Worst Axis Mistake

[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.

[Guest]

OK worst axis mistake was Hitler betraying Stalin.  They should have teaed up and took over the world and then EXTERMINATED everyone.

[Deaths Head 420]

The worst Axis Mistake was starting war with Russia without first Properly Dealing with the British. I think if Hitler had No Britain to worry about, Russia would have crumbled

[Gargantua]

The Holocaust was the worst Axis Mistake.

If they didn’t do that.  Then what did they really do wrong?

[Deaths Head 420]

@Gargantua:

The Holocaust was the worst Axis Mistake.

If they didn’t do that.  Then what did they really do wrong?

NOTHING

[ghr2]

This was sort of said earlier but I’ll just state it again.

Biggest mistake was hitler not letting his panzer commanders do their thing in russia.  Hitler could of taken leningrad almost out right and/or had moscow in his grasp back in aug/sept 41 before he split the panzers or Amry Group Center north & south.  I also dare to say that Japan should of restarted hostilities with russia to keep the siberians in the east in order to ease the preassure off germany. Japan just needed to perform about 6 months of fighting (my guess) to adaquately support Germany.

The next 2 worst mistakes would have to be dunkirk and the German DoW on US.

[Linkon]

Major wars and conquests usually demontrate new dramatic combat force multipliers

Eqyptian conquests were based on massed armed chariots.

post Punic Roman conquests ushered in Legion tactics, equipment,  and training.

Mongol conquests ushered in mobile archery.

Medieval times bought us armored suit combat.

WWI brought us line based trench defenses, machine guns, and neutralizing death zones.

WWII gave even more.

Submarine and thier countermeasures.
Armored mechanized cavalry.
Air Power.

Air power eventually proved to be the biggest force multiplier.

Keys for that air power were equipment and trained pilots.

Axis trained pilot counts dropped dramatically after the Battles of Britain, Midway, and Coral Sea.

The battles themselves were not mistakes.

1  Lack of air power focus,

1A  Not building enough aircraft carriers.

1B  Lack of sustained pilot training and development.

Lack of air power focus was the ultimate Axis mistake.

This latest war is more based on Identity than expensive ordinance delivery systems.

[Septimus]

A bit provokative, yes, but I really think the worst mistake the Axis ever made was declaring war upon the entire world and still sincerely hoping to win ultimately.

[Azrael]

If peace could have been maintained with the USSR the Germans wouldnt have lost.  Either through attacking their colonies (africa ) or the UK itself the UK would have been defeated and all the units that were tied up on the eastern front protecting against the west would keep Germany safe.  A 3 way cold war might have developed instead.

[Gargantua]

A 3 way cold war might have developed instead.

COOOOOL!

[empireman]

@Gargantua:

A 3 way cold war might have developed instead.

COOOOOL!

Every Country for its self! :-o

[Guest]

I like the idea of Germany and Soviet Union versus all the rest.

[Dylan the Canadian]

From the German perspective was declaring war on the US.

The Pacific/Asian front I don’t think benefited nor hurt the Axis in Europe.

I think Germany could of handled Russia and Britain. Even though Japan might have been destroyed.

Much like the movie “Fatherland”

[Gargantua]

Interesting comments Dylan.

If America had stayed Neutral with Germany, I wonder how different things would have been.

No Operation Torch….  No Italian Campaign,  No D-day/Normandy, or atleast how we think of it.

WOW.

[Dylan the Canadian]

@Gargantua:

Interesting comments Dylan.

If America had stayed Neutral with Germany, I wonder how different things would have been.

No Operation Torch….  No Italian Campaign,  No D-day/Normandy, or atleast how we think of it.

WOW.

I think post war there would be no communism, but the US will have to worry about the spread of Nazism. However, I think it would be more unstable and collapse earlier.

[Guest]

Germany could never have beat the Soviet Union, with America or without America.  The harder the war got, the tighter Stalin’s grip over his people became and he was a psychopath so it really would not matter to him if every last one of his people was sacrificed as long as he was still the boss.  Same goes for Hitler, but there were more Russians than Germans.  America beat Japan fair and square, but what what help they gave in Europe could have been made up by Russia if they weren’t in the war.  It might have cost a few more tens of millions of Russian dead and gone on a lot longer, but Stalin would be fine with that.