Yes Germany could have won
No they were destined to lose
Yes they did killed over a million but they were unable to prevent a force rebuildup even with vastly reduced infrastructure. Why was that?Originally Posted by M21Sniper
The Germans did not send enough strength over the River Volga to evict the Soviets from their side of the River Volga. Thus, they were able to ferry supplies and men across the river into Stalingrad. In the winter, this turned into an Ice Bridge which greatly increased the Soviet LOC.
Chimo
"Why was that?"
The Nazis were unable to control the waterways into stalingrad, for a variety or reasons.
Here is my reason Germany could have won WW2. They were months away from going nuclear.They already had a viable delivery system; the V2 rocket. If (#1) Hitler had convinced Japan to wait 6 more months befor attacking pearl harber, the U.S. would have entered the war later. If (#2) Germany had gone into Russia months earlier,as origionally planned, they would have done far more damage before the winter. Stalingrad would have been taken. The eastern front would have been at the caucuses. Even more russians would have perished. It would have taken Russia years to regroup and mount an offensive. Especially without the hardware from the U.S. Germany would then be better able to defend western Europe and buy time until the bomb was developed. With the A bomb Germany would have England, Europe, Asia, and Africa by the short hairs. With a longer range missile, the americas would soon be in peril. Roosevelt did not want to send manpower and resources Europe, as much as he HAD to. The longer Germany lenthened the war, the greater the chance of success.
In all actuality, the Nazis were a couple years from making a bomb.
I thought they were much further behind than that.
Chimo
The Germans were much closer to having the bomb than people liked to believe. Given the holocaust, there is no doubt the Germans would have used the bomb extensively. The german scientist who escaped to america were invaluable for america to develope the bomb. One of the "races" to Berlin was to get as much technology and scientist as possible. Given the options, Most of the German scientist found their way to western Europe. Therefore The United States had the luxury the russians didn't. One of the reasons Russia went hell bent for Berlin was so they could get a piece of the pie before all of the technology and scientist escaped to the west. Those German scientist are the only ones that knew how close Germany was to having the bomb.
This is simply not true. If you read any of the books on the subject, (and listen to the recounting from the very German scientists you mention) it is clear that Germany would not have been able to build a bomb until they devoted many more resources to the project. If they had done so in 1940, they might have been able to pull it off. As it was, it would have taken several years from the start of any such push to have accomplished a working weapon. Heisenberg, whether for moral reasons as I suggest, or because he actually believed it as others suggest, told Hitler that a bomb was many years off. They had built atomic piles, but none acheived criticality, because they had many incorrect technical assumptions. They were, at best, where the US was in 1942. In addition, the US had thousands of people at work on it, and spent billions of dollars. Germany's effort was miniscule in comparison. Germany did have plenty of uranium, plenty of graphite (although they didn't know to use it - they were trying to use heavy water which they had very little capacity to make), and the minds. Many of their best minds, however, were Jewish, and either fled or were being discounted so as not to promote "Jewish science."
Many of the best scientists in Germany (such as Heisenberg) were spirited away from Germany to prevent the Russians from getting their hands on them. Remember - the US had the bomb, and everyone now knew it was possible. So every country still intact at that point (sans Germany and Japan) was going to push to get it. The Allies knew Stalin was almost as big a monster as Hitler (although they'd not been saying that to their people), and didn't want him to have it any more than they wanted Hitler or Japan to have it. By the way, there is some speculation that Japan was actually close to having a bomb, but there is not much to support the claim.
Read: "Heisenberg's War" by Thomas Powers, and "Hitler's Uranium Club" by Jeremy Bernstein.
See my previous post on Germany's atomic program. The V-2 was not used until September 1944, but was a fearsome weapon, even with "just" a 2,000 lb conventional warhead. Had this weapon been available to Hitler in 1941 or 1942, and been able to be effectively employed (logistically), it may have made a difference.
Roosevelt was going to come up with a reason to enter the war sooner or later. However, I agree that Japan was foolish in giving the US that reason. I'm not sure Hitler had much sway with the Japanese.
It was weeks, not months, and, as mentioned here, it is impossible to say whether it would have made a difference. I believe the bigger problem was interference from Hitler and bad advice from the idiots on Hitler's senior staff (Keitel, Goerring, and others). Germany's senior generals knew what they were doing. Zhukov, however, was the best general in WWII, and was going to mete out some punishment on the Germans regardless (although I must say he had the advantage of having a compliant and motivated infantry which could be sacrificed at will). The Russians did take punishment, and still mounted a counter offensive. It is unclear what a few more kilometers would have done. I personally believe that Hitler needed to consolidate his gains in Russia and make use of the resources he had gained. He was, however, completely unwilling to retreat or fortify for defense, so that belief is somewhat irrelevant.
The V-2 only had a 300km range and was not a threat to the US. Had Germany continued development of such ballistic missiles, of course, they would have developed one with the necessary range in due course (but not before the end of the war).
I contend that the historical record suggests Roosevelt did want to enter the war, but was restrained by Congress and some popular sentiment. Thankfully, he did everything he could to support the Allies before Pearl Harbor, and then got his chance afterwards.
I keep thinking Germany was book-ended by the US A-bomb. I don't think lengthening the war would have helped. Hitler's only chance was to win quickly in Russia, to neutralize Britain, and make peace. Under any scenario the US would have had the bomb in 1945 and thereby dominated any military conflicts until someone else got one.
The German bomb was so far from reality that hitler stripped the program of most of it's resources in early 1944 and assigned the scientists to other programs.
IMHO,
You guys are forgetting that all those dates are completely irrelevant if we are talking about alternative history.
Germans started to improve their tanks when they encountered T-34 on a field. I mean putting bigger guns and armor on them.
If Germany had attacked USSR later - Tigers would have appeared later, and there would be much more T-34 (because in 1941 it was already in production) against puny Pz-2 and 3's.
Germany would probably direct more resources to develop better bombers and u-boats then. And maybe more resources for nuclear bomb project.
History is written by the winners of wars.. not the losers. If we believed everything that comes out of George Bushes mouth We would all think everything in Iraq and Afghanistan is just hunky dory.
Pearl harbor was Roosevelt ironclad reason for going to war. Not a single american doubted his intentions after December 7 1941. To jump into the war any earlier would have been political suicide. Roosevelt also knew that Germany was the greater enemy. In early 1941 Germany had a strangle hold on Europe. England, still smarting from dunkirk was in a desperate struggle with the German airforce that could have gone either way. The English air force's tenacity and dedication, as well as the english channel, gave England the time it needed to rebuild an effective force. Russia was nothing more that a question mark. By late 1941 Germany was having early succeses in Russia. The Germans had all but won, then blundered the war away.
Allied leaders knew the German industrial capacity needed to be brought to its knees and the only way to do that was by bombing. early bombing raid losses over Europe were catastrohpically high in terms of planes lost. Only the united states could have absorbed thoe losses. England surely could not. With fewer factories at the end of the war germany had to do a lot of picking and choosing over what to build. It also took a lot longer to get sufficient numbers of new and improved weapons to the battlefield. a few hundred more tiger tanks would have made the difference in many of the eastern front battles. The germans had many other weapons developed but could not produce because its factories were in ruin. If the United states had gone to war much later it may have been to late. If germany had a few hundered more operational me-262 fighters in 1943 allied bombers would have been toast. Given time Germany would have developed and used the bomb along with a myriad of other new weapons at its disposal.
If the war had dragged on to say 1948 The united states would have been the only country to counter Germany. (assuming all is well on the russian front.) Would the United states want to go it alone or return to its isolationist policies of the past and negotiate a peace treaty?
In the fog of war do not discount luck.
I don't buy that. Attacking the USSR later than 41 would have been even worse. Roosevelt was bound and determined to enter the war, and Japan provided him with the justification. With the US, Britain and the USSR in the war together, a German loss was a forgone conclusion.
Hitler's big gamble was to attack the Soviets 1941 and achieve operational supremacy. Instead, he lost 900,000 of his best soldiers over the winter of 41. Game over.
If Hitler had attacked in early May, it might have been a different outcome. If he had a better logistical system, it might have been a different outcome. If he had gone for Moscow in August, it might have been a different outcome. If he had passed on Moscow in October, and gone into a defensive posture for the winter at Smolensk, he might have had a good chance in 42.
Hitler did none of those things and squandered his irreplaceable veterans. The best he could hope for after 41 was a difficult stalemate, but Stalingrad eliminated that chance. A lot of the bad decisions in 41 were due to his generals, not him. In 42, the bad decisions were primarily Hitler's.
Well, 41 in a whole was a very bad year to go to Russia. With very early autumn rains and very cold winter.
Keep in mind that with beginning of big rains around 1st of September roads there virtually disappeared, and that stuff continued until around beginning of November.
As for the winter... for example around Leningrad with winter's averages of -9C it hit -40C couple times.
Interestingly noone predicted such a cold winter, even Russian long term weather forecats were talking about a very mild one.
For anyone interested:
I found ISBN 0-394-51411-4 fascinating. Well researched to boot
Where's the bloody gin? An army marches on its liver, not its ruddy stomach.
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