A what if question

[rickoshea52]

Steve has nailed it; when Nazi Germany declared war on the USA it was all just a matter of time.

[john i am]

Not so sure anymore these days not when the so called good seem to bought off by the evil. I guess they believe they will be safe in their ivory towers but as we all know the "useful idiots" are the first to swing from a rope once their "friends" achieve total power.

[ATTACH]104938.IPB[/ATTACH]

[Guest]

but he made one more cataclysmic error. He declared war on the USA. With that Germany lost the war.
Cheers

Interesting stuff Steve. I put it in a different context. Feel free to shoot at it as it is all speculative and interesting to hear other views.


Yes that was an error which in my opinion certainly made life more difficult for the Germany. Even after war was declared the amount of stuff which was sent to Russia was insignificant compared to the Russian scale of things.


My choice of major error is that he declared war on Russia plus at the wrong time of the year plus being unprepared for fighting in a Russian winter. Then made a mistake in dividing his forces north and south. The great question is would Germany have been defeated by Russia with out the USA being involved. It may have taken longer but the weight of the Russian effort was mammoth compared to the Allies. The number of German divisions set against Russia were major compared to a minor effort in the Normandy landings for instance. At the Normandy Landings the war had less than a year to run and the Russian machine was sweeping the Germans in front of them.


Would then the USA in thinking of the scenario of all Europe except Britain being in the hands of the Russians have kept out of the war against Germany. My have taken a little time to sink in but that was the prospect


Speculative but would the USA have declared war on Germany before Germany did so. With a state of unofficial war on the seaboard of America at that time it is a good certainty that Germany would have escalated its uboat attacks on USA merchant and war vessels. I would suspect the tide of isolationism in the USA would have melted completely at Pearl Harbour. That the USA would have been to embarrassed among all the allied nations not to have declared war on Germany if Germany had not intervened. All that is speculative. Sad that we cannot rewind to change the scenario for and test these alternatives. However it is fascinating to consider them.


Speculative also to consider if the Japanese German Alliance meant all that much. I suspect it did not in loyalty but by the thought of supporting each other hence Germany's declaration of war.


Laurie

[stona]

The Germans MIGHT have forced a result in the East had they been able to fight a war on one front (ignoring Britain) in 1942. I do have doubts due to a general lack of preparation for a longer conflict by Nazi Germany and the ability, so ably demonstrated, of the Russians to bounce back.


When Germany declared war on the US the floodgates of aid to Britain opened and ultimately it was US man power that made the invasion and then even more the drive into Germany possible.


Even after Pearl Harbour there was no easy way for the Roosevelt administration to go to war on Germany. Germany's ill considered declaration made it easy. The timing, for Germany, could hardly have been worse. Just a few months into operations in the East a second and meaningful Western Front was opened up. Let's be honest, through 1941 Britain was doing little to inconvenience Germany. A badly organised and ineffective bombing campaign and Fighter Command's disastrous 'lean into France'. The Luftwaffe left little more than a light fighter screen to cover the European coast from Denmark to the Atlantic coast of France. It wasn't worried by the bombing because it rarely hit anything.

[grumpa]

Steve has nailed it; when Nazi Germany declared war on the USA it was all just a matter of time.

[ATTACH]104939.IPB[/ATTACH]

need I say more o_O

[Guest]

Agree in general Steve.


What interests me is if Germany had not declared war and neither had the USA.


Would Russia have beaten the Germans, it would certainly have taken longer, and occupied the whole of Europe. This was Churchill's number one worry before Pearl Harbour. His other was that Russia and Germany would call a halt, truce, and divide the spoils of Europe.


A very real worry as on either scenario Europe would have been in the grip of Russia/Germany.


Would the USA have seen the light and declared war on Germany rather than see the whole of Europe in the above scenarios. Subjugated to total Russian dominance or 50% each Russia and Germany. As it was one of Churchill's worries became fact Russia occupied all eastern Europe. The entry of the USA definetly prevented all of Europe being occupied.


Also throw in the fact that the first atomic bomb was available and used in August 1945 just 13 weeks after the actual defeat of the German military. So that in the event of a late entry of the USA into the European War and due to that late entry the Russian progress was delayed this provides another interesting scenario as the atomic bomb would have been available to be used in fact or threat.


Laurie

[rickoshea52]

[ATTACH]115217[/ATTACH] need I say more o_O

After Great Britain stood alone for two years.......

[flyjoe180]

All very interesting. One thing we are all missing is that Nazi Germany wasn't as powerful as it was made out to be when the assault on the West started in 1940. In fact Hitler's Generals wanted to delay any conflict until they were powerful enough to make sure of it, but Hitler was impatient and with the West in disarray and the use of good tactics Germany was able to overcome it's Western opponents. The Battle of Britain need not have taken place the way it did if Hitler had waited. German losses in Poland and France were actually a lot higher than we are led to believe in popular culture. If they hadn't been, he could have rolled straight across the Channel. As for taking on Russia prior to 1941, it would have ended in disaster for Germany earlier. Superior technology, tactics, surprise and Stalin's purges were some of the main factors that led to the early Eastern Front successes of Hitler's forces. Once they gathered themselves and developed better weapons, the Soviets were going to be unstoppable as we all now know.


Robert Harris' book 'Fatherland' is a good read about an alternate world in the 1960s. Germany and the US are the only two major world powers left, the UK is under a puppet government along with it's Empire, Soviet Russia exists only beyond the Urals, from which they are only a partisan resistance force.

[takeslousyphotos]

[ATTACH]115217[/ATTACH] need I say more o_O

........ I guess it's just as well Benjamin Franklin never got his own way on that one Jim ... Grenadier Guards besides.

[Guest]

After Great Britain stood alone for two years.......

At end the of that Bankrupt after buying arms ammunition and departing with a load of technical knowledge.


Laurie

[grumpa]

After Great Britain stood alone for two years.......

Give us a break will ya ,we were still trying to recover from the last one we had to yank yer outta :P

[grumpa]

........ I guess it's just as well Benjamin Franklin never got his own way on that one Jim ... Grenadier Guards besides.

And lets not forget the King hiring out those lovely savages to lock whole families in their farm houses and burn them alive {happened right in my town circa 1778} OIY ?....... Next? o_O


k

[grumpa]

And lets not forget the King hiring out those lovely savages to lock whole families in their farm houses and burn them alive {happened right in my town circa 1778} OIY ?....... Next? o_O
O.K O.K I'm out of this one as my good friend Ian says and I agree... lets build some models guys! ops:


k

[grumpa]

I just want all my British friends to know that I would Never belittle the great sufferings and sacrifices made by our Great ally during WW2 You indeed stood alone and brave in the early years and only because of liberals, isolationists and communists did it take us so long to join your noble and righteous cause. Just wanted to say that

[Guest]

Let's not forget that the Russians early in the war had to keep a million+ troops in Eastern Russia protecting against a possible attack from Japan. Through very good intelligence they discovered that Japan had no such plans (they had eyes in the southern Pacific) so that freed up a massive amount of men and equipment which Stalin spent 1941 moving to the Eastern front (using trucks supplied by the U.S.). I think if Stalin had had to keep these assets in the east Hitler could've taken much more territory (Moscow for sure). Just a small excursion by the Japanese would've made things very interesting. Good thing the communication between the axis allies was poor.


Ray