This might get moved to GD, but wanted to start it out in GQ first:
In hindsight, we know that Japan was pretty much doomed the very moment it started dropping bombs on Pearl Harbor. What was Germany’s true tipping point of doom, though?
Also, when did Japan and Germany ***realize ***they were doomed?
(Converse question: When was the latest point in World War II that the fate of the Axis nations could truly be said to still be unknown and that they still had “legit chances”?)
There was probably no single point that this happened. It was a gradual realization for more and more people there. According to various accounts of the time when Moe Berg went to a lecture by Werner Heisenberg in Switzerland on December 18, 1944 and talked with him afterwards, Berg could tell that Heisenberg believed that the Axis powers would lose.
Japan never really had a chance to win the war. The most they could hope for was that the United States would give up.
Germany had a slim chance to win (although the odds were against them). But I think their chances were hopeless after the Soviet Union was able to hold out through the winter of 1941-1942. If the Soviet Union didn’t collapse early, they were going to beat Germany in a prolonged war decided by who had greater resources.
As for when people in Germany and Japan realized their cause was hopeless, it’s hard to say. The governments in those countries controlled the news and fed their citizens a stream of propaganda. And in many cases, the individuals in the governments were also fooling themselves.
I think, just about anybody, realizes this sort of thing quite late in the game. Always too late. And well past when its “obvious” to everyone in hindsight. As examples, I would posit that Saddam Hussein definitely thought that I raq wouldn’t be invaded, and that no government would have the authority to put him on trial, or convict him. Likewise Mommar Qaddafi was killed all the while saying. “What the heck guys, that constitution, that I wrote, specifically forbids this.”
Ultimately, the Attack on Pearl Harbor didn’t have a lasting effect. But it certainly kept the US from interfering with much of Japan’s plans for Asia. So that wasn’t the point at which Japan was “doomed” – not by a long shot.
This could end up a long thread on this topic, but I wanted to get this point in early. There are practically endless, last ditch efforts, right up to the end of the war, and after the armistice and peace treaties for just about any human conflict. So your premise may even need more clarity before you begin to be satisfied.
In the case of Japan, savvy naval officers aware of the results of the battle of Midway (early June 1942) would have realized that the losses there (3 aircraft carriers, nearly 300 aircraft and many of their best pilots) and the consequent status of Japanese naval assets meant that no reasonable combination of future events could lead to anything but defeat.
Supposedly, the film Downfall somewhat realistically portrays the moment when Hitler realizes Germany has no hope of winning the war. His military leaders had known they were doomed well before that, though and were actively undermining him.
The summer of 1944 was a critical time for Germany.
The Allies finally broke out of the hedgerows late in July leading to the Falaise Pocket and the liberation of Paris in August. The only thing that kept them from going to the German border (and beyond) right then was supplies.
On the Eastern Front, the Soviets wiped out an amazing number of German units and took back a lot of land during Operation Bagration from late June into mid August. Other actions around then were also clear victories but by not as large a margin.
To top it all off, there was the attempted coup in July.
The loss of men, resources, etc. meant that keeping up the requirements for the military was doomed.
Pretty much anybody in the know with any sanity remaining knew it was all over. Unfortunately, those conditions didn’t apply to many of the key players.
Agreed. Germany abandoning the Battle of Britain and the USSR surviving that winter without collapse meant the Nazis were doomed. They got themselves surrounded by enemies that were more tenacious and motivated.
Probably after the Battle of Kursk; some realised much earlier, after Stalingrad.
The fact that the Nazis started exhuming some of their mass graves and burning the contents shows that the thought that they might not win after all had occurred to them.
You can point to a million “what if’s” in such a complex scenario but for me I think the success of Operation Dynamo and the Battle of Britain ensured a war on at least two fronts. Then Russia refusing to capitulate coupled with the USA joining the war ensured Germany’s fate and I suspect by late 1941 many in the high command knew their chance had gone.
Aktion 105 actually began in May 1942 when the Reich was at its zenith. No doubt it had an added urgency as the year ended and even more so after the Katyn massacre was brought to light in spring 1943.
I think at that point they would have known that military victory was, realistically speaking, not possible.
But that’s not the same as knowing that they were “doomed”, which is what the OP asks. They might reasonably have still hoped for a negotiated settlement to the war, and (at that point) not necessarily a hugely disadvantageous one.
It wasn’t until 1943 that the UK and the US determined that they would only accept an unconditional surrender, and I’m not sure at what point after that the Soviets adopted the same policy.
And, even then, Germans might have hoped that the Allies could yet modify that policy. IIRC, one of the drivers for the July plot was the hope that, if Hitler could be removed and the Nazi government replaced through a military coup, the Allies, or at least the Western Allies, might then make a negotiated settlement with a non-Nazi Germany. That may not have been a very realistic hope, but it was a genuine one.
So I’d argue that it was only after the failure of the July plot that the consensus of informed opinion in Germany would have been that they were inevitably doomed to defeat.
As for Nazis, consensus supposed to be generally around summer / fall 1942. But only brightest, resourceful and clandestine Germans were aware of that at that time. It was hard to get big picture even for the bigwigs then. OTOH, counter blitzes on West German cities at that time might have same effect (of being doomed at some time in the future) on the common folk.
You might find this 16 yr old thread interesting. Not completely answering all the Qs, but a good discussion on the turning points of WWII
Rational people in Japan and Germany knew they were doomed to lose the war early on - for instance, Yamamoto (Japan’s naval leader) realized America’s vast economic power would turn the tide after a year or two (though he was deluded enough to hope that Japan could negotiate to concede some territory in order to hang onto other gains).
The nations’ leaders were sufficiently steeped in fantasies of racial/ethnic superiority to hold out hope until virtually the end. Many political and military figures in Japan were enthused about a mass sacrifice of the entire civilian population, which would have been “victory” of a spiritual kind. :dubious:
I agree with the others that the moment defeat became inevitable was when Germany and Japan committed to a military victory at all costs. The point of Pearl Harbor, after all, was to force the US to reconsider its hostility toward Japan and find some form of accommodation. At that point, Japanese policy was to force the US back to a peace-time stance, cease embargoes and accept a new status quo. It didn’t work.
Ditto Germany. Had the Germany government - not just Hitler - been willing to delay the war on the Soviets by a generation they might have been able to consolidate their holdings in western Europe, rebuild and retool their industries and raise a new generation of soldiers. It might not have knocked the Soviets out but imagine a cold war with three contenders instead of two.
Right. The only way Japan could have won was not to engage the US in a total war. They badly miscalculated.
Japan’s major objective was the oil-rich colonies of the Dutch and British in the East Indies. They assumed that war with the US was inevitable, and that their best strategic option was a preemptive strike. They failed to account for how much Pearl Harbor would piss off the US.
It’s arguable how much effort the US would have made to defend the colonies of European powers in the absence of a direct attack on its own territories. It would have been a big risk for Japan to leave potentially hostile forces on its flank while attacking the East Indies, but in retrospect that would have given them a better prospect in the long run. Instead they gambled that the US will for total victory after an attack would not be as strong as it proved to be.
Japan’s previous experience in modern war had been the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905, in which they secured a total victory over a much greater power. That probably influenced their expectations in a war with the US.
Japan began that war with a sneak attack as well.
As is often said, countries fight their last war, not the current one. Japan figured that what had worked with Russia 35 years earlier would work with the US. Russia refused to concede for some time in order to avoid humiliation at the hands of an upstart Asian power, but in the end was forced to give it up.
Resources are not the only factor in winning the war. The will to fight is also important. Vietnam beat three much stronger powers, France, the US, and later China on that basis. By attacking Pearl Harbor, Japan gave the US the motivation to mobilize all its resources against it regardless of cost.
Yes, and I dont think Japan realized the extent of America First. I am pretty sure that America wouldnt have gone to war to protect Dutch *colonies.
*
Especially as we didnt go to war to protect the *Netherlands itself *when it was attacked.