discussion A what if question

[Guest]

When you say the low countries which countries do you mean Scott ? Holland Luxembourg and Beligium are the low countries. Also had he attacked Poland and beaten this country before going for Russia
Had Hitler signed a non aggression pack before attacking or not.


What year are we talking of ? French and British army could have walked into Germany well before and a little while before Poland was attacked and probably during Poland being attacked.


So many if and buts unless you have times it is difficult to answer the question.


He was first after land for Germany to expand into which is why he went for the easy ones to the east of Germany. It was only after this and due to Britain and France having declared war that he decided to invade the Low Countries and then France. Then I suspect that as he found this all to easy he then became ambitious and thought he would have Russia as well.


Also the timings on all the above and where did winter fall. His army, Hitler's that is, were not equipped for the winter temperatures where oil for instance in the tanks and lorries froze. Where water just froze in lorries and sweat became ice. Where the German Soldiers were clothed only for a Western European Winter with out heavy clothing and socks and boots for Russian Weather.


Interesting question. I doubt that he thought of invading Russia until he had taken care of both east end west countries on either side of Germany. He must also have realised that Britain and France would declare war if Russia was attacked and then he would have had a war on two fronts. As it was he beat the West could not easily beat Britain but knew Britain would not be a major force and so turned to Russia facing only one front.


Hitler had to worry that France and British forces would not be able to walk into Germany. Totals of French and British Forces out numbered the Germans. Facing that threat on his west and the Russians on the East it could be that the outcome may have been much quicker defeat of Germany.


An equally interesting question would be if French and British had entered the no go area for the German military (treaty agreement at the end of WW11). This is in the German border areas bordering France when Hitler decide unilaterally to chuck the agreement out of the window and occupy this area militarily. Hitler would have worried about that if he had first gone for Russia.


Laurie

What I mean Laurie is when hitlers forces took and occupied Belgium, Holland, France, Poland and all those countries he had to leave occupation troops there. Now if he had left everyone else alone and went straight to Russia first and had successfully taken Moscow and killed Stalin and his mob, (because remember Stalin never left Moscow even when the German army was only 40 miles away he stayed), having all those industrial supplies could he then have very successfully taken all of Europe and the Uk as well and if this happened America might never have come into the war on our side, (and again remember there was secret talks between the U.S and Germany about the division of European resources), the U.S could have thrown all its might against Japan and not come to our aid. This I feel may have been a win win scenario for Germany.


scott

 

[Alan 45]

I think what people are missing here is the fact that no occupation succeeds, no mater how big your army no mater how much military might you have you will always fail , hitler occupying Russia would surly of curtailed his ambition of taking over the rest of Europe simply because it would cost too much and take to much to hold onto Russia.


The simple logistics of hitler occupying Russia ment he had to conquer the rest of Europe first simply because of how vast Russia is

 

[yak face]

In answer to your original question Scott , No. Personally I reckon that even if Russia had been the first target , the germans would still have come unstuck when it came to the first winter , plus the vastness and poulation of Russia meant that there would be plenty of scope for the russians to relocate manufacturing and keep on supplying the red army and air forces (although to be honest at the time were talking the russian air force was very outdated so wouldnt have been a problem for the luftwaffe) . I think the simple matter of size and numbers would have meant russia could have defended itself and repelled the attack eventually. (although the losses would have been horrific , as it was they lost around 14 million military casualties with a total of 24 million including civilians in ww2 anyway!) just my take on it , Tony

 

[PaulTRose]

What I mean Laurie is when hitlers forces took and occupied Belgium, Holland, France, Poland and all those countries he had to leave occupation troops there. Now if he had left everyone else alone and went straight to Russia first and had successfully taken Moscow and killed Stalin and his mob, (because remember Stalin never left Moscow even when the German army was only 40 miles away he stayed), having all those industrial supplies could he then have very successfully taken all of Europe and the Uk as well and if this happened America might never have come into the war on our side, (and again remember there was secret talks between the U.S and Germany about the division of European resources), the U.S could have thrown all its might against Japan and not come to our aid. This I feel may have been a win win scenario for Germany.
scott

exactly! thats what i implied

 

[PaulTRose]

thats the thing i used to like when i was involved in Alternate Histories and whiffs........they dont actually have to have any chance of working to become a suitable storyline to build models


i once cooked up an umpteen thousand word back story where germany controlled all western europe (incuding sucessful invasion of GB) but are held by the russians..............the British Empire continued the fight with help from the Soviets..........most of the Continental Americas (cept for any British/French colonies and Argentina) stay neutral, in fact became isolationists!.......japan never attacked pearl harbour as they attacked Russia instead.....ran for decades.....queen elizabeth dies in a global flu pandemic, queen anne assumes the throne as prince charles died in a tank battle in North Africa, SAS asassinates Mussolini in the 50's,argentina used as Axis powers manufacturing base whos own nuclear agression with brazil and chile brings Continental America into the war


i had a lot of fun building models to that time line.....coming up with how/why the RAF were flying MiG's or the Luftwaffe had early Mirages (in splinter camo ) or Argie Me262's and the like

 

[Guest]

As said if Hitler had gone for Russia first he would have left his back door open for an equal or more army made up of


French and British. To guard against that he would have had to maintain a guard with fighting men. So he would probably have been worse off to attack Russia first


With the French army beaten and the British army on it's knees the amount of soldiers left in France to occupy was very small in comparison Hitler's whole army. Vichy France, more than half of France, was actually still under French Rule with only a comparative handful of German military in southern France. Also many of the soldiers in France were older men and the Todt organisation building walls.


Hitler was very clever in his strategy the way he mopped up country by country. In each he plundered weapons and got them to grow his food and manufacture his armaments. He grabbed all the transport. Hitler was also clever in that in piece mealing the surrounding countries he could stop if things got to hot. His hope was that the world would not react to a bit being taken here then later another bit being taken. Not forgetting that if he had attacked Russia earlier he would have had fewer tanks and aircraft than he had when he eventually di mount the attack.


Not sure of my facts here but I believe his first port of call were the Rumanian oilfields with Russia being an add on. Also as he progressed East he filled his army with the armies of those who had been conquered.


On the American front the USA would never have come into the war without itself being attacked. The American president had to have the backing of Congress and also,I think, the House of Representatives before he could go to war. Right up to the time of Pearl Harbour members of all parties were against entry into what they thought as just a local thing in Europe. Even the arms given to Britain were outdated clapped out rusty guns and leaking destroyers. Given is a laugh they ran Britain's Treasury dry. They even sent a Destroyer to Simonstown in South Africa to collect gold bullion before they would release the arms and munitions. That probably illustrates most the disinterest in the war in Europe. Roosevelt also had his hands tied as an election was up and coming. He could not afford to alienate the American Isolationists so he had to tread an impossible position in helping Europe both in his heart and politically. That is if he really wanted to.


Which ever way you look at it what happened happened. Hitler took to larger bite in ignoring history. The other way of looking at it in reverse. If Germany had attacked Russia before the Low Countries Norway and France it is on the cards that the war would have finished earlier with less bloodshed. The result being Germany beaten.


Laurie

 

[stona]

He had to cross territories guaranteed by Britain, France or both to get to the Soviet Union. He could sell the Polish invasion to the Germans on political and ethnic grounds. He may have miscalculated the Anglo-French reaction, particularly in the light of the way they had folded in the face of other illegal enterprises like the re-occupation of the Rhine land and more famously the Czechoslovak debacle.


France was considered the pre-eminent military power in continental Europe in 1939, and with her defeat in 1940 Hitler probably imagined that he would have a free hand against his real objective which was always territories within the Soviet Union, just read Mein Kampf if you can. You may die of boredom in the effort


He MIGHT just have got away with it, marginalising Britain, and defeating the Soviets, but he made one more cataclysmic error. He declared war on the USA. With that Germany lost the war.


Cheers


Steve

 

[grumpa]

A great what if and lots of opinions and views but we all know that eventually good will always triumph over evil

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.

 

[Alan 45]

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.

As they say , the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

 

[grumpa]

Actually Hitler was an artist and having seen some of his work I suspect it is better than most of us here.
In Vienna before he became "famous" !!! he painted and drew and sold his pictures commercially to the inhabitants of Vienna. He also had very strangely, after what he persued in policies later, was friendly with Jews at that time.


It was almost as if he lived two lives. For instance as fuhrer living in his country retreat his phone would not work. He trekked down the hill a mile or two to use an unknown to him neighbour's phone. Next day he trekked down the hill again and paid his neighbour for the use of his phone.


Laurie

Saw some of his work, thought it rather good. Didn't want to bring up the Jewish question {I get into enough trouble} but much of his resentment stemmed from the fact whether true or not that Jews occupied high places in Viennese academia and his rejection smoldered intensely.

 

[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.

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[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.

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need I say more
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[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]

View attachment 115217 need I say more

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]

View attachment 115217 need I say more

........ 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