glyn

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Semper in excretum. Solum profunda variat.

Officer of Engineers

I would not even bother to explain it. I find that bit of statistics to be completely meaningless. "factors of artillery, CAS, terrain and posture were eliminated" is as dumb as it gets. Combat is not about a level playing field. It's about stacking odds on your side.

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Chimo

Trajan

Hello again to all, as I have not been on these boards in some time. I noticed this thread was still going and therefore decided to chip in so the mountain can get higher! Cheers.

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How Could Germany Have Won World War II?

Even before the commencement of the air war over Britain, Hitler had already switched his principal interest away from the English isles. This came formally on July 13, 1940, in a conference with his senior military chiefs, when Hitler announced his "resolve to bring about the destruction of the vitality of Russia in the spring of 1941." This statement worried a number of German senior officer. They feared leaving Britain and its potential ally the United States as threats in the west, while Germany focused its energy, thoughts, and power on the destruction of the Soviet Union.

The top army generals, along with their staffs, amassed arguments to convince Hitler to neutralize Britain before turning on Russia. Perhaps they realized dimply what Winston Churchill had grasped: that Britain's best chance lay in holding out until Hitler made an irreparable slip, as Napoleon had done when he invaded Russia in 1812.

Only Grand Admiral Admiral Raeder; the German navy commander, saw the danger clearly enough to press repeatedly and with great conviction for another way to gain Germany's goals. He demonstrated to hitler that the victory over France had opened a way to victory - and Hitler would not have to attack the Soviet Union to achieve it. Major General Alfred Jodl, chief of operations for the OKW, armed forces supreme command, felt the same way, though less openly or forcefully. In a June 30, 1940, memorandum Jodl wrote that if the strike across the English Channel did not come off, the Mediterranean offered the best arena to defeat Britain. His recommendation to seize Egypt and the Suez Canal. Maybe the Italians could do it alone. If not, the Germans could help.

At the time the British had only 36,000 men in Egypt, including a single incomplete armored division under the command of General Sir Archibald Wavell. Moreover, Italy's entry into the war had closed off Britain's supply line through the Mediterranean except by means of heavily guarded convoys. The main British route now had to go 12,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and up through the Red Sea. Even if Britain devoted all its strength to building a strong army in Egypt, it would take months, perhaps a year, to do so. And Britain was not going to undertake such a task because it had to concentrate most of its efforts on defense of the homeland.

Italy, aided by Germany, could get superior forces to Italy's colony of Libya far more quickly. At this stage, it would be relatively easy to use Luftwaffe bombers to neutralize Malta, a British possession only sixty miles south of Sicily, where aircraft, ships, and submarines constituted a major danger to Italian supply ships and reinforcements moving between Italy and Tripoli in Libya.

Hitler in his July 31 meeting did not wholly exclude a "peripheral strategy" in the Mediterranean, and Generals Brauchitsch and Halder, commander in chief of the army and chief of staff of the OKH respectively, proposed sending panzer forces (an "expeditionary corps") and aircraft to Libya to help the Italians, who were planning an offensive into Egypt. Hitler however ignored them. He was only concerned with a direct assault on Gibraltar and the Canary Islands, which Admiral Raeder argued him down from.

Since the army generals had been unable to sway the Fuhrer to carry out a Mediterranean strategy, Admiral Raeder weighed in on September 6 and September 26, 1940. At the second conference Raedor cornered Hitler alone and showed him step by step how Germany could defeat Britain elsewhere than over the English Channel. Doing so would put Germany in a commanding position over the Soviet Union.

Raeder's main argument was that Axis forces should capture the Suez Canal. After Suez, German panzers could advance quickly through Palestine and Syria as far as Turkey. "If we reach that point, Turkey will be in our power," Raeder emphasized. "The Russian problem will then appear in a different light. It is doubtful whether an advance against Russia from the West will be necessary."

No one realized this truth better than Churchhill. In a message to President Roosevelt a few months later, he asserted that if Egypt and the Middle East were lost, continuation of the war "would be a hard, long, and bleak proposition," even if the United States entered. But Adolf Hitler had a much more difficult time seeing what was clear to Churchhill. Though the Fuhrer agreed with Raeder's "general trend of thought", he did not grasp that the victory over France had transformed the entire strategic outlook for Germany. Though several senior Germany officers agreed with Raeder's sentiment their careers depended upon not rocking the boat. They never stressed to Hitler, as Raeder did, that victory in the Mediterranean would make it easier to achieve victory over the Soviet Union.

Once Axis forces overran Egypt and the Suez Canal, they would close the eastern Mediterranean to the Royal navy. The British fleet would immediately retreat into the Red Sea, because it could not be adequately supplied by convoys through the western Mediterranean. Whether or not the German seized Gibralter, Britain would be strategically paralyzed. The Axis would then be able to move into the Middle East, for the British had no substantial forces there. This region produced much of the world's oil, and its capture would provide ample amounts of Germany's single most-needed strategic material.

An advance into the southern frontier of Turkey would put the Turks in an impossible position. Hitler was already gaining Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria as allies. Therefore Turkey could be approached bot by way of Bulgaria at Istanbul and from northern Iraq and Syria. Turkey would be forced to join the Axis or grant passage for Axis forces and supplies. A defiant stance would result in the swift defeat of the Turkish army and disaster. Passage through Turkey would reduce the importance of Malta and Gibraltar. This way both could be eliminated without active support of Spain and without direct assault.

German forces could occupy French North Africa with or without Vichy France's cooperation. From French Morocco, they could approach from the south the small strip of Morocco along the Strait of Gibraltar ruled by Spain. spain would be forced to grant transit rights, or stand aside if German forces occupied the strip without permission. Spain could not resist for fear of a German attack into the heart of Spain from France. Consequently, German airfields and batteries could be set up along the south shore of the strait. This would close it to Britain - without the expensive military assault on the rock of Gibraltar. Sealing the strait would force the British to abandon Malta, because they could not supply it.

With the Royal Navy out of the Mediterranean, it would become an Axis lake. This would permit German forces to occupy all of western Africa, including the French base at Dakar in Senegal. Aircraft , ships, and submarines from Dakar could close down much of Britain's supply convoy traffic through the South Atlantic, even without the seizure of the Cape Verde islands, which Hitler had originally desired.

In the Middle East the strategic payoff would be much great. German forces in Iran would block that country as a route for supplies to the Soviet Union from Britain and the United States. Russia would be left with only the ports of Murmansk on the Barents Sea and Archangel on the White Sea through which goods from the west could be funneled. This would require dangerous passages in atrocious weather, with constant danger of attacks by German aircraft and ships stationed in Norway.

Even more important, the Soviet Union's major oil fields were in the Caucasus and along the western shore of the Caspian Sea, just north of Iran. Germany could threaten not only to attack directly from Poland and Romania in the West but also from the South directly through the Caucasus to the Soviet oil fields. This danger of envelopment and quick loss of oil would immobilize Stalin, and oblige him to provide Germany with whatever grain and raw materials it might need. In other words, Germany - without loss of a single soldier - would have the benefits of the Soviet Union's vast material storehouse, as well as delivery of tin, rubber, and other goods from Southeast Asia by way of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

A German position in Iran would also pose a huge threat to British control of India, which was agitating for indepedence under Mohandas K. Gandhi and other leaders. From iran Germany could reach India through the Khyber and other passes, invasion routes used long before and after Alexander the Great made passage in 326 B.C. Germany would not actually have to do a thing. The threat alone would force Britain to commit every possible soldier to defend its colonial crown jewel. Germany, again without the expenditure of a single man, could immobilize Britain.

In possession of the Middle East, all of North and West Africa, and Europe west of Russia, its armed forces virtually intact, its economy able to exploit the resources of three continents, Germany would be virtually invincible. Britain's defiance on the periphery of Europe would not have to inaugurate an all-out U-boat war against its shipping. Britain's remaining strength would have to be expanded in protecting its empire and the convoys to and from the home islands.

The United States would have no hope of launching an invasion of mainland Europe against an undefeated and waiting Germany army until it had spent years building a vast navy, army, and air force, not to speak of the transports, landing craft, vehicles, and weapons necessary for such a giant undertaking. It is possible that the United States would take on such a task, but the chances for its success would be extremely small. Far more likely, the American people would turn first to counter the expansion of Japan in the Pacific.

Meanwhile Germany could consolidate its empire, bring subject nations into an economic union, and grow more powerfully economically, militarily, and politically every day. Before long, the world would become accustomed to the new German Empire and insist on a return to normal international trade. This at last would give Hitler the opportunity he had dreamed of since the 1920s - seizure of all the Soviet Union west of the Urals. Once a de facto cease-fire had been achieved, Hitler could strike at European Russia from the south and west, drive Stalin and the surviving Soviets into Siberia and get the Lebensraum he coveted.

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Admiral Raeder's proposal above illustrates to me the best possible course of action that would have resulted in a victory or the Third Reich. Of course there are more than a trillion unknown factors that could alter any one part, such as perhaps the Soviets launching their own preemptive attack. However this course, had it been followed in the early fall of 1940 as Raeder had wished, could very well have altered the course of history.


Addressing the question on the Battle of Stalingrad

zraver, like Officer of Engineers was saying, the 6th Army was much more than just any other army. To illustrate this I will quote a Germany army officer who served in Russia at the time, he was there, Major General F. W. von Mellenthin, whose book "Panzer Battles" I highly recommend.

Mellenthin, Panzer Battles p.187

"While the great armored battles were raging on both banks of the Don, the condition of Paulus' Sixth Army was growing increasingly desperate. An enormous prize was at stake between the Volga and the Don, and the Russians were fully aware of it. Hitler's veto on any break-out attempt appears considerably rash when one considers the force involved. For this was no ordinary army vested at Stalingrad; Sixth Army represented the spearhead of the Wehrmacht, in what was intended to be the decisive campaign of the war. The following forces were locked up in the Stalingrad ring:

-Headquarters and the entire command organization of Sixth Army.
-Headquarters of five army corps: 4th, 8th, 11th, 14th Panzer, and 51st.
-Thirteen infantry divisions: 44th, 71st, 76th, 79th, 94th, 100th Jaeger, 113th, 295, 305, 371st, 376th, 389th, and 397th.
-Three panzer divisions: 14th, 16th, and 24th.
-Three motorized divisions: 3rd, 29th, and 60th.
-One anti-aircraft division: 9th.
A total of twenty German divisions.

In addition there were the remnants of two Romanian divisions (1st cavalry and the 20th Infantry) together with a Croat regiment, service troops, and members of the Organization Todt.

According to information provided by the quartermaster general's branch, 270,000 men found themselves encircled on 24 November 1942. The destruction of these divisions was bound to alter the whole balance of power on the Eastern front.

(This next part is rather graphic. I include it so as to make all those in this thread get a small glimpse at warfare on a level that has not since been seen. Remember it the next time you enjoy some small comfort, knowing other men and women died or served at one point to make their future, our present, better)

"The effect of the failure to adequately supply the Sixth Army is thus described by my friend Colonel Dingler who was trapped inside the encirclement:

Night after night we sat in our holes listening to the droning of the aircraft engines and trying to guess how many German machines were coming over and what supplies they would bring us. The supply position was very poor from the beginning, but none of us thought that hunger would become a permanent thing.

We were short of all supplies. We were short of bread and worse, of artillery ammunition, and worst of all gasoline. Gasoline meant everything to us. As long as we had gasoline we were able to keep warm. As there was no wood to be found anywhere in the steppe, firewood had to be fetched from the city of Stalingrad by lorry. As we had so little gasoline, trips to the city to fetch firewood had to be limited to the bare minimum. For this reason we felt very cold in our holes.

Until Christmas, 1942, the daily bread ration issued to every man was 100 grams. After Christmas the ration was reduced to 50 grams per day. No bread was issued to men in regimental headquarters and upwards. The others were given watery soup which we tried to improve by making use of bones obtained from horses we dug up. As a Christmas treat the army allowed the slaughtering of four thousand of the available horses. My division, being a motorized formation, had no horses and was therefore particularly hard hit, as the horseflesh we received was strictly rationed. The infantry units were better off as they were able to do some "illegal" slaughtering.

The weather conditions were bearable during the first days of December. Later on heavy snowfalls occurred and it turned bitterly cold. life became a misery. Digging was no longer possible as the ground was frozen hard and if we had to abandon our lines this meant that in the new lines we would have no dugouts or trenches. The heavy snow diminished our small gasoline supply still further. The lorries stuck in the snow and the heavy going meant a larger consumption of gasoline. It grew colder and colder. The temperature remained at a steady 20 or 30 degrees below freezing point and it became increasingly difficult for aircraft to fly in.

(Mellenthin speaking)

When it became clear that General Hoth's attempt to break through to the besieged Sixth Army had failed, attempting to get those most in dire need of help out became priority. One of the most difficult problems was the care of the wounded, and in this connection the garrison was short of ever necessity. Until then there had been some means of brining the wounded to the Pitomnik airfield from where they could be flown out. But in view of the shortage of gasoline and vehicles this was no longer feasible. The number of wounded and those suffering from frostbite grew so rapidly that it was quite impossible to evacuate even the most serious cases. Most of the aircraft, which arrived in ever-decreasing numbers, prefered to drop their cargo, as landing had ebcome very difficult indeed. There were some nights when not a single aircraft touched down. Colonel Dingler says:

I must emphasize the fact that the aircraft crew did a job which can be called superhuman. It is certainly not the crews who should be blamed for the inefficient way in which our supply problem was handled.

Although everyone realized how difficult and desperate our situation was, there was never a hint of panic. The morale of the soldiers was above praise; camaraderie and preparedness to help each other were not the exception but the rule.

At about this time we began to talk about what to do if the worst were to happen. We talked about captivity. We talked about the question of committing suicide. We discussed the question of defending what we held to the last bullet but one. Of course there were as many opinions as people and it must be emphasized that there was no compulsion from above in any direction. These things were left to be decided by the individual himself.

On 8 January white flags fluttered at the outposts - a Russian parlementaire presented terms of surrender. Signed by Colonel General Rokossovky and Marshal of Artillery Voronov the terms offered "honorable surrender, sufficient rations, care for the wounded, officers to keep their weapons, repatriation after the war to Germany or any other country." The fundamental condition was that all equipment had to be handed over undamaged. The terms were broadcast to the troops by innumerable pamplets dropped by aircraft. Colonel Dingler says:

The Russian offer was refused. It was refused unanimously by the rank and file because they did not have much faith in Russian promises. We all knew "Ivan" too well; one never knew what "Ivan" would do next, promises or no promises. Subconsciously our men may still have hoped that somebody would come along and get us out of this tight corner in the nick of time, which after all would be better than a doubtful captivity in Siberia.

The men in command of our beleaguered army had yet another reason for refusing surrender. They had received information that our forces in the Caucasus were about to withdraw. We at Stalingrad were surrounded by three Russian armies which would be free for other operations if we capitulated. But if we held out, our army in the Caucasus would probably be able to carry out the planned withdrawal in an orderly fashion.

On 16 January the Russians continued their attacks to the est and south, pushed forward remorselessly towards Gumrak, the last airfield remaining to the beleaguered troops. During this period of events various senior commanders and staff officers received orders to fly out of Stalingrad. Among these was my friend Colonel Dingler, whose shattered 3rd Motorized Division was then holding a small sector near the water tower of Voroponovo. Together with General Hube, commander of the 14th Panzer Corps, he was to leave Stalingrad and try to improve the supply position of those in the ring. It was with a heavy heart that he left his men behind, and he did not do so before discussing the order with his divisional commander and other officers, who saw a ray of hope in this mission. On the night of 20 January Colonel Dingler's aircraft left Gumrak; he remarks that it was a miracle that Gumrak held out for another three more days.

On 30 January the Russians overran the southern pocket of Stalingrad, and captured Field Marshal Paulus in his headquarters. The northern pocket fell two days later, and on 3 February the German Supreme Command announced the news that the battle for Stalingrad had ended in defeat.

The Russians claimed 90,000 prisoners; 40,000 men had been flown out, therefore 140,000 soldiers must have lost their lives. The German Army had suffered an irreparable defeat. From this point on the best I and most other senior German officers could hope for was to achieve a stalemate, even as we prepared for the Operation Citadel."

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[Wasting Space]

Officer of Engineers

126 pages and we're still having fun with this thread

zraver

I've read it, and Stalingrad was a disaster, but not as big as every one claims. At most it was turning tide moment when the initive switched. 6th Army represents less than 1/20 of the initial force that had crossed into the Soviet Union and is only about one half the size (1/2) of the losses suffered from June 41 to Jan 42. Even the tank losses were relatively minor, all of them were the post 1939 short divisions and equipped with soon to be replaced Pz III and cz38. Nor was it a particularly powerful formation. Von Paulus was a career staff officer and as a result was operationally inept: he and his army were roughly handled by the Soviets in the spring. For awhile it was felt 6th Army was going to fold like a kicked baby. No matter how much combat power it might have, under Paulus is was all but toothless.

Finally, Von Mellenthin must be read through cold war colored glasses. It was in his interests to make the Soviets look evil and Hitler look stupid. I also take issue with the idea that 6th Army was the spearhead. It was not, and was never intended to be. It was an infantry formation and followed behind the panzer armies. It did not gain organic tank formations until Hitler went sideways and decided to had to take Stalingrad by storm. The only thing 6th Army had that might be considered crucial is the Germans largest force of uncommitted infantry in the east. AGN was locked in battle around Leningrad and AGC was still pulling itself back together after Operation typhoon.

Officer of Engineers

Z,

You've just threw me for a loop. I never considered this line of thought.

zraver

really wow, its been pretty common thinking among the history community for as long as I can remember.

not until we were behind barbed wire did we learn of the misdeeds of the Supreme Authority, deeds which shook us to the core and made our cheeks burn with shame -Panzer Battles, ch. 23

per wiki but I seem to recall it.

But that statement is pure BS no general officer on the eastern Front could have missed the scorched earth and dead bodies they retreated through. He was also a chief of staff so he networked with the SS special groups even if he denies it. Nor could have he not been aware of standing orders to shoot commissars and turn over Jews.

But back to the tactical expertise of the Red Army. In the book "Tank Rider" a junior officer describes life as he remembers it as a tankdeski. They excelled at camouflage but the troops lacked almost all formal military training and thier losses were massive.

Officer of Engineers

I know about making Soviets look evil and Hitler stupid but I just didn't consider it from a Cold War perspective, more la CYA perspective. I just never consider Nazi officers using WWII as justifications to stand up in the Cold War.

zraver

Ok gotcha! Well look how many of them ended up in the Bunderswher or Luftwaffe in the 50's. It behooved them to be "good" Germans. One thing that makes me nervous about Mellenthin is his choice of location post war. He chose South Africa home of apartheid.

clackers

Hitler thought that von Stauffenberg failed because he was a coward ... he could have shot the Fuhrer with a pistol at any time but instead used a bomb to allow himself to first escape the scene of the crime.

Another example of luck or fate, Astralis, was the bomb placed on Hitler's FW200 Condor when he flew back from the Russian front in 1943 ... it was too cold for the detonator to work!

clackers

von Mellenthin even tried to act as a NATO advisor on dealing with the Soviet threat ... interesting article here ...

The enduring legacy and critique of von Mellenthin and his book Panzer Battles | internet128.com

Even Guderian's book must have been affected by being written in an Allied POW camp.

Bigfella

I am afraid I find myself agreeing with the little Corporal on this. It profoundly depresses me that men who were prepared to die fighting Hitler's wars & facilitating Hitler's crimes were not prepared to die to end them.

Numerous plotters at numerous times had an opportunity to kill Hitler, though it would almost certainly have cost them their own lives. Ironically, von Stauffenberg's failure ended up costing most of the plotters their lives anyway.

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Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

Bowman

To have a chance of winning, the Germans should have:

Focused on the capture of Moscow on the eastern front. Advance units came within sight of the spires of the Kremlin. They should have taken Moscow and then consolidated their position. Stalingrad was pointless. Army Group South's resources would have been better applied to the more northerly groups.

Been more tactically astute than to take ages to mass elite divisions for the attack on layered Russian defences at Kursk.

Continued to attack RAF airfields and aircraft producing factories in the Battle of Britain so that they might have achieved all-important air superiority.

Based heavy units of the Kriegsmarine in south-western France in the early years of the war. They would have been much more tactically useful and would have been beyond the reach of effective RAF bombing attacks. U-boats located close by would have kept the RN away.

Focused on fewer and simpler vehicle designs in the later war years. The profusion of types of vehicles and ammunition types must have stymied production and resulted in logistical challenges.

Built heavy bombers and, more importantly, heavy transport aircraft. The He-177 doesn't count - too few in numbers, too complex. Of course, this would have allowed more flexibility in strategic terms for air attacks and long range, effective supply of eastern front divisions.

Equipped soldiers and vehicles for winter warfare in 1941 and 1942.

Made the entry of the Me-262 into service as a fighter an absolute priority. It might have reached operational status at the tail end of 1942 and been a decisive factor.

Avoided extensive operations in North Africa and the meditteranean.

Concentrated on the replacement of horses with trucks.

Allowed fighter pilots proper leave and rest/rotation to training units.

Not declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor.

Focused on the downing of American fighters over Germany, rather than letting them fly freely.

Not fired the excellent Guderian at a critical point of the war.

Been much more limited in its strategic aims.

The truth is that the Germans could have won, but even in defeat did a lot that was tactically and strategically sound. Consider that they took on the might of the Russians, the U.S. and Great Britain and were able to sustain a long war on several fronts. They developed superior armored vehicles and competitive aircraft. They delivered far more casualties than they sustained but were considerably outnumbered. Their mistakes are often blown out of proportion to the successes they achieved.

Glad we won, though.

Johnny W

I agree with your list, but I will simplify it a bit. They should have kept it down to one enemy at a time. They should have finished off the Brits before attacking Russia, and wait until they were done with Russia before declaring war on the US.

Triple C

They were not likely to be able to finish off the Brits however. The Battle of England was a decisive defensive victory for the Brits. As for the Atlantic American shipyards alone were turning out more liberty ships designated for England than the U-boats could sink, to say nothing of improved convoy & sub hunting tactics.

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ORBIS NON SUFFICIT.