Only due to political collapse. For all their faults, Stalin and the CCCP had the support of the Russian people throughout the war. The loss in 1917 in fact spurred them to fight even harder so it wouldn’t happen again - conversely it gave the Germans false confidence.
In the absence of a loss of leadership, of will, the Germans cannot beat the Russians no matter what. They simply did not have the resources or manpower required in 1940 or 41, and after that it’s too late. Read Tooze.
The cult of Churchill has to end, it skews objective thinking. The UK was not a strongman dictatorship that it would have fallen without the top dog.
Without Churchill, there is some other PM who leads the UK, Churchill was an elected PM, he was at the end of the day expressing the will of the Parliament and the people, which was…fight.
No, they were mostly located by radio direction-finding, and then close-in by early versions of radar.
But the Nazi process of micro-managing their subs from on land required subs to radio back more often, and since they thought their codes were unbreakable, they tended to stay on the radio longer (thus more time for the British to locate them).
Killing Hitler in the late summer of '41 might actually change the war. Army Group Center takes Moscow and is in control of the rail links (most of which pass through Moscow).
USSR Capitulates; the British beat a hasty retreat from the Middle East and India. The Germans are basically masters of Eurasia.
Superficially, Stalin, though it depends largely on who replaces him and if that person would be willing to tolerate the loss of Ukraine.
The better answer, though, is Hitler himself, probably most optimally in late 1940 after the conquest of France but before Barbarossa. Germany could possibly manage a victory, though a relatively modest one compared to the grand but disastrous idea of taking on the Soviets in winter.
Kill Churchill before 1939 and the UK is wholly unprepared for war and so Hitler and Stalin invade Poland without igniting WW2 and later Hitler turns on Stalin. The US doesn’t get involved. By 1942, maybe 43, Hitler is master of Europe from the Rhine to the Pacific, heralding a new Teutonic Empire. With trade routes now open via their German ally, there is no need for Japan to go to war.
While it is true that the Germans somewhat underestimated the Allied ability for Radio triangulation, the German Kriegsmarine radio operators where always famously terse in the length of their transmissions, for the exact reason that they knew the enemy would try to pinpoint them based on signals. Encryption therefore did not mean longer signals than absolutely necessary.
Further more, both due to a more disciplined approach to messages, but also because the Kriegsmarine adopting a more advanced version of the Enigma, Bletchley Park had far less success decoding Uboat communications for much longer than army transmissions. Only with the capture of up-to-date german equipement and code books did they make actual headway. Of course, in the instances they did manage to break encryption, Uboats tended to append their exact coordinates on most messages, and therefore where instanly pinpointed in those cases.
Boy, there’s a lot of 20-20 hindsight in these discussions. The statement that the Germans would have certainly lost even if you completely removed the Allies from the equation - which is the claim that was made - is flatly crazy. The effort the Germans expended fighting the Allies was, contrary to what people keep saying, really huge. The German order of battle in the West in June 1944 was something in the order of sixty to seventy divisions. Even discounting the crappy ones, you’re looking at 50 full strength divisions. IF the Allies aren’t in the war all of that goes to the Eastern Front, plus, of course, most of the Luftwaffe, which is now much larger since it needn’t worry about the Allies. That would have made a difference (against a much less well equipped Soviet side, since of course, without Allies, they don’t get all that Lend-Lease help. How easy is it to launch Bagration if you have no trains or trucks?)
If the Allied contribution did not help in defeating Hitler, Stalin sure was wrong about it. He pestered the Allies to open a second front from 1942 on. He sure seemed happy accepting all that material aid, too.
To a limited extent, yes. Enigma seems to have been more important in allowing convoys to be rerouted away from German wolfpacks. And the war in the North Atlantic was won by the Allies for numerous reasons, including better air cover, more escorts and superior anti-sub weapons.
Churchill has sweet fuck all to do with UK rearmament, he did not renter government until after the declaration of war. Rearmament started in 1936, with the order for new capital ships and aircraft, and in earnest in 1938, after Munich.
I can’t see any simple solution, let alone killing one person, that would accomplish both. Just to achieve the second would have required a major rethinking and re-timing of the entire German war effort. (But if they got that, then the first is a lot easier.)
I was going to say that once the Nazis had pissed off both the US *and *the SU they were doomed. The weight of numbers, land, natural resources, availability of strategic sanctuaries, etc. all favored the US/SU massively over the Nazis. Once Goliath is pissed, David is doomed.
The entire Nazi effort aimed at just one or the other of US *or *SU *might *have led to a draw. Which would last until the inefficiencies of trying to rule conquered Europe took their toll on the Nazis while the US or SU rearmed and got ready for round 2.
If they had fought a one-front war, might the Nazi’s have stayed in control of much of Europe into the 1960s much as the SU ran the Warsaw Pact? Sure. Would Nazism survive the eventual death of Hitler? Probably not.
None of this is meant to slight the significant contribution of the Brits, the Commonwealth, and the others. But their collective contributions were more of skill and less of mass. When you’re talking about conquering and holding territory which was the only Nazis road to anything but defeat, well mass has a mass all its own.
I’ve always thought that the failure of Germany to capture the British troops at Dunkerque sealed their fate. If we lose those men we come to an arrangement with Germany and the war is potentially “winnable” for them.
They were evacuated successfully so the U.K. now presents a second front for Germany. Hitler is committed to a war on two fronts and is pretty much screwed from that point forward.
If Hitler was to be assassinated anytime during the battle of France then I suspect things play out very differently indeed.
That was my first thought as well - depending on how you define “win the war.” If it means that Germany ends up wit more than it started, then having him die right after the fall of France but before the invasion of the USSR could have led to a deal where Germany pulls out of France but keeps its half of Poland, plus probably Austria and maybe Czechoslovakia as well. It’s not much, but it’s more than it ended up with.
However, if that would have been unacceptable to the US government at the time, then no single death would have mattered; eventually, USA’s numbers advantages would have made Germany surrender.
Churchill had everything to do with UK rearmament. It was he who warned of Hitler. It was he whose diplomacy got rearmament started in the first place.
I think you are thinking of Ukrainians - Stalin was a Georgian. But the answer is “no”. Even if they had known, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t fight like fury against yet another foreign invasion (the third one in 130 years).
The French may well have won if they’d had the national will to resist as Russia did, the strategic depth that Russia had, and the resources and manpower that Russia had. they had none of those things. So, no.
The Germans can never take Moscow while the Red army is in the field and fighting. The Germans had shot their bolt months before, on the assumption that once they’d defeated the initial Russian troops that would be it. They estimated the Russians had 200 divisions, they lost count after 600. The Germans lost more than they could replace even while winning every battle. By the time they got to Moscow they were down to a fraction of their starting strength, spread over double the frontage they started the invasion at (as Russia is shaped like a funnel).
Of course the Russians wanted Allied aid and commitment. Who wouldn’t? But that’s not an argument that they would have lost without it. The German’s failure to win in late 1941 doomed them, and that’s well before any significant Western aid arrived. Please read Tooze.
Even if the UK makes peace - which we know now they would not have under any circumstances - the Germans still lose against Russia.