I just want to say, for all the discussion of 'could they have...' it's important to remember that Germany was never going to conquer Russia, it was a stupid (racist) idea to get Hitlers 'lebensraum' and take out Stalin's 'Jewish Bolshevist' nation (heavy on the eye-roll there). Keep in mind that Germany didn't even get Moscow, which Napoleon had actually managed to (mostly) do, and Napoleon still lost for the same reason that Germany would have regardless -- they did not have the logistical ability to support an army in an area the size of Russia. Partisan/army elements would absolutely pick apart a logistical train that long, which Germany couldn't have done any way. We have to remember Germany wasn't an actual mechanized army, it was entirely dependent on horses, and to try to use horses to haul ammunition/food/clothes/medical supplies/artillery shells/etc ~1500 kilometres from Germany to Moscow alone would be insane, especially with the millions of men and women the Soviet union had constantly attacking you.
The entire invasion was never going to work, and people give the idea it could have worked way too much credit. And this is all assuming no other nation would step in either; it's entirely on the 'nobody is in an alliance anymore' sort of fantasy world. This failed for the exact same reason that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has -- they planned for a short, easy war, because their entire ideology requires that they underestimate their foes at every available opportunity.
I like how passionate you are about this one detail about history. And, honestly? I would read your book about it. Lol
One aspect that is often overlooked is how reduced in strength the German forces were at the start of Barbarossa. Sure, they took Poland and France very quickly, but they suffered enough losses that Barbarossa started at reduced strength, and once the initial maneuvers of the invasion were over Germany was pretty much running on fumes manpower-wise.
and once the initial maneuvers of the invasion were over Germany was pretty much running on fumes manpower-wise.
And, ironically, fuel-wise
once the initial maneuvers of the invasion were over Germany was pretty much running on fumes manpower-wise.
Germany's main problem wasn't manpower (at this point), it was materiel. Germany's generals (mostly) wanted to go as quickly as possible to mitigate this. The problem was their ancient supply train running on ~350,000 ('supply trucks') and 2.75 million horses. In their glee to send the army attacking everyone they could around themselves to fuel their extremely inefficient economy with more loot, they got into a cycle of needing to be fast, but having no reserve of fast moving vehicles to facilitate that.
And to be clear, I am not a 'pro-Russia' person, I've just read everything I could on the issue, and I've never read a way for Germany to get out of Russia that didn't involve them making zero mistakes.
I'm just extremely wary of people saying 'Nazi Germany could have won if...' and the reason would require them to not be fascist and racist, and we start to sort of legitimize Nazi Germany. The fact was they were always going to pick stupid fights, because fascist governments always do. And they idea that they could somehow *hold *Russia while also constantly picking fights with everyone else is insane.
Seriously, they had an awful economy, their logistical train was terrible, the leader of each area would just outright lie about their capabilities (see Goering's Stalingrad Airlift)
If you want to talk about what 'Nazi Germany could have won if...' how about: - If they didn't expend time, resources, and their own souls making literal mobile gas chambers for the civilians of the Soviet Union ('Accordingly, it was a partially secret but well-documented Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land west of the Urals with Germanic peoples, under Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East) The Nazis' belief in their ethnic superiority pervades official records and pseudoscientific articles in German periodicals, on topics such as "how to deal with alien populations."; if they didn't alienate every single ally they could have had by invading smaller neighbours as a stop-gap for their crumbling finances; if they weren't constantly fighting Partizans and Resistance members (thanks Grandma!); I read (but can't find the article) that British Intelligence credits Nazi Germany's sadism and want for torture as key reasons the Nazi's lost the information war, as their Information networks were terrible.
So yes, anyway, there wasn't a way it was going to work unless they un-became Nazi Germany.
Some Germans wanted to ally themselves with Poland and fight against Soviet Union together. Without Germany attacking Poland, France and United Kingdom would have not entered the war and history might have gone very differently.
It is true, if they hadn't done Nazi things and had actual allies they could have done better, for sure.
We get into how you define victory over USSR. He thought the state would collapse, the infamous "kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will fall down". Then they would doubtlessly ethnic cleanse.
There was a difference between Napoleon's and Hitler's strategy. Napoleon went straight for Moscow like an arrow, ignoring everything else. He got it, but then what? Hitler saw that and knew that didn't work, so he launched a broad invasion on the North, Central, and South all at once. The goal was a total collapse, so that there wasn't much left to do military activity (not on any significant scale like with tanks and planes). Course there were other problems with that.
Another thing to note is people keep saying that if ideology didn't gimp the war effort, the Nazis would've won. However, the ideology was the whole reason the war even happened in the first place.
Exactly. It's Fascism 101 - you invade anyone smaller than you to get slaves/money/etc, you pick scapegoats to blame for any issues you have, and you steal everything not nailed down, and then you move on to the next place. Eventually you pick a fight you can't win, and then you lose.
Part of them losing that fight was two of my grandparents, and I'm kinda pissed we're dealing with them again. So I want to reinforce: If a country goes fascist, this shit is coming. Nazi Germany was never going to win anything with an ideology that flawed.
He wasn’t really fascist though:
Temüjin formally adopted the title "Genghis Khan", the meaning of which is uncertain, at an assembly in 1206. Carrying out reforms designed to ensure long-term stability, he transformed the Mongols' tribal structure into an integrated meritocracy dedicated to the service of the ruling family.
Later:
Genghis Khan remains a controversial figure. He was generous and intensely loyal to his followers, but ruthless towards his enemies. He welcomed advice from diverse sources in his quest for world domination, for which he believed the shamanic supreme deity Tengri had destined him. The Mongol army under Genghis killed millions of people, yet his conquests also facilitated unprecedented commercial and cultural exchange over a vast geographical area. He is remembered as a backwards, savage tyrant in Russia and the Arab world, while recent Western scholarship has begun to reassess its previous view of him as a barbarian warlord. He was posthumously deified in Mongolia; modern Mongolians recognise him as the founding father of their nation.
-Wikipedia
Replace ruling family with ruling class and this seems very fascist to me. Do as I say or else
There are civilizations that went extinguished because they rebelled once conquered, and again history is written by who wins, we will never know (luckily) what history would say if Hitler or Mussolini won (the Mussolini part is just a joke, he never really had any chance without the Nazis)
Also yes the eastern front was absolutely a hell death grinding machine for the soldiers of the red army its wayyyyy overblown how they just used soldiers as cannon fodder and with no sense of tactic. Probably a result of anti communist propaganda after the war
The "meat grinder" narrative was intentionally pushed forward by the west, as they were only strategic allies with the USSR. In an ideal scenario (for the west), the USSR would have collapsed alongside Nazi Germany. As a result, the "orc horde" narrative was based in racism.
In reality, the Soviets and the Nazis hated each other far more than any other side (with the exception being the Chinese, Koreans, and other Asian countries against Imperial Japan), the fighting was far more brutal and on a much grander scale.
exactly, alot of people dont know also that stalin approached the allies asking for help before ww2 and when they refused he pretended to make nice with hitler all the while preparing for war. The whole stalin was caught off guard by hitlers blitz is also a false narrative
"In the first few days of the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Luftwaffe destroyed some 2,000 Soviet aircraft, most on the ground, at a loss of only 35 (of which 15 were non-combat-related)." Wiki. How did this happen if they weren't caught off guard?
oh yes the soviets where completely suprised by the blitz but the reason they havent their pants down completely and fall like France. Soviets very much knew a war was coming they just didnt know when.
Not only that, but they were also defeated by the cooperation of different nations that would let anyone join if they wanted.
So the Nazis were literally defeated by diversity and inclusivity.
I have been involved in "big business" at several times in my life, someone actually gave me authority to build teams and create projects. I discovered that there are different schools of thought about what makes the "perfect team" to work on a project, and most managers go through the hiring process in mind of getting candidates that all are the same, all have the same personality, skillset and background, under the belief that homogeny makes for a more harmonious, predictable team.
Not me fam. I painted goddamn abstract art with a pallet of people. I got the most diverse teams I could, I got outspoken, angry black mothers alongside timid, pasty nerds alongside combat vets alongside immigrant chefs.
It took constant "babysitting" to make sure everyone was getting along and understanding each other, but we kicked ass. It's an amazing feeling putting together a team that can handle changes and can provide input on things you never thought of and who actually care about the results. Not only did we succeed at every challenge, I made lifelong friends and learned new things every day.
Diversity and inclusion is literally being used like a slur lately and it burns me. Diversity of backgrounds and perspectives is one of the most valuable strategic assets you can have around you. The people who surround themselves with people who already agree with them and have nothing new to add may pass challenges, but if you want to defeat challenges, you need a spectrum of perspectives.
It wasn't that close and even if they managed to get some sort of win, they would never have been able to hold it. Mainstream media likes to portray Nazis as an efficient machine, but it turns out when you hand out promotions based on the shape of the officer's faces, you get a dysfunctional military.
There would be no way to stop. The German economy was really messed up by the Nazis. They essentially had no exports because they were producing mainly materiel for the war and were under an embargo anyway.
That means they had no way to get money besides literally taking it from conquered countries. The problem is, you can only loot once. This created a vicious cycle where they became more isolated and needed to conquer even more.
Honestly, before nukes existed, the Nazis could have been defeated by an embargo. But it would have cost more lives. Invading Germany saved lives and the nukes saved even more lives in Japan.
The problem is, you can only loot once. This created a vicious cycle where they became more isolated and needed to conquer even more.
Fucks sake Adolf, I learned this from a few hours of a total war game. You think you'd have figured it out at some point.
If only Adolf Hitler had played Total War, maybe he wouldn't have been such a lunatic smh
Nah, someone would have introduced him to Hearts of Iron and he'd have gotten worse
If anyone's interested in further reading the MEFO Bills are definitely interesting from an economic perspective.
I'm sure it wasn't the first army built on credit, but it was definitely the biggest.
but it was definitely the biggest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States?wprov=sfla1
The Nazis had about 4 million people in uniform at the start of the war, America has about 1.5 million today, but it's not a bad comparison considering the last time American debt exceeded the GDP was the end of WW2.
Yeah, by manpower Germany's was definitely larger, by budget though, our annual military spending blows theirs out of the water.
In 2021, the U.S. spent about 700 billion dollars on it's military.
Though to be fair, the U.S. has a lot more of an economy and population to work with and isn't investing nearly as much, far more was spent on the military by Germany as a percentage of their GDP, and their military had more people per capita than the U.S. does today.
Not to glorify nazis, but arguable they fought a whole bunch of wars against most european countries and won all of them until they came up against some big ones.
Arguably their biggest mistake was trying to fight both world superpowers at once, in the USSR and Great Britain backed by the US. I can't imagine how they thought that would go well, but thank fuck they did, cause I wouldn't want to see the world they envisioned.
If you’re brainwashed by your own propaganda, attacking both superpowers probably feels like a good idea
I don't think they wanted to do that. I believe the plan was to pressure the UK to make deal and once that was done they'd be free to attack USSR
My understanding is that Hitler always imagined that the UK would be an ally of his: Germany would be the superpower on the European continent, the UK would have its overseas empire.
Also, how are you supposed to keep control of an overseas empire without a strong seat of power? Even after winning the war the Brits still lost it.
Hitler was actually an admirer of the British and initially sought an alliance or other non-hostile arrangement. Only when that didn't work he went to war with them
He considered Britain to have effectively been defeated, in all except a deal having actually been reached. He thought he would have a quick victory over the USSR (always the flaw), then Britain would finally give up and sign a peace treaty.
In their defense, they kicked the everliving shit out of one world power (France) already
France at that point was not a military superpower. Or even a superpower at all. When WW2 started, France was barely out of ww1 shellshock.
I don't think people realize how fucking BRUTAL ww1 was on France.
There are still areas today (not a lot thankfully) that are considered inhabitable today because of the vast amount of bodies (animal and human), unexploded ordinance, chemical damage... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge
Farmers still find unexploded ww1 ordinance when plowing their fields. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest
Entire forests and villages razed. And I mean, razed down to the ground. Nothing left standing. Not a tree, not a brick.
When I was a kid growing up in my village, the one advice our parents gave us almost every day was 'if you find something shiny, don't touch it.'
Last year I was having a walk in the forest after a good rain and found, half buried in the mud, a German grenade, right in the middle of a path I used to ride my bike almost every day. A friend lost a hand when he found one when we were kids.
BTW, this is what Gazan kids are going to deal with, Ukrainian kids too. Anyone who supports Israel, anyone who supports Russia, supports the future suffering of the kids.
You can get into pedantics of what constitutes a "super" power, a word requiring super Uber duper things since the cold war (the previous guy said "world power"). But suffice to say France was quite powerful at the start of WW2. Its defeat was not a side note.
They almost did win against the USSR. A harsh winter perhaps was the only thing that stopped them. If that happened, those millions (most were there) would have been freed up to fight in the West.
Edit: Why reply and immediately delete the comment? I would like to hear your thoughts.
What makes you say they almost won? They certainly did not. They could've taken Moscow and it would've made no difference. The USSR had way too many people, people who really didn't want to be taken over by Nazis, and way too many resources from the US/UK for Germany to overpower them. And Germany was doing extremely poorly on resources (especially oil and steel) near the start of the war – the entire reason they invaded the USSR to begin with was because they didn't have enough oil to meet their demands, and they knew they would collapse without seizing the USSR's oil production/reserves (unfortunately for them, that was never going to happen). The British cutting them off from African oil made the issue signicantly more urgent. Germany also had an inferior navy to the UK, not to mention the US, with their only advantage being the large amount of submarines they had. They couldn't realistically project much power outside of where they had land control, and crucially couldn't protect imports from Norway, Africa, and Asia enough to make a big difference.
Germany practically signed their own death warrant by the time they invaded France. They just didn't have the resources or arguably even the manpower to sustain that kind of war, even when controlling most of Europe and a large portion of Africa.
I'll give some numbers to help visualize: During WW2, Germany's peak oil production was 71,000 barrels per day (1944), mostly synthetic oil from coal. For comparison, the United States' peak oil production was 1,875,000 barrels per day (1944) and the USSR's was 700,000 barrels per day (1941). Germany's peak steel production was 29.3 million tons (1944); the United States' was 89.6 million tons (1944). The USSR produced less, about 8.5 million tons at peak (1943), but they also received about 400,000 jeeps, 7,000 tanks, 5,000 other armored vehicles, 12,000 aircraft, and a bunch of other supplies totaling up to about USD$150 billion adjusted for inflation, so steel wasn't really much of an issue. Comparing populations, Germany's was 69 million. The US' was 132 million and the USSR's was 190 million.
Considering that, it may become easier to see why Germany had absolutely no chance against the USSR in the long run; taking major cities doesn't capitulate them. They fought tooth and nail to keep Germany from obtaining Russian & Ukrainian/Belarusian resources, as is famous from using scorched Earth tactics. It was pretty much impossible to successfully invade the USSR almost like how it's impossible to successfully invade the US.
Without American grain shipments, the loss of Ukraine (who wanted to be freed from the soviets, those people were happy they came), the Soviet breadbasket, would have severely weakened the USSR's war capabilities. Likewise, the Western Allies primarily provided the Red Army's motor transport and lots of other things. These supports allowed the Soviet Union to deploy more military-age men in combat roles instead of agricultural or industrial work. Imagine if the West were not willing to do that. This or other differences could have changed the outcome of the war. Things happened as they did, but the USSR was not unbreakable.
It was even more crazy in the Pacific, where single engagements could have turned the tides. Where it even comes down to single spotting of fleets and assessing which fleet that is based on pure luck essentially. I would say Midway was the last chance they had.
If you had the UK, USA, France, and Russia/USSR against you, you were fucked. Same applied to world war 1.
It would be the same today in a parallel universe where Russia were allies of the west.
If you had the UK USA France, and Russia/USSR against you, you were fucked. Same applied to world war 1.
These people were building like an entire fucking ship per day. They averaged almost one whole aircraft carrier per month. Germany was running their cars on wood gas. Absolutely no chance. Would have been more costly in terms of casualties without the USSR, but 1940s USA was unbeatable, especially with their untouchable production base
The USSR lost more, spent more, and was more affected and effective than the USA in WWII.
Deleting the USSR from your history makes that history wrong and dumb.
Straight facts.
How can they "spend more" than the US? They were literally given materiel and money by the US. The money the USSR spent was from the West.
The European war was fought with Russian troops, British intelligence, and American money. Also, there was an entire other war in the Pacific that the US fought at the same time. It's not possible for the Soviets to have spent more, just based on that fact alone.
We're talking about spending money on the war. The Soviets fought Japan for a period of 26 days:
Lend-Lease was absolutely important when it came to specific material (e.g. trucks, aviation fuel). But in total numbers it was still only 4% of Soviet War production. I don't know who spent more money in the war (and it is irrelevant really when you look at dozens of millions of deaths), but Lend-Lease alone does not answer that question.
The Soviets could not have won without the Lend Lease, even Stalin admitted this.
Of course, if Stalin hadn't murdered half of their officers and had an icepick put in the brains of the guy who built the Red Army in the first place it might have been a different story.
Would have? Who knows?
Could have? Yes.
America had an incredibly privileged strategic position compared to the Axis, and didn't share a land border with any of them.
The fears of an Axis invasion were simply impossible. The US Pacific fleet matched the Japanese and the Atlantic was stronger than Italy and Germany combined at the start of the war, just counting battleships and screens and ignoring that America was already moving towards a carrier based fleet unlike both of them. There is no world in which America falls to a naval invasion before it had time to mobilize.
And, unlike the Axis, America was and is the world's largest oil producer. It could afford to run its Navy day and night.
The only way the the Axis wins this hypothetical is if America was alone because it went full non-interventionist (like the Republican party wanted) and the Axis conquered the rest of the world first.
That all said, these circumstances would almost certainly lead to a stalemate rather than Axis capitulation. The Axis navies get destroyed (again), but America probably wouldn't be willing to pay the blood price to invade them, and the Manhattan Project was unlikely to succeed without the contributions of non-Americans.
From the American perspective, however, a stalemate is a victory. It's a defensive war and the goal is survival, not conquest.
Tl;Dr Stalin himself made a solo victory (survival) impossible for the USSR, the US Navy and the freaking Pacific and Atlantic Oceans made it impossible for America to lose.
Meh. Don't get me wrong, the USA joining world war 1 was the final nail in the coffin and likely cut the war short by a lot (and made it a slam dunk for the allies, instead of a pyrrhic victory), but compared to, say, Canada or Australia (not to mention the UK and Russia that both lost as much, if not more men than France) they basically didn't fight. They joined very early and were invaluable in holding french territories throughout the war, which is why they both suffered more losses than the USA even though their militaries (and populations) were way smaller.
WW2 USA was an absolute juggernaut though
Very true, it's how we crushed the Japanese, too. They were almost literally clearing neighborhoods for reclaimed metal and wood, converting entire towns into production facilities and even with that, they paled in comparison to the productive giant of the Goblino. Their zeroes might take 3 planes out of ours, and we would replace them three-fold and with more experienced pilots. They were forcing young pups into dilapidated old craft at the risk of great military disgrace to Kamikaze us because they knew they had no better options. The horrors we faced in the Pacific were truly abject, but it still would have been remarkable to be a wallflower back then and see the collective gusto that we managed to pull together, and all while still maintaining a perfectly functional economy with a massive swathe of our workforce overseas. I read somewhere that the US was using not more than 20% of our manufacturing capacity towards munitions and craft, and even then we were absolutely devastating the Axis.
Had the USSR capitulated to the Germans, there was a real risk that the UK would follow as the German war machine could refocus its efforts. India would likely have fallen soon after to the Japanese. At that point, the German production base, which was already heavily geared up, would have access to all the resources it could possibly need, and the US would have had serious trouble defeating them. It would be a race to the A-bomb and who could produce them the fastest most likely, although it's questionable how effective the weapon would be with a consolidated Luftwaffe without a continental power keeping them busy.
Without the British, intelligence efforts against Germany would have significant issues. It's possible that the USSR would capitulate due to this.
Without US lend-lease, the USSR would have capitulated as well, and with only the British standing against Germany hope would have been lost.
The German war machine was extremely powerful. It could not keep going forever of course, and in due time they would have failed. But had any major power not been in the war, Germany could likely have consolidated enough power to avoid successful invasions from overseas powers.
The US Confederates also lost 1 war.
So did the modern Japanese (also hugely racists).
I'd argue the Japanese didn't just fight one war, though. They at least managed to trounce the Russians.
Once. They explicitly had no interest in fighting the USSR regarding anything out of Manchuria because they knew it would ruin them.
Arguably Japan won in 1907, 1918, and in 1938ish but there was a lot of partisan activity in China.
You'd figure that would take about 5 seconds for the world to win, but weirdly, it was kinda close.
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Jojo Betzler: What's going on out here?
Yorki: The Russians, Jojo. They're coming. And the Americans from the other way. And England and China and Africa and India. The whole world is coming. Help me with this ammo.
Jojo Betzler: And how are we doing?
Yorki: Terribly. Our only friends are the Japanese. And just between you and me, they don't look very Aryan.
A lot of their success is due to their tactic of rushing into the enemy without any care for supply lines and logistics. This often worked to their advantage but most of those early wins were not sustainable in the long run. It gave the impression that they were more powerful than they actually were.
They fought most of the rest of the world all at once and it was pretty touch-and-go there for a bit.
If Hitler had died of a meth overdose in early 1940 I could see the universe of 'The Man In The High Castle' coming to pass.
As it stands, meth heads gonna meth, and he decided fighting on 2 fronts was fine.
I mean, the only reason they lost was because they decided to fight Russia in the winter and Japan attacked the US too early, meaning Germany had to fight on two fronts.
Germans might have won if they kept with their "one at a time" strategy. What a different (even worse probably, if you can imagine it) world that would be.
The Manhattan Project, which lead to the creation of nuclear weaponry, was only started in 1942, which was after the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941. It was started as a response to entering World War II, not as a precaution. Had Pearl Harbor not been bombed, it is doubtful the Manhattan Project would ever have been started. The US seemed to not want to get involved until Japan forced their hand, so it is likely the US would have remained outside of the conflict had Japan not attacked.
Had the US remained untouched by World War II, and assuming Germany somehow gained control of every country in Europe, Asia, and Africa, it is doubtful the US would have had enough time to complete the Manhattan Project. And even if they did, what would it gain them by nuking Germany? At that point Germany would already control half the globe. Surely they wouldn't nuke German occupied countries and catch millions of innocents in the crossfire? The only thing they would realistically be able to do is try to keep Germany on the Eastern Continents and heavily fortify Alaska.
Look, all things considered, the actual history is probably pretty good compared to the nightmareland that could have been if Germany wasn't so self-absorbed.
Operation barbarossa started at the height of summer. The reason the winter fucked them so hard is they refused to prepare for it in meaningful way such as sending winter uniforms for the soldiers. In many ways the nazis were incredibly incompetent.
Yes. I think it probably had to do with their stubborn viewpoint. They thought they were the best. They thought they were an unsinkable ship. And when people do that, they start making careless mistakes. Its really quite silly they did literally nothing to prepare for the winter front, or at least try to postpone invading Russia until after winter had passed.
But I suppose the final version of events turned out alright, all things considered. They're almost entirely gone now and that's what matters.
