WW2 - Biggest blunder ?

Great Debates
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quasar:
I don’t know much about the development of The Bomb, but it seems to me Hitler would have had a difficult time convincing the scientists involved in its ultimate development to work for him. They no doubt knew what sort of destructive device they were making (though they did not perhaps realize exactly how destructive); however, they were developing it in hopes of ending an already horrific war, not furthering the designs of a madman. Hitler could probably only have obtained cooperation through force, intimidation, etc. As such, I don’t know that the scientists involved would have given him their best work. So, I guess what I am saying here is that had those same scientists been working for him, the results may not necessarily have been the same.

Of course, this is all supposition on my part!

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Re: Hitler’s A-Bomb project. The Germans set up a scietific team (like our Los Alamos group), and tried to build an atomic bomb. While they had many able physicists (the group was headed by Nobel Laureate Werner Heisenburg), they went off on a completely wrong track, and never were able to build a reactor that worked. The reasons for this are complex, but after the war Dr. Heisenburg claimed that he purposely mislead his clleagues, in an effort to prevent Hitler from getting the bomb.In any case, germany had NO heavy bomber capable of delivering such a weapon-a german Fat man" or tall boy, would have been undeliverable.
My question is-with all the money and research that germany invested in poison gas technology (eg. “Zyklon-B”), no effort was ever made to use these agents (against enemy troops). This proves that the balance of terror has always existed - even in the 1940’s, weap[ons of total destruction existed-but people were afraid to use them-because to do so would invite their own annihilation.

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Don’t know about that. Poison gas was widely used in WWI.

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I must say that I have been thoroughly captivated by this thread. Very good points abound throughout. I must agree with the original supposition that changing the luftwaffe’s targets from military strategic points such as airfields and fuel supplies to bombing London did in effect give the much struggling RAF time to recover and also preserved their quickly declining airfields throughout the south. Therefore it allowed Britain to pose an ever increasing resistance and effort rather than simply crippling their air defences as was the goal at the onset. As far as other blunders go I believe they have been sufficiently covered save the events that rather seemingly randomly, but not quite so led to such a success of the d-day invasion. A very good read on this topic is The Longest Day, Unfortunately I can’t remember the author at this time.

I think that herr Hitler had definatley overestimated his abilities while at the same time underestimating his foes, especially the weather in Russia. Trying to fight a two front war was a most impatient move on his part, but then again it has been said that all short men are power hungry and impatient, look at napoleon, sorry, poor attempt at humor. His other error was letting his previous successes dictate what he could accomplish against an ever increasing resistance without analyzing the situation thouroughly.

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About nerve gas they did spend some money producing it, it wasn’t easy back then, and the Allies where surprised to fing lots of shells in depots with strange markings that turned out to be the most deadly gas (nerve gas was new) known to man from one of the most dehumane regimes ever but it acctually came about by accident. During research about agricultural fertilizers. The miracle weapons were a far worse money drain. I can’t recall statistics from memory but with the same money the Allies delivered many times more destruction with heavy bombers.

About the A-bomb it was never Hitler’s intention to have a long drawn 6 year war and although he may not have grasped its full potentialities, dunno that, he and most major brains then didn’t think it could come in time to have an effect on the outcome of the war. True they had a lot of problems duringing research and the problem of the lack of heavy water comes to mind. But still they had to worry about building tanks and planes, not such a complex new weapon which could only be ready in… 5 years possibly?

About RickJay’s comments on the war effort, that is true but Hitler wasn’t about to let a bunch of civilians or anyone else for that matter run things. Things got even worse with paranoia. People came to him for the most mundane decisions which inevitably were delayed and were afraid to take any action by themselves. He wanted people to carry out orders, not manage things. But this is a personality trait. You must get rid of Hitler to get rid of this problem.

The comment about the division of efforts certainly is true, but that is not something that renders their defeat from the onset. They were competing inside Germany and not cooperating and they didn’t kick into war economy until about 1943 when Todt died and Speer took over his brief. Even then things were not great but they proved they could still have won the war had they not made blunders. Instead of sending women to factories because of affecting the moral of the nation (the german woman was not a factory worker, was to sto take care of the household) they instead resorted to slave labour. Bad move. Many things were intrinsecaly wrong with the Nazis like everyone knows…

Technology mistakes also only is relevant in the later part of the war when they could not win on the field anymore (slight chance still on the second summer offensive on the soviet front, none after), only achieve a stalemate.

I still think their biggest blunder was Dunquerque/Battle of Britan and they lost the war when they failed to plan a proper Barbarossa and staled and the gates of Moscow bogged in the mud with below 0 temperatures.

Germany lacked human resources. They should have moved cleverly in foreign diplomacy and attacked one enemy at a time to use Blitzkrieg tactics to best effect according to a clearly defined strategic plan. After 1943 we see a retreating Axis, not properly what they where they stood a better chance. And then we have Hitler’s ridiculous directives…

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I can’t really add much knowledge to the Coventry Dilemma issue save to say that as much as possible was done – from Chamberlain buying time pre-declaration to Churchill’s tortuous dilemma about the absolute need to give the RAF the necessary breathing space – to stave off the ultimate beach head scenario. Was Coventry sacrificed ? – I think anything was possible at that time.

tracer - I’m not aware that Churchill took any of the credit away from Chamberlain for initiating the RAF build up. In any event that was only part of the overall, inter-connected story. The design of the Spitfire, the Merlin engine, Radar, the arrival of pilots from all over the world, Beaverbrook’s tireless aircraft production drive, the military command and control systems…the whole thing knitted together in most extraordinarily timely fashion. He gave, as we well know, ultimate credit to the pilots.

Jeff42 and JohnnyisGood (welcome to the Board !) must both be right about the seeds of WW2 lying in the post WW1 Versailles Treaty. It is surely accepted now that the terms of that agreement stripped Germany of dignity and also caused the 1920’s Depression to be felt harder there than anywhere. Resentment, land grabbing by the Allies and widespread starvation in the 1920’s created a fertile environment for Hitler’s message. I guess you could call this the original catalyst and, perhaps, biggest blunder of the lot. The only problem I have with it is that it requires 20-20 hindsight vision – who would have thought Hitler to be even the remotest of possibilities in the aftermath of the Great War ?

I also agree that cracking the Enigma codes was vital but hardly a German blunder. Capturing a machine was one thing but cracking the whole constantly changing code was quite another – and maintaining the deception another still. And even when Alan Turin developed the full computer to crack every message, they were still dependent on lazy German ciphers not recalibrating their individual machines before sending the following days messages

RickJay – I like your ideas but have to pick you up on a couple of things. My understanding is that Sir Frank Whittle invented the Jet Engine and that development was progressing fast in the UK as the war finished. I’m no expert but I think there is a key distinction between the technology of that jet fighter and the German V1 and V2 rocket development. That aside, what you suggest sits well with the view expressed by ** Mauve Dog** i.e. that the Nazi leadership might not have enjoyed quite the level of commitment and determination as the Allies amongst the scientific, military and civilian communities.

What you state in relation to German war production surprises me and I wonder if it takes into account the much greater sophistication in weaponry and non-trench dominated tactics as employed in WW2 ?

** kevals** – I don’t know why I remember this and it may not even be right but the author of ‘The Longest Day’ might have been someone by the name of Cornelius Ryan (?)
Desite Jeff42 stating that the Western Front only occupied 1/4 of the German forces (it took only 10 months from D-Day to capitulation. Germany wanted the Allies to advance as far east as possible before the Soviets took all of Germany), FWIW I suspect it remains a close call between The Battle of Britain and Hitlers reluctance to withdraw before encirclement at Stalingrad that figure as the biggest blunders. I still go with the air battle if only because if it wasn’t at Stalingrad it would probably have been somewhere else that Hitler would have staked so many of his ‘invincible’ chips.

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You’re right about Whittle’s work on jet engines, but a German named Hans von Ohain was doing similar work during the war and was probably even a little ahead of the English efforts. The first jet powered flight was in 1939 in Germany using one of von Ohain’s engines.

Late in the war, the Luftwaffe began using the jet-powered Messerschmitt 262. The history of that plane is another of Hitler’s blunders. It would have been ready for service earlier as a pure fighter, but he insisted that it be modified for ground attack. When it finally did enter service, it was faster than any allied fighter, but it was too late, and there were too few of them, to turn the tide in the air war.

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<hijack>
Robert Arm - Forgive me for asking but you wouldn’t have a male relative who moved from Chicago to the Detriot area about three years ago ?
</hijack>

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Hmm, none that I know of. My Dad used to fly through Detroit a lot for his job, but that’s the only connection I have to the Motor City. You’re forgiven for asking.

And it’s Robot Arm, actually.

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posted by london_calling

tremendous, absolutely right. Just looked it up. It is a great book about june 6 1944, and events leading up to it.

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Robot – How excellent !!. I happen to know a family by the name of Arm and well…… You may have discerned a slight dyslexic element in my postings, I hope you understand the confusion. May you remain well oiled. Apologies

kevals - I thought I remembered it from the credits of the film, it was a wide screen production as I recall.

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I seem to recall that Hitler wasted time going into Yugoslavia before attacking Russia. This stalled him long enough to make Russia impossible.

Another mistake was made by the Japanese in their ill timed attack on Pearl Harbor. Two important carriers were out to sea at the time. If those had been destroyed, or the fleet later destroyed at Midway, the Pacific war would have lasted much longer.

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Hitler diverted significant forces from the Russian front to take the Balkans mainly for the important oilfields.
There was no pressing need at the time and he used far more than was necessary which has been rightly pointed out, delayed the advance into Russia whose forces were in disarray.
Without this Moscow would very possibly have been taken but given German policy to Russians there would not have been any chance of making an armitice so that part of the war would have continued even deeper into the Russian hinterland.
It is even possible that had the Germans been further into Russia then their defeat by the winter might have been even greater.

Had the Japanese managed to hit those US carriers the war in the Pacific would have lasted about the same as Japanese action could never have affected the Manhatten project, the bomb would still have been produced and they would still have been forced to surrender.Remember too that the combined British,Chinese,Australian,Indian and Burmese armies under General Slim inflicted heavy defeats and rolled up the Japanese lines almost as rapidly as they had been extended.
The Japanese lost their war the moment they attacked their neighbors especially the US, IMHO they never had a chance, they just made a bloody struggle of losing.

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Oooh! I wanna play!

Here are a couple of errors that I think have been somewhat overlooked:

Germany’s re-arming of the Rhine: In 1936, Hitler pulled his first and most risk-laden ballsy move. He reoccupied the Ruhr and elsewhere along the western German borders. The troops were sent in with unloaded weapons, just in case the French decided to come in and reoccupy. Any sign of conviction on the part of the French would have exposed the German army as the paper tiger it was at the time, and the entire war might have been averted (temporarily).

The invasion of Poland: Many sources are of the opinion that Hitler genuinely underestimated the resolve of Britain and France, and was suprised when they honored their alliance with Poland. It threw off Germany’s timing for the whole war, particularly for the Navy, which was planning for a conflict beginning sometime in 1943-44. It also spiked German plans to move over to an all-mechanized Wehrmacht (which the British and Americans were both converting to) and forced them to stick with the horse-drawn army for the duration.

French ineptitude in the Saar: While the Germans were throwing everything they had at Poland, the French crossed the border into the Saar. Unfortunately, the counterinvasion completely fell apart in the face of scratch German resistance. Had they pressed the attack, they could have quickly headed for the German industrial areas and severely crippled Germany.

The invasion of Crete: In addition to something like eleven divisions being tied up in the Balkans just prior to the German invasion of Russia, Germany also shot the wad by sacrificing the elite and highly mobile XI Corps, the airborne Falshirmjaeger, just when they could have come in handy in Russia. Furthermore, the loss of high numbers of Ju-52 transports in the mission made air-supply of German troops in Russia a practical impossibility.

Finally, there is an interesting bit of revisionist history in the works that, if proven true, will give a slightly different cast to the Battle of Britain. According to Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir B. Rezun), the Soviet Union had spent over a year and a half quietly but deliberately preparing for an invasion of Germany in July of 1941. There is some evidence that the Germans were aware of this, and were therefore really pushing for a cessation of hostilities with the U.K., be it by invasion or otherwise, at an early date. I think this further underscores the resolution of the British people at this trying time–the Germans threw the kitchen sink at them, and failed.

Here’s a review of one of Suvorov’s more recent works:

http://www.stv.ee/~flylow/review.htm