I have to research that now!
I don’t think Hitler could have mounted a successful amphiobious invasion of Britain, and I doubt whether he really wanted to try.
His best hope was to strike a deal with Britain, one that recognized Hitler’s domination of the continent of Europe in exchange for a promise to leave Britain’s empire intact.
While Churchhill wouldn’t have gone for that, there were no few Tories who’d probably have jumped at such an offer.
One possible scenario would be for the germans to use Ireland as a base for its airforce, whilst saying they were neutral, there was a great deal of support for the Germans in Ireland. Many saw
a german victory as a chance for a united ireland
While I believe we did respect Irish neutrality, I can’t see us jest ignoring them if they openly aided Germany, and we’re a whole lot closer.
The Germans could have easily occupiedthe islandof Iceland in 1940-and this would have made the U-Boats unbeatable! With Iceland as a base, the U-Boats could have dominated the North Atlantic, and made the transport of supplies to England impossible.
Since Iceland only had around 200,000 inhabitants, I’m sure 2-3army divisions would have sufficed to secure the island.
Given the disparities in naval strength I doubt Germany could have landed 3 divisions in Iceland, and certainly couldnt have maintained supply lines to any garrison there.
The British beat the Germans to the “occupation” of Iceland in 1940. The British turned over Icelandic “occupation” to the US in 1942. There was a good thread about this not too long ago.