Could Hitler have won the war?

[Nr1Humanoid]

I've been on kind of a WW2 history kick lately with several documentaries and was wondering what you think.

If Hitler had focused on the war instead of using lots of manpower on the Jewish people and if he'd left the military stratety decisions up to his soldiers who knew what the hell they were doing rather than making all the decisions himself, is it possible the present could be quite different?

[Square]

If he didn't try and attack Russia, he would have crushed the UK and the rest would have followed

[Orange]

Eh why not? If he had focused on the war part of it rather than trying to kill every living Jewish person I think they would've had a chance. Of course I think killing the Jewish was more important to him than winning the war, at least that's what I take from his actions.

[Deleted]

He never would have beat Russia. They were too big, and too determined. If perhaps he had help with the other Axis powers then yes he could have. Have Russia fighting a two sided war would have weakened them immensely.

[mattperiolat]

Hitler might have caught a break with Russia given Stalin had purged all his experienced generals in 1939. IF he had stuck to one front and taken England out, Japan would have kept the US busy while he focused on Russia.

It is actually very possible, which is scary to think about.

[Deleted]

Possibly, if he'd ignored Russia and gone straight to England, where given the state of the British military would have been a long conflict, but eventually the Nazis would have won. This would've done one of two things. Either A. The Americans would have immediately declared war on the Nazis given their rising military capabilities. B. The lack of American interest in the war pre-Pearl Harbour would have resulted in them making some kind of diplomatic deal.

Option a. in my opinion, would result in Russia declaring war, not due to wanting to ally with America, but due to the Germans having to split their resources and Stalin desiring more territory in Eastern Europe and his own disdain for Hitler. In this scenario, they're screwed. If b. Stalin wouldn't declare war as the Russians were not in any state in 1940-41 to invade by themselves. Then all hitler would have to do is secure his position in France and Britain whilst his researchers got a head start on the atomic bomb, something the Nazis were working on and with a headstart they might be able to get their first, making themselves impregnable and possibly able to take down the Soviets..

However, there is no way Germany alone could hold both France and Britain. The moment there was unrest or uprising,both the Americans and the Soviets would have amble opportunity to invade. Ultimately, it comes down to the diplomatic choices of these two powerblocks. If American entered the war, the Germans were screwed. America was too rich and had too many people. Russia alone couldn't have successfully invaded for about another 5 years, as they're industrial sector was still far behind that found in Western Europe. At this points theres too many variables, but its possible.

Feb 3, 2011 12:54:27 GMT -5 Orange said:

Eh why not? If he had focused on the war part of it rather than trying to kill every living Jewish person I think they would've had a chance. Of course I think killing the Jewish was more important to him than winning the war, at least that's what I take from his actions.

Whilst obviously they did some horrific actions against the Jews, they're truly terrifying actions kicked into a significantly higher gear once everything started to turn and it become clear by 1942/3 that they're weren't going to win. Not to take away from those sins at all, but I don't think they impacted on the actual war effort.

[Mattification]

The reason he didn't invade the UK was that he couldn't, not because he invaded Russia. Had Britain not been an island it would be a different story of course.

The Royal Navy was by far the largest in the world and since the RAF had won the Battle of Britain, any threat of invasion had all but been eliminated.

Hitler's army was superior to Britain's, and by a long way, but he would have had to get there first.

[The Captain]

I don't think so. Hitler was a lot of things, but a good strategist was not one of them. Even if he let his generals make all the decisions, I think Germany would've lost eventually. Or someone would've assassinated Hitler (if he didn't commit suicide I think this is the most likely scenario) and Germany would've sued for peace, as it seems like a lot of Germans, even high up in the regime, weren't on board as Nazis.

[Johnny B. Decent]

He might have, if he wasn't on enough drugs to make a 60's rock star blush.

[Magnus the Magnificent]

Yes, and this is how:

[Baixo Astral]

No, and you know why?

[Legion]

Germany could have won the war, but I doubt Hitler would have been there to see it. By the end he was already mentally unwinding and losing his wits.

Russia was the big issue for him, in terms of the war opening up on two fronts. However, his other big mistake was declaring on America in support of Japan.

Opening up a huge ally for Britain, and one with huge strength, while going to war against a power with more men than sense left him screwed.

The big decider could, however, have been if the German war effort had cracked atomic weapons before the Americans. A scary thought, but possible, especially with the German's advanced rocket engineering.

[Milkman Norm]

No.

A. He was a strategic idiot who happened to back into success because a junior staff officer had a better idea for invading France than Hitler original plan, which was the plan the Allies were prepared for. Had the Nazi pilot who was shot down over Belgium with invasion plans never been captured and Hitler didn't have to change his plans the war would have been over in 1940 with a massive allied victory.

B. Hitler was evil... but only to some of the people some of the time. It's kind of hard to fathom because of what he did to people he didn't consider people, Jews, Serbs, homosexuals, the handicapped etc. but Hitler was unwilling to go all out on peoples he considered "pure". Since the British were of Germanic routes he was unwilling to attack them the same way he was willing to the Soviets or other Eastern European nations. As a result the British were able to keep the infrastructure and continue to build weapons at a higher rate than the Nazi's were. Hitler believed that some point the good pure raced peoples of Europe like the Brits and French would realize he was right and would join him in his battle. He only ordered his air force to bomb British munitions factories in the second phase of the Battle of Britain but he quickly changed that to bombing civilian targets after the RAF accidentally bombed a civilian target in Germany. While his rash decisions caused pain and death strategically it actually weakened him because the Brits were making Spitfires and Hurricanes at a much higher rate than the Nazi's were making their planes.

C. Hitler was a weak dictator. Kind of along the same lines as the last one. Hitler wasn't that strong a dictator for those Germans he considered Germans. Yet say you were a blond, blue eyed German and you had luxuries like house servants and imported foods and fancy clothing before the war. While in allied countries similar people went without (to some extent, they still had it better than those without) but in Germany nothing changed. Nazi Germany didn't become a war time economy until 1944. Automotive factories were still producing more civilian vehicles than military ones. So for the first 5 years of the war Hitler was unable to get his own people to sacrifice and produce weapons at a rate they could have been.

D. The Nazi's had little to no place to go for oil and their limited population was spread out over a vast occupied area. Due to the German loses in WWI any territory the used to control that had oil reserves were now controlled by the French of British. Even after France was occupied these places were technically controlled by the Vichy and the Allies worked to prevent the Germans from resupplying from those reserved. Even with them those the Nazi's still had to take a portion of their force to attack the Soviets at the Black Sea. The reason that Montgomery was able to turn back the Germans in Egypt and route them was that the Germans just ran out of oil.

D. The Soviets. The initial attack of the USSR was more successful than the Battle of France in that the Nazi's captured more Soviet territory in a shorter period than they did in the west. The problem was that there was still 2/3 of a vast country to deal with a huge population. Even if Stalin's tactics were nothing more than sending wave after wave of troops out to be slaughtered it would have slowed the Nazi's down enough to mock things up. Then you add the Americans in West Africa and the British in East Africa moving into Italy in 1943 and suddenly the German offensive became very defensive.

[Deleted]

Hitler could have beat the USSR if he had not treated the Ukrainians worse than Stalin had. They were ready to revolt against the communists but when the Germans came into Russia they treated them worse than the Soviets.

I have read from several different sources that on D-day the Germans could not mount a proper defense because Hitler was well known to sleep until noon and no one wanted to wake him up!

The Nazis had all kind of weapons they were working on that would have helped with the defense of Germany. Hitler however was not interested in weapons of defense since they appeared weak.

Then there is the A-bomb. History tells us that the Nazis never were able to build one which I am starting to disagree with. People have made them out to be idiots that could not figure how to make one out but I have read several theories that in fact they did the first atomic tests before the allies.

In my opinion it was an act of God that saved the world from Hitler since they were miles ahead of the allies in weapon tech.

Look familiar?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229

[Mattification]

Not an act of God, just an act of outnumbering them and better mass production.

[Push R Truth]

I've always seen that he was doomed to fail because he seemed incapable of knowing when "enough is enough". You can't just keep expanding and fighting all your enemies with reckless abandon.

[FrankGotch]

The second the US got involved the war was over for the axis. Both Germany and Japan underestimated the US's manufacturing capabilities by astronomical proportions. Even if Hitler could have taken the USSR and England he wouldn't have held them for more then a cup of coffee without US forces dropping in and rearming the citizenry who would have been a nightmare to occupy even without a military and manufacturering giant like the US supporting insurgents.

Honestly I think a more interesting question is what would have happened if the US would have joined Germany in WW1? Early in the war both sides were lobbying pretty hard to get the US on their side.

[The Captain]

Did America even outright declare war in WWI? They dispatched such a (relatively) small force to Europe and compared to the rest of the death toll, the US's was tiny.

I don't know if they would've given the Central Powers the win in WWI. I think the Allies had WW1 won even without the US' support since the Americans entered the war VERY late. The Americans just put the exclamation point on.

[Milkman Norm]

Yes.

[dav]

Then there is the A-bomb. History tells us that the Nazis never were able to build one which I am starting to disagree with. People have made them out to be idiots that could not figure how to make one out but I have read several theories that in fact they did the first atomic tests before the allies.

Actually, the Bomb was dismissed as 'Jewish Science' among various other avenues and thus not followed up on to its full potential. The Allies simply had the best atomic project at the time and if Germany hadn't surrendered, it would have been Nuremberg, not Hiroshima that would have been the first to perish in a nuclear blaze.