Worst Axis Mistake

[suprise attack]

Hitler trying to run the show was the big mistake, he should have put the right people in the right spots to do the best job at eliminating his enemy
  I like Kurt’s posts…… but then I have an infatuation with WWII

[Deaths Head 420]

In my opinion you don’t have the right answer up there at all.  although there are some good choices. The biggest Mistake made by the axis Powers in my opinion

THE HALOCAUST-  The Biggest Waste of manpower and human resources ever. Not to mention the loss of some of the worlds most brilliant minds.  If Germany would have waited till they won the war to excercise the final solution (I do not agree with it), they would have 8 million + in man power and Production power and scientific research power. Germany would have been almost unstopable. Imagine if Einstein had not left. Need i really say more….

[KurtGodel7]

@aequitas:

I don´t want to be disrespectful Kurt Godel,  but can you bring it down to a laconic phrase a few times?!..when I start reading your comments it´s sometimes hard for me to check out what you are potentially saying…

In my Opinion it is Dunkirk so we can almost cross out Malta and Tunesia, secondary would be the treatment of the Russian civilians to turn em against red russia…

I tend to write long posts, and with that last one I may have gotten a little carried away. I admit that just looking at it is a little intimidating from a length perspective.

That said, I’m appreciative of the fact that there are those who take the time to read my long posts. I’m especially grateful for compliments from posters like Surprise Attack.

[ABWorsham4]

@Deaths:

In my opinion you don’t have the right answer up there at all.�  although there are some good choices. The biggest Mistake made by the axis Powers in my opinion

THE HALOCAUST-�  The Biggest Waste of manpower and human resources ever. Not to mention the loss of some of the worlds most brilliant minds.�  If Germany would have waited till they won the war to excercise the final solution (I do not agree with it), they would have 8 million + in man power and Production power and scientific research power. Germany would have been almost unstopable. Imagine if Einstein had not left. Need i really say more….

Jews fought very well with the Kaiser’s Army in the Great War. They had some really crack units. Of the 100,000 men that served 12,000 dies, 30,000 were awarded during the War.

[empireman]

well, for Germany their big mistake was hitler. If hitler would of listen to his generals, germany would have won the war. You know, hitler did not let his army out of stalingrad, Dunkirk, War against America and so on.

Japan should not have declared war on US at all. they could focus on India and China.

[KurtGodel7]

@empireman:

well, for Germany their big mistake was hitler. If hitler would of listen to his generals, germany would have won the war. You know, hitler did not let his army out of stalingrad, Dunkirk, War against America and so on.

Japan should not have declared war on US at all. they could focus on India and China.

Your post touches on some of the points I raised in my ridiculously long post earlier in this thread. I agree with you that it was a mistake for either Germany or Japan to have declared war on the U.S. (Though part of Germany’s declaration involved faulty information–information which had been fed not just to Hitler, but to his generals.)

Stalingrad represents a case of Hitler having listened to the wrong general: Goering. Goering had claimed, falsely, that he could supply the Stalingrad force by air. The Dunkirk evacuation was also Goering’s work: he’d claimed he could destroy the British Expeditionary Force by air; and that there was no need to use up Germany’s valuable ground forces to get rid of it.

Had Hitler listened to the majority of his generals in May of 1940, the German Army would have used a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan to invade France. This was exactly what the French and British were expecting Germany to do; and they were very well-prepared against such an attack. Instead, Hitler listened to a small minority of his generals–Guderian and von Manstein–who advocated taking France with blitzkrieg tactics and an attack through the Ardennes Forest. The fact that Hitler ignored the majority of his generals was why Germany conquered France in 1940. Had those generals’ plan been followed, the war against France would probably have bogged down for years, much like it had in WWI.

Also, the majority of German generals favored the attack against Kursk in 1943. This was the largest land battle in human history. It was also a bad idea, because it was an obvious move, and the Soviets were expecting it. The German attack failed to penetrate the Soviets’ six layers of defenses. (Though some of the outer layers were penetrated.) This was a case in which both Hitler and the majority of German generals were wrong, and where von Manstein was right.

[empireman]

@KurtGodel7:

@empireman:

well, for Germany their big mistake was hitler. If hitler would of listen to his generals, germany would have won the war. You know, hitler did not let his army out of stalingrad, Dunkirk, War against America and so on.

Japan should not have declared war on US at all. they could focus on India and China.

Also, the majority of German generals favored the attack against Kursk in 1943. This was the largest land battle in human history. It was also a bad idea, because it was an obvious move, and the Soviets were expecting it. The German attack failed to penetrate the Soviets’ six layers of defenses. (Though some of the outer layers were penetrated.) This was a case in which both Hitler and the majority of German generals were wrong, and where von Manstein was right.

Well, Germany should have not attacked kursk, Really SIX layers of defense.
Of course, Hitler ordered an attacked, which failed bad.

Also, Germany was at the gates of moscow, they could of took it, but then Hitler order to move to Lenningrad. Then South. Soon the German troops were really tired. Then they got back to Moscow. Hitler ordered an attack, but they were tired and weary plus a bunch of Russian Infantry just arrived is moscow from the east.

Soon, Russian was at the gates of Berlin.

[Linkon]

This looks like a repeat discussion of 2011’s

Dreadful Axis Mistakes

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=22808.15

The Axis suffered massive pilot losses early in GBR and the Pacific, while the USA and GBR recovered and sent theirs up again in replacement planes as veterans.

Also, Germany and Italy were lacking Aircraft carrier capability.  They could have built it in the Mediterrainian and made a breakout to the N Atlantic.

[empireman]

@Linkon:

This looks like a repeat discussion of 2011’s

Dreadful Axis Mistakes

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=22808.15

The Axis suffered massive pilot losses early in GBR and the Pacific, while the USA and GBR recovered and sent theirs up again in replacement planes as veterans.

Also, Germany and Italy were lacking Aircraft carrier capability.  They could have built it in the Mediterrainian and made a breakout to the N Atlantic.

yep……

[aequitas-et-veritas]

well Hitler wasn´t a genius as being a Lord of War (before u correct me: I prefer it my way ,lol ruff movie)
but allways that saying: his or the Generals of Hitler would have done it better is not correct and it might be to the German ability to allways mourn over things and then saying that they would do it better, but seriously they don´t and DIDN´t…
There were only few who had the courage to do what is somehow right and fewer to say in hitlers face that they disagree in some points…

-Dunkirk to me played out a vital role because of the experienced Human resource England was able to keep and bring it  fully back in on D-Day

-stalingrad became a hard loss at the end ,but not in the beginning of planning, most books refer to they should not have bombed stalingrad so bad or it was a mistake to split tank forces. there were actually a couple of plans out there how to engage Stalingrad but had been changed according to the situations occured and it is almost not mentioned that allready a lot of Wehhrmacht soldiers died on the way to Stalingrad due to beeing exhausted through marching and fighting their way. Leaving Stalingrad aside would create a pocket as well . Stalingrad needed to be taken to cut off the supply route and it could have helped out to only keep the westside of Stalingrad, just long enough for get stability into the frontlines…we can assume that Stalingrad could have been taken with more forces…we may disagree on what would have been the right time…

[ABWorsham4]

A bridgehead across the Volga to cut off the supplies in Stalingrad would have helped the Germans greatly.

[HolyLand_Crusader]

Losing their aircraft and pilots during the Battle of Britain…and, their refusal to mass produce simplified tanks on the Eastern Front.

[KurtGodel7]

@HolyLand_Crusader:

Losing their aircraft and pilots during the Battle of Britain…and, their refusal to mass produce simplified tanks on the Eastern Front.

The Battle of Britain was indeed harmful to the Luftwaffe, as you’ve pointed out. I also agree that the German tank designs were too complex and difficult to manufacture.

One reason for the latter was that the German war effort was more or less thrown together. In 1939, nearly all of Germany’s tank force consisted of obsolete light tanks, unsuited for tank-on-tank warfare. By 1940, Germany had a reasonable number of non-obsolete medium tanks. (Though most of its tanks were still obsolete light tanks.) A significant portion of German tank production came from the Czech factories it had acquired in 1938. Not only were German tanks inferior to their French counterparts in 1940, but the French and their allies in Western Europe had about 40% more tanks than the Germans. The Germans made up for this through superior tactics, better generalship and training, and via air superiority.

In 1941, it had become clear that even non-obsolete German medium tanks were inferior to Soviet T-34s. Panther and Tiger tanks were intended to outmatch T-34s by at least as much as T-34s had outmatched Germany’s tanks of '41. However, Panthers and (especially!) Tigers were expensive to produce.

What Germany needed was a tank as good or better than a Panther or Tiger, but much simpler and easier to produce. Its E-Series tanks were intended to fill exactly that role. The E-Series tanks were better than the Panthers and Tigers they were intended to replace, and were much easier to mass produce. However, the war ended before Germany could put its E-Series tanks into mass production.

[Gargantua]

DELETE

[Enigmatic_Decay]

None of the above!

[newpaintbrush]

@Enigmatic_Decay:

None of the above!

ftw

[ABWorsham4]

@Enigmatic_Decay:

None of the above!

Then what is the worst Axis mistake of the War?

[Gargantua]

Starting what they couldn’t finish.

[newpaintbrush]

@ABWorsham:

@Enigmatic_Decay:

None of the above!

Then what is the worst Axis mistake of the War?

“Mistakes” is an ambiguous word that encompasses bad judgment and insufficient information.  But in its primary sense, it is used to refer to bad judgment.  When you make a “mistake” on a test, it is not because you could not have known the answer, it is because you should have studied more.  When a server makes a “mistake” on your restaurant bill, it is not because the correct amount could not be known, it is because the server made a mistake.  I, and likely some others in this thread, probably take your “mistake” to refer to an error in judgment based on faulty judgment.  In other words, your question is “what is the stupidest thing the Axis did?”

If you think about things that way, almost none of the items on your list were particularly stupid, so they are inappropriate examples of “mistakes”.

If you wanted to ask “What was the single decision by the Axis that most negatively impacted their progress in the war”, the question of judgment is eliminated.

–

For example, Dunkirk.  People look back and say “lol retard”.  Or they say Hitler was stupid, or trying to make some retarded political decision &c.  Actually, there is no citation of why the Germans did not press.  Without such citation, and documentation, nothing is really known.

There are any number of excellent reasons why the command not to press the attack could have been passed.

Consider the political situation.  Suppose Hitler believed that a decision not to press at Dunkirk would lead to diplomatic negotiations with UK that would lead to a UK/German alliance against Russia.  Consider the huge gains to Germany, and to the UK.  Now consider what would happen if Germany slaughtered the crap out of over 200,000 UK soldiers.  (Of the 330,000, about 200,000 were UK).

If you know the political situation, you realize that a Ger/UK alliance was hardly out of the question.  It did not come to pass, but it COULD have.

–

Probably the biggest “mistakes” were Germany’s misjudgment of the Soviet Union situation, and its failures in production.

Re:  Soviet Union - insufficient intelligence regarding anticipated routes.  Improper assessment of the Soviet Union’s mobilization capabilities.  Failure to use anti-Stalin propaganda to recruit partisans.

Insufficient intelligence - they had maps.  But maps are simply not enough when you are waging a war.  You ideally want first hand reports from scouts.  This could have been addressed by recruiting partisans, at the very least.  Granted, gaining the level and detail of information that would have been “proper” would not have been easy.  All in all, this is “understandable”.

Insufficient assessment of Soviet Union mobilization capabilities.  In point of fact, the Germans beat the hell out of the Russians, man for man, achieving 13:1 casualty ratios in some battles, but regularly performing at . . . I forget, was it 8:1?  Anyways, something stupidly massive.  Plus the Red Army had gone through purges.  Plus the Soviets didn’t have a particularly developed industrial sector (when comparing landmass to industrial development), although it did have a history leading up to WW2 of reversing that trend that Germany could have paid closer attention to.  Again, Germany could be forgiven for its failures in this area.

Anti-Stalin propaganda - Soviet partisans did huge damage to the German war effort throughout the war, and if recruited to the German side, could have provided a massive boost in intelligence and power.  In a way, this failure could also be forgiven, but the reasons are far less.  Germany had initially purposed to obtain Lebensbraum quickly, with an anticipated effective collapse of Soviet resistance within one to two years.  With the additional land, Germany purposed to feed the west.  That is, Germany deliberately planned to kill off massive numbers in the east with starvation, to provide the food needed to feed the west.  So there are reasons.  But those are poor reasons.  Recruiting Soviets would have benefited the Germans in any case (although they would of course have had to deal with sabotage, &c &c from within so integration would not have been possible . . . but still.)  Killing civilians with starvation could and should have been planned for after the fact of conquest.

All in all, these are understandable errors in judgment, although the last is more along the lines of a true “f-up”.  But COMBINED, they do not speak well for German preparedness against the Soviets.  Granted, the Germans plowed through everyone to that point, granted the Germans actually plowed the heck out of the Russians.  But they did not plow enough, or quickly enough, which was probably preventable if Germany had been appropriately prepared.

As far as Germany attacking Russia, there is decent evidence to support the position that Russia was going to attack Germany anyways.  The idea was that Stalin planned to let Germany and UK screw with each other, kill off a bunch of imperialists, then sweep in and kick ass.  Considering that view, the fact that Germany attacked Russia can’t really be considered a “mistake”.  It was necessary.  The “mistake” was the lack of proper preparation.

–

Re:  failures in production - Germany didn’t use its women in industry.  Fail.  Germany didn’t standardize production.  Fail.  Again, there were reasons not to.  Maybe Germany considered its victory to be swift and sure, so didn’t try to prepare for the long term.  Maybe there were political reasons not to do so.  (Actually that is certainly true for production.)  But as with Germany’s overall underpreparedness against the Soviets, such arguments only go so far.  The need to boost and standardize production was clear.

[KurtGodel7]

@Bunnies:

“Mistakes” is an ambiguous word that encompasses bad judgment and insufficient information.  But in its primary sense, it is used to refer to bad judgment.  When you make a “mistake” on a test, it is not because you could not have known the answer, it is because you should have studied more.  When a server makes a “mistake” on your restaurant bill, it is not because the correct amount could not be known, it is because the server made a mistake.  I, and likely some others in this thread, probably take your “mistake” to refer to an error in judgment based on faulty judgment.  In other words, your question is “what is the stupidest thing the Axis did?”

If you think about things that way, almost none of the items on your list were particularly stupid, so they are inappropriate examples of “mistakes”.

If you wanted to ask “What was the single decision by the Axis that most negatively impacted their progress in the war”, the question of judgment is eliminated.

–

For example, Dunkirk.  People look back and say “lol retard”.  Or they say Hitler was stupid, or trying to make some retarded political decision &c.  Actually, there is no citation of why the Germans did not press.  Without such citation, and documentation, nothing is really known.

There are any number of excellent reasons why the command not to press the attack could have been passed.

Consider the political situation.  Suppose Hitler believed that a decision not to press at Dunkirk would lead to diplomatic negotiations with UK that would lead to a UK/German alliance against Russia.  Consider the huge gains to Germany, and to the UK.  Now consider what would happen if Germany slaughtered the crap out of over 200,000 UK soldiers.  (Of the 330,000, about 200,000 were UK).

If you know the political situation, you realize that a Ger/UK alliance was hardly out of the question.  It did not come to pass, but it COULD have.

–

Probably the biggest “mistakes” were Germany’s misjudgment of the Soviet Union situation, and its failures in production.

Re:  Soviet Union - insufficient intelligence regarding anticipated routes.  Improper assessment of the Soviet Union’s mobilization capabilities.  Failure to use anti-Stalin propaganda to recruit partisans.

Insufficient intelligence - they had maps.  But maps are simply not enough when you are waging a war.  You ideally want first hand reports from scouts.  This could have been addressed by recruiting partisans, at the very least.  Granted, gaining the level and detail of information that would have been “proper” would not have been easy.  All in all, this is “understandable”.

Insufficient assessment of Soviet Union mobilization capabilities.  In point of fact, the Germans beat the hell out of the Russians, man for man, achieving 13:1 casualty ratios in some battles, but regularly performing at . . . I forget, was it 8:1?  Anyways, something stupidly massive.  Plus the Red Army had gone through purges.  Plus the Soviets didn’t have a particularly developed industrial sector (when comparing landmass to industrial development), although it did have a history leading up to WW2 of reversing that trend that Germany could have paid closer attention to.  Again, Germany could be forgiven for its failures in this area.

Anti-Stalin propaganda - Soviet partisans did huge damage to the German war effort throughout the war, and if recruited to the German side, could have provided a massive boost in intelligence and power.  In a way, this failure could also be forgiven, but the reasons are far less.  Germany had initially purposed to obtain Lebensbraum quickly, with an anticipated effective collapse of Soviet resistance within one to two years.  With the additional land, Germany purposed to feed the west.  That is, Germany deliberately planned to kill off massive numbers in the east with starvation, to provide the food needed to feed the west.  So there are reasons.  But those are poor reasons.  Recruiting Soviets would have benefited the Germans in any case (although they would of course have had to deal with sabotage, &c &c from within so integration would not have been possible . . . but still.)  Killing civilians with starvation could and should have been planned for after the fact of conquest.

All in all, these are understandable errors in judgment, although the last is more along the lines of a true “f-up”.  But COMBINED, they do not speak well for German preparedness against the Soviets.  Granted, the Germans plowed through everyone to that point, granted the Germans actually plowed the heck out of the Russians.  But they did not plow enough, or quickly enough, which was probably preventable if Germany had been appropriately prepared.

As far as Germany attacking Russia, there is decent evidence to support the position that Russia was going to attack Germany anyways.  The idea was that Stalin planned to let Germany and UK screw with each other, kill off a bunch of imperialists, then sweep in and kick a**.  Considering that view, the fact that Germany attacked Russia can’t really be considered a “mistake”.  It was necessary.  The “mistake” was the lack of proper preparation.

–

Re:  failures in production - Germany didn’t use its women in industry.  Fail.  Germany didn’t standardize production.  Fail.  Again, there were reasons not to.  Maybe Germany considered its victory to be swift and sure, so didn’t try to prepare for the long term.  Maybe there were political reasons not to do so.  (Actually that is certainly true for production.)  But as with Germany’s overall underpreparedness against the Soviets, such arguments only go so far.  The need to boost and standardize production was clear.

Good post.

I agree that the Soviet Union would have invaded Germany sooner or later. Germany did well to get that war started in 1941, before the Soviet Union was ready for it. In 1941 Germany achieved a better than 10:1 exchange ratio with the Red Army, and conquered large portions of badly-needed land in the process. Later in the war the normal exchange ratio would become around 3:1 - 4:1. The Soviets made up for that with numbers, by outproducing Germany during '42 and '43, and by having the British and American Armies draw German attention away from the Soviet Union. (Algeria in '42, Italy in 43, France in '44.)

One significant problem Germany faced was the British food blockade imposed against it. All the major Western European nations under German control ran at significant food deficits. So too did the Polish and Soviet territory Germany had conquered–except for the Ukraine. Even the Ukraine’s surplus was much smaller than had been the case before Stalin’s industrialization. Given those circumstances, tens of millions of residents of German-occupied territory were destined to die of starvation somewhere. Hitler chose to impose the worst burdens on the Poles, Russians, and (especially) the Jews, while preventing outright starvation in Western Europe. If anything, Germany proper needed to increase its food inflow, to be able to feed the millions of Soviet POWs put to work in German factories. (Hitler had ordered that they be fed, but millions starved to death anyway due to lack of adequate food supplies.)

If Germany shouldn’t have resolved its food problems by starving or otherwise exterminating tens of millions of former Soviet citizens, what other group of tens of millions of people should it have starved to death instead? This is a zero sum game, unless you see a way that I’ve missed for Germany to have either broken the British food blockade or otherwise have improved its food situation.