Posts made by Octospire

@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

Indeed the United States merely won a guerilla insurgency in the same manner as the Vietcong and the NVA defeated South Vietnam and the U.S.
Without the help of the French who were fighting the British across the globe at the same time the American revolution would of died in its infancy. The French contributed to the ultimate American triumph by diverting resources that could of been used against the revolutionaries and also by providing arms to the revolutionaries.

The American revolutionaries won a war of secession not a war of two powers, people tend to forget that in any time in the next 40 years the British empire could of thrown its full force against the United States and utterly crushed the fledgling nation had it had the will to do so.

The war was won for the U.S by the British public, as they could abide a long war in which they were fighting people they considered their countrymen. Had the British had their usual iron will as seen in more or less every conflict since the American revolutionary war things would of likely turned out differently.

While today the British backing away from the U.S and not simply just giving the colonists what they wanted seems foolish back then the United States wasn’t the prize it is today.

At the cessesation of hostilities Jamaica’s gross domestic product was 4 times that of the entire United States mainly due to its vast sugar plantations.

If the Allies attacked on VE day they would of likely had a very bad time of it being outnumbered quite badly and outgunned at least on the ground. However if the Allies waited until they could pull the majority of their forces out of the Pacific (3-4 months after VJ Day) then that is a whole nother kettle of fish.

With the number of Allied aircraft committed in the Pacific recomitted to the skies of Europe the Soviets would of been badly out numbered in the air. Add to that the likely air raids on the Soviet oil fields all of sudden its not such a pretty picture. I have no illusions that it wouldnt of been a hard slog to Moscow but it would of been possible with enough preparation. You add to Allied Forces the millions of German soldiers who wanted revenge for the notorius acts committed by Soviet forces and it begins to look a whole lot brighter for the Allies. With the likes of Von Manstein and Guederian working with Patton and Eisenhower with all the resources the free world had to offer it would likely turn out in the allies favour.

In my opinion it wouldnt of been long until E-Series German tanks were advancing on the great plains of the USSR backed up by Mustangs and Spitfire’s keeping the skies clear over head. Its hard to think of the Soviets beating that back. Also throw into the mix the oncoming jet age, German designed tanks being built in U.S factories and the atomic bomb the Soviets would of had their hands full.

After the evacuations of Allied troops at Dunkirk do you think it would of been possible for the French Armed forces to fight on and hold the line or perhaps even push the Germans back?

Personally my knowledge of this particular subject is somewhat limited and I would like to hear some opinions on the subject from those of you in the know.

What I do know is the British offered support what exactly I am unsure but it must of been something substantial as Churchill wouldnt of wanted to lose Britains only ally.

Another question would be could the RAF of gone on the offensive from airfields in Central France in order to push the Germans back, fight the Battle of Britain over the skies of France instead, this would also give crucial time for the remaining French factories to go into production overdrive of all war making materials.

@ABWorsham:

I have always found it strange that in World War Two the Japanese code of not surrendering and retaining one’s honor in battle seemed to have left the minds of the IJN high command in some key battles. There seems to be no IJN  Banzai charge.

In the Battle of Savo Island Japan had the Allied Invasion fleet at he mercy of the IJN guns but lost the nerve and retired.

In the Battle of Komandorski Island, the Japanese, who had the larger force, left a US cruiser dead in the water, and retired.

Leyte Gulf, The Battle off Samar, Japan had a chance to inflict huge damage to the Japanese but lost the nerve.

What’s your thoughts?

I never really thought about it that way, it really is an interesting perspective. Like Gargantua and Clyde said the IJN was always so afraid of loosing that they wouldnt finish the fight even when Victory was very likely.

I don’t think that the IJN needed the fanaticism of the Bushido code in order to win victories, in their place a good British or American Admiral/Commander like Andrew Cunningham or Raymond Spruance would of pressed the advantage and destroyed the enemy. This is very much reflected at the Battle of Samar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Samar), a small ill prepared US Navy force of 6 escort carriers, 3 destoyers and 4 destroyer escorts held off and defeated a massive Japanese fleet of 4 Battleships (one of those being the Yamato), 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 11 destroyers. Had the Japanese easily defeated the U.S Navy force and pressed the advantage they could of potentially gone on to attack the invasion fleet at Leyte Gulf, this attack could of potentially sunk the troopships and transports that made the invasion possible. This action alone would of at least bought the Japanese valuable time in the war and possibly even scuttled McArthur’s plans for an invasion of the Phillipines, the U.S may of instead of gone with Nimitz’s plan to attack Taiwan (Formosa) and by pass the Phillipines and “let it wither on the vine”.

Also I think you can add Pearl Harbor to that list of unpressed victories AB. Had Nagumo actually attacked the oil storage and dry docks at Pearl Harbor the U.S would not be able to make any serious operations in the Pacific for more than a year according to military historians. If the war turned out the way it did in South East Asia then yes it would of massively hampered American efforts. However if the Allies managed to hold Singapore which would of been a necessity after the destruction of the facilities at Pearl Harbour then it is likely that the war would of been fought from Singapore for at least the first year of the war in the Pacific.

Never the less it would of greatly changed the dynamic of the war in the Pacific instead of having a base so far away in Hawaii, they would be right on the Japanese door step with a base at Singapore. Had that been the case it is likely that the Japanese would of got the “decisive battle” that their naval doctorine to vigorously demanded.

@Cromwell_Dude:

Feel absolutely free to disagree, but I say Eisenhower.

To me it really depends on how you view Eisenhower, if you view him as a tactician and as a field commander then yes he is over rated. However Eisenhower’s strength was in his ability to make war while keeping the peace amongst those under his command and his allies. It was Eisenhower who it fell to, to defuse the explosive rivalry between Patton and Montgomery.

Eisenhower seemed to leave it to his generals to make the day to day decisions of the war while Eisenhower was more of a war room type figure. Never the less under Eisenhowers command the allies succesfully invaded France and went on to win the war on the Western front.

I think purely by his World War 2 reputation McArthur was a bit overrated, not the most but definetly at least a little. He made good on his rep in Korea when UN forces amphibiously attacked Inchon arguably saving the remaining UN forces in Korea from a crushing defeat.

Charles De Gaulle was also an overrated figure in my opinion, but I suppose that had its purpose to keep up the morale of the French under Nazi occupation and know that a Frenchman would be their liberator.

@poloplayer15:

What if Germany won the battle of Kursk? A win constitutes the entire encirclement of the Kursk bulge and destruction/surrender of the Red Army trapped inside?

I think that depends a great deal on the cost the Germans would have to pay for this victory. However if they were to win the battle without the massive loss of men and machinery it would of likely put the Nazi’s in the box seat to win the war on the Eastern front.

At Kursk the Soviets threw everything they had at the Germans, had they lost an army that large and that well equipped its difficult to see the Soviets recovering from such a defeat.

Going by wikipedia the Soviets committed over 1.9 million men to the battle, which would of likely been the best the Red Army had to offer. Add to that the likely losses in Tanks, aircraft and artillery it would of been difficult for the Soviets to once again turn the tide.

Any large scale victory for the Germans at Kursk would of likely meant the oil fields of the Caucasus would of likely fell into the hands of the Nazi’s. That in itself could of potentially cost the Soviets the war. Also Moscow was still only roughly 200km from the front, with some creative tactics the Nazi’s could of forced the Soviets into a situation where they were forced to choose between the Caucasus oil fields and protecting Moscow, either way if that Nazi attack succeded it could of been the death knell for the Soviet Union.

Perhaps it would be good if we could have a list of the candidates for best Heavy Cruiser and a rough list of specifications for each. For example Armament, Armour, Speed and Radar maybe?

@KurtGodel7:

Acting on orders from Moscow, communist parties in Western nations promoted the following agenda:

• Attacks on “traditional morality,” on “dead white males,” and on “Eurocentric cultures.”
• Attacks on the concept of Western civilization itself
• Radical feminism, attacks on males, and attacks on mothers and the role of motherhood
• High levels of immigration into Western nations from non-Western nations
• Attacks on patriotism
• Attacks on religion in general and Christianity in particular
• Attacks on the traditional family
• Promotion of the common criminal, who was supposedly a hero for resisting the evil of the existing social order.

The following may be off topic.

I have heard and read the following many times from a myriad of different sources. It really does make one wonder how much of our “social progress” was originally begun as efforts to undermine Western civilization.

The communists theories are sound and they have had the desired effect on the Western world it has just taken longer than they originally envisioned, had the USSR institued the same reforms as the PRC in the late 1980’s instead of going for both economic and political reform we could very well have a scenario on our hands in which the communists win the Cold war.

The Vietnam war embodies the weapon that social change was for the communists, if they could make a war bloody enough and endless enough eventually the United States would capitulate, no longer were the Americans the people who fought until the bitter end at battles like Bastogne and Guadalcanal. It didnt matter if the armed forces were ready to fight on, the tide of public opinion was more important.

I can imagine the Soviet leadership watching the coverage of those brave American Vietnam vets getting spit on as they come home from the war often badly wounded and thinking how could they lose this Cold war.

Many B-29’s and P-51’s were forced to make emergency landings at airfields on Okinawa as the aircraft could not fly any further due to loss of fuel or battle damage. This in itself likely saved hundreds of lives in the long run especially if the war had of continued into 1946.

As others have said a staging area was required and Okinawa was the best for the purposes of an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Also had the emperor not got involved in making the Japanese surrender possible, its likely that the war would of continued until the Japanese military was completely destroyed by the means of an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

@CWO:

@Octospire:

I was contrasting the peroid attitudes towards different races, if the United States army did not even let its own citizens serve in combat roles, how could the average American of the era regard the Phillipines as capable of self government.

Prior to the Japanese invasion, the U.S. government was already planning to grant independence to the Philippines in 1946.  And as it turns out, the war ended soon enough for the U.S. to carry out that plan on schedule: the U.S. declared the Philippines to be an independent self-governing nation on (I believe) July 4, 1946, a date picked to coincide with America’s own July 4th national birthday.

I’m aware of that, but none the less it was still U.S territory at the time in question. Also thousands of Americans lost their lives defending the Phillipines and thousands more were in POW camps, that motivates a people to retake what they once had, what they still believed to be theirs.

The Phillipines were given independence because Americans did not believe in overseas empire, thus the people of the Phillipines were left to their own devices in 1946. Also its not like the Americans didn’t maintain naval bases and a presence in the Phillipines into the late 1980’s.

Also it wouldnt of looked very good for Truman talking up decolinisation in Africa and Asia when the United States was still holding on to its colonial posessions. To be fair the United States still controls Guam which it took at the same time as the Phillipines.

@Fishmoto37:

@Octospire:

@MrMalachiCrunch:

Great points.  I do a have a slightly different take on one point however.

Really it boils down to tit for tat and getting back that something that was at the time rightfully theirs.

I dated a Filipino gal for awhile.  Their family events history would often come up.  The Filipinos had a slightly different take on who the Philippine islands belonged to.  A quick study of the Philippine-American war was pretty educational for me, I didn’t know……

I completely agree, its very much the usual legacy of empire. The Americans still believed the Phillipines to belong to them at the time, the natives werent really considered that much in the equation.

Although to put it into perspective, it was believed at the time that black Americans couldnt fight as well as white Americans and were relegated to support roles for most of the war until the U.S armed forces had a shortage of troops and had to put them into combat roles. This is inspite of the fact that black soldiers fought with distinction for both the British and French empire’s in WW1.

Anyways back to the original topic  :-)

I think you all may be too young to remember what a blow to American pride the loss of the Philippines was. And Octo,what do American black soldiers fighting ability have to do with retaking the Philippines?

I was contrasting the peroid attitudes towards different races, if the United States army did not even let its own citizens serve in combat roles, how could the average American of the era regard the Phillipines as capable of self government. I was responding to the fact that the Fillipinos always believed that the Phillipines belonged to them and that contrasted with American opinion of the era.

I can understand what a blow it would of been to lose Guam and the Phillipines it was part of the United States and any foreign power controlling any U.S territory was unacceptable and a massive blow to American pride and honour.

@MrMalachiCrunch:

Great points.  I do a have a slightly different take on one point however.

Really it boils down to tit for tat and getting back that something that was at the time rightfully theirs.

I dated a Filipino gal for awhile.  Their family events history would often come up.  The Filipinos had a slightly different take on who the Philippine islands belonged to.  A quick study of the Philippine-American war was pretty educational for me, I didn’t know……

I completely agree, its very much the usual legacy of empire. The Americans still believed the Phillipines to belong to them at the time, the natives werent really considered that much in the equation.

Although to put it into perspective, it was believed at the time that black Americans couldnt fight as well as white Americans and were relegated to support roles for most of the war until the U.S armed forces had a shortage of troops and had to put them into combat roles. This is inspite of the fact that black soldiers fought with distinction for both the British and French empire’s in WW1.

Anyways back to the original topic  :-)

The invasion of the Phillipines meant a direct confrontation between a large portion of both the U.S Navy and the IJN, this meant that once and for all the severity of the threat of the IJN could be reduced for the rest of the war. The battle of Leyte Gulf ensured that the United States had naval superiority in the Pacific and that the Japanese navy would never again have the numbers to challenge a large U.S surface fleet.

I think we underestimate the importance of the Phillipines in the psyche of Americans of the day, while it wasnt a U.S state it was still U.S soil at the time and for as long any U.S territory was under the control of the Japanese it was a blow to the pride of not only the American people but the armed forces as a whole. Really it boils down to tit for tat and getting back that something that was at the time rightfully theirs.

An invasion of Formosa aka Taiwan would be somewhat ill advised with the Japanese still controlling the Phillipines any invasion force both naval and ground forces would be vulnerable to counterattack especially considering that Pre-Leyte Gulf the Japanese navy still had a sizeable carrier striker force which could be deadly for any invasion fleet.  Also Formosa also add’s the issue of Japanese land based aircraft attacking from airfields in China which would definetly complicate any invasion and allied airfields would be under almost constant attack.

While it was definetly about MacArthur’s ego to some degree it was still strategically important to have a staging area close to Okinawa and the Japanese home islands where a fleet could gather without fear of running across a large Japanese strike force.

I think an invasion of Formosa after defeating the IJN in a similar fashion to Leyte Gulf may very well of had the same effect on the course of the war, it might of had more ongoing issues such as Japanese air attacks but the result would of likely been the same.

@Gargantua:

China.

No doubt.

You’re talking about BILLIONS of people, for many of which a cot and 3 square a day is a STEP UP.

Economy is superior.

Manpower is superior.

Will is superior.

Corruption is equally replete.

Military Tradition is superior.

Discipline is higher.

Sphere of influence is also superior.  Everyone from the arabs, to the Koreans would lend the chinese an ear, over the old soviet state.

Europe isn’t going to bail out Russia methinks.

Europe would bail out Russia I reckon, so would the Americans. There is no way Europe or the U.S would ever let China become all powerful by conquering all of Russia.
The Europeans wouldnt accept the Chinese on their doorstep either would the Americans like China being so close to Alaska if they conquered Russia.
Also the Japanese and Tawainese would be more than willing to open up a second front in any war as they know they would be on China’s hit list sooner or later.

To clarify my somewhat muddled position.

China invades Russia > Europeans, Americans, Japanese, Tawainese perhaps even the Indians get involved > China gets crushed either under the weight of massive opposition, or Nuclear winter.
Post war multinational occupation force occupies China much like Germany post WW2 until such time a cohesive democratic government can be put together and China’s remaining nuclear arsenal can be disarmed.

@Clyde85:

@Octospire:

China is already on shaky ground socially and politically, you throw in a potentially world ending war started by the Chinese government the Chinese communist party and the entire system of Chinese government would be overthrown by the Chinese people.

What proof do you have of this? I was just there last month, and you couldnt be more incorrect.

There is the China you see that the Chinese government wants you to see, then theres the other China people actually live in. This other China is full of people who hate their countries government and their lack of personal freedoms. There are massive social issues in China as behind the communist guises it is run in the exact same way Chiang did before the revolution, with elites controlling everything and effectively above the law.

While times are good, the Chinese majority  will turn a blind eye to their countries injustices and lack of freedoms, but if you take away massive wage growth and economic stability you have a powderkeg of both ethnic and class tensions which threatens to tear China apart. China likes to be portrayed as a unified nation but it is in fact comprised of over 40 different ethnic groups most of whom vehemently oppose the Chinese government (as is illustrated when the Western media actually gets a chance to report on these stories, which is quite rare).

This isnt just anti-communist and anti-Chinese propoganda either my opinion is informed by both first hand accounts from people who have lived in China and news reports from independent sources such as the BBC.

My apologies to the mods if this is getting too political.

Russia by far has the advantage in terms of tactical nuclear weapons, they could take it any incoming Chinese tank formations with very little collateral damage to important Russian posessions.

China is already on shaky ground socially and politically, you throw in a potentially world ending war started by the Chinese government the Chinese communist party and the entire system of Chinese government would be overthrown by the Chinese people.

The last thing a Chinese conscript army would want to do would be to go up against combat hardened Russian troops (Georgia, Chechnya, Still some Vets from Afghanistan) who have easy access to tactical nuclear weapons which would quickly blunt any Chinese advance in Russian territory.

The war itself would quickly turn into a bloody stalemate, but Putin has the support and love of the Russian people, the Chinese government has neither from its people only the fear of not supporting the party. So in the end my money is on the Russians.

@ABWorsham:

Donitz said in a metting with Hitler, “The historians will describe  World War 2 in different ways, according to their nationality. On one point, however, they will be unanimous. in the 20th Century - that the aeroplane - the German Navy fought without airborne infomation and without its own air force, as if the aeroplane did not exist. and they will be unable to explain it.”

The massive material advantage of the Royal Navy would of likely stifled any real chance of German carriers to reak havoc in the Atlantic. The threat of a German aircraft carrier in the Atlantic wold of likely illicited a response similar to that of what the Bismarck, Graf Spee and other major German navy capital ships did.

Had the Germans had for example a similar amount of aircraft carriers to the Japanese in late 1941 say 4 fleet carriers at the start of the war I have no doubt that the Royal Navy would of used the threat of German Navy airpower to justify a massive expansion in the number of Royal Navy fleet carriers to the point where it would likely outnumber any German force two to one (if not more knowing the Royal Navy’s tendencies for overkill).

In the long run a German commitment to carrier airpower would of only strengthened the position of the Royal Navy throughout the world. German resources would of ultimately been wasted just like they were in the long run on their other capital ships such as the Tirpitz or Prinz Eugen which constantly needed to protected from RAF bombing raids.

However if the Germans dedicated their naval shipbuilding from the late 1930’s entirely on Uboats they could of knocked Britain out of the war quite quickly. To think of all the steel, manpower and money that went on the German surface raiders like Bismarck and then apply that to U-Boat production the Germans could of perhaps had over 150 Uboats by the time the Battle of the Atlantic truly began after the fall of France and the German navy acquired port facilites in Western France.

At the beginning of the Battle of the Atlantic Doenitz only had access to 60 Uboats, if one imagines German Uboats numbering 200-300 (perhaps more) they could of cut Britain’s maritime lifeline leaving them at the German’s mercy because of lack of food and other essential supplies.

My apologies for going somewhat off topic :-)

@MrMalachiCrunch:

Cylde85, your refined scenario is interesting, but KurtGodel7 is correct, my loyalties are to Canada as I am a Canuckian.  The Mexican angle might help, but then again the mexican mainland is that much further away from Japan.

It’s not that I am hostile to the idea of the US being invaded, heck, Canadians…errrr, the British as Canada didn’t exist…The British and what would become Canada did invade the US mainland and burned the US capital to the ground.  I just think its too much of a stretch to contemplate a sustained Jap invasion.

If I hear you correctly, you feel the allies were ready to invade europe ibefore June 6, 1944…but it was Winston Churchill who was scared of Hitler and didn’t want to?  Interesting, fictional but interesting.

My point was, the allies were not ready to invade europe until about 14 months before the atom bomb was ready, there is NO WAY Japan would be ready by June 6, 1944 or June 6 1948.  By the time they built up enough of an invasion force say a few years longer than the allies required for D-Day they would be facing a nuclear armed enemy.  The fact is, the US had such a huge production advantage its just too implausible for me to entertain seriously.

I think perhaps if Japan had NOT done pearl harbour.  Had just gone after the British and commonwealth countries, the dutch east indies…that the US might not want to fight for somebody else.

By attacking the US in the way they did…only pissed them off.  It made it easy to put the entire continent on a war footing in production which the Germans NEVER did pull off until it was much much too late.

Now, you spin a scenario in which the US never enters the war, europe collapses, the axis owning everything but the americas…  The both the US and Germany get nuclear weapons and a stalemate along the lines of the cold war develop.  Still no Jap invasion could occur.

I dont think the U.S having Nuclear weapons is a foregone conclusion had they not been involved in WW2. No U.S involvement in WW2 means the depression likely would of continued for years to come in the United States. Building Nuclear weapons even during the war would of likely had its detractors due its massive costs, but building nuclear weapons during a time of economic collapse seems somewhat implausible especially with the United States isolationist tendencies pre December 7, 1941. Also had the Nazi’s/Japanese empire controlled basically all of Eurasia and Africa and had Nuclear weapons the Nazi’s would of had an adaquate delivery system much quicker than the United States in the form of a rocket likely derived from the V2. The United States would of had no airbase to launch a bomber to attack Germany with either had the Axis powers won the war. Provided a B-29 bomber would of ever been built without the war.

The United States rocket program only got off the ground once they brought in German engineers like Werner von Braun.

A Nuclear armed Germany who controlled more than half the world VS a United States still struggling economically and who had strong isolationist tendencies. I know which one I would put my money on. But I digress I dont think any armed conflict would of occured between a Nuclear United States and Germany/Imperial Japan, with the resources of basically the entire world outside of the America’s at their disposal the Axis powers could stir up pro-Axis revolutions in Central and South America to the point where an eventual fifth column would make the United States capitulate.

Most of the threads on this forum seem like foregone conclusions these days, for example the Japanese invasion of the United States. So I thought I would make one that may have some differing opinions.

Had Rommel of had the Panzer divisions at the beaches on D-Day would it of actually made any meaningful difference to the outcome of the battle?

I’m in two minds about this myself, however after much thought I reckon with suffecient resources the Nazi’s could of pushed the invasion force back to the sea.

During Market Garden infantry without any allied tanks the paratroopers were cut to pieces by I believe a single Panzer division (correct me if i’m wrong) due to the lack of any heavy or anti tank weapons. Naturally the allies had air superiority during Market garden but it seemed to make little difference. I’m unsure that it was due to a possible lack of air assets devoted to the operation or simply the fact that airpower wasnt enough on its own.

It makes me wonder had the Nazi’s comitted 4 Panzer divisions for arguments sake and they could of been there just behind the beaches ready for the counterattack they could of very well won the day. With the amount of allied air and naval assets devoted to the invasion there would of been heavy casualties for the German armoured divisions but they may of won the battle.

I think we can say with relative certainty the Nazi’s still would of lost the war, significant resources would of been tied up on the Western front in case of another invasion, the allied strategic bombing campaign would of likely been stepped up even further in the wake of a failed invasion and the Red army juggernaut would of still been pushing its way to Berlin.

@KurtGodel7:

@Octospire:

You make some ineteresting points, the strategic alliances between the French and Soviets basically doomed Germany to either fighting WW2 or being a sitting duck when the Soviets came a knockin’. Chamberlain could of been bigger than Churchill in the current popular imagination if he had of engineered a successful alliance with the Germans and then defeated the Soviet Union. You are very much correct that forging an alliance would of been very difficult considering the Pro-Soviet sentiments amongst the worlds elites, however I think with the right propaganda they could of turned the tide. In reality it wouldnt even have to be propaganda just the truth about the Soviet Union under Stalin, the labour camps and purges that were reality long before exterminating the Jews was even a thought on the Nazi parties planning table.

Germany and Britain had ties going back centuries that could of been rekindled in spite of French protests, the Soviets werent going to sit within their borders forever especially with their massive advantages in manpower and industrial capacity.

What is facinating about this whole era is how accomodating Hitler tried to be with the British at least at first, he wanted an Anglo-German alliance so badly just like the alliance between the Prussians and the British during the Napoloeonic era. Had the British been receptive to these offers or at the very least not signing their way into world war 2 by alligning themselves yet again with the French things could of been very different.

As I previously said I think the key would be proganda making the Nazi’s seem like the lesser of two evils and demonising the Soviets to the point where it would be essential for the British to side with Germany. It really shouldnt of been that hard as the atttitudes of the late 1940’s and 1950’s Western world illustrated. There was already communist uprising in China undermining the Nationalist government, how hard would of it been to demonise the communist way of life and show the world what life in the Soviet Union was really like.

Good post! :)

From a purely ethical standpoint, several differences between the Nazis and the communists occur to me.

1. The Soviet government had murdered tens of millions of innocent people even before WWII began. (And added considerably to that total both during and after the war.) Conversely, the Nazi government did not begin killing large numbers of people until its food situation precluded feeding everyone within its borders.

2. The Soviet government was bent on world revolution. Outside of communist-controlled areas, their focus was primarily on tearing down the existing social order and anything which supported it. As an example of this, David Horowitz (an ex-communist who’d been raised as a red diaper baby) noted that shortly after he got married, his wife attended a meeting of communists/radical feminists. She came home in tears: the radical feminists/communists had harshly judged her for choosing to stay home and raise kids instead of putting her career first. That was the last such meeting Horowitz’s wife attended. He went on to add that within a year, every woman who chose to continue attending those meeting had had her marriage end. Communists felt that stirring up trouble between the sexes was a good way to harm the existing social order. In contrast, the Nazis were generally pro-family, and even brought Mothers Day to German-occupied France.

3. Recently, a relatively well-known Canadian journalist decided to quit her career, and become an artist instead. She went back to school to obtain her art degree. She was successful in obtaining that degree, but she said it nearly killed her as an artist. The postmodernist (read:communist) opinion is that until the world’s sexes and races are equal, beauty has no place in art. Consequently, no effort should be made to make art beautiful. This journalist chose, as her subject matter, to paint the people who cleaned up the art room after the art students were finished using it. She felt such people were too often unnoticed. Her postmodernist professors harshly condemned her for this, and asked her what she, as an educated and well-off white woman, could possibly know what it was like to be a poorly paid racial minority. While the politicization and perversion of art to suit a twisted and evil political agenda may seem like a minor thing in comparison with the mass rapes and mass murders for which communists are responsible, I still see this as significant. In contrast to this, the Nazis tended to prefer traditional to modern art, and believed that it was perfectly appropriate for art to be beautiful or visually pleasing. They sometimes censored depictions of the nude human form, which they saw as decadent.

If the common people could be made to see these and other difference between the Nazis and communists, I firmly believe that most people would respond by becoming significantly more anti-communist than they were anti-Nazi. The problem was that Western elites tended to sweep communists’ crimes under the rug, while focusing excessively on (and often exaggerating) those of the Nazis. Outright lies were told, and believed. For example, Walter Duranty of the New York Times told a number of pro-Soviet lies, including the whitewashing of the Ukrainian famine. (A forced famine that the Soviets committed in the early '30s, which resulted in deliberate starvation and death of 7 million innocent people.) Against such a backdrop, it is possible to tell the truth without necessarily being believed.

While these things would have represented an obstacle to a NATO-style Anglo-German alliance, they were not necessarily an insurmountable one. But it would have been an uphill battle, even if both Hitler and Chamberlain were both fully committed to the idea, and even if the Nazis had been as good at understanding political considerations outside Germany as von Bismarck had been.

While with hindsight we can see what the Nazi’s were capable of, but we forget they were up against the wall and fighting for their very existence who knows what the British or Americans may of done in the same position. The fire bombing of Tokyo killing up to 210,000 a single night is just a preview of what the allies were capable of when faced with the massive casualties possible with an Invasion of mainland Japan.

The Germans in the early 1930’s were an intolerant towards Jews and other minorities such as gypsies but in reality they were not that much more intolerant towards Jews than the Americans in the early years of Nazi rule in Germany. Had the Nazi’s got their alliance and not surrounded on practically every side by Anti-Nazi nations it is likely they would not of comitted much of the atrocities they did in reality. As Kurt Godel quite correctly said the Soviets were already an evil regime long before the Nazi’s put the first Jew in the gas chamber. Had the Germans had alliance to maintain with the British they couldnt take the hard line with ethnic minorities and under take the actions they did in reality, I think carving up the Soviet Union would of been seen as more than worth the trade off of not so publicly persecuting ethnic minorities in the eyes of the Nazi leadership.

I agree that it would of been difficult for Chamberlain and Hitler to forge a NATO style alliance but as you say it wasnt entirely impossible and looking at the reality of World War 2 in a lot of cases the highly improbable did actually end up occuring. For instance the quick fall of France and decimation of Allied armies and also the suprisingly successful early U-boat campaign against Allied shipping in the Atlantic. I think if the Nazi’s had of been less agressive and built up their strength perhaps even getting a treaty where by their armies had free passage through Poland to the Soviet Union, that combined with a continued anti-communist propaganda campaign in Britain may very well of turned the tide of public opinion and made Hitler look like the possible saviour of the peoples of the Soviet Union. Of course had the Alliance materialised the peoples of the Ukraine and Soviet Union been treated fairly and with compassion as the invasion continued its likely that the Soviet Union would of crumbled under the weight of internal revolution and Anglo-German attack.