way of looking at the situation. Just look at the hockey equipment that our side was using, or was developing, and you’ll see that we were way ahead of the other team.
I’d like to address the points you’ve made in this post, beginning with Zhukov’s quote from the first paragraph. He asserted that the Nazis perpetrated “the most evil, disgusting and unforgettable atrocities in all the long and brutal history of mankind.” While those terms are fairly subjective, it is worth noting that during WWII, the Allies were responsible for a far greater number of illegally/immorally perpetrated deaths than were the Axis. These deaths include, but are not limited to, the millions which were caused by the Anglo-American food blockade of Germany, the various genocides the Soviets perpetrated during and after the war, and the bombing raids directed against German and Japanese cities and their people. The Allies were not the knights in shining armor that their propagandists worked so hard to portray them as. This is not to suggest that the Axis nations had avoided illegal killings–they most certainly had not. Examples of unjustifiable Axis actions include the following.
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The Anglo-American food blockade had created a food crisis in Germany. To prevent starvation of its own people, the German government gave a higher food priority to its own citizens than to the residents of occupied Poland and other territories. This was legal. A government has a greater moral responsibility to feed its own citizens than the non-citizen residents of territories it occupies. The millions of Poles who starved to death as a result of the food shortage were the sole responsibility of the Allied governments whose actions had caused starvation. In addition, the Nazis decided that Jews were less deserving of scarce calories than anyone else. Therefore, Jewish caloric consumption was to be eliminated. This singling out of the Jews was illegal and unethical.
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Communist guerrillas in France and in some Eastern European countries would appear, kill some German soldiers, and then fade into the general populace. This habit of fighting out of uniform was illegal. The reason this behavior is forbidden is to avoid creating an incentive for the victim of such attacks to retaliate against local civilian populations. Germany did engage in such retaliatory behavior: it killed large numbers of local civilians for each of its soldiers who had been illegally killed. The theory was that such retaliations would turn the local populace against the communist guerrillas. But whether that theory was correct or inaccurate, the retaliation killings were still illegal.
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The Japanese behavior in China was clearly an Axis atrocity.
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The German bombing of civilian targets in Britain and elsewhere was illegal. (Though the German raids were on a much smaller scale than the Allied bombing raids.)
None of the above, however, even comes remotely close to justifying the Allies’ atrocities during WWII. The communists in particular were murderers, and showed no hesitation about mowing down columns of German refugees, or raping and killing German women and girls during and after the war. The Soviet occupation of Germany has been described as the largest mass rape in human history. It is also worth noting that the British forbade significant Jewish entry into Palestine or their other colonies, even while adopting a food policy designed to starve Germany. Just which group did the British expect Hitler to select as the first victim for the starvation the British had chosen to create?
Prior to WWII, the Soviet communists were responsible for tens of millions of mass murders. These include the Ukrainian famine, the murder of non-communists and anti-communists, random killings of “enemies of the people” intended to weed out potential opposition, murders of kulaks and others based on economic class, the murder of the Russian intelligentsia, the murder of Christians and Christian clergy, the murder of a large number of Red Army officers in a Purge, and more. In contrast, the Nazis’ pre-war illegal killings included (and were more or less limited to), the non-judicial execution of a few hundred SA members in order to prevent a coup. Despite these track records, the major Western democracies consistently sided with the communists, and against the Nazis, in the cold war that had developed between Germany and the Soviet Union. The pro-communist atmosphere which existed inside FDR’s administration, in the American media, in France, and elsewhere strongly influenced the course of events. This pro-communist attitude was not based on concern about past mass murders, as shown by fact that the communists had a much worse pre-war track record than did the Nazis. Nor was it based on concern for avoiding future mass murders, as demonstrated by the fact that, in 1938, both Chamberlain and Daladier rejected Hitler’s offer to relocate Germany’s Jewish population to some remote British or French colony. (Hitler personally favored French Madagascar, but indicated he wasn’t picky.) The pro-communist policies of the Western democracies were not the result of sound moral conviction: they were the result of complete moral failure. This same moral failure would lead to resistance to anti-communism in the postwar era, a lack of concern for the victims behind the Iron Curtain, and a general willingness to look the other way while the communists committed whatever atrocities they felt like.
The statement has been made that the Germans did nothing while the Jews were being gathered up and placed in concentration camps. What, precisely, did the American public do to stop the Japanese living in the U.S. from being gathered up and placed in American concentration camps? It could be pointed out that, while conditions in both camps were very bad, and produced skeletal people, the concentration camps for the Jews were significantly worse even than those for the Japanese. But it is not exactly as though the average American personally visited (or was allowed to personally visit) the concentration camps for Japanese to see the conditions for himself. Therefore, it’s hard to blame the average German for having failed to have done the same with respect to his own nation’s camps. Similarly, the British people did not prevent their government from building concentration camps, or using them against the predominately Dutch settlers of South Africa, during the Boer War. These camps also resulted in living skeletons for people. The idea that the German people are uniquely and collectively guilty is Allied propaganda; and has about as much truth and justice as you’d expect from propagandists at their very worst.
Having addressed the first point, I’ll move onto the second. “Like Zhukov, I’m wondering what larger point – if any – is being made in what might otherwise simply be a discussion of the state of German technology during the Second World War.” That is a fair and legitimate question.
In the early 1930s, the international communist party regarded fascism as the penultimate in a series of steps which would ultimately lead to communism. Therefore, the German communist party did not align itself with the mainstream parties in an effort to keep the Nazis out of power. But the rise of the Nazi Party did not help move Germany towards communism. Instead, communist leaders were placed in concentration camps, sources of communist influence were dissolved or taken over by the Nazi government; and the German people gradually became united. Jails were empty, unemployment was largely eliminated, the workforce had decent wages and a decent standard of living, and patriotism was strong. Germany was proving largely immune to the communist virus.
Therefore, the international communist party would change tacks. In the future, it would focus on “anti-fascism,” which in practice meant encouraging the Western democracies to oppose Germany. Stalin regarded both the Nazis and the democracies as equally enemies. He hoped for a long war between the two sides–a war which would bleed them both white, and cripple both Nazi and Western democratic resistance to a Soviet move westward into the heart of Europe. His hope was therefore to remain neutral in the sought-after war between Germany and the western democracies.
Communist and pro-communist influence within major western democracies was very strong. Thus, the Nazis could not necessarily hope to maintain their government through diplomacy alone–at least not over the long term. If a solid core of influential people pushes in a specific direction long enough–as the French Communist Party and other like-minded organizations could be expected to do–that group can often achieve its objective over the long run.
In 1935, France signed a defensive alliance with the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia also sided with the Soviets. These developments meant that the Soviets’ diplomatic policy was picking up steam; and that the Western democratic governments were becoming increasingly pro-Soviet and anti-German in policy.
The Nazis had relatively little control over political forces in France or elsewhere–much less influence than, for example, the Soviet Union had. If the Soviet Union was pursuing a war against Germany by proxy (using or influencing Western democracies to achieve its own ends), Germany would respond by becoming militarily and economically stronger. This strategy involved the building up of Germany’s military (so as to increase its negotiating influence), the re-acquiring of territory taken by the Versailles Treaty, and other tactics. In 1938, Germany successfully annexed Czechoslovakia–an act which both strengthened Germany’s industrial base and sent a message to other Eastern European governments which might otherwise have been tempted to side with the Soviets.
In 1939, Poland adopted a foreign policy that was both anti-German and anti-Soviet. It did so largely because of France’s (false) promise to launch a general offensive against Germany if Germany went to war with Poland. Polish foreign policy therefore reflected the wishes of France (which wanted to foster disagreements between Germany and Poland), rather than the best interests of Poland.
Once the war began, Germany found itself at a severe disadvantage to Britain and France, especially in terms of access to raw materials and industrial capacity. Also, Britain and France could rely on weapons purchases from American factories. Initially, Germany was able to offset this strategic disadvantage with good tactics, and the skill and courage of its military. But the fall of France did not solve Germany’s problems. Germany was still at a disadvantage to Britain in terms of military production capacity–especially when the Lend-Lease Aid was added in. Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union was (among other things) a bid to rectify that imbalance–to gain for itself the manpower, raw materials, and industrial capacity necessary to balance out the aircraft being built in British and American factories.
However, Germany did not have the same weapons manufacturing capacity as did the Soviets. Moreover, its prewar population was 69 million people–as compared to 169 million for the Soviet Union. Germany could only field an army a fraction the size of its Soviet counterpart. Initially, Germany made up for this by a very one-sided exchange ratio. But at the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviets succeeded in killing or capturing almost as many Germans as they themselves lost. While the Germans later returned to attaining one-sided exchange ratios–Kursk is a good example–it was not enough to protect the German homeland against the strength of the Red Army.
Prior to WWII, the Western democracies and the communists were each stronger than Germany. The major Western democracies liked the communists much more than they liked Germany. (Though it is worth noting that the democratic government of Finland was not pro-communist, and fought against communism during WWII.) The story of the war in Europe is therefore a story of Germany’s ultimately unsuccessful efforts to overcome the economic and military weakness which Hitler’s government had inherited from the Versailles Treaty. Pre-war, those efforts involved sacrifice–Germany spent 20% of its GDP on its military. Early in the war, Germany’s efforts for survival revolved around quick conquests–on starting and ending wars quickly, before the other side’s economic advantage could force a decision against Germany. Blitzkrieg allowed Germany to quickly conquer Poland, France, and the western portion of the Soviet Union.
But blitzkrieg could only achieve so much. By the fall of ‘41 it had become clear that the German plan of quickly destroying the communists’ military strength had failed. Everything which occurred from '42 onward–and especially from '43 onward–represents a subsequent phase of the Nazi government’s attempt to survive.
In 1942, the Allies produced four times as many military aircraft as did the Axis. While both sides increased military aircraft production over the next two years, the Axis increased it more. In 1944, the Allies produced only twice as many military aircraft as did the Axis. (Military aircraft production is a somewhat reasonable proxy for overall military production.) Germany produced nearly three times as many military aircraft in '44 as it had in '42. But at no point after it invaded the Soviet Union could it have hoped to achieve victory by outproducing its enemies. Even before Barbarossa, the large numbers of U.S.-made military aircraft and other weapons being sent to Britain meant that it would have been virtually impossible for Germany to match the Allies on quantity.
While large-scale production increases had to be part of any successful German strategy for victory, Germany would face large numerical disparities no matter how successful it was in mobilizing its own industrial strength. Therefore, a substantial qualitative advantage was also required. Its infantry had such an advantage: a study I saw indicated that German infantry were, on a man-for-man basis, three times as combat-effective as their Soviet counterparts. American and British infantry were 80% and 50%, respectively, as effective as the Germans.
Assuming the Allies were able to maintain their 2:1 - 4:1 advantage in weapons manufacturing, German weapons would have to be twice to four times as effective as their Allied counterparts to give Germany a chance. The fact that Germany was in the process of developing a number of such wonder-weapons when the war ended is therefore highly interesting. Had those weapons been developed two to three years earlier, and had Germany’s production increase also occurred earlier, a plausible Axis victory scenario could be created. Once Germany was at war with both Britain and the Soviet Union (with American industrial strength turned against it as well through Lend-Lease), the only plausible Axis victory scenarios absolutely require Germany to attain a significant qualitative advantage over its enemies. The fact that so many advanced forms of weaponry were being developed in late-war Germany means that a significant qualitative advantage could have formed the basis for a German war strategy. However, that advantage would have needed to be attained soon enough to matter. (Or, conversely, the war would need to have been delayed to give Germany enough time to put that qualitative advantage into effect.)
I realize these are history forums, and that they will tend to attract people who wish to discuss what did happen (the Allies won), and not necessarily what could have happened. The larger point of any technology-based “what if?” scenarios may or may not interest you personally. I enjoy such discussions, in large part because of how they tie in to the question of the larger strategic options available to the Axis.
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Yes, yes, spare us the awful history lesson. Some of us have books on our shelves, too. Your arguments are familiar and are a frequent subject of debate, but when it comes down to it, we know that two wrongs don’t make a right. Despite a picture you and others paint of a desperate Germany with no other option for national survival than war (you even through poor Poland under the bus), Germany started that war on its own and fortunately was not able to finish it. This whole diatribe, though presenting some facts, does so in such a skewed and ridiculous manner that continuing it would be laughable.
“Nor was [the liberal West’s supposed pro-communism leanings] based on concern for avoiding future mass murders, as demonstrated by the fact that, in 1938, both Chamberlain and Daladier rejected Hitler’s offer to relocate Germany’s Jewish population to some remote British or French colony. (Hitler personally favored French Madagascar, but indicated he wasn’t picky.)”
By your line of reasoning, then, the Western democracies are just as much to blame for the Holocaust as Germany when they refused to accommodate an exodus of Jewish refugees from Germany? You won’t find many who will share those kind of views. Much of the rest of your post is similar revisionist gibberish. I would be careful who you share those thoughts with. In any case, morality in the time of war is way off topic and leads to some very diverse opinions, I am sorry I brought it up.
Your last couple of paragraphs kind of got us back full circle anyways. You keep saying, however, the Germans could have influenced the war’s outcome if they had those weapons sooner, but again, almost all were in such a state of infancy as to still be years and years away, even for the U.S. who suffered no destruction of its homeland and possessed the best scientists in the world.
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To help steer this interesting topic in the right direction, let’s assume Germany was able to upgrade its fighter squadrons with Me-262As by as soon as late 1942, early 1943. This was a crucial and extremely bloody period for the Allied Bomber Commands, with losses on some raids reaching ten or more percent. Without fighter escorts (the drop tank-equipped P-51 still many months away) the bombers would have been easy prey to the new German jet. The bomber effort was already on the brink of collapse, so a determined resistance by numerous and skilled Schawlbe squadrons could have cleared the skies over Europe.
But then what? The effect of the Allied bombing campaign during the war is soaked in controversy and many believe it had little effect. Considering Germany production reached its peak during nonstop night and day bombing, the argument carries some weight.
The jet was designed to combat heavy bombers, how would it have fared in an air-superiority role - that is, the ability to suppress enemy fighters and air defenses to a point where your forces dictate the battlefield? The Me-262 would have had to fulfill the fighter-bomber and air-defense-suppression roles unless the Germans continued to field older models since no jet bomber was even close to operational.How do you think the jet would have performed in Russia, where enemy strategic bomber forces were negligible? The Red Air Force was able to quickly outnumber the Luftwaffe in fighters and tactical bombers, including some models that were better than any of the German prop-planes.
How do you think the Me-262s would have been used, en masse, on the Eastern front, and to what effect? -
Not a huge hockey fan myself
Actually, neither am I…and I live in Montreal, where hockey almost has the status of a religion.
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Yes, yes, spare us the awful history lesson. Some of us have books on our shelves, too. Your arguments are familiar and are a frequent subject of debate, but when it comes down to it, we know that two wrongs don’t make a right. Despite a picture you and others paint of a desperate Germany with no other option for national survival than war (you even through poor Poland under the bus), Germany started that war on its own and fortunately was not able to finish it. This whole diatribe, though presenting some facts, does so in such a skewed and ridiculous manner that continuing it would be laughable.
“Nor was [the liberal West’s supposed pro-communism leanings] based on concern for avoiding future mass murders, as demonstrated by the fact that, in 1938, both Chamberlain and Daladier rejected Hitler’s offer to relocate Germany’s Jewish population to some remote British or French colony. (Hitler personally favored French Madagascar, but indicated he wasn’t picky.)”
By your line of reasoning, then, the Western democracies are just as much to blame for the Holocaust as Germany when they refused to accommodate an exodus of Jewish refugees from Germany? You won’t find many who will share those kind of views. Much of the rest of your post is similar revisionist gibberish. I would be careful who you share those thoughts with. In any case, morality in the time of war is way off topic and leads to some very diverse opinions, I am sorry I brought it up.
Your last couple of paragraphs kind of got us back full circle anyways. You keep saying, however, the Germans could have influenced the war’s outcome if they had those weapons sooner, but again, almost all were in such a state of infancy as to still be years and years away, even for the U.S. who suffered no destruction of its homeland and possessed the best scientists in the world.
I would like to correct some of the inaccuracies in the above post. The pro-communist leanings of leaders like FDR, of many in the American media and other nations’ media, and of a number of politicians in France–were not merely “supposed.” They are a matter of historical record.
As far as the blame for the Holocaust goes: I feel that any government which deliberately sets about creating starvation among enemy civilian populations during a time of war deserves the blame for whatever deaths its starvation policies created. The Allied food blockade meant that Germany could not feed everyone within its borders: some people would die. However, the policy of singling out Jews was unjust and cruel enough that the Nazi government also deserves considerable blame.
But while the Nazi government was clearly to blame for the way it had singled out the Jewish population, most people would expect a Nazi-like government to respond to starvation by starving Jews before Gentiles. The fact that the British and American governments chose to create starvation in Germany, while at the same time the British government blocked Jews from entering its colonies both before and during the war, means that neither the British nor American governments should be regarded as knights in shining armor by the Jewish community. Allied governments did not act the way you’d expect people concerned about protecting Jewish lives to act. Their actions forced the German government to starve or otherwise exterminate millions of people–it lacked the food to do otherwise–with it being left up to the Nazis to decide which people would be eliminated. While this kind of policy was very helpful to Allied propagandists–who proceeded to portray the Nazis as the worst mass murderers in human history–Allied food policy was an act of mass murder directed against the people living inside Germany’s borders. Hardest-hit were the people the Allied governments (hypocritically) claimed to care about the most: the Jews, the Poles, etc.
Mainstream history books are almost consistently written from the Allied perspective. As such, they are not neutral or even-handed in their presentation of information. Hitler and Nazism are generally blamed for the millions of starvation-related deaths which occurred inside Germany’s borders during the war. The question of whether Germany had the food with which to feed the people in question is neglected entirely.
Similarly, the subject of France’s false promises to Poland is generally ignored; with Polish foreign policy generally portrayed as being the product of Polish stupidity and Polish gallantry. Neither the Polish nor their leaders were stupid; though perhaps Poland’s leaders deserve to be called naive for having believed the promises of France’s politicians.
Once the pro-Allied perspective is abandoned, and a more neutral perspective adopted, the actions of many of WWII’s participants begin to seem far more rational. In 1939, the Polish refused to return Polish-occupied German lands to Germany not because they believed their moderately sized, under-equipped army could defeat Germany’s larger, better-armed army, but because saw that, on paper, the combined French-Polish force was stronger than its German counterpart. They knew that in a long war, nations with the industrial strength of Britain and France (plus their colonies) would have a crushing advantage over Germany. However, because France broke its promise to Poland to launch a general invasion of Poland, the strength of the French Army was largely irrelevant to Poland’s fate.
Similarly, Hitler’s conquests in Europe were not (as has sometimes been suggested) because he’d gone insane, or because he wanted to conquer the world, or any of the other explanations Allied propagandists generally provide. Instead, his decision to conquer was based on an awareness of Germany’s economic, military, and diplomatic weakness, and his desire to rectify that weakness by making Germany too strong to be conquered either by the Soviets or by the Western democracies. The long-term goal of German foreign policy was therefore the conquest of the Soviet Union. Such a conquest would eliminate one of the two strongest of Germany’s potential enemies, would end the horror of communism, would gain for Germany the food supplies necessary to survive another WWI-style Anglo-French food blockade, and would provide Germany with the raw materials, industrial capacity, and labor force necessary to hold its own in any would-be war with the Western democracies.
It is false to assert that Hitler wanted such a war. (Not that you have made such an assertion.) After the fall of Poland, Hitler offered Britain and France a peace treaty. Both nations refused. After France fell, Hitler offered Britain a peace treaty, which Churchill refused.
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To help steer this interesting topic in the right direction, let’s assume Germany was able to upgrade its fighter squadrons with Me-262As by as soon as late 1942, early 1943. This was a crucial and extremely bloody period for the Allied Bomber Commands, with losses on some raids reaching ten or more percent. Without fighter escorts (the drop tank-equipped P-51 still many months away) the bombers would have been easy prey to the new German jet. The bomber effort was already on the brink of collapse, so a determined resistance by numerous and skilled Schawlbe squadrons could have cleared the skies over Europe.
But then what? The effect of the Allied bombing campaign during the war is soaked in controversy and many believe it had little effect. Considering Germany production reached its peak during nonstop night and day bombing, the argument carries some weight.
The jet was designed to combat heavy bombers, how would it have fared in an air-superiority role - that is, the ability to suppress enemy fighters and air defenses to a point where your forces dictate the battlefield? The Me-262 would have had to fulfill the fighter-bomber and air-defense-suppression roles unless the Germans continued to field older models since no jet bomber was even close to operational.How do you think the jet would have performed in Russia, where enemy strategic bomber forces were negligible? The Red Air Force was able to quickly outnumber the Luftwaffe in fighters and tactical bombers, including some models that were better than any of the German prop-planes.
How do you think the Me-262s would have been used, en masse, on the Eastern front, and to what effect?I agree that the widespread introduction of the Me 262 in late '42 or early '43 could likely have caused the cancellation of (at very least) the U.S. daytime bombing raids. I also agree that, even if the Me 262 had been able to protect Germany against both day and night raids, that alone would not have materially altered the outcome of the war.
However, the Me 262 was a good enough anti-bomber aircraft that, even when the Americans had developed the ability to send Mustangs deep into Germany, it would still have been almost impossible for the Americans to resume daylight raids. (At least, presuming the Me 262s were fielded in large quantities.)
You are correct to assert that Germany needed to significantly improve its fortunes on its Eastern front for it to alter the course of the war. Possibly a modified version of the Me 262–ideally with the addition of dive brakes–could have had a major influence on the air war over Germany’s eastern front. Possibly, a better option would have been the Horten Ho 229–it was slightly faster than an Me 262, had a much longer range, carried twice the bomb payload, and had dive brakes. As you say, Germany needed a dogfighter and a fighter-bomber on this Eastern front. Regardless of which of the two jet designs was used, the objective should have been to destroy enemy aircraft both in the air and on the ground. During the postwar era, jet aircraft proved far superior to piston aircraft in the dogfighting role. Whether the German jet designs in question were good enough to attain that superiority, or whether further modification would have been necessary, is not something I claim to know.
But for the sake of argument let’s suppose that Germany could have used the Me 262 or some other jet design to attain air superiority or even air supremacy over its Eastern front. Its piston aircraft could then have dive bombed Soviet troops. This, alone, would not have been enough to alter the fate of Germany’s Eastern front. The Soviet advantage in available infantry, and in tanks and artillery, was simply too overwhelming for German air power, alone, to be able to counter it. Other additions to Germany’s arsenal would also have been necessary. As I hinted at in my earlier post, Germany would have needed more production, earlier. If it had achieved its 1944 level of production back in 1942, and if it had had access to weapons like the assault rifle, the longer-ranged versions of the Panzerfaust, and if it had created something like the planned E-series tanks, the combination of these factors, along with the aforementioned air superiority provided by its jets, might have been enough to tip the balance in its favor. Germany didn’t necessarily have to have all its super-weapons–for example the Type XXI U-boats could have waited until later–but it would have needed at least some of them in '42. (Plus that production increase.)
Large numbers of German jets would have had another advantage: they would have made it difficult or impossible for the Allies to conduct D-Day style invasions. In places where the Allies had already gained a foothold–such as Italy in 1943–German jets could have made it difficult or impossible to effectively supply said troops. Jets could provide significant protection to Germany’s southern and western flank against the Western democracies, even while its army pushed eastward into the Soviet Union. Germany’s long-term strategy for victory would have involved conquering everything in the Soviet Union west of the Urals; then making peace with the rest of the Soviet Union. At that point its army would have faced only one threat: the threat of the Western democracies.
The next step in this process might have involved a decision to adequately fund the German nuclear program. A successful nuclear program requires a significant investment of industrial capacity to enrich uranium or plutonium. I have read that during WWII, the U.S. used more industrial capacity on uranium and plutonium enrichment than it did on making tanks. The massive amount of industrial capacity needed, in combination with the long-term nature of the program, was why Germany’s nuclear program was not adequately funded. (Germany’s plan involved conquering the Soviet Union in '41 and '42, not '45.) But a victory over the Soviet Union would afford German leaders the luxury of being able to adopt longer-term, large-scale projects. It would have taken several years between the adequate funding of a nuclear program and the first German nuclear bomb. But once they had that bomb, they could have used their Aggregate Series rockets to deliver the nuclear payload anywhere in the world. (Assuming, of course, that von Braun continued to make steady progress during the late '40s.) The existence of German nuclear bombs + German ICBMs could have forced the Western democracies to the negotiating table, perhaps in 1950. Presumably, the two sides would agree to stop fighting, and to retain the borders as they were. Germany would be in control over most of Europe, while Britain would retain its colonies in Africa, India, and the Middle East.
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So the Allies were to blame for the ‘starvation’ of the Jews?
This is insane. The Jews did not ‘starve to death’ they were murdered.
I presume the German attempt to starve the UK by sinking its food supplies is going to be expained away as all Churchill’s fault as well!
This is pro-German propaganda at its worst and the arguments used are the staple of the Nazi apologists. -
So the Allies were to blame for the ‘starvation’ of the Jews?
This is insane. The Jews did not ‘starve to death’ they were murdered.
I presume the German attempt to starve the UK by sinking its food supplies is going to be expained away as all Churchill’s fault as well!
This is pro-German propaganda at its worst and the arguments used are the staple of the Nazi apologists.For an explanation of Germany’ food situation and food policy (not to mention the interrelationships between its economic, military, and diplomatic policies), I suggest Adam Tooze’s excellent work, The Wages of Destruction. The Times (London) called this book “A magnificent demonstration of the explanatory power of economic history.” The Financial Times called the book, “Masterful . . . Tooze has added his name to the roll call of top-class scholars of Nazism.” Below are quotes from that book:
pp. 418-419
After 1939 the supply of food in Western Europe was no less constrained than the supply of coal. . . . Grain imports in the late 1930s had run at the rate of more than 7 million tons per annum mostly from Argentina and Canada. These sources of supply were closed off by the British blockade. . . . By the summer of 1940, Germany was facing a Europe-wide agricultural crisis. . . . By 1941 there were already signs of mounting discontent due to the inadequate food supply. In Belgium and France, the official ration allocated to ‘normal consumers’ of as little as 1,300 calories per day, was an open invitation to resort to the black market.
p 539
When the order to ship large numbers of Eastern European workers to Germany was first given, Backe protested vigorously. The 400,000 Soviet prisoners of war already in Germany were more than he could provide for. Goering had spoken casually of feeding the Eastern workers on cats and horse-meat. Backe had consulted the statistics and reported glumly that there were not enough cats to provide a ration for the Eastern workers and horse-meat was already being used to supplement the rations of the German population. If the Russians were to be given meat, they would have to be supplied at the expense of the German population.
p 541
Backe was in an impossible position. The Fuehrer had demanded more workers. Gauleiter Sauckel was dedicated to delivering them. Hitler and Sauckel now demanded that the workers be fed, which was clearly a necessity if they were to be productive. And yet, given the level of grain stocks, Backe was unable to meet this demand. What was called for was a reduction in consumption, not additional provisions for millions of new workers. The seriousness of the situation became apparent in the spring of 1942 when the Food Ministry announced cuts to the food rations of the German population. Given the regime’s mortal fear of damaging morale, the ration cuts of April 1942 are incontrovertible evidence that the food crisis was real. Lowering the rations was a political step of the first order, which Backe would never had suggested if the food situation had not absolutely required it. . . . When the reduction in the civilian ration was announced it produced a response which justified every anxiety on the part of the Nazi leadership. . . . Studies by nutritional experts added to the regime’s concerns.
p 542
Entire groups were to be excluded from the food supply, most notably the Jews. As Goebbels noted in his diary, the new regime would be based on the principle that before Germany starved ‘it would be the turn of a number of other peoples.’
p 544 - 545
[German-occupied Poland was] an agricultural deficit territory. In the first year of the German occupation, Backe and Governor General Frank had agreed on food imports from the Reich that were sufficient to give food to those Poles working for the Germans. The majority of the Polish population was left to fend for themselves. The result was an epidemic of malnutrition and outright starvation, particularly among the Jewish population confined to the ghettos. Faced with Germany’s food shortage in 1942, Backe went much further. He now demanded that the Governor General should reverse the flow. Rather than receive food supplements from Germany, the General Government [of Poland] was to make sizable food deliveries. . . . Backe predicated his demands on the elimination of Polish Jews from the food chain. . . . Eliminating the Jews would . . . reduce the number of people that needed feeding.
p 549
By the end of August 1942, this extraordinary series of measures spread a palpable mood of relief throughout Berlin. Backe, Himmler, and Goering had staved off a disastrous downward spiral in the food supply. . . . Total European deliveries of grain [into Germany] doubled from 2 million tons per annum to more than 5 million tons in the harvest year of 1942-3. . . . Comparing 1940-41 and 1942-3, the total deliveries of grain, meat, and fats provided by France and the occupied territory of the Soviet Union increased from 3.5 million tons to 8.78 million tons (measured in grain equivalents). . . . Of those deliveries that did enter the Reich [as opposed to being consumed in the field by the Wehrmacht], the General Government [of German-occupied Poland] supplied an astonishing 51 percent of German rye imports, 66 percent of oats and 52 percent of German potato imports. This was directly at the expense of the local population. Thanks to a remarkably good harvest in the General Government, rations were not cut off completely as Frank had anticipated in August 1942. But they remained at pitiful levels until after the harvest of 1943. . . . It is clear that if the harvest of the General Government had not been as good as it turned out to be in 1942, then millions of non-Jewish Poles would have been condemned to starve the following spring. However, in the summer of 1942 it was the concerted extermination of Polish Jewry that provided the most immediate and fail-safe means of freeing up food for delivery to Germany.
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So Germany started the War and would have known about the food supply issue as that is what caused Germany to capitulate in WW I. So unless the allies both fought Germany and fed Germany, any starvation deaths are the fault of the Allies is what I gather is the premise here. Rather faulty logic.
If I break into your house and hold your family at gunpoint, and during this home invasion, your kid sneezes and scares me and I shoot the kid to death…… Blaming the kid for scaring me and causing his own death will not go very far in court as a defense. Nor will blaming the winning side for the deaths caused by the actions of the losing side.
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So Germany started the War and would have known about the food supply issue as that is what caused Germany to capitulate in WW I. So unless the allies both fought Germany and fed Germany, any starvation deaths are the fault of the Allies is what I gather is the premise here. Rather faulty logic.
If I break into your house and hold your family at gunpoint, and during this home invasion, your kid sneezes and scares me and I shoot the kid to death…… Blaming the kid for scaring me and causing his own death will not go very far in court as a defense. Nor will blaming the winning side for the deaths caused by the actions of the losing side.
During medieval times, it was common for an army to besiege a castle. People inside the castle would slowly die of disease and starvation: both soldiers and civilians alike.
During WWI, and again during WWII, Britain and its allies chose to treat Germany like a large castle. Germany was prevented from importing food. Neutral nations, such as Spain, were only permitted to import enough food to feed their own people.
On page 168, Tooze writes the following:
Though famine had been banished from Western Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, in large part due to Europe’s ability to tap huge new sources of overseas supply, World War I had forced the question of food supply back onto the agenda of European politics. The British and French blockade, though it failed to produce outright famine, did succeed in producing an epidemic of chronic malnutrition in Germany and Austria that was widely blamed for killing at least 600,000 people.
Britain had used food as a weapon against the German and Austrian civilian populations during WWI, and could reasonably be expected to do so again during WWII. The effects of the WWII blockade were more severe than the WWI blockade’s, because population sizes had grown.
After Poland and France fell, Hitler tried negotiating peace with Britain, and was genuinely surprised when the British politicians refused to negotiate. Negotiations for a peace treaty were his plan for solving Germany’s food problems, but that plan did not work.
Nor was food the only problem with which Germany had to contend. Back in the late '20s, Stalin had launched a program intended to industrialize and subsequently militarize the Soviet Union. Moreover, the stated long-term goal of Soviet foreign policy was world conquest.
Major Western democracies had little or no interest in slowing or halting Soviet expansionism. In 1919, Poland and the Soviet Union found themselves at war. By 1920, Poland was on the verge of outright annexation by the Soviets. The United States was isolationist and did nothing. Britain happened to have a pro-Soviet government at the time, and sent weapons to the Soviets, but not to the Polish. France, oddly enough, proved the most useful to Poland, and sent some military advisers. These advisers were helpful in improving the organization of the new Polish Army; but their strategic advice (dig trenches and re-fight WWI) was less sound. The Polish military ultimately won a major victory outside Warsaw by emphasizing mobility and encirclements–the same general tactics which would later prove themselves in the subsequent land war between Germany and the Soviet Union. This offense-oriented approach was the opposite of what the French advisers had suggested. The Polish military victory paved the way for a peace treaty that was reasonably favorable to Poland. (The Soviets were still in a state of civil war against the Russian nationalists, which also helped.) Poland’s victory was achieved, and its independence retained, despite the fact that none of its “allies” sent soldiers to help, or made the same “leave Poland alone or else!” threats towards the Soviet Union that they would later make toward Germany.
During the time between 1920 and 1940, the major Western democracies did not become more anti-Soviet, or more willing to resist Soviet expansionism. On the contrary: FDR liked and admired Stalin, employed several Soviet agents in his own administration, and envisioned a long-term alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the basis for world peace. France and Czechoslovakia formed defensive alliances with the Soviet Union in 1935. Daladier, the prime minister of France in 1938 - 1940, had previously allied himself with the French Communist Party in a coalition government–a government in which he personally served as the Minister of War. (Daladier’s entire party–the Radical Party–had formed part of this Popular Front coalition government.)
Suppose Germany had remained within the confines envisioned by the Western democracies; with only a moderate amount of military spending. Sooner or later, the Soviet Union would have gotten around to gobbling up the nations of Eastern Europe. The Western democracies would have done nothing, just as they did nothing or almost nothing to help Poland in 1920. Then the Soviet Union could have (and likely, eventually would have) invaded Germany. The Western democracies would also have been neutral in a war like that. Politicians like Daladier and FDR would have favored a Soviet victory. The Soviet Union would have won that war because of its overwhelming advantage in manpower, available infantry, industrial capacity, and access to raw materials. After Germany had fallen, it would have been subjected to the same cruel repression and mass murder as was the rest of the Soviet Union.
Germany’s diplomatic and military policy was formulated largely to avoid that. The above fear was perfectly legitimate and reasonable, both because of the Soviets’ expansionism, and because of the major Western democracies’ consistent lack of interest in seriously opposing that expansionism. It was not until 1948 that major Western democracies seriously opposed further Soviet expansion, and by then it was too late for Germany. In the meantime, Hitler based his foreign policy on the assumption that Germany had to become strong enough to resist a Soviet invasion without help from any major Western democracy. No element of any major Western democracy’s diplomatic or foreign policy during the '20s, '30s, or early '40s remotely suggests that assumption was faulty.
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I don’t see many starving Germans in 1945.
I note they kept their own civilians fed at the expense of the French, Poles, Dutch etc.
The very fact the stole food from others to feed their own makes them responsible for all the deaths that followed.
Starting a war and then crying that it is all the attacked nations fault is just silly. I suppose next we will get the standard excuse that the invasion of Russia was to pre-empt a great barbarian attack on Europe
‘Blonde knights on panzers’ holding back the Soviet hordes and saving Western civilisation from ……yuk, pass the sick-bag.Have I accidently joined Stormfront?
Please stop treating this thread as if you were some great teacher putting me ‘right’ on wartime Germany.
I have a personal libray in the several thousands and have been reading this stuff for over 40 years.
No more lectures. -
Who made a pact with the Soviets that divided up Poland between them?
Seems odd that old Adolf supped with the man he saw as the devil.
Please save the sob story for the millions who died just so you could play with you little plastic Tiger tanks -
I believe our point under this massive amount of typed letters is that both sides commited acts of atrocity during the war and that its better it never happened. Of course the people who lived in those days wished it never happened yet we’re here discussing it over the internet.
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