How could Germany have won the war?

BJCard: it was Razor who said that.
I liked your post.

I did say I think Italy was a lost cause. (I am Italian. Have lived in the UK since I was one and have an English mother.) I think its military prowess was never going to amount to much. I wonder if the disaster at Caporetto was still being felt in the echelons of the Army High Command. There was too much aristocracy as generals and peasants as soldiers and no link between the two tiers.
It’s navy, especially the modern battleships, was great on paper, but badly led and lacking modern technology.
The midget subs and the brave frogmen were a different matter of course!

Sorry wittman.  I was using my phone and must have confused who said what.  Good insight into the Italian army/navy.  Maybe more German help wouldn’t have made a difference.  That said, the navy may have faired a bit better if it wasn’t hit hard at Taranto.  What is Carparetto?  Is that the great war battle against Austria?

Caporetto was the battle that broke the back of the Italian army, routing it at last.
With German help(Rommel was a Captain and Battalion commander, I think) the mountain defences in NE Italy, which had held on against the Austrians since war began in 1915, caved in. it nearly took Italy out of the war. It was only a secondary line and help from the UK abd France that kept Italy in the war. It was autumn of 1917.

The battle and Rommel’s part in it caused rancour in Italian minds when the two sides were allied in the desert from 40-42. The tension was not helped by Rommel’s insistence on prominently wearing the Pour le Merite medal he won in the battle. (It is a pretty medal.)
You gotta love Rommel!

@wittmann:

Caporetto was the battle that broke the back of the Italian army, routing it at last.
With German help(Rommel was a Captain and Battalion commander, I think) the mountain defences in NE Italy, which had held on against the Austrians since war began in 1915, caved in. it nearly took Italy out of the war. It was only a secondary line and help from the UK abd France that kept Italy in the war. It was autumn of 1917.

The battle and Rommel’s part in it caused rancour in Italian minds when the two sides were allied in the desert from 40-42. The tension was not helped by Rommel’s insistence on prominently wearing the Pour le Merite medal he won in the battle. (It is a pretty medal.)
You gotta love Rommel!

Thanks for this-  Interesting.  Something else to read on wikipedia next time I’m bored at work.  :-D

I only know a few details about that because of reading a biography of Rommel.
Except for an interest in WW1 Aces and aircraft(planes were my first passion) I know little of WW1. I am learning much more  from others here.

@BJCard:

As far as not attacking Russia, it was just an idea.  Maybe they could have waited another year or hit the Balkans earlier.  Just saying their timing wasn’t that great if the goal was Moscow before winter.

But it was a bad idea to attack Russia. Thay had more than twice the population, it was the largest country in the world with lots of oil and resources, it have severe winter half the year, and at that time only dirtroads. The classic Russian defense stategi is the scorched earth tactic, and on top of that Stalin had used 60 % of the Gross domestic production for military outlays for 10 years, and had reached 4 times the tank production that Germany had.

Yes, they could have waited another year, but it was not in Hitlers nature to be prudent. He even startet the whole war many years before his military forces were ready, why should he wait to invade Russia ? He could have ignored the Balkans, since Greece would never let UK bomb the Ploesti oil field, and the alliance with Italy was not valid as long as Italy was the aggressor. And he could have startet Barbarossa in mai, but since Hitler figured it would take 3 weeks only to crush Russia, he was in no hurry.

I think Germany’s best bet to conquer Russia, would be to project all their available forces and resources to the campaign. They had half a million men based in Norway and Finland for no good use, and this men could be added to Barbarossa. The Africa Corps with Rommel could be added too, since Germany had no economic interests in Libya, and the 600 000 men from the Balkan Army. Since France surrendered they did not need a million men there just to chase jews. This 2 million extra men could have made a difference in Russia.

Since the German HQ knew the Russians would use the scorched earth tactics, the German army should be better supplyed by trucks. But Hitler wanted them to live by the land, wich means taking food from the local civillians, because he wanted the natives to starve to death so german settlers could later colonize Russia. A nice and evil idea, but the problem was that Stalin had scorched the eart, so there was no food, and since the German Army did not find any food in Russia, and Hitler refused to feed them by supply, then Hitlers Army were starving as a result. One of the rational to not use rail to send supply to Russia, was that Hitler needed all railways to send jews to Holocaust. This was more important then to supply the Army in the east. So basically the German Army in Russia was short of supply, short of food, short of winter clothes, short of gas, short of trucks etc etc and that was bad since the attack turned out to become a war of attrition, and not a 3 week long trip of triumph.

What Hitler could have done was let his generals do the job, but then he would not be Hitler.

@Razor:

@BJCard:

As far as not attacking Russia, it was just an idea.�  Maybe they could have waited another year or hit the Balkans earlier.�  Just saying their timing wasn’t that great if the goal was Moscow before winter.

But it was a bad idea to attack Russia. Thay had more than twice the population, it was the largest country in the world with lots of oil and resources, it have severe winter half the year, and at that time only dirtroads. The classic Russian defense stategi is the scorched earth tactic, and on top of that Stalin had used 60 % of the Gross domestic production for military outlays for 10 years, and had reached 4 times the tank production that Germany had.

Yes, they could have waited another year, but it was not in Hitlers nature to be prudent. He even startet the whole war many years before his military forces were ready, why should he wait to invade Russia ? He could have ignored the Balkans, since Greece would never let UK bomb the Ploesti oil field, and the alliance with Italy was not valid as long as Italy was the aggressor. And he could have startet Barbarossa in mai, but since Hitler figured it would take 3 weeks only to crush Russia, he was in no hurry.

I think Germany’s best bet to conquer Russia, would be to project all their available forces and resources to the campaign. They had half a million men based in Norway and Finland for no good use, and this men could be added to Barbarossa. The Africa Corps with Rommel could be added too, since Germany had no economic interests in Libya, and the 600 000 men from the Balkan Army. Since France surrendered they did not need a million men there just to chase jews. This 2 million extra men could have made a difference in Russia.

Since the German HQ knew the Russians would use the scorched earth tactics, the German army should be better supplyed by trucks. But Hitler wanted them to live by the land, wich means taking food from the local civillians, because he wanted the natives to starve to death so german settlers could later colonize Russia. A nice and evil idea, but the problem was that Stalin had scorched the eart, so there was no food, and since the German Army did not find any food in Russia, and Hitler refused to feed them by supply, then Hitlers Army were starving as a result. One of the rational to not use rail to send supply to Russia, was that Hitler needed all railways to send jews to Holocaust. This was more important then to supply the Army in the east. So basically the German Army in Russia was short of supply, short of food, short of winter clothes, short of gas, short of trucks etc etc and that was bad since the attack turned out to become a war of attrition, and not a 3 week long trip of triumph.

What Hitler could have done was let his generals do the job, but then he would not be Hitler.

I did not say it was a ‘good’ idea to attack Russia, but listed things he could have done better.  I also think that a better policy toward conquered peoples such as in the Ukraine would have made it easier, maybe even nudge Russia into another civil war.

Totally agree with you on the supply side.  They should have known the Russians are experts at scorched earth policies, as evidenced 200+ years prior by Napoleon (really any war that Russia has been in).  Additionally, I thought the train system in Russia had different grade tracks so the European trains couldn’t be used?  Perhaps an earlier push towards the Caucasus oil fields and/or earlier research on synthetic fuels could have helped with supply lines (Or even trains designed for Russian tracks).

Agreed too many resources wasted on Jews and defending against a British invasion that did not come for 4 years after France/Norway were taken (and doubtful the UK could have done it without the USA, so why declare war?  The Japanese were never going to fight Russia…).

The psychology of Hitler and his manipulation of his minions was both his strength and his weakness. Through his climb to power he was able to create a fanatical cadre, but the his downfall was his manipulation and schemes of his closest advisors. Which needed a huge beauracracy of red tape, too many ideas and thus sending Hitler’s already crazy mind in too many pet projects. Equally as detrimental was Hitler and his henchmen’s belief that somehow they had some supernatural power to influence fate thereby dooming Germany to superstition, and almost believing that Valkeries would swoop from the sky to destroy thier enemies.

Hitler was his own worst enemy, he had the power to make a man sacrifice his own life and in the end he took his own along with millions of others. My opinion was Hitler was suicidal and needed Germany to help him get the guts to do it himself.

@toblerone77:

The psychology of Hitler and his manipulation of his minions was both his strength and his weakness. Through his climb to power he was able to create a fanatical cadre, but the his downfall was his manipulation and schemes of his closest advisors. Which needed a huge beauracracy of red tape, too many ideas and thus sending Hitler’s already crazy mind in too many pet projects. Equally as detrimental was Hitler and his henchmen’s belief that somehow they had some supernatural power to influence fate thereby dooming Germany to superstition, and almost believing that Valkeries would swoop from the sky to destroy thier enemies.

Hitler was his own worst enemy, he had the power to make a man sacrifice his own life and in the end he took his own along with millions of others. My opinion was Hitler was suicidal and needed Germany to help him get the guts to do it himself.

I get that Hitler had his issues, but this thread was how he could have won the war, not why he lost it.

As I said, he could only won the war if he quit being himself and let his generals do the job and the thinking, but then he would not be Hitler

naw, his generals where to obsessed with the tactics of war, rather than the economics of war. This is why they wanted to go for moscow, rather than turn south and get the ukrainian ore, block the ukrainian factories and encircle 500k (i don’t remember the number) men around kiev.

the economics dictated going after the resources and building strategic bombers.

@Razor:

@BJCard:

As far as not attacking Russia, it was just an idea.�  Maybe they could have waited another year or hit the Balkans earlier.�  Just saying their timing wasn’t that great if the goal was Moscow before winter.

But it was a bad idea to attack Russia. Thay had more than twice the population, it was the largest country in the world with lots of oil and resources, it have severe winter half the year, and at that time only dirtroads. The classic Russian defense stategi is the scorched earth tactic, and on top of that Stalin had used 60 % of the Gross domestic production for military outlays for 10 years, and had reached 4 times the tank production that Germany had.

Yes, they could have waited another year, but it was not in Hitlers nature to be prudent. He even startet the whole war many years before his military forces were ready, why should he wait to invade Russia ? He could have ignored the Balkans, since Greece would never let UK bomb the Ploesti oil field, and the alliance with Italy was not valid as long as Italy was the aggressor. And he could have startet Barbarossa in mai, but since Hitler figured it would take 3 weeks only to crush Russia, he was in no hurry.

I think Germany’s best bet to conquer Russia, would be to project all their available forces and resources to the campaign. They had half a million men based in Norway and Finland for no good use, and this men could be added to Barbarossa. The Africa Corps with Rommel could be added too, since Germany had no economic interests in Libya, and the 600 000 men from the Balkan Army. Since France surrendered they did not need a million men there just to chase jews. This 2 million extra men could have made a difference in Russia.

Since the German HQ knew the Russians would use the scorched earth tactics, the German army should be better supplyed by trucks. But Hitler wanted them to live by the land, wich means taking food from the local civillians, because he wanted the natives to starve to death so german settlers could later colonize Russia. A nice and evil idea, but the problem was that Stalin had scorched the eart, so there was no food, and since the German Army did not find any food in Russia, and Hitler refused to feed them by supply, then Hitlers Army were starving as a result. One of the rational to not use rail to send supply to Russia, was that Hitler needed all railways to send jews to Holocaust. This was more important then to supply the Army in the east. So basically the German Army in Russia was short of supply, short of food, short of winter clothes, short of gas, short of trucks etc etc and that was bad since the attack turned out to become a war of attrition, and not a 3 week long trip of triumph.

What Hitler could have done was let his generals do the job, but then he would not be Hitler.

Winter clothes and antifreeze would have made a difference.

Another  point would be the constant change of priorities. I mean, just look at fall blau. Hitler first wanted to take the caucasus, and then he became obsessed with stalingrad.

Same with Leningrad. Could be taken easily, but he wanted the infantry to catch up. Why do you want to besiege a city when it could be taken and the forces there freed up for use elsewhere?

From some of my recent readings the Germans believed that in the Soviet’s were not capable of feeding the 4 million people in Leningrad after the beating the Red Army was taken in early 1941. A huge mistake on the Germans part.

@ABWorsham:

From some of my recent readings the Germans believed that in the Soviet’s were not capable of feeding the 4 million people in Leningrad after the beating the Red Army was taken in early 1941. A huge mistake on the Germans part.

In one sense, the Germans were correct: an awful lot of people in Leningrad died of starvation (and cold, due to lack of fuel) during the siege, a situation made worse by the fact that the Russians failed to evacuate the elderly and the very young while they still had the chance, before the city was cut off.  But the Germans did make a serious mistake in not pushing their occupation line completely around the southern end of Lake Ladoga and up its eastern bank to join up with the Finns, who had captured the northern half of Karelia Ladoga.  As a result, the Russians retained access to the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga, and were able to get supplies across the lake to Leningrad by truck and railroad in winter (when the surface was frozen) and by ship in summer.  Leningrad got only a fraction of what it needed, but this trickle of supplies did nonethless help the city to hold out.

@CWO:

@ABWorsham:

From some of my recent readings the Germans believed that in the Soviet’s were not capable of feeding the 4 million people in Leningrad after the beating the Red Army was taken in early 1941. A huge mistake on the Germans part.

In one sense, the Germans were correct: an awful lot of people in Leningrad died of starvation (and cold, due to lack of fuel) during the siege, a situation made worse by the fact that the Russians failed to evacuate the elderly and the very young while they still had the chance, before the city was cut off.�  But the Germans did make a serious mistake in not pushing their occupation line completely around the southern end of Lake Ladoga and up its eastern bank to join up with the Finns, who had captured the northern half of Karelia Ladoga.�  As a result, the Russians retained access to the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga, and were able to get supplies across the lake to Leningrad by truck and railroad in winter (when the surface was frozen) and by ship in summer.�  Leningrad got only a fraction of what it needed, but this trickle of supplies did nonethless help the city to hold out.

I’ve read reports that over the course of the siege, Children were going missing during the night. Speculation and recent evidence suggests some of them were eaten.

Reports of cannibalism appeared in the winter of 1941–1942, after all birds, rats, and pets had been eaten by survivors.[52] Hungry gangs attacked and ate people.[53] Leningrad police even formed a special unit to combat cannibalism. This unit resulted in 260 Leningraders being found guilty of and put in prison for the crime of cannibalism

@Gargantua:

@CWO:

@ABWorsham:

From some of my recent readings the Germans believed that in the Soviet’s were not capable of feeding the 4 million people in Leningrad after the beating the Red Army was taken in early 1941. A huge mistake on the Germans part.

In one sense, the Germans were correct: an awful lot of people in Leningrad died of starvation (and cold, due to lack of fuel) during the siege, a situation made worse by the fact that the Russians failed to evacuate the elderly and the very young while they still had the chance, before the city was cut off.� � But the Germans did make a serious mistake in not pushing their occupation line completely around the southern end of Lake Ladoga and up its eastern bank to join up with the Finns, who had captured the northern half of Karelia Ladoga.� � As a result, the Russians retained access to the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga, and were able to get supplies across the lake to Leningrad by truck and railroad in winter (when the surface was frozen) and by ship in summer.� � Leningrad got only a fraction of what it needed, but this trickle of supplies did nonethless help the city to hold out.

I’ve read reports that over the course of the siege, Children were going missing during the night. Speculation and recent evidence suggests some of them were eaten.

Reports of cannibalism appeared in the winter of 1941–1942, after all birds, rats, and pets had been eaten by survivors.[52] Hungry gangs attacked and ate people.[53] Leningrad police even formed a special unit to combat cannibalism. This unit resulted in 260 Leningraders being found guilty of and put in prison for the crime of cannibalism

Never heard about this before.  Horrible.

@Kreuzfeld:

@Zooey72:

I think it is more of a societal thing.  One of the reasons I am proud to be an American is that we TOOK our freedom from England when England was (close to) at its strongest.  You look around the world and you see these third world countries bitching and moaning about “its not our fault, we were a colony”!  Boo frigg’n hoo.  So were we, and instead of being given our freedom (which India was, if you believe Ghandi did it I have a bridge to sell you), we took it.  Taking freedom is much different than having it given to you.  Look around the world at the old colonies, most of them are run now dictators and are poor.  Very few took their freedom, most got it because we pressured England to drop its colonies after the war (which they had to do, or no Marshall plan $).

We have a Constitution that allows us to have weapons.  That was not put in there so people could hunt or defend themselves against muggers.  It was put in there so that the government does not have a monopoly on force.

You make it sound like the americans took it without help, from a british empire who had nothing else to do. The fact is that the american revolution would probably not have succeded if this was the case. The british war in india got most of the british resouces, and the french (the worlds strongest military power on land at the time), combined with the spansih and the dutch helped a great deal. In fact, there are very few wars of freedom (after 1500) that have won without help from an outside power helping, and usually they need to declare war to do enough. The nations you are belitteling is exactly the nations that would never get aid for their revolutionary and rebellious wars, and exactly the nations that got their freedom with the least help from an outside power. The indians did it by making sure that it would be too costly for the british to stay there.

When it comes to the second amendment, don’t be naive, the government does have monopoly on force, there is no way a rebellion would work, taliban militias is better armed than the american civilian population.

The one way to ensure (IMO) that the government cannot use their army against the civilan population is to have a conscripted army, if every person have served, then every member of the army thinks of himself as a member of the population and massive nonviolent protests will turn the army against the government. It is less violent, and has a greater chance of success. The moment the army is a professional army, thinking of themselves as outside the population, working for a salery, then you are in trouble as a democracy.

EDIT: forgive my harsh tone, it is not meant that way

That’s nuts.  I do not own a gun, but if they were to ever try and take them away I would get one and would be willing to die shooting whoever came to my door trying to take it away.  The second amendment does not give me the right to do that, it makes it an OBLIGATION.  Crunch the numbers.  If 1 percent of US citizens (and it is much higher than that) own a gun that makes 3 million gun owners.  Granted the military is more organized, but if you think they can take out 3 million gun owners easily you are crazy.  Not to mention, the people who would be in charge of taking those guns away are more than likely gun owners themselves.  If you want to argue whether we could fight our military ok, but one thing that is not open to argument is the intent the founders had by giving us the second.  I do not have the right to own a gun to shoot a deer or defend against a mugger.

I love when people try to compare Vietanm to our Revolution.  You remember the mass slayings after we won?  The re-education camps?  The brutal crack down by the government?  Not to mention the great standard of living that Vietnam enjoys to this day!  The fight was to minimize government as much as possible.  American exceptionalism is just that - EXCEPTIONAL!  You will be hard pressed to find examples in history where the winners of the war give power to the people instead of seizing it themselves.  George Washington was not King George.  He gave up power peacefully.

As far as our ability to beat the British, it also amuses me that Vietnam was unwinnable… but the only reason we won our independence is because the British just weren’t all that much into it.  That being said, the french were not going to help us until they saw that we had a good chance of winning.  I won’t dispute the French helped, but we did most of the fighting.  The fact we won a diplomatic victory getting the French to aid us (and the only reason they helped us was to stick it to the British, there was no altruistic reason behind it).  With that logic I guess England didn’t win the battle of Britian - We did!.  W/o our aid even Churchill acknowledged England would have fallen.  But I defy you to find someone who lived through the blitz and tell them that.

The fact of the matter is that when a war takes place people are going to take sides, and the decision of what side a country should take should always be in was in that countries own best interest.  The balance of power in the world shifted quite a bit after we won our independence (in France’s favor).

Plain and simple, diplomacy is a part of war just as much as guns and butter.

@Zooey72:

You will be hard pressed to find examples in history where the winners of the war give power to the people instead of seizing it themselves.  George Washington was not King George.  He gave up power peacefully.

I totally understand your point, but you’re making the mistake of looking at the Founding Fathers with rose-colored glasses.  They also believed that only certain classes of people should be in charge as the common man was too ignorant to be trusted with a full voice in government.  The US Constitution was a huge step forward but most of the FFs would have been horrified at the idea of implementing a more fuller democracy such as we have now.

@Eggman:

@Zooey72:

You will be hard pressed to find examples in history where the winners of the war give power to the people instead of seizing it themselves.  George Washington was not King George.  He gave up power peacefully.

I totally understand your point, but you’re making the mistake of looking at the Founding Fathers with rose-colored glasses.  They also believed that only certain classes of people should be in charge as the common man was too ignorant to be trusted with a full voice in government.  The US Constitution was a huge step forward but most of the FFs would have been horrified at the idea of implementing a more fuller democracy such as we have now.

Well, judging by the general political IQ of the average American, the founding fathers were probably right.

Spies
The house on 92nd str
A nuclear Germany in late 40 & 41