I think it’s unfair to judge strategies made before 1945 in light of whether they were realistic in a world where atom bombs existed. You have to make plans based on the facts that exist when you make them.
Suppose America had stayed out of the war and Britain and Russia has surrendered (I don’t feel this is an unrealistic possibility). Germany might not have been a direct threat to the United States in the forties, but what about ten of twenty years later? Hitler himself acknowledged he couldn’t stand up to the United States with the power Germany now had. He said the United States had the resources of an entire continent and Germany would also need the resources of an entire continent to defeat the United States. But Hitler was seeking to control an entire continent. And it would have been foolish for the United States to dismiss that threat with the belief that it would develop a revolutionary new weapon before it materialized.
It’s unfair to judge Germany’s prospects in December 1941 based on what they were in the Spring of 1940 either. It was clear that the German invasion had stalled in Russia. Britain defeated Germany in the Battle of Britain over a year ago. Germany at the very least had their hands full with the Brits, the Russians and the economic support the US gave the
allies.
If you are going to dismiss the threat that the US could develop the atomic bomb, you certainly need to dismiss that Germany could. And if they don’t have the bomb, I maintain that Germany isn’t any type of threat to the the US proper.
My college professor (neither here nor there) believed that Hitler declared war on the United States because at that point he knew the war was lost and he wanted to ensure that Germany was destroyed. Not sure I’d go that far, but by December 1941, the writing was on the wall via-a-vis Germany.
I think the rational part of Hitler’s mind wouldn’t have chosen December 1941 as the best time to bring America into the war. But that had already occurred; Japan had done it regardless of what Hitler did. So Hitler wasn’t facing the decision of whether or not the United States went to war. He was facing the decision of whether or not Germany joined in on the war.
The United States in 1941 was relatively unprepared for fighting a war. But it would become fully prepared during the course of fighting a war with Japan. The United States would defeat Japan and then Germany would have a fully prepared America on its horizon.
Hitler decided it was smarter to fight the United States in 1941 when it was unprepared and when Japan would be fighting alongside Germany. The American side would be weaker and the Axis side would be stronger.
That said, it was still a bad decision. It made sense in the short run. But unless Hitler expected the United States to be defeated in the short run, he needed to also consider the long run. He didn’t, which is not a surprise; Hitler was notorious for only looking at short term advantages and not considering the long term consequences. As I’ve said before, Hitler could make plans for six months and six decades but he couldn’t make plans for six years.
I disagree. I don’t feel Germany’s position was hopeless in December of 1941. Sure there had been setbacks for Germany. But Germans could still rationally think about victory. The Soviet Union might not have surrendered in 1941 but Germany still had the resources to launch major new offensives in 1942. Britain might not have been defeated by the Battle of Britain but it might still lose the Battle of the Atlantic.
And I’m not dismissing the atomic bomb. I’m just saying no country should have relied on the future existence of the atomic bomb in 1941.
But as part of our other ongoing discussion, there was no “fight” that Germany could bring to the United States in 1941. Just no way that he could bring the fight to American soil. America could certainly (and did) bring the fight to Germany.
There was no rational reason for Hitler to declare war on the United States in December of 1941.
The United States couldn’t bring a fight to European soil in 1941 either. It took the United States several years to build up a force that could invade Europe and Japan. Did that make the American cause hopeless in 1941?
The German expectation wasn’t that it could defeat the United States in 1941 or 1942. Their plan was that they could fight the American forces early in the war and keep the United States weak while Germany improved its own position and built up its forces. Then in five years or so, they planned to be strong enough to attack America directly.
I recall reading that there were in fact two factions in Japanese politics in the 1930s, the Strike North faction, concentrating on China and the Soviet Union, and the Strike South faction, taking on the European colonial powers and the United States. Emperor Hirohito eventually favored the Strike South option and the die was cast for the coming war.
To me the question is, without Pearl Harbor (and let’s not forget the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, etc.) would the US have entered the war as Great Britain’s ally had Japan gone ahead and attacked the British pacific outposts?
My guess is no.
The Dutch? Don’t make me laugh.
So while it’s unlikely, it might have made a huge difference. It’s certainly possible it would have delayed US participation and even slowed down the construction programs for new ships and planes.
The Japanese intended to declare war before the attack, and it’s an interesting question as to whether that would have made a difference or not. But they never really saw *open attack **or sneak attack *as choices to make.
Not only does the prof sound like some fringe contrarian here, but not even that last sentence is accurate. In December of 1941 Hitler was occupying vast swaths of Soviet territory and seemed to be on the verge of taking Moscow itself, though admittedly German advances had been slower and harder than expected. Britain had turned into something of a stalemate for the moment, but was being impacted by the Japanese entry into the war, losing two major battleships to Japanese planes in the Pacific just four days after Pearl Harbor and surrendering Hong Kong two weeks later. Hitler dominated Europe and had every confidence of doing the same in Russia. To say that the writing was on the wall for Germany at that time sounds like a good deal of armchair hindsight, because neither the Axis nor the Allies saw it that way.
What they did see, getting back to my earlier point, was a grave risk to the US, not just to US interests, which Japan threatened, but a direct threat to the homeland should Germany prevail. The threat was not immediate, to be sure, but it was of the greatest concern to the president, the US military, and the American people should Germany prevail and be able to bring the consolidated power of all of Europe and an occupied Soviet Union against the US. Even in the short term, the US was plunged into blackouts for fear of hostilities either on its cities or against coastal shipping, and air raid procedures were in place.
Ok, wolfpup, what was the realistic base of operations for a German assault on North America? The U.S. assault on Europe involved a massive buildup of ground assault troops and ships just across the English channel with of course a big airforce within range to support. Where would the Germans set up their continental attack force? Maybe Cuba? Mexico?
Do you think the Chinese would be busy building their own carriers if they thought that their carrier-killer missiles trumped the carriers?
There’s still nothing like being able to move an entire military base with 90 aircraft to any location in the world, or several to attack from multiple locations.
I don’t concur. Per “Hitler’s Engineers” by Blaine Tayor:
"on Rohland's return, he confronted Todt in a conference on November 28 [1941], concluding that the war against Russia could not be won. The following day, Rohland and Todt met with Hitler. Rohland repeated his finding in Russia, and adding to that his knowledge of British and American industry, he concluded: "once the United States entered the conflict, there would be no way of winning the war"
Todt insisted to Hitler that the war could not be won by military means, only politically. Hitler had already discussed with possibility with Goebbels in August 1941 . . . "
So Hitler believed, or was considering that the war was lost in December 1941 when the invasion failed. So where high level Nazis.
Hitler later in the war stated to Speer that the German people had proven themselves weaker than the people in the east, therefore they should be allowed to perish. These two items taken together are why my prof thought that Hitler declared war on the US, to ensure that the destruction of Germany occurred. While I’m not sure I concur with him, I understand his logic.
Either way, it was clear to some that with the failure of Barbarossa, and undefeated Britain and an untouchable US, that the war was almost certainly lost.
This makes no sense. How was Germany going to “keep the United States weak?” How militarily were they going to do this? Shell east coast cities with submarines? Build a fleet of bombers with a 8,000 mile range to bomb New York?
And one they were “strong enough to attack America directly” - same question. Hell Germany couldn’t defeat or invade Britain that is just 19 frick’n miles away. How are they going to travel 4,000 miles away and attack America? This is preposterous.
According to this logic, the United States should have surrendered in 1941. It had no means to attack Germany at hand.
But four years later, American troops were fighting in Germany. With an army and navy and air force that didn’t exist in 1941.
I don’t know why you feel Germany was somehow doomed to fight the rest of the war with the equipment it had available in 1941. If the war had gone slightly better for Germany in 1942, they could have built an invasion fleet and crossed the Atlantic around 1945.
According to this theory, Rohland and Todt convinced Hitler on November 29 that a war against the United States was unwinnable. And Hitler responded by declaring war on the United States twelve days later.