One interesting point I once saw on a History Channel show was that essentially, the Nazi party was all about embracing mediocrity. Because they didn’t want any changes, everything had to conform, that Germans were superior, etc, it didn’t foster growth, or imagination, and thus Nazi culture was largely stagnant.
So, perhaps, wouldn’t they have just withered away?
If you mean the 1944 assination plot, it wouldn’t have mattered much if it had suceeded or not in the Grand Scheme of things. Soviet troops were already rolling West, the British and Americans had a Beachhead at Normandy. His generals probably would have begged for a conditional truce that allowed them to continue fighting Russia while leaving the Western Allies in peace, which would have been rejected.
I had a rather long discuession about this with a friend and he mentioned something about a lack of unity among the German military leaders because Hitler would play them off each other to keep power. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if so, it would definatly Hinder their ability to effectly wage war.
I believe that Hitler, for the longest time, objected to building pure fighters. He even wanted the Me-262 produced as a bomber(which delayed it’s introduction). But he would have had to have died early in the war to make any sort of a difference.
Apparently the first 4 engine bomber the Germans produced, the He177, had to be capable of dive bombing, which hurt the project badly.
Nazi Germany never had a prayer in an all-out war against the United States. Even if Britain had been lost, Germany could not beat the United States.
Many people don’t realize just how big a military collossus the U.S. was, even during the WWII era. While other countries were spending huge fractions of their GDP on the war, the U.S. hardly broke a sweat. While other nations lost tens of millions of soldiers and were drafting young boys to replace them, America’s army was largely unscathed (250,000 casualties in terms of 40 million dead in WWII). While other countries were having their infrastructures pounded into rubble, the United States’ productive capacity was still growing and untouched.
At the end of the war, the U.S. arsenal was producing massive amounts of arms. The U.S. was the only major combatant to go through the war without a single quarter of recession. And while other nations had diverted their industrial output into making weaponry, the U.S. was still building new factories and expanding its capability to make even more weapons.
If everything had gone Hitler’s way, and if he had taken Britain or repelled the D-Day invasion, the war would have lasted maybe another couple of years, at most.
Now, you might speculate that Hitler could have ‘won’ had he stopped before invading France and negotiated a peace. If Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor perhaps the U.S. would have stayed out of Europe if Hitler stopped his aggressions. That might have given the Nazis time to build the Bomb, which could have led to a cold war between the U.S. and Germany. One that would no doubt have ended in nuclear war at some point.
The only problem is that it assumes that Japan will not attack Pearl Harbor, which is the best way they see to keep the US fleet off their ass while they build a Pacific Empire. In the same way, Hitler is never going to give up his plans to conquer Russia. He was obessessed with the whole Lebenraum thing.
Germany developed an air to air TOW missle that had a range of 2 miles. It was steerable by the pilot and it would detonate at the sound of a B-17’s engines. Launched off an ME 262 it would have been unstoppable if it was used earlier in the war.
There are a number of significant events that could have changed the war drastically. German long-gun technology was years ahead of everyone else. They had built and operated long guns in France that could shoot continuously at England. One of the Kennedy’s died in a secret mission to destroy them (unfortunately they had already been destroyed by conventional bombing). If they had succeeded with this then all of Coastal England would have been wiped out, which may have resulted in defeat.
Germany had 2 other ships like the Bismark in production. Without England to hold the tide, Hitler could have launched these ships and destroyed the US Navy, including any shipyard within striking distance.
If England had not held Germany off, then the United States would not have had the TIME needed to build up a fighting force. If Hitler had formed a non-aggression pack with Russia (instead of attacking), then Japan and Germany could have attacked the United States and Canada from both sides of the ocean. Russian colluded with Germany to build a tank prior to the war so an alliance was not out of the question… If the United States was prevented from tooling up for war then Germany could have perfected the Atomic Bomb first. The hard part would be predicting if they could destroy the Manhattan project. I think it would take express knowledge of all the locations to destroy it.
History is nothing but a series of “ifs”. However, from a purely statistical point of view, I would say it was very possible that Nazi Germany could have succeeded.
You mean the Famous “Dora” rail gun? From what I know, the guns were siege guns only. At extreme range they weren’t particulary accurate, and their slow reload and relativly insufficent shell isn’t going to do much more then annoy the British(and Bombers can do it more effectivly). Maybe if they had 1000 railguns, they might have been able to pull off the effect you describe, but 2 aren’t going to do much. Plus you have to worry about bombers trying to knock them out.
See “IJN Yamato” and get back to me. WW2 showed that even the most powerful surface ship is Vunerable to Air Power. So the Kreigsmarine either has to build a couple carriers to escort the Battleships, or the Battleships will have to stay withen the air coverage of the Luftwaffe(and aside from hitting England, they aren’t going to do much damage to Allied Installations).
Besides, you’re putting an awful lot of faith into two battleships, even big ones.
My question is, how do you stop one of the biggest industrial powers in the World at the time from tooling up assuming they decide to?
It would also take a hell of a lot of force projection over the North American Continent, which the Germans don’t have in any realistic scenario. THat’s assuming they knew about it.
Hell, if nothing else, you have the fact that the Germany never came close to having a working atomic bomb and no way to deliver it.
So, we’re war-gaming here, folks. Fine with me.
Let’s throw another what-if in the mix.
Besides the Battle of Britain, what really curled Winston’s toes was the Battle of the Atlantic. For a long time, the Allies dealt with the gap in the middle that couldn’t be covered by shore-based air patrol, and they were short on military ships to guard the convoys through that dangerous middle ground.
While the Nazis did have the FW-200s (four engine long range bombers based on a civilian airliner, and not truly up to the task), they had to rely on subs alone, pretty much.
But what if the sentiment that had initiated the construction of the Graf Zeppelin had prevailed, and it had been finished and deployed to the Atlantic before hostilities made getting out to sea a problem for Nazi capital ships? As long as we’re supposing that the necessary sentiment could have prevailed, let’s throw in a sister ship deployed as well.
Nazi Navair in the Atlantic in 1942. While I stick to my initial assessment of the eventual outcome, articulated best by Sam Stone, what would that have done to the mix?
There have been lots of ‘superweapons’ that were supposed to alter the face of war. A pilot-controlled missile that detonates on the sound of a bomber’s engine wasn’t about to end bombing raids. First, the Germans would have needed them in big enough quantities, and they would have had to be effective, and you’re assuming the allies would be unable to develop countermeasures, etc.
As far as I know, those guns were not nearly as effective as you are portraying.
Three Battleships were going to destroy the U.S. Navy? Ridiculous. They sank the Bismark, didn’t they?
The battleship was obsolete. For Germany to attack the United States Navy, it would have had to sail its battleships across an ocean, avoiding all submarines, American air defenses, and the carrier groups. Not a chance.
They would have had plenty of time. The U.S. and Canada were untouchable by the Germans. You greatly underestimate the difficulty of launching any kind of major attack across an ocean. In addition, the U.S. was producing arms at a tremendous rate. Remember lend-lease? Wartime production was already ramping up big time by the time Britain was attacked. In 1942 alone, the United States produced more tanks than had been produced by all other combatants combined in both WWI and WWII. The U.S. was floating more ships every month than the size of some allied country’s entire navys. The U.S. also had SEVEN Battleships under construction by this time, all of which were cancelled by 1943 as it became clear that they were not necessary. The U.S. also built 43 aircraft carriers between 1941 and 1945, and cancelled ten more in various stages of construction.
Seriously, if the Germans had tried to take on the U.S. on U.S. soil, its invading armies would have been demolished. The U.S. wasn’t even breaking a sweat in WWII. Only 243,000 casualties out of a population of what, 170 million or something? Wartime spending as a percentage of GDP was far, far lower than Germany’s. The U.S. could have stepped up its already immense production by a factor of two or three if it had to, and could have massed standing armies of millions of men. Against what, the number of Germans that could be landed by boat?
And been completely destroyed. The idea of attacking the U.S. mainland was simply not remotely possible. The logistics were impossible. The Germans and Japanese would have had to establish a beachhead somewhere in South America, but it would have been destroyed in short order.
Germans are going to destroy Los Alamos? Not gonna happen. And if Germany and Russia had taken Britain, the U.S. would not only have started wartime production, it would have increased it dramatically over what it did produce.
The only chance Nazi Germany had was to sue for peace and hope the U.S. would accept an agreement. Then we’d have had a cold war with Germany.
Here’s my ‘what if’ scenerio for all this. It hinges on Hitler getting taken out early (say sometime around '35-'36) as well as most of the loonier Nazi leadership. I’m picturing a military coup, with one of the generals gaining power as a right-wing military dictatorship but still quasi-Nazi (but without most of the stupider baggage, and with someone at the helm that isn’t a complete wack job…leave the jews the hell alone you boneheads!).
I don’t think an absolute Nazi victory was in the cards reguardless of how you play it out, especially early on…later I think a Greater German Riche would have the chance to knock Russia out of the game (more on that later). I’d say the best possible senario for Nazi Germany would have been to play things exactly like they did early on. Conquest of western Europe, expansion into the Balkins, Greece and Africia, with a concentration of forcing Britian to either sue for peace or outright invasion.
At that point Nazi Germany should consolidate…definitely no invasion of Russia. It will take time to integrate the captured territories and exploit their resources and industries. TAKE the time. This was the worst mistake they made (i.e. invading Russia), followed by a declaration of war against the US without first getting an iron clad commitment from the Japanese to declare war on Russia and invade (which Japan had no intention of doing).
So, Germany instead continues to honor their non agression pack with Russia (Stalin is fat, dumb and happy, content to wack his own citizens and pose a few of his military officers for some gun fire). When Japan attacks America (as they planned too all along…that much was probably inevatible) Germany basically says so sorry…you didn’t check with us, you are on your own as far as this one goes, and stays the hell out of it.
Eventually Britian is either defeated or sues for peace (probably the later) as they are basically alone, except for US aid. Germany should back off the US and make sure they stay neutral…no sinking of US flag ships, no harrassment, etc. ALLOW the US to play the neutral game and supply the UK…in the end it won’t matter as they are all alone over there…eventually they will sue for peace. If not, use Germany’s vast resources to invade. If Germany concentrated on this and nothing else they could have done it…it would have cost them big time, but in the end they could have taken England out of the game.
So, a new Greater Germany is created from the ashes of Western Europe. North Africa is also a German/Italian possession (including of course the oil fields) and the Mediteranian is a German lake. Germany can now sit back and watch the US and Japan go at it hammer and tongs. The US will eventually win and emerge as a great power.
At some point, maybe by the '50’s, the inevitable clash will come between the USSR and Germany. But I don’t think the USSR will be any better prepared for that conflict than they were in '40…Stalin ALSO is a complete wack job (assuming no one manages to put a nice ice pick into his thick skull of course).
A fully prepared Greater Germany with time to build all those various toys (both a stategic as well as tactical airforce, a fully capable navy, and what they do best…an integrated and superbly trained army) and with secure strategic resources (especially oil) would give the Soviets a run for their money especially if the US is occupied with rebuilding Japan and if Germany can let America play the neutral game.
(I’m assuming the US did NOT use an atomic bomb against Japan but chose instead to keep it secret…however Germany would have observed things like strategic bombing and the use of aircraft carriers, etc, in the conflict between the US and Japan. Lessons learned and at no cost to them.)
LET the US send supplies to Russia if they want too. Hell, ask the Americans to send stuff to German too (‘are you neutral or what??’). In the end, if Germany can pack a sufficient knock out blow to take Moscow relatively quickly (which I think is possible) and if they don’t treat the Russians like sub-human trash but actually come in as liberators not conquerors, I think that they can knock the Soviets out of the game (IMO, without WWII, the Soviets would have been teetering on the brink of collapse by the '50’s anyway). After that, we’d either have a cold war between the US and the newly expanded Greater Germany, or a huge trading partner.
So, no Nazi flag over the world…but definitely a Greater German superpower stretching consisting of Western Europe, North Africa, through a large part of Western Russia.
-XT
With these as givens, no way. As Churchill said, the industrial might of the US tipped the balance. Russia probably could have held out by themselves anyway.
Even if England had fallen, it would have been years before they could have considered crossing the pond to the US. In the meantime a dozen A-bombs slipped in via carrier, or submarine could decimate the German industrial base and reawakened resistance (“If we don’t throw these guys off the Americans may nuke us”). Germany could agree to peace terms, but the OP asked about a “Nazi world.”
To get a Reich win, you have to start changing facts in the 30s, as xtisme has done.
The idea that the US could liberate Europe across the Atlantic is simply ridiculous.
Its almost as farfetched as the Nazi Empire invading the US.
Why is it ridiculous?
The US could have made Torch like landings in north Africa with vetran troops from the Pacific campaign who had experince invading hostile beaches. The US had alot more amphibious capacity (and after or near the end of the Pacific campaign more amphibious experince) than the Germans. The US then could have invaded Sicily and from there southern France and/or Italy.
For Nazi Germany to have had any chance in WW II they would have needed to not invade the USSR.
Also, the coupled engines had a tendency to catch fire.
They possibly could have had a 4-engine bomber by the beginning of the war, the Dornier 19.
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/gustin_military/db/ger/DO19DORN.html
Even if the Do 19 wasn’t itself successful it could have lead to a effective design, like the Manchester lead to the Lancaster.
I think you guys are getting too much into the technical details. Reguardless of whatever toys the Nazi’s had, they could not possibly have won if the political/military situation remained unchanged, i.e. Germany both attacked Russia AND declared war on the US (without first getting a real commitment from Japan to invade Russia). In the end Germany would STILL have been ground down…it might have just taken longer and cost more lives first. They simply didn’t have the manpower to A) Hold down all of Western Europe, B) Continue the fight against the UK, C) Secure vital resources like oil (especially in North Africa/ME), D) Fight a huge war of attrition in Russia, and hold down THAT territory (presuming they actually managed to capture Moscow and force the government back behind the Urals) and E) Fight an industrial giant like the US.
IMO it was the stategic mistakes that Germany made that doomed them. Big picture things like attacking Russia and declaring war on the US. Like not focusing on securing their vital resources first, and consolidating their conquests. Stupidity in not forcing Japan to open up a second front against Russia that would have diverted THEM from being able to focus solely on Germany. Like not focusing on taking out England however they could (conquest or settlement, whatever it took). Finally their ridiculous obsession with the jews diverted manpower not only to do the dirty work, but deprived them of a vast manpower pool in the form of the jews themselves, many who had fought for Germany in WWI. Idiots!
On the logistics side, sure, a 4 engine long range bomber was important. Focusing on a few innovative weapons systems also would have been nice, instead of myriad projects that diluted their efforts. PRODUCTIONS of standard weapons systems also would have been nice. However, in the end, it was their stategic stupidity that doomed them IMO…and the only valid ‘what if’ hinges on them NOT making those stupid mistakes.
-XT
The best fictional treatment I’ve yet seen of the “what if Hitler had won?” question is Fatherland, by Thomas Harris (HarperTorch, 1993). In that book, Hitler succeeded in taking the Caucasus, with its oilfields, and after that the Soviet war machine simply ground to a halt for lack of fuel. The defeat of the USSR put the Third Reich in a position to make a separate peace with the UK and the US (the latter being busy with the war against Japan, which it won). The book opens in 1963: The German Reich has annexed, and colonized with ethnic Germans, all of Poland, and Russia up to the Urals, and is fighting an interminable (and conventional) war with the Soviet rump state in Siberia. The rest of Europe is ruled by pro-German puppet governments, except for Switzerland and Britain, which remain completely independent.
For other treatments, see Uchronia: The Alternate History List, at www.uchronia.net.
** And where did most of those Manhattan scientists come from? It’s a who’s who of German and Italian scientists?
My point was not to prove it should of happened, just that it could have happened. It took all the resources of the United States and England to turn the tide of the Axis nation’s technology. And I don’t mean to leave out the contributions of other countries, I just don’t want to list them all.
**
Germany just needed to keep the US out of the war long enough to perfect their advanced weapons. V2 rockets with nukes was within the capabilities of German scientists and would have come to pass had Hitler not mismanaged virtually everything he touched. If Germany had a different ruler then I believe WW-II would have been a lot bloodier.
I really don’t think this belongs in a debate forum because it is pure speculation on everyone’s part. I post for the challenge of thinking what could have happened if certain events had not occurred.
They could have done a bit better than V2’s…Von Braun had a design for an two stage ICBM, the A9/A10.
If the Germans had gotten these working, along with a nuke, they might have been able to rain down atomic fire over most of the western hemisphere, from Europe.
Ranchoth
(“If” and “Might”…the twin monarchs of WWII alternate history threads.)
Hypthecially, but they have two daunting technical challanges, assuming they manage to build a nuke and an A9.
Make the A9 accurate enough to hit something worthwhile from 3000 miles away.
Make a nuke small enough to fit on top of it. Remember, the first US Atomic Bomb was pretty damn big.