# Thought experiment: How would Hitler use knowledge of the outcome of WWII and the Holocaust? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 8, 2014, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045 "2014-11-08T04:32:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/21 "2014-11-08T14:58:50Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > … > > They started it! Yes, they invaded Poland. I get the Fawlty Towers reference. Damned funny stuff! ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/22 "2014-11-08T15:49:24Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#): > > There’s another possibility that you didn’t consider [edit: in your OP, that is], which is that Hitler decides that the war is probably unwinnable and chooses to take just as much land as he could without the allies declaring war on him (e.g. the Rhineland and other stuff?) Would the war have been unwinnable if Hitler knew not to mess with Russia? I don’t know how well the Italy and Normandy invasions would have gone for the Allies if all those panzer divisions that were dying in Russia were instead lying in wait on the Western front. Heck, maybe Stalin would have sold germany some T34s if they weren’t at war. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/23 "2014-11-08T16:57:19Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Would the war have been unwinnable if Hitler knew not to mess with Russia? I don’t know how well the Italy and Normandy invasions would have gone for the Allies if all those panzer divisions that were dying in Russia were instead lying in wait on the Western front. Heck, maybe Stalin would have sold germany some T34s if they weren’t at war. Hitler’s aim all along was to defeat the USSR (and not “Russia”). Hitler aimed to wipe out Communism _and_ Judaism. He regarded them as much the same thing. Along with that, Hitler looked eastward and saw prime land that just needed to be cleared of sub-humans and made available to Aryans. Those were Hitler’s dual aims in WW2. The war in the west was a sideshow. The whole thing was about the east, and there was no way Hitler was ever going to give that up. What he _might_ have done, given foreknowledge, was to try harder to avoid provoking the French and English and to get them onside with his war against Communism. Which may have even been possible. But there was no way he’d ever have considered not attacking the USSR. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/24 "2014-11-08T17:10:33Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Yes, they invaded Poland. I get the Fawlty Towers reference. Damned funny stuff! You’ll like this one: There’s this woman, she’s completely stupid, she’d never remember anything, and her husband’s in a bomber over Berlin… > [@Habeed](#): > > Would the war have been unwinnable if Hitler knew not to mess with Russia? I don’t know how well the Italy and Normandy invasions would have gone for the Allies if all those panzer divisions that were dying in Russia were instead lying in wait on the Western front. Heck, maybe Stalin would have sold germany some T34s if they weren’t at war. I think asking Hitler not to mess with Russia is asking the impossible. Sir Michael Howard calls the Nazi belief, stemming from the First World War, of ‘cultural survival’ from ‘Russian barbarism’ _“the bedrock of their own philosophy”._ For us with hindsight it’s easy to see that Russia is where the Wehrmacht was destroyed piece by piece, but on the eve of the invasion everything told Hitler that he should strike ASAP; the Soviet Union had been shown as a ‘paper tiger’ after it’s embarrassing performance in the invasion of Finland; nation after nation had fallen to the triumphant Wehrmacht while the poorly equipped and poorly trained masses of the Red Army had died in their thousands failing to subdue Finland. The inference Hitler took was obvious; that he was correct to see Russia as a Persia and himself as the Alexander to take it down. Hitler also knew that Stalin was relocating industry east of the Urals and that to allow it to continue much longer was to allow the prize of destroying the USSR to slip through his grasp. Hitler saw Bolshevism the means by which his arch enemy, conspiring Jews, [meant to control the world and subdue German culture](http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111hit2.html); _“Do not forget that the international Jew who completely dominates Russia today regards Germany not as an ally, but as a state destined to the same fate…In Russian Bolshevism we must see the attempt undertaken by the Jews in the twentieth century to achieve world domination.”_ Knowing that much Soviet industry (most notably, the factories for the aforementioned T-34s at Chelyabinsk) did in fact make it out of the grasp of the Wehrmacht would probably have prompted Hitler to prepare for war and invade even earlier, especially knowing the feeble response of Britain and France to Germany’s naked ambition and aggression in the '30s. He would have seen a failure of means, but still strove to achieve the same ends. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/25 "2014-11-08T18:17:58Z")
Hitler was completely bonkers. In the final days he was pushing around tokens on a map, ordering attacks by military units that no longer existed, and certain that he would turn it around and win the war. If you had shown him a history of his future, he would reject it, and follow the same path, certain that he would overcome the defeat, and emerge victorious. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/26 "2014-11-08T18:41:20Z")
Thinking it over, the most obvious connection Hitler would make would be that Germany should have developed its own atom bomb. The German researchers at the time felt that no atom bomb could be built within the time frame of the war so atomic research became a minor program. But a time traveling Hitler would see that an atom bomb had been built by 1945 and when he went back, he’d make Germany’s atomic program a priority. And then he’d almost certainly lose the war because of it. It would never occur to Hitler that just because the United States had been able to build a bomb by 1945 didn’t mean Germany could do the same. Hitler would just assume that Germany could do anything any other country could do and do it better. But the reality is that the United States was probably the only country that had the resources to build an atom bomb during the war. So Hitler would have just been throwing resources into a program that wasn’t going to produce results in time. And the loss of the resources would have affected the rest of Germany’s armed forces. Germany would still be only halfway to building an atom bomb when the allied powers overran Germany in 1944. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/27 "2014-11-08T18:54:37Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I agree, but there are several ways in which such a thing can be “real” in the mind. The main issue with such “reality” in the case of the Jews is that they were not, in fact, acting per Hitler’s personal myth. I.e., the Jews were not the cause of German defeat, German weakness, etc., and the Jews did not control things per Hitler’s myth. To the contrary, the relatively small Jewish population in Germany as of 1933 was an asset to Germany (lots of scientists, etc.). So it’s plausible that Hitler could at some point see his hatred as an impediment to his ambition for conquest. I believe Hitler was sincere in his beliefs, and that power was a mean to an end. And I don’t believe one week would have changed his core beliefs. He would have pursued the same goals (expanding Germany and German influence and getting rid of Jews), but possibly with more subtlety. Remember we’re talking about a man who still believed the war was winnable when the Russians were entering Berlin. Good luck changing his opinions and goals. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/28 "2014-11-08T18:55:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Thinking it over, the most obvious connection Hitler would make would be that Germany should have developed its own atom bomb. The German researchers at the time felt that no atom bomb could be built within the time frame of the war so atomic research became a minor program. But a time traveling Hitler would see that an atom bomb had been built by 1945 and when he went back, he’d make Germany’s atomic program a priority. I hadn’t thought of that. You’re most probably right. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/29 "2014-11-08T19:08:41Z")
Great analysis, guys! What I think is interesting is how very _complex_ the history of the time was. For example, I didn’t know until recently that Germany and the USSR were in negotiations over the latter joining the Axis powers: > **[German–Soviet Axis talks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks)** > > German–Soviet Axis talks occurred in October and November 1940 concerning the Soviet Union's potential entry as a fourth Axis Power during World War II. The negotiations, which occurred during the era of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, included a two-day conference in Berlin between Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and Adolf Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The talks were followed by both countries trading written proposed agreements. > After two days of negotiatio... The negotiations were still ongoing in 1941 when Germany began Barbarossa. I agree that defeating Russia was Germany’s primary goal in WWII; moreover, its treatment of countries to the East (mass slaughter and depraved repression a la the General Government) was vastly different from that of countries to the West (puppet governments, annoying but fairly tolerable occupations [OK, the occupation of the Netherlands seems pretty bad], though also the unforgivable deportation of Jews). So I think that, once he sees the information and pursues the seemingly likely course of going full speed ahead with WWII, he would calibrate to tone down the air war with the UK and focus on knocking the USSR out. I think it’s possible that he could win. But **Mr. Kobayashi** raises excellent points. I do believe that Hitler was literally insane. He has the potential to use the information to his advantage, but he could also draw the wrong conclusions and get extremely paranoid. I agree that he would likely cashier Goering and Himmler immediately because of the their future perceived disloyalty. Dismissing Goering would probably be smart, but getting rid of Himmler would not. Himmler was fiercely loyal at least until the very end of the war, and he was highly competent in carrying out his master’s nefarious schemes. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/30 "2014-11-08T20:15:48Z")
It wouldn’t just be Goering and Himmler. A lot of top Germans either tried to switch sides as it became obvious Germany was losing or sucked up to the allies after the war. Hitler would have seen all this as treason. Beck, Canaris, Dietrich, Doenitz, Frank, Fromm, Goerdeler, Jodl, Keitel, Kluge, Lammers, Manstein, Oster, Rommel, Schellenberg, Speer, Speidel, Stauffenberg, Tresckow, and Wagner would have been among those arrested as soon as Hitler got back to Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/31 "2014-11-08T23:07:33Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It wouldn’t just be Goering and Himmler. True, they were just the most obvious ones, those connected with the 20 July plot go without saying. I think he’d be pretty shocked at how many of his favourites, like Speer, were in the end disloyal to him. On the A-bomb point, I wonder if he’d see how useless the Vengeance weapon projects were for the cost (and the Me-262, which while ground-breaking was too little too late), cancelling both and instead investing in more fighters would have served the German war effort far better. > [@Aeschines](#): > > I do believe that Hitler was literally insane. He has the potential to use the information to his advantage, but he could also draw the wrong conclusions and get extremely paranoid. After the plot on his life he became more and more paranoid and withdrawn from reality, but he was not some kind of psychotic madman, he wouldn’t have risen from corporal to Fuhrer if he had literally lost his mind. The OSS (the CIA’s precursor) compiled a psychological report, on his probably future behaviour and included [insanity](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/oss-profile-06.html) as a possibility, stating; _“Hitler has many characteristics which border on the schizophrenic. It is possible that when faced with defeat his psychological structure may collapse and leave him at the mercy of his unconscious forces. The possibilities of such an outcome diminish as he becomes older, but they should not be entirely excluded. This would not be an undesirable eventuality from our point of view since it would do much to undermine he Hitler legend in the minds of the German people.”_ His main problem was thinking he was infallible and that fate was on his side. Even at the very end he was incapable of admitting any fault on his own part, all of Germany’s misfortunes were variously the fault of international Jewry, cowardly and treasonous generals and the German people themselves lacking the necessary fortitude to match his vision for them. SA leader and executee Ernst Rohm [confirms](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LruLBcfu_G4C&pg=PT218&lpg=PT218&dq=%22If+you+try+to+tell+him+anything,+he+knows+everything+already%22&source=bl&ots=tpHDSzvoyI&sig=sjRnoAqVcPyVPb0zAodku-V6Z6M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=n6BeVODgIsrW7QbStoGoDg&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22If%20you%20try%20to%20tell%20him%20anything%2C%20he%20knows%20everything%20already%22&f=false) that he was always like that;\* “If you try to tell him anything, he knows everything already. Though he often does what we advise, he laughs in our faces at the moment, and later does the very thing as if it were all his own idea and creation. He doesn’t even seem to be aware of how dishonest he is”\* This is where he differed greatly from Stalin - defeat made the Soviet warlord more likely to listen to advice and delegate tasks to underlings to complete as they saw fit. Defeat made Hitler less likely to listen to anyone, since in his eyes things going wrong were a result of his not being listened to. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/32 "2014-11-08T23:52:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Thinking it over, the most obvious connection Hitler would make would be that Germany should have developed its own atom bomb. The German researchers at the time felt that no atom bomb could be built within the time frame of the war so atomic research became a minor program. But a time traveling Hitler would see that an atom bomb had been built by 1945 and when he went back, he’d make Germany’s atomic program a priority. > > And then he’d almost certainly lose the war because of it. It would never occur to Hitler that just because the United States had been able to build a bomb by 1945 didn’t mean Germany could do the same. Hitler would just assume that Germany could do anything any other country could do and do it better. But the reality is that the United States was probably the only country that had the resources to build an atom bomb during the war. > > So Hitler would have just been throwing resources into a program that wasn’t going to produce results in time. And the loss of the resources would have affected the rest of Germany’s armed forces. Germany would still be only halfway to building an atom bomb when the allied powers overran Germany in 1944. Thing is, one of the ongoing points from the OP is the idea that Hitler would continue to hate the Jews, but not do much about them because he became aware of the future. and knowing about the success of the American Nuclear program it is then Hitler the one that gets a lot of help from scientists that are no longer fleeing from the axis nations because they were Jews or were married to one. Just keeping Enrico Fermi in the Axis laboratories (who was key into developing the first controlled chain reaction) and other key researchers would had meant that the Americans would not had seen a nuclear weapon in 1945. I do think also that the resources that are freed when your machinery is not set to kill undesirables would make a big difference in the outcome of the war. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/33 "2014-11-09T00:25:38Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Great analysis, guys! > > What I think is interesting is how very _complex_ the history of the time was. For example, I didn’t know until recently that Germany and the USSR were in negotiations over the latter joining the Axis powers: > > [German–Soviet Axis talks - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks) > > The negotiations were still ongoing in 1941 when Germany began Barbarossa. ISTR some analysis of the array of Soviet forces that suggested they may have been considering an attack too. The layout was suboptimal for defense with too many forces concentrated in positions too close to the border. Conveniently, it probably was better for a surprise offensive operation since it minimized the risk of moving/concentrating forces giving away preparation for an attack. Possibly it was just incompetence or laziness in planning. ---
**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:** [November 9, 2014, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/34 "2014-11-09T00:29:29Z")
I think he’d build up a nuclear-armed Nazi Germany, refrain from war, build up ICBMs and SSBNs, then slowly, peacefully annex the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia. Then use nuclear blackmail against other nations. ---
**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:** [November 9, 2014, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/35 "2014-11-09T00:39:34Z")
And I think Hitler would have delayed Barbarossa until the nukes were ready, then nuke Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad, etc. Wait for the fallout to dissipate a bit, then move in. Suddenly Barbarossa would be a lot more winnable. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/36 "2014-11-09T02:28:04Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Thing is, one of the ongoing points from the OP is the idea that Hitler would continue to hate the Jews, but not do much about them because he became aware of the future. and knowing about the success of the American Nuclear program it is then Hitler the one that gets a lot of help from scientists that are no longer fleeing from the axis nations because they were Jews or were married to one. > > Just keeping Enrico Fermi in the Axis laboratories (who was key into developing the first controlled chain reaction) and other key researchers would had meant that the Americans would not had seen a nuclear weapon in 1945. I do think also that the resources that are freed when your machinery is not set to kill undesirables would make a big difference in the outcome of the war. The number of Jewish scientists who worked in the Manhattan Project wouldn’t have done anything to convince Hitler to modify his rabid anti-semitism. He would have just taken it as proof that a Jewish conspiracy was working against him. He would probably figure the Jews had been hiding the importance of atomic research so they could sneak it out of the country and give it to his enemies. But now that he knew about the atom bomb, he could put Aryan scientists to work on it and they would do an even better job than the Jewish scientists would. And he probably would have rounded up all the Jewish scientists early before they could leave Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Jamicat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c67d28/32.png) [@Jamicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamicat)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/37 "2014-11-09T02:45:47Z")
I propose he still takes land from river to river (Rhineland) all around by force and boots the Jews out of new Germany. But, in a less evil way. Then once he has this, and then the Bomb. Well, we might have a different universal language about. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/38 "2014-11-09T21:11:06Z")
Make sure the army is equipped for winter before invading the USSR. Forget Stalingrad, and go for the oilfields in the Caucasus. Perhaps use the Jews and Rom for slave labor instead of extermination. Screw Mussolini, and stay out of North Africa and the Balkans. Instead of conquering France and the Low Countries, defeat their armies and negotiate a peace. Later, try to recruit France and the UK for an anti-Soviet war. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/39 "2014-11-10T07:48:07Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Make sure the army is equipped for winter before invading the USSR. > > Forget Stalingrad, and go for the oilfields in the Caucasus. > > Perhaps use the Jews and Rom for slave labor instead of extermination. > > Screw Mussolini, and stay out of North Africa and the Balkans. > > Instead of conquering France and the Low Countries, defeat their armies and negotiate a peace. Later, try to recruit France and the UK for an anti-Soviet war. Stop using the Enigma machine. Radar is important. Get working on it. There’s oil in Libya. Forget about surface ships. Build submarines. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045/40 "2014-11-10T18:06:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Stop using the Enigma machine. > > Radar is important. Get working on it. > > There’s oil in Libya. > > Forget about surface ships. Build submarines. Yeah. He’d focus entirely on the technical aspects of why Germany lost. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-experiment-how-would-hitler-use-knowledge-of-the-outcome-of-wwii-and-the-holocaust/704045.md?page=3)