Germany couldn’t attack the USSR first. In order to go east, as Hitler said was the place to get room for expansion they had to go through Poland, Chechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, etc. Poland was attacked first and I think that Hitler didn’t not expect Britain and France to oppose that action by going to war. Why should he have? There had been no military opposition to any of his previous acquisitions.
Cite for the German-American relocation camps and the US Companies?
That is pretty much correct. However, that is not the way Hitler saw it. Hitler did not think that Britain would live up to it’s pact with Poland. He thought the Russians would collapse facing superior Aryan might. He thought the US would stay out.
That doesn’t match history at all. In 1939 they defeated a backwards Polish force. The nthey rolled over the Low Countries. In 1940, France was suprised by a new kind of warfare that bypassed their defenses. In 1941, Germany swept past and isolated a Russian army that had recently been purged of command staff by Stalin. The Russian army took millions of casualties and lost a thousand miles of ground by mid 1942. From this point on the Germans began losing ground in the east. The US didn’t even mobilize for war until 1942. There were no major offensives against Germany in the west until D-Day in 45.
Nazis? Played to the hearts and minds of Poles? Umm, yeah. See, the Germans didn’t come to liberate, to spread Democracy, or to give flowers. The entire reason for the war was to give Germans new room to live and new power. They conquered people. Pacification such as you suggest would have taken generations.
As to Stalin, war was a perfectly acceptable option for him. He was not a peace loving man.
How in the world do you think occupied people could have taken out German leadership with suicide attacks? Hitler was simply not approachable. A modern terrorist campaign would not have the scope required to afffect WWII in any meaningful way. Look at Iraq. One of the most extensive modern terrorist type resistances, with weapons far beyond anything available in WWII. Have they killed any US Gernerals? Colonels? The total US death toll in Iraq would have been a rounding error in a single season WWII campaign. Comms and bridges were what was done becasue that was what was most effective at the time.
Unless they could make tanks fly, how would you propose Germany invade the Soviet Union without invading Poland first?
Boringdad: D-day was in 1944, dude.
Diehard:
HEARTS AND MINDS?
What you’re now proposing is basically “what if the Nazis were not Nazis?” It’s silly to ask what would have happened had they reached out to the hearts and minds of people they considered racial inferiors. If the Nazis had been the sort to do that they would not have started the war in the first place.
You’re also operating on the assumption that there’s something beneficial to the Germans about “consolidation.” Once again: The war ends in August 1945 no matter what. That’s when the US gets the atomic bomb. Game over.
Even if you discount the trumping effect of the A-bomb, “Consolidation” isn’t a good thing for the side with the inferior war economy. Every day of the war, Germany became weaker relative to her enemies. The statistic that’s always blown me away is that during the Battle of Britain, Germany’s aircraft industry was producing about 100 new fighter planes a month. Britain’s was producing a hundred a WEEK - quite literally building planes faster than Germany could shoot them down. Throw in the aircraft industries of the USA and USSR and it becomes quickly apparent why the Luftwaffe ended up simply crushed under the weight of its enemies. Multiply that by, well, everything - men, rifles, trucks, tanks, shells, bombs, radios, jeeps, guns, any measurement you want. Time was not on Germany’s side.
Germany was in the same boat as Japan; their chance for victory was based upon defeat of at least one major enemy, early in the war, and thereby convincing the other belligerents that a peaceful settlement was best. Britain being out of reach, that means defeating Russia. It didn’t happen, so they lost.
But August '45 would have rolled around anyway.
Wasn’t there someone in the German government who proposed winning over the occupied eastern territories? I’m pretty sure some steps were even taken to do that, before Germany changed its mind.
There were at least collaborationist military forces. I’m pretty sure SS units were created in the Ukraine and Bylorussia, as were police and Einsatzgruppen, and in Russia, there was General Vlasov’s “Army of Liberation”.
I do seem to recall that there was a group of French SS types who were even worse than the German ones.
Also, to the person who asked why the Jews didn’t resist, as has been said elsewhere, in many places they joined the local resistance groups, and it should also be taken into account that they DID rise up in open resistance as a group to the Germans in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, with the help of several nearby Polish resistance groups, lasting several months until they were crushed by the SS with the help of heavy artillery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_ghetto_uprising
A longtime friend of mine was from Ukraine. When the Germans retreated out of there he (17 years old) and his family retreated with them and he worked on farms in southern Germany, around Munich, until the end of the war.
Although no love was lost for the German army, the Russians and Stalin’s ways were disliked by that family even more.
I’m not sure about “worse,” but some members of the Vichy government co-operated pretty enthusiastically with the German authorities. Joseph Darnand, the leader of a group of Nazi-supporters, was executed for war crimes in '45.
One of the problems the Germans had in WW2 was that they were not expecting it. The Nazi leaders expected that the Polish campaign would be a more violent version of the takeovers of Austria and Czechoslovakia. They never expected that Britain and France would honour their treaty with Poland and declare war (just as the Germans in WW1 were surprised that the treaty with Belgium would actually bring Britain into the war). The official forecast was that a war would not happen before 1944, when the German rearmament programs would be finished.
(My opinion is that Germany in both world wars started with the idea that they would be quick, limited wars similar to the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars of the 1860s-1870s and were surprised when they developed into global wars which they were unprepared for and didn’t have the resource base to support. While the troops and tactics at the sharp end were excellent, the leadership never seemed to have much of a global strategy in either war, and were not very good at managing resources to support their armies. IIRC the Germans didn’t even begin working overtime in war materiels factories until 1942.)
With respect to the OP, I believe that both the US and the USSR would have come into the war sooner or later regardless of whether Germany opted for consolidation or not. The US Navy was already involved in a shooting war with German U-boats in the Atlantic in defense of US merchant vessels, culminating in the sinking of the USS Reuben James on October 31, 1941, and this would almost certainly have become open war sooner or later. There is clear historical evidence that the USSR would have attacked Germany if the Germans hadn’t beaten them to the punch (and Victor Suvarov claims that the inital German successes were partly due to the Soviet forces having been caught in the midst of a change from a defensive to an offensive position as a preliminary to an attack).
I think this and a complete underestimation of US industrial potential were the reasons Hitler decided to declare war on the US following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He had little concept of the size of the US in industry and had little respect of the US armed forces. The US army was totally unprepared for war and the Pacific navy had been disabled, he thought, by the Pearl Harbor strike. US destroyers were escorting convoys part way across and U boats were not really free to attack them. By declaring war I think he expected to be able to defeat the small Atlantic fleet with submarines and that the US would be occupied with Japan and unable to respond to his maritime threat for several years.
And as far as German “master plans,” they are in Mein Kampf. Expand eastward into the Slavic regions so that true Aryans would have their rightful lebensraum. The western European countries won’t oppose that and will even support the destruction of that nasty, communistic USSR.
in fact, check all of them out :
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=topaz+japanese
Sorry, a little too quick on the draw. You asked a bout German-american internment.
http://www.foitimes.com/internment/
There’s a SD article about President Bush’s grandfather’s business dealings with Germany dirung the war.
Well, you see- Poland is in the way. It is possible that if Germany had consolidated it’s gains after Checkoslovakia, they might have been much more powerful when WWII came along. In fact, Russian Imperialism might have triggered “Allied” intervention against Russia, and Germany might have been on Britian’s side. It is also possible that a super-appeasement British gov’t might have formed with no war being declared after Poland. But once Germany went to war against the Allies (includes the USA), it’s doom was inevitiable.
A few things to note- the USA having “the Bomb” in 1945 is by no means a 'given". If the USA had stayed Nuetral (if the Japs hadn’t attacked the USA, but just British, French & Dutch colonies)- there would have been no reason to develope it. That is one of the few ways for the Axis to win WWII- have Japan NOT attack the USA. The Empire would have swept through the colonies quite easily, then taken Australia and India. If the Japanese had made any sort of military effort against Russia, Germany could have won.
So- Germany could have even been “on our side” in WWII if they had stopped before Poland. The Axis could have won if Japan (and of course Germany) had not attacked the USA, and instead helped Germany a bit (the Japanese could have taken Vladivostok for example).
But once the USA is snapped out of it’s Isolationism, it’s all over. The Atomic bomb was just icing on the cake- watch “America, Arsenal of Democracy” sometime. :eek:
As to the American “concentration” camps- all nations routinely “interned” the Foriegn Nationals of a nation they were at war against. (Britian had camps for it’s German & Italian visitors too) Thus, the American camps for the German internees weren’t some weird racist stuff. They were actually quite pleasant, as those things go. Good food, recreation, no forced labor, etc. The same goes when America interned the Japanese Citizens living in America. The only mark of shame against America is when we also interned* American Citizens of Japanese descent*- this was pure racist hysteria. However- again, the camps were rather pleasant- as those things go. Clean, plenty of food, freedom-* inside the walls*, no forced labor, etc.
Random triva of note, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a unit made up entirely of Japanese American soldiers, many of whom had family members interned in the camps. Apparantly they would go on to be the most heavily decorated American unit of World War II, fighting in the campaigns in Europe.
There is more than enough evidence of a link between GM and Ford and the Nazis to give one pause. IBM was saved from a Nazi-related lawsuit only by the statute of limitations. The lesson is, to think US companies had any qualms about working with the Nazis is extremely naïve.
I’m currently reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, in which he opines that had the neutron happened to have been discovered about a decade earlier than it was, the Germans would almost certainly have had the atomic bomb going *into *WWII (as they were doing much of the significant work in that area). That, to me, is the only remotely plausible scenario in which the Nazis can win WWII.
I know Stalin had a desire to knock off Nazi Germany but seriously…when could he have reasonably gotten around to it and expected a decent chance of success. The OP proposes that Hitler consolidates his takings in Europe and hold off on attacking the Soviet Union. It is generally easier to defend than to attack in war. As it was the Soviets took staggering losses in stopping the German offensive and got lucky with a killer winter. Germany nearly prevailed against the Soviets while on the offensive. I cannot see the Soviets initiating an attack against entrenched Germans. Would the US and GB have thrown in the same level of support to the Soviets if Stalin initiated an attack (no clue myself)?
To the OP an entrenched Germany in Western Europe would have been hell to dislodge and I am willing to bet Germany could have kept what it took when that became apparent (a negotiated peace). The US and GB (and other Allies sans the Soviets) faced something on the order of 25% of the German armies and they weren’t even the elite divisions. The best part (numbers and quality) of the German army was in the east in the meat grinder with the Soviets. The US and GB had a hard enough time against just that 25%. Certainly we would not have faired as well as we did against 50% or more of the German army. Do not forget as well that the Germans had some pretty nifty technology coming out by the end of the war. A new U-Boat design that was more like subs of today than the U-Boats we are most familiar with (Type XXI they would have been very dangerous undoing much of the gains the allies achieved in hunting u-boats by war’s end). The first jet planes. Rockets. Etc. Of course, the US would get the nucler trump card in '45. Question is could Germany have negotiated a cease fire with GB and the US before that if they consolidated rather than go for Russia?
Hitler’s biggest mistake (besides invading Russia in the first place) was his policy to blow away most any Russians the German army came across. Everyone in Russia was not happy with Stalin and some parts initially welcomed the Germans. If Hitler had gone in as “liberator” instead of “conqueror” the Germans would have had a better chance on the eastern front. Think of it…Russian soldiers were being shot by their own commanders if they retreated and they knew the Germans would shoot them if they surrendered. Given that they simply had no choice but to fight back. If the Germans offered them an easy way out (not killed them when they surrendered) I think you would have seen mass defections to the Germans…or at least enough to perhaps have made the difference for the German campaign out there.
I would debate your premise that it is easier to defend than attack in this context. Witness the Maginot Line, France’s vaunted defense against Germany. It was completely bypassed. The age of fortresses had come to an end. If Germany entrenched along the eastern front, Russia would have found a weak point, broken it, and then encircled all the stationary roops on the front lines. The starving troops would then surrender. Just like the Germans did to the Russians in real life. You just can’t make a fortress a thousand miles long and expect all of it to hold once tanks and planes were invented.
Western europe is another matter, as there were limited areas that a sizable landing could take place. Better fortesses and more supplies could very well have kept the western allies from landing in France. But that would just mean that Russia would end the war in posession of more of Europe.
(And yes I know D-Day was in 44. Forgive a typo.)
Keep in mind that nuclear weapons in the 1940’s were nowhere near as decisive as the nuclear weapons we have now. In 1945, the United States was able to build three atomic bombs and planned on building another one approximately every six months. And these were fission bombs not fusion - conventional bombers were able to deliver comparible explosive power (albeit not with a single plane). And the bombs had to be delivered by planes which were vulnerable to Germany’s air defense network. The atomic bomb was only capable of defeating a country that was already losing the war.
I can’t prove this but it does seem to me that history shows that the Russians do quite well defending Russia and not so well invading other countries. I realize that after WWII they took over the states on their borders to the west but those states were already beaten down by several years of Nazi occupation.
I do disagree that the Germans could have won against the USSR. What the USSR needed to do, and what they did, was just keep going. Germany lacked the logistic support necessary to defeat a nation the size of the USSR. Stalingrad occurred in 1942 and the Germans never had a success in the east after that. It was one long retreat.