# What if Hitler allows Tunisia to be evacuated along with its 200,000+ German soldiers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 19, 2015, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-hitler-allows-tunisia-to-be-evacuated-along-with-its-200-000-german-soldiers/731753 "2015-09-19T11:22:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-hitler-allows-tunisia-to-be-evacuated-along-with-its-200-000-german-soldiers/731753/1 "2015-09-19T11:22:48Z")
What if Hitler allows Tunisia to be evacuated along with its 200,000+ German soldiers sometime between December 1942 and April 1943? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-hitler-allows-tunisia-to-be-evacuated-along-with-its-200-000-german-soldiers/731753/2 "2015-09-19T12:33:30Z")
Are you assuming everyone who opens the thread knows he didn’t? And that he had the option of doing so? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-hitler-allows-tunisia-to-be-evacuated-along-with-its-200-000-german-soldiers/731753/3 "2015-09-19T13:31:17Z")
North Africa was the key to Fortress Europe. Leaving it to the Allies would have meant giving up the ghost altogether. This because while the Nazis could (maybe possibly) defend the northern beaches against an invasion, they could not defend against the British crossing the channel and the Americans crossing the Med. at the same time ; and while the Atlantic wall was pretty much Fuck City for the Allies Provence & the rest of Southern France were very soft defences since they’d never officially been in German hands. There were more or less no bunker lines there. As for trusting the Italians to handle the south on their lonesome and/or deny the Med crossing… yeah :). ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-hitler-allows-tunisia-to-be-evacuated-along-with-its-200-000-german-soldiers/731753/4 "2015-09-19T17:01:46Z")
Hitler does not have the means to do this in an orderly manner. Sure he might get some of his forces back, but for an effective evacuation where retreating forces work together and provide cover, and also ship out their equipment - not a hope. The Axis forces had enough trouble getting supplies to their North African forces on a one way trip, sending out empty ships and returning with lots of full ones would have been noticed, and sunk pretty quickly. Also you have to note that we knew all their shipping movements due to cracking axis codes. The second battle of El Alamein was really the start of the total defeat of the Axis in North Africa, and since it enabled the Italian campaign its reasonable to say it was one of those turning points in the war. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2015, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-hitler-allows-tunisia-to-be-evacuated-along-with-its-200-000-german-soldiers/731753/5 "2015-09-19T19:12:45Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > What if Hitler allows Tunisia to be evacuated along with its 200,000+ German soldiers sometime between December 1942 and April 1943? He’d have been living in a different world; 200,000+ German soldiers didn’t surrender in Tunisia. ~250,000-275,000 Axis soldiers surrendered at the end of the [campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisia_Campaign#Notes): > [@](#): > > Writer Rick Atkinson states that Axis losses remain uncertain, and due to numerous factors, it is estimated that the German Army lost 8,500 men killed during the campaign while the Italian Army lost 3,700 men killed. Atkinson estimates that a further 40–50,000 Axis soldiers were wounded.[11] The British official campaign historian Major-General I. S. O. Playfair wrote that the total number of unwounded prisoners taken, according to Allied records, amounted to 238,243 men; 101,784 Germans, 89,442 Italians and 47,017 men of an unspecified nationality.[1] Atkinson quoted these figures and states that a quarter of a million men captured is a “reasonable estimate”.[11] Playfair notes that the American Official History claims 275,000 Axis soldiers captured, an 18th Army Group calculation of 244,500, Rommel’s estimate of 130,000 Germans captured, and von Arnim’s estimate of 100,000 German and 200,000 Italian captured.[1] Getting them out of Tunisia wasn’t an option by such a late date as April; withdraw them in December and they may as well have never been sent over starting in November '42. Pulling them back slowly starting sometime in Februaryish and/or not sending as large of a force in the first place would have been of some use in prolonging the Sicilian and Italian campaigns, but a large scale surrender of a good part of the force was pretty much unavoidable. Getting them back across the Mediterranean would probably not have been possible. Much to the Allies embarrassment the Axis was able to evacuate Sicily in good order with their heavy equipment across the Straits of Messina at the end of that campaign, but under very different circumstances, and the Sicilian and Italian campaigns were prolonged with small enough forces as it was.