Goering reportedly said he realized the war was lost the moment he saw P-51 Mustangs over Berlin. The point being that high-performance fighters able to roam at will through German airspace would allow the Allies to wrest air superiority from the Luftwaffe. Admittedly, Goering viewed the war mostly from his own perspective, with little thought to ground or sea campaigns.
Yes. But from a rational German POV, even as late as mid 1944 it was realistically possible that the war could end with a not totally unfavourable settlement, if the Germans could inflict sufficient reverses on the enemies…by August 1944 that was no longer the case, the Germans were no longer had any chance to take control of their own destinies, except surrender,
I remember a visiting German who, some years ago, in conversation with a friend of mine, said, “Until we were told to surface and sail for an Allied-controlled port, we were still under the impression that we were winning.”
Even in May 1945 many German officers handed over their organisations intact, confident that soon they would be fighting alongside the Western Allies against the Russians.
I’ve heard or read that many times, but why would the Germans expect us to fight the Russians with them?
They thought that the two blocs would soon fall out - and they did, just not to the extent of fighting a hot war.
Paulus surrendering at Stalingrad was probably the beginning of the downhill slide for the Third Reich. Or maybe when that first winter hit a bit sooner and more severe than the Germans had planned for. The Battle of the Bulge was the last offensive launched by the Germans, but I suspect that many wanted that as a bargaining chip for a negotiated surrender with the Western Allies and perhaps a joint German/Western Ally alliance against the Soviet Union.
Well… I think the question is when “the Germans” knew the war was lost, and it depends on which “Germans” are meant.
Of course, when the surrender was signed in May 1945, then every single German, even the die-hards, knew it was lost. But I don’t think that was the intent.
Some knew before it was started that it could not end well. THere was a plan to arrest Hitler in 1938 because it was thoght by the conspirators that the Sudeten situation would result in a war with the UK and France that ultimately could not be won.
But to me, the question seems to be when did the majority of ordinary Germans at least have a feeling that the end would not be a German victory? And I would answer: 1943.
Prior to that, the German forces were doing well or could be reasonably portrayed as doing well in their popular media. And there wasn’t much widespread evdence that ordinary Germans could see to tell them otherwise.
But look at a timeline of events of 1943. The year starts with the undeniable disaster of Stalingrad, contunues through the capture of an even larger number of troops in Tunisia and the expulsion of the Axis from Africa, then the invasion and defection of Italy, and the beginnning of massive heavy bombing raids of major German cities. Kursk also took place in 1943, but the magnitude and consequences of the loss there might not have been apparent to the majority of those not directly involved. By the end of '43, even the most optomistic and propaganda-deluded German had to know that this war was at the very least going very poorly for their side.
Could you give us some more information on that? I’ve not heard it before.
An important point: it would not have been so much the prospect of fighting the UK/Great Britain that caused alarm, it was the prospect of fighting The whole British Empire, including Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, lots of Africa et etc.
Nazis kept reminding everyone until the bitter end how Frederick II survived against overwhelming odds. And that truly was a miracle, so in some sense I understand people kept hoping it will happen again. Miracle of the House of Brandenburg - Wikipedia
But I guess most people understood late -44 that really only a miracle will save them.
How available was this info to your average German? Cause until bombs start falling on your block I can imagine it would be hard to have any idea how things were going if you didn’t have access to this information.
I am sure that the government tried to conceal this ; but, when you are losing millions of soldiers, it is hard to cover things up. As I said, not seeing any young men around, and having guys in their 40s getting drafted-that is pretty hard to cover up.
The “man in the street” had no idea that any such group existed during the war. The myth of the White Rose that has been developed in the decades since is simply part of Germany’s refusal to accept its collective guilt for World War II and the Holocaust. The reality is that there was virtually no opposition to the Nazis – everyone was either in agreement or too scared to act.
The White Rose had no effect both because there was no hidden core of resisters for them to find, and because they were all immediately turned in by those “men on the street” as soon as they were seen distributing their pamphlets.
There have been more films made about the White Rose than there were actual members. Germany loves to think that Nazism was some kind of outside force imposed on their heroic, resisting population, when the fact was the entire country was a mix of enthusiastic murderers and utter cowards that buckled under immediately. Propagating the myth of internal resistance here just serves to distort history.
From a military perspective, this is true, although I’d back it up to the previous summer and the Battle of Kursk. From then on out, the Germans had lost the strategic initiative in the East, and had given up the Ukraine entirely by the beginning of 1944, and had been pushed back several hundred miles in the north and center.
Operation Bagration destroyed Army Group Center as a fighting force, but the Germans were already firmly on the defensive long before that happened.
The big question is when did the generals realize it, and when did average Josef in the street know it.
I suspect that the generals knew for sure in about August 1944; after Bagration and the fighting in the Falaise pocket, German forces were in total disarray, and the only thing that stopped the Allied forces on both fronts was running out ahead of their supply lines. Both the Western Allies and the Soviets had to pause to let the supply lines catch up, not because the Germans suddenly stiffened up. My guess is that period of free-fall on both fronts (Aug-Oct 1944 more or less), had to have pounded the fact home that the Allies had crushed them on both fronts at the same time, and that they’re basically delaying the inevitable at that point.
I found an amazing artifact of the war which says a lot about the way it was perceived. (That’s my site, BTW.)
“Food for Starving Patriots” appeared in All-Star Comics 14, Dec. 1942/Jan. 1943. Hawkman invents food capsules - whole turkey dinners literally shrunken down to capsule size - to distribute to the starving people of Nazi-occupied Europe. I traced that to a New York Times article from September 20, 1942, “Occupied Nations Are Held Starving,” a blueprint from which Gardner Fox devised a multi-character plot.
It’s a line buried in the article that’s of most relevance here. Goering promised the German people that, “Whatever happened in the rest of Europe this Winter, Germans would not starve.”
Wow. He wasn’t promising them bounty. He wasn’t promised stocked store shelves and full refrigerators. He said only that they wouldn’t starve. The source for this is obviously the German Food Conference of August 6, 1942, word of which must have swiftly gotten out.
This admittedly is not an indication that the Germans would lose the war. The unoccupied Brits had severe food problems and the U.S. had started rationing. As a glimpse into how the average German saw the war - before the battle of Stalingrad - it’s a telling tidbit.
An interesting question, and as has been pointed out, it really depends on who you are and what your knowledge level was.
Certainly those “in the know” such as senior military and government officals involved in the war knew that the war could not be won in December 1941. It was clear that Russia wasn’t going to be defeated at that point as was the obvious goal. Did that mean that Russia would defeat Germany? No. While unlikely, there still could have been some settlement perhaps that might allow an uneasy peace between Russia and Germany.
There is also a school of thought that Hitler knew the war was over in December of 1941, and that was why he declared war on the United States. He wanted to insure that the German population that had proven unequal to the task or world domination was left dead or in ruin. We’ll never know what he was thinking obviously.
Without doubt by the end of the battle of Stalingrad in January/February 1943 even the hope of a negotiated peace was over.
Whether or not the populace believed in the super weapons or not is also up to conjecture. Over time, the German people because much less susceptible to Nazi propaganda and looked askance as much of that which was coming out of Berlin. I think it’s accurate to say that they wanted to believe it. If they actually did believe it in their heart of hearts is less certain.
I seem to recall a story about a couple of statisticians living in hiding in Germany during the war. They had access to German newspapers, which reported some casualties, and were able to use this censored information, in some clever way I don’t recall, to determine the true casualty rate. Anyone else remember this?
Nope. Not a chance. All that would do would be to insure that all of Germany was controlled by the Soviet Union. Millions more Germans would die, and it may very well have led to nuclear war between the US/USSR later on. In no universe was a German victory possible once the US entered the war.
You may be thinking of the German Tank Problem, in which Allied mathematicians were able to derive the Wehrmacht’s total tank strength, production rates, and even deployment, pretty accurately just from looking at the serial numbers on parts from tanks that had been destroyed or captured.
Thanks again for the replies, interesting reading, some thoughts on specific points brought up.
IIRC it was a rumour in popular circulation towards the end of the war, that the western allies would realise the ‘real’ enemy was Bolshevism and team up with Germany to protect Europe from the ‘Asiatic hordes’. I don’t know when the idea was first put about, at least from 1944 though as the July 20 plot’s purpose was to reach a separate peace with the western allies to continue the fight against the USSR.
The Oster Conspiracy, the biggest plot in the army to get rid of Hitler before the Stauffenberg plan.
Cross-referencing with the BBC, maybe? Not been able to find out how many took the risk and listened to the BBC, though.
To be clear, there were politicians/generals in the US and UK who wanted to continue on to the USSR after V-E Day, but no one of importance who ever considered allying with Germany or attacking the USSR before Germany was defeated.