# Could Hitler have succeeded in World War II if… **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 26, 2023, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666 "2023-03-26T04:06:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2023, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/121 "2023-04-17T19:32:17Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The idea that the Nazis were going to turn the tide in the West with jet planes, atomic bombs, or darn near anything else is simply fanciful. Early jets were faster, but far from wonder weapons. They were not highly effective weapons, just highly different weapons. > > From early 1943 on the Germans simply lacked the productive capacity to build enough of anything to matter. Rifles, tanks, conventional airplanes, jet airplanes, doesn’t matter. They were fighting collective enemies totaling 10x their size _before_ you add the Soviets into the equation. Nobody wins that. Nobody. They were destined from nearly the git-go to be steamrollered into oblivion. Right. Look, early on, the Germans could have gotten GB out of the war by not letting Dunkirk happen, which would have made Halifax PM, and a deal would be made, That was Hitlers last chance of Victory. If Germany could focus on the USSR, and the USSR has not gotten any aid, the Germans could have won. Stalin himself admitted that without lend lease the Russians would have lost. Mind you the war in the East would have dragged on for a long time… The war in the Pacific would have been interesting with GB and the USA being able to focus against the Imperial Japanese. > [@Wallaby](#): > > So, beat the French, chase the Brits back across the channel and then IGNORE them. Then get on with the real war (and don’t get involved with Mussolini’s stupidities in the Balkans and North Africa, which just kept dragging the Brits in). As long as the Allies were aiding the Russians, the Germans could not win. > [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Nukes at that point weren’t terror weapons. They were just really big bombs. > > And the alternative to using them would mean sending in our own troops. Right. or starving therm out. In either case, setting aside the higher US casualties (maybe a million), some estimates say there would have been like ten million Japanese dead or more. The Bomb was actually the humane decision. > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > That’s true, but in my opinion, as was mentioned upthread, the only real chance to make such a deal was with the capture of the BEF at Dunkirk. > The Germans failed in doing that, and there was then a straight line to the BoB and an ongoing second front. Right. That was the real turning point of the European war. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2023, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/122 "2023-04-17T23:11:27Z")
What I’m about to say is a terrible thing to say, but it is _Realpolitik_ at its most stark. The ~350K almost entirely civilian people who were killed by the USA at Hiroshima and Nagasaki performed a gigantic service to the world. Unwittingly, and in a horrible fashion, but it was an act of service and sacrifice all but unparalleled in all of world history. By dying horribly in an emotionally wrenching fashion, those folks prevented the use of far more and far larger nukes some time in the 1950s and 1960s between the USA & USSR and perhaps NATO Europe. Had nobody ever really seen what a post-nuke city and it’s people look like, nuclear warfare would have been seen as far more fightable and far more winnable. By the folks who had the means, and the motive, to wage one. And certainly had no end of instigating causes ranging from the erecting (and late dismantlement) of the Berlin Wall, to the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the Korean war, to umpteen other provocations great and small across 70+ years of leaderships on both sides. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/123 "2023-04-18T01:50:14Z")
I actually read a book about this, _If the Allies Had Fallen: Sixty Alternate Scenarios of World War II_ and it has an entire chapter dedicated to atomic bomb alternative scenarios. But the historians involved agree with that assessment, it was better to use the atomic bomb right then and there, then have it’s first use be in Korea or Eastern European in the late 40’s or early 50’s when both the US and Soviet Union would both have them, and a lot more of them. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/124 "2023-04-18T02:08:34Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I simply can’t imagine a scenario where Germany manages to conquer and occupy the Soviet Union. > > In a one front war, maybe Germany could have caused enough damage to the Soviet Union to disrupt Stalin’s regime, leading to the collapse of the USSR and even territorial gains in former Soviet states. But even with Germany’s full focus to the East, I can’t imagine them being much more successful than Japan was in China. The bigger the bite of the USSR they manage to take, the sooner they’ll choke on it. You have to remember that Russia was fighting with Allied supplies. If England is removed from the war then there is no supply line from North America and Russia’s ability to fight is drastically reduced. Take out their tank factory and they’re left with one really good ground support aircraft with nothing to support. Germany has the tank production facilities of France and Belgium to boost production. If you think losing 15% of your population is bad imagine a 1 front war without Allied support. If England is out of the picture and Russia is forced to surrender before 1945 can the US threaten Germany with nuclear weapons in a war that is effectively over in Europe?. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/125 "2023-04-18T02:11:14Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You have to remember that Russia was fighting with Allied supplies. If England is removed from the war then there is no supply line from North America and Russia’s ability to fight is drastically reduced. Right. Stalin himself said that the Russians would have lost without Lend-lease. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/126 "2023-04-18T04:56:19Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You have to remember that Russia was fighting with Allied supplies. Not initially, and they stopped the Germans in front of Moscow and Leningrad, and retook Rostov, before the end of 1941. At that point the Germans have already lost; time and weather and distance and population and industry are all on the Russians’ side. > [@Magiver](#): > > If England is removed from the war then there is no supply line from North America You are referring to the Archangel convoys? But most supplies reached Russia via Persia/Iran and the Pacific. > [@Magiver](#): > > Take out their tank factory They had more than one tank factory. And you never replied before; how? They have no strategic bombing force. > [@Magiver](#): > > Germany has the tank production facilities of France and Belgium to boost production. They had those historically and still lost. How does that help them any more in your scenario? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/127 "2023-04-18T10:43:15Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > If England is removed from the war then there is no supply line from North America Not even through Alaska (admittedly an even longer way round)? Though granted, the prospect of getting Congress to aid the USSR directly and as sole opponent of Hitler looks difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/128 "2023-04-18T10:57:25Z")
Exactly. I don’t think the world would appreciate what nuclear weapons really do without a ghastly real-life demonstration of what they do. (and detonating one over the desert, at Trinity, doesn’t do it psychological justice.) Without the two A-bombs on Japan, we’re just kicking the can down the road until someone decides to use nukes in some subsequent war. Not to mention those A-bombings saved millions of Japanese and American lives. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/129 "2023-04-18T16:10:50Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > f England is removed from the war then there is no supply line from North America > > Not even through Alaska (admittedly an even longer way round)? Alaska wasn’t even a long way around. There’s just no way to move stuff from Alaska to Siberia except by boat. Or to get stuff to Alaska. And at the time, there was no Alcan highway and the boats would have to go to Vladivostok, which takes them near Japan. The Alcan Highway (now often called the Alaska Highway) was built as an emergency project in 1942. Without it, you’d have send any sizeable amount of materiel by ship, so you may as well skip Alaska and ship them directly from the west coast to Vladivostok. But the US would be at war with Japan, so those ships will be in danger of being sunk. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/130 "2023-04-18T18:53:44Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > You are referring to the Archangel convoys? But most supplies reached Russia via Persia/Iran and the Pacific. Why would America aid Russia if America is not at war with Germany? Again, both Stalin and Khrushchev stated that the USSR would have lost without lend lease. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/131 "2023-04-18T19:54:43Z")
Sometimes “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” really works. There’s a lot of daylight between “The USA would prefer the Nazis lose” and “The USA has declared and is waging active war against the Nazis” If FDR had a choice between manufacturing a bunch of expensive war materiel then shipping it to the Soviets so they could get killed while using the stuff to kill Nazis, or instead to hire a couple million young Americans to get killed while using the stuff to kill Nazis, I have a feeling I know which alternative FDR would have supported. Yes, subcontracting the dying to a 3rd party has its own challenges. But it’s still a pretty attractive way to run at least part of a foreign policy; countries all over the world try it pretty regularly. ---
**Author:** ![WellHelloThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9dc877/32.png) [@WellHelloThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WellHelloThere)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/132 "2023-04-18T20:04:53Z")
I always wonder though, since it is generally agreed that we were making more bombs, why drop them on cities? Why not drop the first off shore and wait for a response? And then the second? Why drop both bombs on cities when an example of the bomb’s power could have been made without doing that? More were on the way, if it didn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![WellHelloThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9dc877/32.png) [@WellHelloThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WellHelloThere)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/133 "2023-04-18T20:13:19Z")
I missed this post. There was no effort to attempt a demonstration. And as we know now, the USA had more bombs on the way. So why annhilate 2 cities as a demonstration, when a relatively less costly\* demonstration could have been made? (Eta, costly in terms of lives and damage) ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/134 "2023-04-18T20:16:04Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Why would America aid Russia if America is not at war with Germany? Lend-lease had first been passed by Congress in March 11, 1941. It was originally meant to aid Britain, but FDR approved 1 billion bucks in interest-free loans to the USSR on on October 30, 1941. Bit of a nitpick, but this was six weeks before Pearl Harbor and the formal declaration of war on Germany, which took place on December 11. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/135 "2023-04-18T20:22:15Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Again, both Stalin and Khrushchev stated that the USSR would have lost without lend lease. This is about as relevant as later statements by Soviet authorities denigrating the importance of Allied aid to Russia. [The following view](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/lend-lease-saved-countless-lives-but-probably-didnt-win-the-eastern-front-77715c4ce0b9) has gained general acceptance. “Most likely, the Soviets would have won regardless, as the Eastern Front for the Germans was unwinnable after the Battle of Stalingrad, before most of the aid to the USSR arrived. But Lend-Lease also certainly helped shorten the war and saved lives.” ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/136 "2023-04-18T20:39:24Z")
> [@WellHelloThere](#): > > Why not drop the first off shore and wait for a response? Hiroshima was actually a valid military target. There was a large military presence there as well as numerous weapons and munitions factories. Hiroshima also hadn’t been bombed much by conventional bombs, and the military wanted to see the nuke’s effectiveness against a real-world target, which you don’t get by plonking a bomb into the shoreline. Exactly how devastating it would be wasn’t really known yet. Hiroshima was home to the Japanese 2nd Army Headquarters, which had primary responsibility for the defense of southern Japan. Keep in mind that hindsight is 20/20, and that nukes at the time were just big bombs and weren’t considered terror weapons like they are today. There were a lot of folks in the military who didn’t think that the Japanese would surrender even after two nukes, so throwing the Japanese homeland defenses into disarray by wiping out the 2nd Army HQ made a lot of sense. If you’re not sure that even two nukes will be enough to force a surrender, why on earth would you want to waste them against a shoreline? The military folks were certain that the Japanese definitely weren’t going to surrender if you did something like that. Kokura was supposed to be he second target, not Nagasaki. Kokura was also a valid military target since it had the largest factories for aircraft and other weapons production. Kokura was spared only because of bad weather. Kyoto was also on the list of potential targets, but was removed from consideration because its importance to Japan was more cultural and historical than military. Nagasaki was chosen because it was a port city and was being used as a transportation hub for military weapons and supplies. You also have to keep in mind that precision guided bombs weren’t really a thing back then. If you wanted to take out a factory, you carpet bombed the entire area and hoped that enough bombs hit their targets. And you carpet bombed the surrounding area because that’s where the factory workers lived. Modern ideas about doing what you can to spare civilians weren’t practical and weren’t really a thing back then. If you worked in a factory, you were helping Japan to fight the war and you were a legitimate military target. ---
**Author:** ![WellHelloThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9dc877/32.png) [@WellHelloThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WellHelloThere)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/137 "2023-04-18T20:49:38Z")
My point is that they didn’t even try. I think that they should have, considering they had more bombs. “Offshore” can mean anywhere where it wouldn’t cause massive casualties. The fact that there were military facilities changes nothing. These bombs were meant to show a power far above any that had ever been seen. Hindsight is of course 20/20, but in retrospect the best way to demonstrate the power of these bombs would have been to do it in a way that kept damage to a minimum. That is not what they did. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/138 "2023-04-18T20:56:06Z")
> [@WellHelloThere](#): > > I think that they should have, considering they had more bombs. Did they? This cite says that, at that time, the US only had those two bombs (though more were in production) (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > In the spring of 1945, the American government convened a committee of scientists and military officers to determine how best to use the bombs. This group unanimously declared that there was no guarantee that demonstrating the bombs to the Japanese in a deserted area would convince Japanese leaders to surrender. It was vital that Japan be convinced to surrender as fast as possible because **the United States had just two atomic bombs available in July 1945 and additional weapons would not be ready to deploy for several more weeks**. Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese, American, and Japanese soldiers continued to die each day the war continued. > **[The Most Fearsome Sight: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima | The National WWII...](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/atomic-bomb-hiroshima)** > > On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/139 "2023-04-18T21:34:29Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Why would America aid Russia if America is not at war with Germany? Right, that’s why the US isn’t aiding Ukraine today, since we’re not at war with Russia 👍 ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666/140 "2023-04-18T21:38:25Z")
> [@WellHelloThere](#): > > So why annhilate 2 cities as a demonstration, when a relatively less costly\* demonstration could have been made? (Eta, costly in terms of lives and damage) The US was _already_ annihilating cities on a fairly regular basis, nukes or no nukes. The air raid over Tokyo in the final days of the war was ths single most destructive air raid ever, dwarfing Hiroshima or Nagasaki. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-hitler-have-succeeded-in-world-war-ii-if/981666.md?page=8)